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Disappearing railing.

TerryW

TerryW

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I'm using this tower at a Barra Airport I recently made - seen here at Inverness. The original texture showed a red drainpipe. I used Paint to change it to a grey colour to match the walls. I then ran it through DTXBmp & saved it as Extended 255 colour. The railings are no longer see-through.
I've edited other tower objects textures before & the railings have always appeared as normal post DTXBmp. Can anyone explain this to me ?

grab_049.jpg
 
Transparency is usually controlled by the alpha channel of the texture. Did you preserve the alpha channel when you saved your new texture? When you convert the texture to DDS, you should probably use DXT5 for best results.
 
Apologies for my unswift reply.......
I was advised a long time ago to save as extended 256 colour and this has always worked.
As you can see from this jpeg DTX1 has no alpha so I assume all the others do ? I save as ext. 256 colour............
grab_053.jpg

I've saved another texture (that hasn't been through Paint) as ext. 256 colour & the railings are as you see.............
grab_055.jpg
 
I am not really familiar with the compression you use, but if you're saying it's from a looong time ago it might be time to upgrade your workflow ;-)
To me, it just seems like a very outdated colorspace to use, I stick with mostly DXT5, sometimes DXT1.
 
DTXBmp was recommended when I first started making my own airfields 10 yrs ago......I know of no alternatives I'm afraid. It works so I carried on using it.
Using DTXBmp again I saved the texture as DTX5 & got this grab_052.jpg

What do you use ?
 
OK, so either the material of the 3d model you're using is not setup correctly, but I'd rather suspect that the image software you're using is not saving the alpha channel correctly. You said you used Paint - I hope you mean Paint.Net and not the paint that comes with Windows?!
I export directly from my good ol' Photoshop (12.1) using the NVidia plugin.
 
Oh dear......I've not heard of Paint.net & of course use the Paint from Windows. I've been using it for 10 yrs & never had a problem.
My photoshop is 5.1.
 
Hi Terry:

Although you did not assign the FS version info to the forum header for this thread as you usually do, AFAIK, you work exclusively in FS2004 (aka "FS9"), which requires *.BMPs and legacy DXT format texture files.

IIRC, FS9 uses DXT1 for On-Off transparency such as railings, DXT3 for variable transparency ? :scratchch

GaryGB
 
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Gary, bon jour.........I believe you implicitly. Are you saying I should use DTX1 ? I used the 256 option for my Ibsley tower & others without this wee problem.
 
Hi Terry:

Did you output the MDL via MCX ? :scratchch

As Vitus alluded to above, normally one would use a simple B+W Alpha channel for On-Off Transparency.

I would use that Alpha channel in a DXT1 format *.BMP.

GaryGB
 
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Oh wow, it didn't even occur to me that you're working in the fs9 environment.... :duck:
 
If you have no alpha channel - i.e. saving it as DXT1 (no alpha) then your railings will not have transparency, it's as simple as that. I have never gotten DXTBmp to work properly with 256 color images with alpha channels, so instead I use DXT1 WITH alpha, it's the choice below DXT1 (no alpha). In FS9 that is the only format I have found that gives proper transparent railings. DXT3 will give railings with a white halo around them and often will cause things behind them to be transparent too.

But note that saving it as DXT1 is not enough. The upper right box in DXTBmp must have a valid alpha channel - white railings with black background where transparency is desired.
 
Yes to MCX. I didn't know about an alpha channel on dtx1.

As for FS2004....having made a lot of WW2 airfields that will not transfer to FSX so I'm lumbered. As I use Golden Wings 3 I'm quite happy.
grab 019 = is of a mdl given me by Cees Donker a long time ago. It has very thin rails & after painting with Paint was saved by DTXBmp as ext. 256 colour. grab_019.jpg

I save all files via DXTBmp as extended 256 colour & have had absolutely no problems whatsoever until now.

I didn't know DTX1 has an alpha channel so thanks for that info. I'll try again with it & report back........
I suspect however I'm going to have to get to like red drain pipes.
 
Whether you save as DXT1 or Extended 256 color, the alpha channel box in DXTBmp will need to contain a valid alpha channel image.
 
OK, but I have no idea what you mean by 'the alpha channel box in DXTBmp will need to contain a valid alpha channel image.'
I've just used ext. 256 colour after editing textures as I was adivsed to, & never had this problem before. I've made 40 airfields or so without encountering this phenomenon............................
 
I've obviously got a brick wall here so I've replaced the recalcitrant texture & object with a completely compliant object...............

grab_025.jpg
 
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