Blender Plugin 6.4.4 | "Used Extension Not Supported: KHR_materials_xxx" Failure

[ZachB]

Version: FS24 SU5 Beta (SDK 1.6.4) (Blender Plugin 6.4.4)

Frequency: Consistently

Severity: Blocker

Updated my Blender plugin today to 6.4.4, as packaged with the latest SU5 Beta SDK (1.6.4). Blender version is 3.6.18 LTS.

Exported a test model that uses the “Clearcoat” material, and attempted to “build”/”compile” it as usual — however, I ran into the following GLTFValidator console log errors:

NewCCTest.gltf - used extension not supported: KHR_materials_clearcoat
NewCCTest.gltf - used extension not supported: KHR_materials_emissive_strength

This in turn yields material issues in-game. The clearcoat is not present nor are the paintflake detail maps. Rain is not received on the mesh either. Texture in the sim is just dull and flat, along with a slight emissive glow at night even though there is no behavior XML nor emissive texture tied to the material. Unless I am doing something blatantly wrong, the clearcoat material seems to be quite broken as of now, including the clearcoat tiling.

I also noticed that even though certain textures are assigned within the texture slots, not all of them export with the model to the output folder, such as some of the paintflakes detail maps.

Blender project attached below:

Blender Test Project.zip (313.9 KB)

Thanks,

Zach

[Boris]

Hello,

Can you check that you are have only enabled the MSFS2024 plugin and that the MSFS2020 one is disabled in the blender addon window?

Is this a model that have been made with the MSFS2020 plugin enabled ?
If this is the case, you will need to convert it to make it works in 2024 :

Regards,
Boris

[ZachB]

Hi Boris!

Thank you for the response. I only have the FS24 plugins (GLTF + Wipermask) installed, nothing from FS20. I’ve attached below a screenshot of all plugins installed in my Blender instance.

The FS24 plugins I installed via “Option 1” from the SDK, where a scripts filepath is set:

This model was made from scratch last night using solely this instance of Blender, nothing transferred from any other instances. I started with a fresh project, added a cylinder, cut part of it out, and then added the clearcoat material + textures to test out some materials. Let me know if there is any other information I can provide.

Thanks!

-Zach

[ZachB]

Hi @Boris,

I have a little update for you with some more data points. I see in the flighting docs that Blender 4.2.X LTS is now supported with plugin v6.4.4, so I decided to give that a try as a portable installation (4.2.18 LTS).

With a 100% clean vanilla install (no preferences ported from 3.6 or anything like that) and solely the FS24 plugins installed, I’ve noticed a little bit of progress and good news!

• Progress: model exports and builds in the sim’s package builder without any KHR material warnings now

• Progress: “Receive Rain” flag now allows rain to be on the material in the sim

However… after trying a model exported with 4.2, I am now noticing a very large discrepancy between how the clearcoat is handled between 3.6 and 4.2, and what the SDK says — even though both are using the beta 6.4.4 plugin.

The SDK, both in retail and flighting versions, lists the clearcoat channel as Clearcoat Color (RGB) Clearcoat Roughness (A).

Both Blender 3.6 and 4.2 have the slot labeled as Clearcoat Amount (R) Clearcoat Roughness (G).

However, Blender 3.6’s shader node setup mimics the clearcoat amount format;

whilst Blender 4.2’s shader node setup mimics the clearcoat color format;

This would likely explain some of the differences and visual issues I’ve seen between my model on 3.6 last night, and my model on 4.2 today, using a clearcoat texture of 1.0(Red), 0.1(Green), 0.0(Blue), which I had assumed would yield full clearcoat with a fairly low-roughness look.

4.2 exported to the sim with those settings yields the material looking very rough and red instead of gray and glossy;

That being said, I think I need to completely erase my 3.6 LTS installation and reinstall it from vanilla. Even though I’ve only ever had FS24 plugins installed into it since FS24’s launch, there must be something corrupted to where it is plugging in the shader incorrectly, along with the export issues I had last night.

In terms of the plugin itself, it seems that it either;

• A) Shader setup needs to be changed to match the slot name (Amount (R) Rough (G))
  or
• B) Slot name needs to be changed to match the SDK description (Color (RGB) Rough (A))

This mismatch can of course be very confusing, and it’s not clear which one is correct.

I’ll report back with any findings after a clean 3.6 LTS reinstallation. Hopefully, it behaves similar to the 4.2 LTS instance.

Thank you as always,

-Zach

[ZachB]

On a brand new fresh vanilla install of 3.6.23 LTS now… the shader for clearcoat is still plugged into Amount(R) Rough(G). This is opposite of 4.2 as described above, and opposite of the SDK.

Not sure what could be causing that… both 3.6 and 4.2 are brand new fresh vanilla installs with SDK plugin 6.4.4.

[ZachB]

Looking at this further still… is 4.2 set up improperly as well with plugin 6.4.4? The shader node has nothing from the texture slot’s alpha channel, red channel goes to tint, green channel goes to roughness…. that’s not making much sense to me… if red is the only channel feeding tint, one could only tint the clearcoat red.

SDK says RGB=Tint/Color, Alpha=Roughness

[ZachB]

My final post/discovery for the night before I drive myself crazy, haha

After fiddling around with stuff some more, via 3.6 LTS, I can confirm that the clearcoat material is able to work in the sim fine when configured as (RGB)=Tint, (Alpha)=Roughness.

So, fortunately, we can confirm that in-sim is bug-free.

The only bugs overall that remain are the shader node setups and their differences between 3.6/4.2/4.5, and the text description/name for the texture slot for the clearcoat. The clearcoat will show improperly in Blender IF the texture itself is configured properly for the sim. If configured to show properly in Blender, of course the opposite occurs and it will show improperly in the sim.

The clearcoat tiling bug remains as well, but that is outside of the scope of this post and is documented in another thread.

[Boris]

Hello @ZachB

Sorry for the delay,

@ZachB

After fiddling around with stuff some more, via 3.6 LTS, I can confirm that the clearcoat material is able to work in the sim fine when configured as (RGB)=Tint, (Alpha)=Roughness.

So, fortunately, we can confirm that in-sim is bug-free.

Thank you for the feedback.

@ZachB

The only bugs overall that remain are the shader node setups and their differences between 3.6/4.2/4.5, and the text description/name for the texture slot for the clearcoat. The clearcoat will show improperly in Blender IF the texture itself is configured properly for the sim. If configured to show properly in Blender, of course the opposite occurs and it will show improperly in the sim.

The clearcoat will not be displayed as the game in the blender viewport and it’s by design.
You should not use the shader nodes to configure your material. The exporter does not handle any modification made in this.

However, I’m not sure why you have those differences.
Are you using the same plugin version on every blender version you are using ?

@ZachB

The clearcoat tiling bug remains as well, but that is outside of the scope of this post and is documented in another thread.

We have a fix that will be included in the next SU5 flighting SDK if you want to check.
I will update the corresponding bug report once it’s ready to test.

Regards,
Boris