Reducing Reflection

[glcanon]

I have Aerial Foundry's excellent Canadian F-18 [FS2009] but I want to tweak the skins a bit as well as reduce the reflection from the sun, which turns the aircraft completely white.

I took one person's advice and saved left side textures as DXT1 (16bit) with no Alpha, which he said would prevent reflection. Didn't work either.

I know FS9 is using my skin b/c I can see the Red Cross I put on the left elevator.

But as you can see, my grey skin is still white when reflecting the sun, even with DXT1 and no Alpha. The level of reflection is identical to the rest of the plane.



Here is more like what I want to see when banking, slight reflection, but the aircraft not turning completely white:




I simply wanted to "tweak" the skins myself, but those awful all-white reflections just look horrible.... They've got to be toned down.

And I really don't want to use DXT1, not that it solves this problem anyway.

Are reflections embedded deep inside the mysterious SDK aircraft itself? I am not an SDK user and know nothing about SDK.

Apparently all of AerialFoundry's F-18 have this awful reflection... so maybe someone else has already solved this problem.

I hope there is a simple solution that I'm missing. Appreciate all help.

[adlabs6]

HI there,

I believe the alpha channel only controls the reflection maps, those which simulate reflections of the horizon, like for chrome surfaces. See an example here:
Creating Environment Maps for FS2004

What I think we are seeing here, is a specular value for the material used when creating the aircraft model. The model builder can control how broad the specular highlights are, from a small spot to very broad, which is what it seems was chosen on this F-18. There is no way to change this by editing the skin, as far as I remember.

[KevinJarvis]

Try turning off reflections in the aircraft section of FS9. See if that gives you the desired effect.

[ferondoe]

Download the "mdlmat" tool it's very simple to used. select the file mdl in model folder with the bouton scan. use the black color for no reflecting.

[glcanon]

Thanks, I'll give it a try. Sometimes you have to wait almost a year or more for someone to answer your question -- but better late than never.

Cheers!

[Shessi]

Hi GLC,
The tool you want is Mk_MDLC V2 (there are several other ways to do it but this is the easiest). If you come over to the Sim-Outhouse and search there, there are many posts on the subject.

What you require is adjustment on the specular RGB and specular power.

In Fs9 and CFS2 I use 0.3 and 10 in those. That gives a realstic sheen whilst still giving a reflection. The great thing about using MDLC is that you can go back and twek as many times as you like. Experiment away!

Here is an FA18E with standard and 5 tweaks done with the same mdl and Mmk_MDLC V2, ending with the possible right combo?

p.s Don't forget the paint scheme and how that's done does effect the look as well.

Cheers Shessi