Metal Cladding texture ... help :(

[scighera]

After some 3 months, I'm back to medel buildings for my hub: LIME Bergamo Orio al Serio.

As in many airports, in LIME also, many buildings walls are made with "matal cladding" (the French call it "bardage"): but the textures I'm using give a terrible result, in FSX, which actually I don't know how to describe. A picture is worth tens of words:



I'm so disappointed ... and even worst, when the aircraft moves, the texture also "rotates" on the walls surface !!!
The rendering in Blender isn't that bad, on the contrary !



The texture I used is a 1024 pix, applied to pieces of wall not wider then 12 mt !



Any suggestion will be highly welcome !!
Thanks in advance folks

Ciao, Paolo

[Tejal Bernardo]

Ah yes, the same problem here but with the roofs, that kind of textures make that kind of effect, but what no understand is that the roof which is next to the problematic roof no have any problem. hoping you get any kind of solution. sorry I can help

[JRobinson]

That's a bit of a problem for sure, it may help to contrast the texture down a bit and add a pattern fill layer to give the texture some irregularity, also maybe a bit of noise. Give this a try and see if it helps:



Jim

[kevintampa5]

Not sure if this will work or not, as I havent played with it, but setting different LODs might take care of this issue. I have the same issue, but havent tried to fix it yet, as I have many models I am working on before going back and finalizing everything.

[scighera]

Originally Posted by JRobinson

That's a bit of a problem for sure, it may help to contrast the texture down a bit and add a pattern fill layer to give the texture some irregularity, also maybe a bit of noise. Give this a try and see if it helps:

.....

Jim

Thanks Jim ... I gave a try; also testing the various "filters" available under options>screen (no filter/ linenear / Bilinear / Trilinear ...all of them);
But the results seem to improve imperceptibly

[scighera]

Originally Posted by kevintampa5

Not sure if this will work or not, as I havent played with it, but setting different LODs might take care of this issue. I have the same issue, but havent tried to fix it yet, as I have many models I am working on before going back and finalizing everything.

ciao Kevin ... any idea on the LOD level to use ?
I normally use 50 ... but I'm quite a novice to FSX ...
I'll try anyhow, thanks
Paolo

Tryed to modify the LOD: starting from 50, going up at step of 25: 75 - 100 - 125 - .... -400 !
No way !

What I'm doing wrong ???

[kevintampa5]

Originally Posted by scighera

ciao Kevin ... any idea on the LOD level to use ?
I normally use 50 ... but I'm quite a novice to FSX ...
I'll try anyhow, thanks
Paolo

Tryed to modify the LOD: starting from 50, going up at step of 25: 75 - 100 - 125 - .... -400 !
No way !

What I'm doing wrong ???

try going down in LOD. Use a fresh texture for the higher/lower LOD.
I am looking into this as well.

[JRobinson]

What format are you saving your texture sheet to? Are you using mip maps? For this one I'd probably use DXT1 .dds with mips and do the final processing with Imagetool.

Jim

[n4gix]

Honestly, I think you're going to need to widen the spacing on that texture. The ridges appear as though they're quite narrow. Try using 6" spacing on your cladding.

That's the reason for the moire pattering as well as the stair-stepping on the vertical lines.

[kevintampa5]

Originally Posted by n4gix

Honestly, I think you're going to need to widen the spacing on that texture. The ridges appear as though they're quite narrow. Try using 6" spacing on your cladding.

That's the reason for the moire pattering as well as the stair-stepping on the vertical lines.

Im using 8inch and it still does it.

[kevintampa5]

Originally Posted by JRobinson

What format are you saving your texture sheet to? Are you using mip maps? For this one I'd probably use DXT1 .dds with mips and do the final processing with Imagetool.

Jim

for fsx, but what abt fs9

[JRobinson]

Originally Posted by kevintampa5

for fsx, but what abt fs9

Paolo stated in the first post of this thread that he was developing for FSX, however in my opinion mipped 16-555 was the best format for FS9 scenery textures and is what I used exclusively on the McCall project.

I use a lot of textures with spacings similar to this BTW, here's a clip from one of my most stark texture sheets, the entire roof of the building is similar to the white tin. With this I see no moire patterning in the sim:



Jim

[kevintampa5]

Originally Posted by JRobinson

What format are you saving your texture sheet to? Are you using mip maps? For this one I'd probably use DXT1 .dds with mips and do the final processing with Imagetool.

however in my opinion mipped 16-555 was the best format for FS9 scenery textures and is what I used exclusively
Jim

can you explain how you do this for fs9? and fsx as i will release both

[JRobinson]

Stand by Kevin, I've got a nifty trick for that which a lot of folks may possibly find useful. I'm gonna have a go at the wiki. I'll post back.


EDIT: I'm obviously not smart enough to figure out the Wiki and this is probably a bit trivial anyway by the looks of things .


Here's what I do (for DXT1 with mips):

1. Navigate to "Microsoft Flight Simulator X SDK\SDK\Environment Kit\Terrain SDK" and make a shortcut to imagetool.exe (right click > create shortcut).
   
   
   
2. Move this shortcut into your "C:\Users\[your name]\SendTo" folder and rename it "ImageTool_DXT1_DDS" for example.
   
   
   
3. Right click the shortcut and select "Properties". In the "Target" field of the properties dialog add the following after Imagetool.exe":
   
   -nobeep -brief -dds -dxt1
   
   (Note that there is a space between ImageTool.exe" and -nobeep. My finished Target field looks like this, your path will vary:
   
   "C:\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X SDK\SDK\Environment Kit\Terrain SDK\ImageTool.exe" -nobeep -brief -dds -dxt1
   
   
   
4. Return to your source texture folder, select one or any number of your source textures (PhotoShop .psds preferably), right click and "Send To > ImageTool_DXT1_DDS". Sort the directory by "Date Modified - descending" and Imagetool will process and deposit your converted textures at the top of the list. Move them to your texture folder

For other formats it's just a matter of creating, copying, renaming, and editing the properties of yet another shortcut:


For DXT5 with mips:
-nobeep -brief -dds -dxt5



For 16-555 with mips (FS9):
-brief -1555 -nobeep -e bmp



For DXT3 with mips (FS9):
-brief -DXT3 -nobeep -e bmp


CAUTION: "-e bmp" means Imagetool will output a .bmp. If your source file is also a .bmp it will be overwritten! Use .psds whenever possible and make provisions (backups) if you must convert a .bmp for some reason.

Other formats are also possible, double click any one of the shortcuts in the Send to folder for a list of possible flags that may be used with Imagetool.

Hint: While you're at it, make a shortcut to your active scenery's texture folder and move it into the Send to folder as well. Now you can use the "Send to" menu to copy the converted textures to the texture folder once Imagetool finishes processing them.


Jim

[hcornea]

There is an interaction between Mipmaps, and the way the texture is mapped .... ie texel density.

Firstly, any repetitive texture in scenery MUST have mip maps.
Any fine transparent texture should also have mip maps (viz trees)

If you don;t do this, you will get strobing and shimmer.

Also:
If you map the detail too highly (increased texel density) then the MIP switching will struggle. The result is higher resolution texture is rendered and you get moire.

(An example of this is aggressive horizontal or vertical tiling of textures)

Trilinear / Bilinear and Anisotropic filtering will not differ much in appearance in this regard (more to do with differential rendering within the one piece/multiple pieces of geometry), but oversampling AA within FSX may help a little.

Even better:

Add mips, and adjust the maps. (Sounds kinda catchy actually)

[scighera]

Originally Posted by JRobinson

What format are you saving your texture sheet to? Are you using mip maps? For this one I'd probably use DXT1 .dds with mips and do the final processing with Imagetool.

Jim

Yes I'm using DXT1 no alpha ...

[scighera]

Originally Posted by hcornea

There is an interaction between Mipmaps, and the way the texture is mapped .... ie texel density.
.......

Even better:

Add mips, and adjust the maps. (Sounds kinda catchy actually)

Oh my God, hcornea ... I think I have not understood much of what you saud

So ... you mean that the "metal cladding" textures should be mip mapped ?
Actually I don't know what it means ! Where could I find out a tutorial for mip mapping textures and have them rendered nice in FSX ???

I'm eager to learn ... because, as already mentioned, airport are filled with building with metal cladding !!!

Thanks in advance
Paolo

Started googling and found thid wikipedia article on mipmapping ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mipmap

But then ... how mipmapping is applied to the model ?? I know .. I have to google again !!! Any shortcut here ???

[hcornea]

Jim has some neat tips above, but in short:

Open the texture using imagetool.exe (FSX SDK tool)
Change to DXT1 (as suggested above)
Select Add MipMaps (a whole series of progressively smaller images will appear in the display)
Save as {filename}.dds

The MipMaps are lower resolution representation of your surface, used (hopefully) to display at further distances, to reduce the amount of filtering your graphics card has to do.

[Tejal Bernardo]

All this could be applied to custom fences ? all this are the mayor problem I see with textures, above all the roofs, I have to investigate yet why the roof is running and dancing in the building and the next to it haven't any problem being the same texture.

[scighera]

Originally Posted by hcornea

Jim has some neat tips above, but in short:

Open the texture using imagetool.exe (FSX SDK tool)
Change to DXT1 (as suggested above)
Select Add MipMaps (a whole series of progressively smaller images will appear in the display)
Save as {filename}.dds

The MipMaps are lower resolution representation of your surface, used (hopefully) to display at further distances, to reduce the amount of filtering your graphics card has to do.

Thanks a lot for the hint, hcornea !! But you mean that is that simple ?
My first question is: how does the FSX renderer understands that the .BGL file is using a mipmapped texture ?

In other words ... for the 3D objects I'm using blender 1.49, and I convert the .blend file to .mdl and .x file with the script made by Johnatan Harry (BLENDER2FSX). Then I process the .mdl and associated .xml files with the SDK BGLComp.exe

For the .blender file texturing I use .png file, that I convert to DDS DTX1 (no alpha texture) or to DDS DTX5 (textures with alpha channel)

So ... what image should I use when UV mapping the model ?? And there are any "rules" when UV mapping ?

(sorry if i said something wrong ... I'm trying to stay afloat in all these techinacalities )

Thanks for your patience

Paolo