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Like (I am sure) most of folks on this forum, I'm kind of a person that implicitly trusts what is written in official documentation, and take it as (largely) correct. So, when I was dissatisfied with how bump-mapped parts of my models looked like from afar (bright pixels that made it look as if the part was made of crystal ), I looked more closely at the SDK documentation for both FSX and ESP, on how bump maps are processed. I was using a string taken directly from the documentation to process my bump maps (I create cmd files that batch-process my textures). Here is the processing string:
FSX SDK:
imagetool -nobeep -nomip -dxt5 -RedInAlpha -dds -nodither <path/filename>
ESP:
imagetool -nobeep -nomip -dxt5 -RedInAlpha -dds -nodither <path/filename>
One detail I noticed is that there is a -nomip switch in both versions of documentation (ESP seemingly being just a carbon copy of the original FSX SDK). I removed the switch and processed my bump maps with mips, and lo and behold, my models looked way better, cleaner and the performance slightly improved. Unless there is a very good reason for not using mips on a bump map I'm not aware of, this was obviously an oversight. For sanity, I checked Prepar3D documentation (which I suppose is the most recent and most relevant), and sure enough, -nomip switch is gone!
Prepar3D:
imagetool -nobeep -dxt5 -RedInAlpha -dds -nodither <path/filename>
So, (unless this is old news for everyone except me ), if you haven't done this already, re-do your bump textures to use mip maps. I'm sure glad I did.
FSX SDK:
imagetool -nobeep -nomip -dxt5 -RedInAlpha -dds -nodither <path/filename>
ESP:
imagetool -nobeep -nomip -dxt5 -RedInAlpha -dds -nodither <path/filename>
One detail I noticed is that there is a -nomip switch in both versions of documentation (ESP seemingly being just a carbon copy of the original FSX SDK). I removed the switch and processed my bump maps with mips, and lo and behold, my models looked way better, cleaner and the performance slightly improved. Unless there is a very good reason for not using mips on a bump map I'm not aware of, this was obviously an oversight. For sanity, I checked Prepar3D documentation (which I suppose is the most recent and most relevant), and sure enough, -nomip switch is gone!
Prepar3D:
imagetool -nobeep -dxt5 -RedInAlpha -dds -nodither <path/filename>
So, (unless this is old news for everyone except me ), if you haven't done this already, re-do your bump textures to use mip maps. I'm sure glad I did.
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