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Ongoing texture problem

W

woodart

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47
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us-oregon
I posted earlier about what I thought was a transparency problem making textures fail to show but I have found that it is a much deeper problem that has pushed me to being ready to give up on scenery design (at least with FSDS anyway)

Here's the story:
I was midway through an airport project when suddenly, my new models weren't showing up in FSX. Everything that I had built and placed up to that point worked fine. I figured out that the models were there but the weren't registering on them so they remained "transparent". I was creating the PSD's, saving as BMP's and converting to DXT5 textures the same way as before and even though everything showed fine in FSDS, they wouldn't show in FSX.

After over two weeks of experimenting and trying to figure out some sort of pattern, suddenly all of the existing textures stopped showing as well. I tied re-creating all of the .bmp's again but they still wouldn't show. Here's the kicker... If I create an entirely new .PSD and export it to FSX the same way as the existing textures, it works fine but textures created from existing .psd's won't show. Everything about them is identical. Occasionally I can get an older texture to show on a test model but when I try to apply it to another model, it won't show even though it was created and saved the exact same way.

I have nearly 100 texture files with about 9 months worth of work in them that suddenly seem to be worthless and if I were of a mind to completely start over, I'm not sure this won't happen again. Can anyone shed any light on what the heck is happening here?

I've attached a couple of the smaller .bmp's if someone would be willing to try them out to see if they work for them. One of these will work for me and the other won't.

I've been trying every combination and solution I can think of for over two weeks now and nothing seems to make any sense.

Any ideas appreciated.

Tony
 
Last edited:
Hi,

Your textures are 24 bit textures, FSX can not read those. Try to convert them to DDS files (DXT1 or DXT5), then they should work.
 
Beware any time you modify a texture and resave it you may have to use the FSDS texture tool to reconvert it back into a 16 or 32 DXT file. That is why it may work one day and then not next time.
 
woodart said:
Thanks Arno! I'm wondering though why they they were working then weren't. :confused:
Click to expand...

As it turns out, I just solved the mystery yesterday.


It was a perfect combination of unforeseeable technical glitches and ignorance on my part. For some reason, several of my "_LM" textures had become corrupted and all of the models were designated to use night textures. I didn't realize at the time that if night textures are designated, the corresponding "_LM" texture must be present for them to show at any time of day. Not knowing that, I proceeded to test a wide array of textures on those models without "_LM" textures or success. After methodically replacing all of the textures (105 at this point) and "_LM's" and discovering that they now work perfectly, I added a new model and found that once again the texture didn't show. It didn't take long to see that I had forgotten to include the night texture in the FSX folder and that was the only difference between it and those that worked.

I wound up exchanging some e-mails with Louis Sinclair to see if he had any thoughts and even he hadn't run across this one before.
 
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