Lockheed F-104's - Texture Issues in P3D

**expat** · March 17th, 2021, 06:12

Love the Zipper in flightsim. I have the current payware SSW F-104G, which is highly accurate and immersive, not to mention great value. Probably state of the art Starfighter for P3D (using v4.5). I also found I had and dusted off the somewhat ancient AS/Virtavia F-104G. It is in native format and seems to function fully 100% in P3D 64 bit, i.e., yet to find any guage missing or problems (no, the starter switch doesn't work but I can fix that later . .). I would like to use the Virtavia Starfighter when I just want to jump in and fly, and the SSW when I have more time for a study sim. Plus, the Virtavia bird has more shiny early 60's style USAF paints . .

Encountering a kind of common problem with both: textures.

SSW

The SSW model has almost no reflective metal shine at all. Dull as dishwater. Screenie is of a paint by Zsolt who is an expert painter and certainly knows how to get bare metal shine. Ditto with some very nice early USAF paints by Dave Quincy. Maybe it just is need of PBR treatment?

Virtavia

First issue is all the paints are painfully luminescient bright and washed out. Not sure why, however, turning off HDR lighting brings them back to normal. Well, almost. You see in the screen shot the external tanks and wings have a odd reflection/glow that does not look good or match the fuselage textures. Tried deleting the alpha textures from the fuselage bmp's but that made no difference. Also have repaints without alpha channels and that made no difference. Suspect there may something in the model selecting reflection vs transparency? But that should be the case then for the whole aircraft one would think? ALSO: I am using TomatoShade shaders and that has in some cases led to inconsistent light levels on different textures on an aircraft.

A bit stumped and grateful for any suggestions to try.

***fsafranek*** · March 17th, 2021, 06:58

Do you have a "texture.cfg" file in the Virtavia texture folder for that scheme? Sometime the lack of one can give strange shadowing effects like that.

**expat** · March 17th, 2021, 07:09

Affirmative, Frank, thanks. And yes, that does, as here, also make a difference.

**expat** · March 17th, 2021, 07:18

OK, this is interesting. Shots both at the same time in flight. Left side looks OK. Right side not very good! I wonder if this is caused by the angle of the sun and maybe it's a shader issue?

**DaveQ** · March 17th, 2021, 08:47

Originally Posted by expat

OK, this is interesting. Shots both at the same time in flight. Left side looks OK. Right side not very good! I wonder if this is caused by the angle of the sun and maybe it's a shader issue?

That looks like a missing bump file. Which one is this?? Nice paint though!

PS - neither of these have PBR textures officially as far as I know. I've done the SSW one but not the Virtavia one.

**centuryseries** · March 17th, 2021, 08:52

Originally Posted by DaveQ

That looks like a missing bump file. Which one is this?? Nice paint though!

PS - neither of these have PBR textures officially as far as I know. I've done the SSW one but not the Virtavia one.

Yes definitely missing bump map file, opposite shadows - seen that before

**expat** · March 17th, 2021, 09:05

Yes, that's a possibility I thought of. There is no corresponding bump map for the tanks texture - that's a clue - while there are for the other textures. Don't know how to create a bump map but I did try to "borrow" one for a wing or fuselage texture and rename it to correspond/call for the same texture number (6). But did not seem to cure the problem. Will experiment some more.

**expat** · March 18th, 2021, 02:29

Frank Sfranek, I think you did the paintkit for AS for this aircraft. Was there ever a bump map for the tanks weapons (correspond to texture number 6)? I have researched making one up myself but don't have the tools or skills to do this. Also, is it OK that there are no specular maps - i.e., just the textures with alpha channels and bump maps? Interested to hear from anyone else who has this aircraft and tries it in P3Dv4 or 5. Compared to the AS Phantom which has been a big success ported into P3D, including PBR additions done recently, I think the AS F-104 is overlooked/underrated and could merit similar treatment.

***fsafranek*** · March 18th, 2021, 08:30

Originally Posted by expat

Frank Sfranek, I think you did the paintkit for AS for this aircraft. Was there ever a bump map for the tanks weapons (correspond to texture number 6)? I have researched making one up myself but don't have the tools or skills to do this. Also, is it OK that there are no specular maps - i.e., just the textures with alpha channels and bump maps? Interested to hear from anyone else who has this aircraft and tries it in P3Dv4 or 5. Compared to the AS Phantom which has been a big success ported into P3D, including PBR additions done recently, I think the AS F-104 is overlooked/underrated and could merit similar treatment.

Yes, I made the textures about 13 years ago. I think Dano or Phil made the bump maps for me.

The tanks and weapons were included on the texture named "F-104_6_T.dds" and it seems there was no corresponding bump file for that texture.
There were no spec maps in the original package at all. I don't have the Steam version so some of that may have changed when the textures
were updated to remove any unit insignia and national markings.

**expat** · March 18th, 2021, 12:47

Frank, owe you a thanks, as I sovled the SSW F 104 texture reflection issue by going back and checking the texture.cfg files which has some "user errors" LOL. Looking very shiny now! Cheers.

**DaveQ** · March 19th, 2021, 08:50

The F104_6_t doesn't have a bump map assigned so that's not the issue. Just took an AS F-104 up in P3Dv5; it looks OK though it wasn't a natural metal one so not really comparable. But it flies like a brick....!!

I've tried a few other old things with metal and they seems to work OK though.

DaveQ

GB · March 20th, 2021, 16:57

I'm sure that all Zipper lovers know that the original unpainted metallic Starfighters had white painted wings, but in case there is someone who isn't aware of this fact, this paint variation is something that must be considered.

**expat** · March 21st, 2021, 01:11

Yes, good point. The wings I thought were also having the lighting problem - but on further reflection - are OK because as you say they are painted white. They are done that way - correctly - on the metal repaints for the SSW Zipper. So the anomaly at least on my PC is the tanks and weapons texture.
Be interested if anyone else sees this.

**DaveQ** · March 21st, 2021, 11:32

I'm assuming it's the Alphasim model you're having problems with.....??

**expat** · March 21st, 2021, 14:06

Affirmative.

***fsafranek*** · March 22nd, 2021, 08:43

Originally Posted by DaveQ

I'm assuming it's the Alphasim model you're having problems with.....??

That's kind of what can happen when trying to use something in v4 of a sim that didn't even exist when the aircraft in question was released.

**expat** · March 23rd, 2021, 00:30

Fair enough, though it is frustrating everything else including the flight model, gauges, systems - and all other textures - seem to work perfectly. If the other textures are fault free it does make one wonder why and if there is a logical solution.

**DaveQ** · March 23rd, 2021, 11:54

Expat, send me the texture set (or a link) - I'll have a look at it.

***fsafranek*** · March 23rd, 2021, 12:22

Originally Posted by expat

Fair enough, though it is frustrating everything else including the flight model, gauges, systems - and all other textures - seem to work perfectly. If the other textures are fault free it does make one wonder why and if there is a logical solution.

Here's an experiment to try.

In the texture.bump folder, select any other bump map file. Make a copy and then rename the copy to "F-104_6_bump.dds". Launch the sim and view the aircraft in that scheme.
Any indented or raised bits will be out of place but it will answer the question of whether that simple fix will work.
If it does work I can send DaveQ the master file for that texture to make a universal bump map for "F-104_6".

**expat** · March 23rd, 2021, 14:35

Dave - texture attached.

Frank - yes see post #7 above - did that experiment with no apparent results.

Thanks guys.

***fsafranek*** · March 23rd, 2021, 20:56

Sorry. Missed that.

So those areas of the model weren't told to use a bump map. Requires changes to the still commercially available MDL file.
Bummer.

Originally Posted by expat

Dave - texture attached.

Frank - yes see post #7 above - did that experiment with no apparent results.

Thanks guys.

**DaveQ** · March 23rd, 2021, 23:15

OK, here's the deal. I have two versions of the AS F-104 for FSX; version one has an anomalous entry for a bump map for F104_6_t, and I think this is the version you are using. I could alter it and have made a bump map for it, but, as Frank says, this is still available commercially. I have a version 2 which has NO bump map assigned to F104_6_t. These models work perfectly in P3Dv5, visually at least. So the answer is to get version 2, which I'm guessing was issued after someone reported the fault. It certainly isn't a 'home-made' one; it predates my use of MCX by about 10 years!

This is what comes of being a nerd and a hoarder - any sensible person would have chucked version 1 the day version 2 was issued!!

DaveQ