Question ASCII-3 (Lua Script J-3 with mesh made with Notepad) Adventures and Questions

[Thunder Chicken]

As a bit of a learning exercise for creating and rendering meshes and textures, I wanted to make a small add-on with a low-poly mesh that I could make from scratch, picking points off a drawing and making the mesh in a text editor. I picked a J-3 Cub as a suitable aircraft.



So I pulled out a ruler and started triangulating the geometry and put it into a mesh file (attached). The geometry seems to be going well (I still have to do the fiddly round bits like the tires, struts, etc. but it's mostly there). Here's how it looks in Orbiter:


The geometry seems pretty solid so I must have the left-hand-rule under control. The wings and surfaces are essentially all 2D. To ensure they are opaque from all angles, I made two triangles for every three vertices, with the left hand convention setting opposite normals for both triangles.

But I am obviously having some rendering issues.

1. I can't seem to get reflections off any of the surfaces. I know this is set in the specular color setting of the surface materials in the mesh file, but no matter how I set them I seem to get just the same color with no illumination.
2. The transparent windscreens behave strangely. They seem to negate the transparency of whatever is behind them. If an opaque surface is behind it, that surface renders transparent, and vice versa. These surfaces are set just like the opaque surfaces, with two triangles with opposing normals, which I don't know if it is a part of the problem or the correct procedure.

Can anyone see what I might be doing wrong with respect to the rendering of these surfaces? If I can fix these things I think I can make a fun little add-on with a real propeller engine.

 

[Urwumpe]

Your transparent meshgroups are not the last in the mesh file, that is a problem. Also you set every meshgroup to NONORMAL, which inhibits shading resulting in a flat colour AFAIR.

Finally: You don't need to repeat the material and texture entries for following meshgroups with the same material properties. This shouldn't have an effect on your visual, but improves performance (as if that matters here).

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Your transparent meshgroups are not the last in the mesh file, that is a problem.

I see. I put them last and now the transparency renders correctly.

Also you set every meshgroup to NONORMAL, which inhibits shading resulting in a flat colour AFAIR.

I thought that was required if the face normals were not prescribed. I removed those NONORMAL flags, but it did not change the lack of surface reflection.

Finally: You don't need to repeat the material and texture entries for following meshgroups with the same material properties. This shouldn't have an effect on your visual, but improves performance (as if that matters here).

Well, if I can start a healthy habit...

 

[Urwumpe]

Maybe reduce the ambient light factor for your shading a bit from 1.0 to ]0.1 ... 0.3[

 

[Gondos]

I think you need the NONORMAL flag for orbiter to compute the normals for you :

} else if (!_strnicmp (cbuf, "NONORMAL", 8)) {
                bnormal = false; calcnml = true;
}
...
if (calcnml) mesh.CalcNormals (g, true);

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Maybe reduce the ambient light factor for your shading a bit from 1.0 to ]0.1 ... 0.3[

Doesn't seem to do anything. This is what I have for my materials:

MATERIAL Cub_Yellow
0.50 0.35 0.00 1.00
1.00 0.70 0.00 1.00
0.1 0.1 0.1 1.0
0 0 0 1
MATERIAL Clear_Glass
0.10 0.10 0.10 0.50
0.20 0.20 0.20 0.50
0 0 0 1
0 0 0 1
MATERIAL Tire_Black
0.10 0.10 0.10 1.00
0.20 0.20 0.20 1.00
0 0 0 1
0 0 0 1

And this is what it looks like - still flat:

I think you need the NONORMAL flag for orbiter to compute the normals for you

That's what I read in the docs, but it doesn't seem to do anything one way or another.

 

[DaveS]

It seems like your materials aren't set up properly for specular highlights. For example, the material named "Cub_Yellow" has a specular highlight color of 0.1, 0.1 and 0.1 which corresponds to a very, near pitch black color. Try upping it to full on white (1 1 1 1).

 

[Thunder Chicken]

It seems like your materials aren't set up properly for specular highlights. For example, the material named "Cub_Yellow" has a specular highlight color of 0.1, 0.1 and 0.1 which corresponds to a very, near pitch black color. Try upping it to full on white (1 1 1 1).

I tried that:

MATERIAL Cub_Yellow
0.50 0.35 0.00 1.00
1.00 0.70 0.00 1.00
1 1 1 1
0 0 0 1

Still got this:


I don't have any textures applied, but I don't think that matters? I should be able to get reflections off different surfaces?

 

[DaveS]

Try a scenario where it is closer to local noon for best lighting (that is what I always do as it guarantees that the sun will provide the most light on everything). Also, I see that you're using OpenOrbiter, is all of the visual effects checked on the Options tab?

 

[Buck Rogers]

I couldn't get it work in notepad so I imported into Blender, changed the colour, and exported.
This is the (unfortunate) result, at least the colour is better

.msh attached

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Try a scenario where it is closer to local noon for best lighting (that is what I always do as it guarantees that the sun will provide the most light on everything). Also, I see that you're using OpenOrbiter, is all of the visual effects checked on the Options tab?

All of the visual effects are enabled. Other add-ons show shading:



Changing to local time (about 4:30 PM) doesn't change the rendering at all:



I get the same behavior in Orbiter.exe and Orbiter_ng.exe. Really unsure what is going on.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

I couldn't get it work in notepad so I imported into Blender, changed the colour, and exported.
This is the (unfortunate) result, at least the colour is better
View attachment 38435
.msh attached

I created the mesh in Notepad (it's just a text file). Can you load my mesh as-is and see what you get?

 

[Buck Rogers]

I created the mesh in Notepad (it's just a text file)

I do a lot of editing in notepad- materials, paths etc. Very adventerous of you, good luck, hope your matrix eye is well focused

Can you load my mesh as-is and see what you get?

I get what you get

Where can I get that jet?

 

[Thunder Chicken]

I get what you get

I copied the material properties from your mesh file and it doesn't change anything except for the color in my mesh. Still no reflectivity.

Where can I get that jet?

It's a Mirage2000, one of Kev33s old add-ons that I resurrected for Orbiter with my air-breathing jet engine add-on.

Kev33's Mirage 2000 Module Updated for Orbiter 2016

This is an updated add-on flight module for Kev33's Mirage 2000 recompiled for Orbiter 2016 using the new Jet Engine Model Library for Orbiter 2016 by Thunder Chicken. Instructions: Download and install Kev33's original Mirage 2000 add-on...

www.orbiter-forum.com

I have a Lua script version of this same add-on that I'll probably release at some point, flies just as well as the compiled version.

 

[Buck Rogers]

I copied the material properties from your mesh file and it doesn't change anything except for the color in my mesh. Still no reflectivity.

I couldn't fix it by changing the materials in notepad, so it's the mesh triangles, maybe you can compare the blender output with your input, the normals aren't working, but in the export some are.

 

[jacquesmomo]

I don't have any textures applied, but I don't think that matters?

I think that yes...

Just try this :

• apply a plain texture (yellow for example) to all your groups in your mesh (exept for the windows of course !)
• and for the materials set a white color for example this :

MATERIALS 1
Blanc-brillant
MATERIAL Blanc-brillant
1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 80
.2 .2 .2 1

(exept for the windows.... )

and look at the result which should be much better...

 

[Thunder Chicken]

I think that yes...

Just try this :

• apply a plain texture (yellow for example) to all your groups in your mesh (exept for the windows of course !)
• and for the materials set a white color for example this :

MATERIALS 1
Blanc-brillant
MATERIAL Blanc-brillant
1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 80
.2 .2 .2 1

(exept for the windows.... )

and look at the result which should be much better...

If this works that means that something is very broken in Orbiter. It should be using the specular and emissive properties for the materials, and there should not be a need for a texture to show the color.

It should be making some attempt to approximate normals with the NONORMALS flags, but it doesn't seem to be doing that. I might try to see if I can calculate the normals for the wing and see if that makes any difference (they should all be in the +Y or -Y direction, so not so miserable to calculate).

I am wondering if this is something broken between Orbiter 2016 and OpenOrbiter. I will try to set it up in Orbiter 2016 and see if that changes anything.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Apparently Orbiter (OpenOrbiter at least) can't do anything with the NONORMALS flag and the normals must be specified. I quickly threw them in for the vertices on surfaces in the X/Y/Z directions:


Not fatal, but I'll have to do a bit of math for the vertices on surfaces that aren't aligned with the principle axes.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

I also need to make separate groups for the top and bottom parts of the 2D surfaces so I can set their normals right.

I am baffled why the normals are associated with the vertices vs. the triangles formed by the vertices. That doesn't make any sense to me. A normal to a surface has a mathematical definition - a normal to a vertex doesn't.

 

[Blake]

Associating the normals with the vertices allows the renderer to 'shade' the triangle based on the different normals at its 'edges' (the vertices). Its how our low poly meshes look smooth.