Feature request - reload textures.

[old_wombat]

Hello Arno. I'm processing two of the MAIW libraries, or more accurately, the textures associated with them. Issue with that is that to see the effect on the new texture, I have to re-import the entire library, which in one case is 150+ objects, so the re-import takes quite a while.

So here's a thought. It would be "nice" if there was a "reload texture" feature, which as the name suggests would reread the texture files for that particular object.

I'm thinking that maybe others may find this useful. Perhaps the most obvious example would be where someone had got an item for a particular airline and is changing textures for another airline.

I'll leave that thought with you.

Steve from Mudgee.

 

[old_wombat]

Further thought.

To elaborate further, I've found MCX the most useful product to use when changing textures on just about anything (scenery, flyable aircraft, whatever), even if I'm not actually converting anything. Even without the suggested feature, doing a re-import to reload a changed texture is still much much faster than reloading Flight Sim. Some items will reload by restarting a flight, but not all; but in any case that's not as fast as a re-import. And a reload textures would obviously be faster again.

Steve from Mudgee

 

[arno]

Hi Steve,

I'll have a look, I think it should not be too hard to add. I understand that when you just change one texture reload an entire library is a bit overkill

 

[Sven2157]

... to see the effect on the new texture, I have to re-import the entire library, which in one case is 150+ objects, so the re-import takes quite a while. ...

Are you sure? I might be remembering wrong here, but all I have to do is hit the little green 'Next/Previous Model' button, then go back, and it will reload the textures for me ...

I am using the Developer version: 1.4.0.0r2337 DEV 5/14/2013

I will check again ...

*** EDIT ***

Yes I just confirmed this. If you go to the 'Scenery\EURW' folder and load the Berlin.bgl, select 'Berlin_Apt01' from the object list, you will notice that it doesn't load the tree textures. I am assuming because they have aliased this from the 'Global\textures' folder, with the main textures.cfg. If you copy that texture( VEG_CONIFER1.dds ) to the 'EURW\textures' folder, you can click one of the green buttons to advance, forward or back, to another model. Then click the opposite button, to go back to the Berlin_Apt01. The textures automagically reload; now showing the trees.

 

[arno]

Hi,

But I am not sure if it works when the texture was found before. Then I think modelconverterx will use the previously loaded file, if you the actual file was modified by then.

 

[Sven2157]

Hi,

But I am not sure if it works when the texture was found before. Then I think modelconverterx will use the previously loaded file, if you the actual file was modified by then.

You can try to switch to the next model, copy the new texture into the folder( as the other texture will be 'in-use' while the model is active ), and then switch back ...

Worth a try, anyway.

 

[old_wombat]

Sven - no luck

Using MCX 1.3 ( I can't use 1.4 with textures because it has an OpenGL problem with my laptop, an issue of which Arno is aware). In that version, going backwards and forwards with the green arrows doesn't work. More generally, with Windows XP, I have noticed that it is not as "clever" in correct use of in-memory file caching as Unix is ... but then there is no decent FS for Unix

And in any case, when working on a single item (eg, converting a flyable aircraft) that is obviously not an option.

Bit Sven, thank you for taking the time to reply anyway.

Steve from Mudgee.

 

[arno]

Hi Steve,

I have added the new button now, it will reload the textures of the current object.

There is only one catch of course, this new feature is in the 1.4 release. So we need to get that running on your machine before you can use it. I forgot what we already tried last time, did you already try the option "ForceSimpleShaders" to use the simple shaders?

 

[old_wombat]

No luck with ForceSimpleShader.

Where "we" are up to is here. With MCX 1.4, I cannot display texture.bmp files at all, not for any mdl or bgl file. Wireframe mode works perfectly.

Coloured Render Mode (the multicolour Rubix cube) draws a ghostly bunch of dots, usually white but sometimes black, depending (I think) on how I FreeRotate the model. On comparison with the WireFrame mode, it looks to me (but I am not absolutely sure) that the dots may be polygon vertices, although there doesn't seem to be enough of them. For example, the various model NBAI Tomcats have 50,000 polygons, and there aren't anywhere near that many dots.

TextureRender mode (the brownish cube) draws the dots in their actual colours (ie, from the various texture.bmp files), occasionally flashing to black dots.

TextureMappingRender mode (the black white checked sphere) shows the dots in cyan, also occasionally flashing to black. Setting ForceSimpleShader either true or false has absolutely no effect on any of the above.

Look, Arno, this isn't a huge deal. The only thing I need 1.4 for is to freeze the various animations at particular points, and for that purpose I can use WireFrame render. When I'm investigating textures I'm not doing animations, and for that purpose 1.3 will do me.

So I'm managing. The reload textures would be nice, but for me it's not a showstopper. The problem is on my "development" laptop only. I don't run MCX on the "production" tower-style PC with the hot video card, because that's not on the Internet (doesn't have an Ethernet nor a WiFi card), so it's not an issue there anyway.

Steve from Mudgee

 

[old_wombat]

UPDATE - tried something different.

OK, Arno, I tried something else, and got startlingly different results.

Started MCX 1.4
Went into Options and set ForceSimpleShader to True.
Set TextureRender mode.
Loaded a ship.bgl file.
Texture files displayed correctly, although looks like maybe only say 32 colours. It seems to be finding some sort of "average" or perhaps "modal" colour out of the texture file for the entire polygon, and then rendering the entire polygon, flat, in that average colour. I guess that's what "Simple Shading" means THe performance is poor (a few seconds for each frame for some of the more complex flyable aircraft.bgl files), but manageable.
Set ColourRenderMode.
Ship displayed mainly in white, with the internal "flat" colours correctly displayed.
Set WireRenderMode
Wire renders correctly displayed.
** At this point, if I now go to either TextureRender, ColourRender or InspectTextureMapping, I get the dots as per previous post.
Closed MCX 1.4

Start MCX 1.4
Set ForceSimpleShader to False
Set TextureRender mode.
Close MCX 1.4 (ie, don't load anything)

Start MCX 1.4
Loaded the same ship.bgl file.
** Everything goes wrong. The ship is displayed in its correctly shaded 256-colour textures, but the performance is appalling (couple of minutes between redraws, and everything else on the PC is affected), as per my original report. The only way to close MCX now is to go into Windows Task Manager, and then force a close.

So, it looks like to change ForceSimpleShader I have to set it, then close and restart MCX. And it seems that it does indeed work. I can then load and manipulate any number of BGL or MDL files. I can manage animations, although they cause the rendered image to flicker between the real colours and black.

The texture rendering works between models, unless I select WireFrame from that point on, I only get dots. Unless I stop and restart MCX.

I hope this more detailed description has helped you in some way. But it still seems to me that if I'm the only guy who is seeing this problem then its probably not worth your time fixing it.

Steve from Mudgee

 

[arno]

Hi,

Yes, the forcesimpleshaders option only takes effect the next time you start modelconverterx, I forgot to mention that.

Do you have a picture of what you mean with less color resolution issue of the textures?

 

[old_wombat]

"Less colour resolution" explained.

OK, yes, sure. Although I use MCX mainly for my carrier planes, they are not good examples for this effect because they are all almost uniform stealth grey, so the simple textured view is just a grey silhouette.

So here is my Antarctic supply ship in fluoro orange. The 1-3-view is the fully textured view in 1.3 MCX. This is as close to identical as to how it appears in FS. The 1-4-view is the same BGL file in 1.4 MCX, also in the fully textured view, with Simple Shaders set.

Now this is pretty much how I imagined Simple Shaders would look like! Are you saying it's NOT supposed to look like this ????

Steve from Mudgee

 

[old_wombat]

One more capture image.

And just to prove the point, here is how the ship actually appears in FS. Of course here I have Effects and extra scenery objects ...

Steve from Mudgee

 

[arno]

Hi,

The simple shaders are supposed to show colors and diffuse textures and drop everything else. It seems in your case the textures are missing, but the rest seems fine. But it might very well be due to the limitations of the OpenGL driver on your card.

 

[old_wombat]

Uhh, not sure that the textures are "missing", in the sense that in the example of my ship, the orange comes from the texture.bgl file.

But perhaps this discussion is not moot. From my experience my FS, I don't have huge expectations of the video card in my laptop. It's nearly ten years old, runs Word, Chrome, IE and Safari very well, which is of course what is was designed to do. Not meant to be a hot FS PC.

Arno, I think we are pretty well done here. Unless you need any more from me.


Steve from Mudgee.

 

[arno]

Hi Steve,

If you are happy with how it works now, I am too

 

[BASys]

Hi Folks

Arno -
I understand you are working on the next release,
and have potentially already addressed the following issue.



I'm using MCX 1.4.0.0 r2345.
In this version -
When I click the "Reload Textures" icon,
according to the MCX's "Event Log" window,
MCX supposedly indicates that the texture files have been re-read.

However,
in the MCX render window,
any textures modified since the model was initially loaded,
are not being applied to the model.



This occurs even after I've -
- Edited the textures.
- Saved them.
- Closed the texture editing app.
so it is not a case that those textures being locked from re-use.



Reloading the model does, as expected,
correctly load the modified texture file versions.



HTH
ATB
Paul

 

[arno]

Hi Paul,

Let me check, because they are supposed to reload.

 

[Pyscen]

Arno, I came confirm it here also,... reloading the textures, appears that it is reloading What's in memory.

 

[arno]

Hi,

In the next release it will be working as it should.