FSDS poly-smoothing

[lazarus]

How does that work?
When I run the poly-smoothing function, I get parts out that are 'mushed', smears of highlight and shadow that render the product unusable. It's a bit of a show stopper for things like canopy's. Yet, I see smoothed models out of FSDS every day. What's the catch? I have not found the magic formulae to varty the smoothing angle between vertices- if that is the correct way to describe that; but it must be in there somewhere.
Any thoughts?

 

[ian elliot]

Im glad its not just me, i really dont like how Poly smoothing makes objects look in FSDS, but im quite prepared to accept that it may be me not using it right, i'll keep my eye on this post and hopfully learn something

cheers ian

 

[Desert Rat]

If you have an object that needs smoothing, there may be a few conditions to consider. Lets take an aileron as an example. curved uper and lower surfaces, needs smoothing. a curved front profile, fine. A sharp edge trailing profile, not fine. Two flat sides, no smoothing required usually. The problems arise when you apply smoothing to the entire object. FSDS tries to smooth even the hard edges, ie. trailing edge and where the curved surface meets the flat sides. To get around this you need to create smoothing groups or remove smoothing from certain areas. the flat sides can have smoothing removed. The harder part is the upper and lower surfaces, one continuous curve, but FSDS still tries to 'smooth out' the trailing edge. The easiest solution is to create a smoothing group for the top and a separate for the lower. Hide the join on the leading edge that will likely be hidden inside the wing. There are other methods, which apply better to whole wings where you cannot hide the front smoothing group join.

Hope this helps.

Added a couple of old pics, first with default FSDS 'cover-all smoothing', second with correct smoothing groups applied. (on the flap)

 

[lazarus]

Righto, noticed the 'smoothing groups'; now, how does one go about setting that up? Thinks(inserting pencil in ear and wondering how it would feel just to hammer it in a little bit...) uh-oh, have to get cosy with FSDS...canopy-a mess of flat sides merging into curves...where's that pencil sharpener?

 

[Tako_Kichi]

I don't use FSDS but a trick GMAX/MAX users employ when smoothing things like wings is to make the top surface one smoothing group and the lower surface another but where the polys meet at the leading edge of the wing we select one row from each smoothing group lengthwise down the wing and apply both smoothing groups to them (i.e. if the top has SG1 and the bottom SG2 then the row of polys, two polys high along the LE, would have both SG1 and SG2 applied to them.

This gives you the sharp edge required at the TE but a flowing, smooth transition, over the LE of the wing without a hard line between the two different smoothing groups.

The same trick might be applicable in FSDS too.

 

[Zoren]

Hope this helps...if you need the .fsc file, PM me and I'll e-mail it to you.

Not sure how the pictures will load so start at 001_xxx to 004_xxx

Edit: 001 (loaded last...) smoothing Group 1 all polies
002 end polies selected and given Group 2
003 select half of the curved polies
004 half of polies applied to Group 3 (other half left at defaul 1...)

 

[lazarus]

OK, that's sort of got it all moving in the right direction. I broke it out by material, applied smoothing to the glass, which was an improvement. I see the damned thing will isolate the ends-the straight runs adjacent to the canopy frames. Looking at the explanations, the groups are defined by material alone(??) I suppose a quick and dirty way to get that is to assign a different temporary material name to the outside edges of the canopy at the modelling phase, and change that back to the glass map name after FSDS export. Or, is there a capability to select poly segments I haven't found yet.
The flight controls, I drew in a way to minimise cross section transitions out where they're visible, the trailing edges are a very narrow vertical end rib rather than top and bottom running into a point. I can switch the end ribs off onto the -02 texture sheet, though top and bottom are on the -01 sheet- only 3 texture maps and 4 materials in this thing, one being the glass. Laziness actually helps here! I used a dark grey material for door frames and the intercostals between inner and outer door and hatch panels, so those are easy to isolate.
More latter, that all helps; the manual sure doesn't!

 

[milence]

Here's an example if it helps you:
Go to the poly mode,and select side pages

Right click and go Current Item Properties

In the section Smoothing Group set 0[zero] and press OK

Go to edit select Unselect All,and you get what you need:

I hope it helped you.

 

[lazarus]

Much better results, now; thanks! I ran hatches, bomb doors and ordnance loading hatches through, came out nice and smooth. The canopy is still not looking happy, not sure if the double-sided glass material is causing that. I re-drew the canopy to minimise smoothing requirements, it's not too god-awful. More mucking about will yield a resolution. At worst, I can peel the animation's out and slap 'em on the canopy in the X and xanim file, use the SKUP smoothing. It's moving ahead nicely, now.