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Another newbie texture problem

W

woodart

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us-oregon
I know that someone has probably had this problem before but please humor a newbie. I have textured several buildings such as the one pictured and everything looks fine in FSDS 3.51 but in FSX, any textured parts are either missing or I suspect showing transparent.

I have converted the textures (mostly 1024x1024) to DDS 888-8 32-bit format using DXTBmp and placed them in the "texture" subfolder in the project's folder within the addon scenery directory.

I figure that I am missing something rather elementary but so far, it escapes me. Perhaps someone can set me straight?
 
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What is FSDS 3.51 ???

Anyway... look I don't know about what standards apply to what... all I know is that normal graphic packages don't know whats potting in FS land...

This is what I found works... I also had the missing texture problem...
The DXTBmp is good, hang onto it but also go back to that guys site and get ConVim...

Hope I remember this now...

Then... with ConVim force the textures to 256 color... ie turn them into something that Adobe and Gimp understand... do your thing...

Then... Open them in DXTBMP... do nothing else but set Include MipMaps... and just save them... dump them into your textures folder...
They become 16 bits in that process... but if you tell DXT to make them 24 bits... you get hallucinogenic rainbows ;)​

Now if you got annotations in them already... well that will probably screw it all up ;)

... so I really dont know what people do when they got trees growing out of the texture and they decide the color is wrong... perhaps annotation hide in another file, perhaps the alpha layer... don't know haven't got that far yet ;)

It does seem very quiet on the texture tool front... I haven't really found the tarp money in this area yet...


... maybe...
 
Woodart just open the texture with DXTBmp and converting your textures to DXT1

also

Check in the texture definition box to see if you checked the box to tell FSDS that you are using a night texture, if you did then make sure you include a night texture in your texture folder.

H_Farfy:D
 
great... I'll give that a try. I was converting them to DXT3 or DDS. I guess I need to remember to keep it simple!

Thanks!
 
Crashtestdummy- 3.51 was mistyped. It is 3.5.1
When FSDS 3.5 came out there was a hitch in the git-a-long. They fixed it with the donwload called 3.5.1. We all just call it 3.5. Ah... maybe you know this already. never mind. :)

Woodart- Welcome to the family! Now your headaches really begin. And you'll love every minute. The guys here are extremely helpfull.

Farfy has a very good point- If you are running SP2 service pack and SP2 SDK or acceleration, this is what happens:

You made an object with a texture with the tag N This tells FSX to look for a night texture of that bmp or dds. This is made by making a copy of your bmp but including LM with it. This is the night texture. Example- mybricks.bmp. You'd make a copy and rename the copy to mybricks_lm.bmp.

Everything's cool so far....BUT- let's say you forgot to make the _LM.
In SP! and SP1a FSX just ignores the fact it could not fiind the LM. BUt, BUT, BUT with SP2 FSX goes nuts. It can't find the LM so it just does not load mybricks at all. What you get is a building with no walls if it is supposed to run mybricks as its texture. Make the _LM and park it in your texture folder of the scenery you are using. Viola! Mybricks shows up. FSX is happy now. And so are you.

I strongly suggest visiting Farfy's website for some neat tutorials! Also- visit Adam's Blog. Everyone else here are demi-gods! Pray to them often! hehehe! Bob
 
Sorry 'bout the typo. The fingers often do as they please.

Actually, I found that my main problem was putting the textures in the wrong folder. Apparently, I screwed up the preferences in FSDS and though all of my textures were in the specific scenery area texture folder, FSX was looking in the "Addon scenery/texture" folder. When I put them there, all was well. I'm still learning the ropes of how FSDS plays with FSX.

I have spend some good quality time on Farfy's site taking in the tutorials and have found them to be manna from heaven :). Next stop: Adam's blog!

Thanks guys!
 
The texture setting in FSDS preference is where FSDS will look for the texture you wish to use.

You can have it set to the main FSX texture folder or you can have it set to any folder you like, this is what I do as I make most of my own texture and do not want to put then in the main FSX texture folder.

FSX was looking in the "Addon scenery/texture" folder.
Click to expand...

FSX will only look in the add-on texture folder if the BGL files are in the add-on scenery folder.


You can install you BGL files into any scenery folder you like just make sure that the textures are in a texture folder right next to that scenery folder. This way you can set up a folder for each of you sceneries

H_Farfy:D
 
Hey- We've all done that and worse! I'm sure we all have stories of errors we made; later to find out, "I can't believe I did that!" Bwahaha!

I may have it pointing the wrong way as well, but FSDS likes to save the texture somewhere. I guess I should have it pointing to addon scenery\texture. If I delete the bmp just saved FSDS goes nuts and my project has no textures until I point to the folder I originally got it from. i.e. in the project everything is efault white. Under parts the texture names are still there. I click on it and go to the folder where that bmp is and bingo, that portion of the project shows up with the bmp again. so I just leave stuff alone.

Woodart- you ski? I taught at Meadows for many years. Moved to Washington now. Bob
 
Woodart - you probably already have your answer on this, but I have had the same problem and here is how I resolved it:
My original texture image had all the images on it that were required for my hangar - doors, siding, signs, etc. WHen the texture file was created the door windows were made transparent by coloring them black then creating the alpha chanel with DXT2BMP. The file was then saved as a DXT1 (alpha) file and I began the process of painting the hangar. To my dismay, there was always one end of the hangar that would not paint...the texture simply would not show in FS even though it was clearly displayed in FSDS 3.5.1. After a lot of head-scratching and mumbling of obsceneties,and as a last resort, something told me to put my images with a transparency in one file and other images into another file. I did this, repainted my hangar and VOILA! all is OK now.

Is there an unwritten (or otherwise) rule somewhere that dictates that one should never put transparent and non transparent items on the same drawing?

This is from another Newbie that STILL has a lot to learn
 
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Wow! Never heard of that one. If this worked for you- great! However... Anytime you are going to make something transparent, put the word trans to the poly first. There are other words which are acceptable as well, like 'glass', 'window' etc.

Example: I'm making a house. I'm going to have a "see-through" window. In FSDS 3.5.1 (and to be used in FSX) I might choose 'box', make it thin as to my preference. Then.... go to properties, materials and type in the word "trans" (without the "). You do NOT have to apply any color at all to this. (This tells FSX that this part is going to be transparent.) Now- go ahead and paint or color the 'box' as you see fit with a bmp that has an alpha channel. [I made one with a light blue color and then used dxtbmp to add the alpha channel to it and saved as dxt1 with alpha. (3 or 5 works well also).

I now apply this bp to my 'window' 9which also-remember- has part properties with the word trans with it. finish the house and compile. There's your window.

Why blue? It doesn't matter, but you want the use to see through the window, but you want the user to know that something is there to "see through"!!! That's why we might tint a window blue so the user can see that there is actually something he is looking through! :) I also made a brown tint. If I know my building is going to be close to a background of woods or the like, a brown tint works well. It kind of blends in with the surounding scenery. Keep in touch. We're all here to pick each others' brains! :) Bob
 
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