• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
    • Questions about aircraft design can be posted in the Aircraft design forum
    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

P3D v3 Converting FSX bmps to dds for P3D

scotth6

scotth6

Messages
542
Country
australia
Hi,

I recently purchased the Just Flight DC-10 package, the older version, not the newer HD package. I didn't check, and I didn't necessarily buy it for use in P3D, as I also still use FSX regularly, which is lucky because apparently it doesn't work in P3D. After some research I have read that the likely issue is that P3D doesn't work with bmp texture files, and all the DC-10's texture files are bmps.

Just because I have seen it done with other aircraft, and I was curious about the methods, I have attempted to convert the textures to dds so the aircraft will work in P3D. After a quick go with a program bmp2dds, and a failed attempt ( I quickly uninstalled that program) I tried again tonight with Model Converter X's texture conversion feature. This was somewhat successful, but not totally. There is no CTD and the aircraft loads fine, and the exterior model even displays beautifully, but the VC does not display at all. All the VC textures and the exterior textures are in the same texture folder, so I can't understand why the VC won't display at all. There is also an issue with the 2D panels, but this was kind of expected as I had to change the texture sizes to be able to convert them to dds, as they weren't "power of 2" sizes. The gauges seem to display on the 2D panels, but the background image is just black. I also edited the panel.cfg to show the new sizes and changed the filenames to match the new files (ie.dds), but there is obviously something else I need to do, or maybe it can't be done.

Just wondering if anyone can give me some pointers on converting an FSX aircraft to work in P3D by converting textures to dds. Here are some pics of my success and failure:

2016-8-11_19-26-57-756.jpg


2016-8-11_19-27-45-453.jpg


2016-8-11_19-28-27-998.jpg



Cheers,
 
I found the problem myself. Apparently the VC doesn't appear by default and it has to be switched on from the icon menu in the 2D view (?!) Strange.

So the conversion process seems to have worked OK apart from the 2D panels which still appear black, I assume because the resized images are not specified somewhere correctly.

2016-8-11_21-45-59-25.jpg


2016-8-11_21-46-2-782.jpg


Cheers,
 
Converting textures is usually done with Imagetool from the SDK.

P.S: Since P3Dv3 seems to be a real trainwreck in terms of compatibility, you might want to take any add-on specific issues to either the developer or publisher (JustFlight) or to Lockheed Martin themselves.
 
Hey Heretic,
Thanks for the response. I have used image tool before to convert bmp to dds during scenery development, but I suppose my efficient (lazy) side was looking for a quicker method due to the number of textures to be converted. Arnos tool seems very easy to use and I am not sure how to use image tool for a batch conversion.
I don't expect the developer of this particular product to do anything about a P3D conversion as they have since released a HD, P3D compatible DC-10 product more recently. TBH I only got this product as it was on sale and I was looking for a good KC-10 refueller model.
Thanks for the advice.
Cheers,
Scott
 
Open Imagetool in a command window (cmd.exe) and open imagetool's command reference with "imagetool -?". You then see a list of possible input flags that can be used from a console or batch file.

Required input for BMP to DDS conversion looks like this:
Code: 
imagetool -batch -nogui -nomip -dxt5 -dds -nodither -r *.bmp

Note that this will keep the .BMP files which should be moved from the active texture, lest FSX/P3D uses them instead of the DDS ones.
 
I converted bmp textures to dds and they are still not showing in p3d...the same objects/textures are showing in fsx so i know they are there...i dont know what else to do...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top