• 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.

Texture Mapping Problem

B

Brother23

Messages
184
Country
germany
I made a round propeller housing, unwrapping it in MAX8 and do
a fine texture.

When I look at it in MAX all is perfect. But in FSX i dont wraps the
texture all the 360 degrees around, but 300 only.

The area that is not wrapped correctly appears in black!

What the hell is that. I experimented with different Sizes, DDS-types
but this wont help.

What can this be?

Greetings
 
I figured out what is the problem...

FSX stretches the textures vertically to full texture page size.

But I told Max8 explicitely to use my UNWRAPED COORDINATES.

Why is FSX ignoring that?

Greetings
 
Not sure what's happening...are your maps created square and in powers of 2 - i.e.- 256 x 256, 1024 x 1024, etc? Also, are you using the Cropping/Placement tools that are in Max's Material Editor? These, I would wager, are ignored by FSX and shouldn't be used.
________
HEADSHOPS
 
Last edited:
Hi Mick,

the Texture Size is 512x1024. I also tested 1024x1024 with no effect.

I dont crop the textures.

Thats, whats makes me crazy. All fine and clean. But comes out with error.

I attached two pictures. The model shows the wrong placement and

the texture shows the clean unwrap in Max. What the hell resets this

unwrap and streches all UV Coordinates straight to bottom line. I made

the bottom areas RED COLORED to understand better whats going on there.

Any ideas?

Greetings
 

Attachments

  • RING_MODEL.jpg
    RING_MODEL.jpg
    23.4 KB · Views: 520
  • RING_TEXTURE.jpg
    RING_TEXTURE.jpg
    95.7 KB · Views: 578
One step farther!

When I load the Photoshop DDS in Imagetool its fliped vertically.

When I flip it again in displays right in FSX. But this cannot be the

final solution when doing dozens of textures. Does anyone had the

same problem?

Greetings
 
I don't think the non-square texture maps are a good idea. Some game engines support double powers of 2 (like 512 x 1024), but I don't think FSX does. The texturing docs recommend square maps that are powers of 2. I would think that when you tried 1024 x 1024 it should have fixed the problem, so maybe something else is going on here.

As for flipping the texture in the DDS, there are ways to simplify the proccess - it depends on how you're doing the DDS conversion. I use the Photoshop DDS plugin that's on the NVidia site. So in that case, you do need to flip the texture before you convert it to DDS, but you can create a Photoshop action to do that.

I took that process a step further by recording an action that flattens the image, flips it, and saves it as a DDS. It then uses "step backward" to undo the flatten and flip, so that I'm left with the layered file in its original state, which it then saves as a PSD. So just by clicking the button, I've got the file saved in both formats.
________
MONICA live
 
Last edited:
Hi Mick,

it seems you completely have the same problem.

I tested with flipping, 512x1024 and 1024x1024.

IT WORKS ABSOLUTELY FINE.

But I cant imagine that the guys from ACES had to make the
same approach. Its very time consuming.

So folks at ACES, whats your faster approach?

I think its a simple programming task for the DDS exporter to fix
that problem.

Greetings
 
Brother23 said:
it seems you completely have the same problem.

I tested with flipping, 512x1024 and 1024x1024.

IT WORKS ABSOLUTELY FINE.

But I cant imagine that the guys from ACES had to make the
same approach. Its very time consuming.

So folks at ACES, whats your faster approach?

I think its a simple programming task for the DDS exporter to fix
that problem.

Greetings
Click to expand...

ACES uses Imagetool.exe for converting their .psd files to .dds format. It does the "vertical flipping" automatically. However, as it is a command line driven tool, it absolutely drives me bannans! :scratchch

So, I use Photoshop v8.0 and the nVidea DDS plugin. Since I use the "Master .PSD" files in Max/GMax, exporting for FSX is as simple as flipping the image vertically, then Saving As .DDS files.

"Best Practice" is to follow the SDK's stricture to use "powers of 2" square bitmaps. There's no good reason not to do so, since it's easy enough to efficiently use nearly all of the available pixels on a 1024^2 bitmap for texturing something! :)

Unless you are planning to 'texture' every 'ding, dent and scratch' on the chrome ring of that engine's nacelle, using that size of texture is very, very much overkill... ;)

BTW, the reason DDS textures are supposedly "superior" to BMP format, is that FS doesn't have to "vertically flip" them before sending them to the video card. In theory this is supposed to be faster.

In practice however, the exact same FSX model using DXT3 textures loads in less than 3 seconds, where the version using DDS textures will take up to five MINUTES to finish loading!

Using FILEMON, I've noted that for some reason, FSX is looking for every texture in .BMP format first (and looks in every fallback folder!), and only after failing to find one, then procedes to look for one with a .DDS extension!
 
Last edited:
Hi N4gix!

I surely only use power of 2 bitmaps. 1024x1024 and 512x1024.

I use the high res texture for the engine nacelle, because I use the same
model and texture also for the interior cockpit view.

You see that part during flight every second when you look forward,
so it has to look right.

That other way could be to do one texture for external view the other
only for the visible part of the interior view. But that would result
in two textures that in memory space thoughts will have the same size
as the single hires texture has got.

The flip of the texture is really creazy, why dont they simple do not turn
the texture. That look a bit lame for me, but I cant surely exclude that
it could have a deeper reason.

What the texture loading times belongs, they dds files load at the same speed as BMPs at my computer. Because its easier in transfer I primarily use the
DDS Format. Somehow I have also a feeling, that this will become @DDS@ the preferred texture format. Time dont stands still and graphic cards are developing fast.

So, now I have to do almost like the famous dolphin: FLIPPER, FLIPPER the
friend of all childrens eh FSX-engines.... :0)

Greetings
 
Brother23 said:
I surely only use power of 2 bitmaps. 1024x1024 and 512x1024.

The flip of the texture is really creazy, why dont they simple do not turn
the texture. That look a bit lame for me, but I cant surely exclude that
it could have a deeper reason.
Click to expand...

In past versions, the SDKs always insisted that the textures be powers of two and square...

...the FSX SDK explicitly states that "...they can be smaller, as long as the dimensions remain a power of 2." This of course implies that non-square bitmaps are permitted, as indeed practice demonstrates as fact.

There's nothing "creazy" (sic) about inverting the bitmaps. Images held in video card memory are inverted, so it only makes sense to store bitmaps already inverted... That means no time is wasted "flipping them" before sending them to the video card! :eek:
 
Flipped Images

This flipping stays crazy for me, but I believe I have to live with that.

So I first paint my color textures and then paint my specular and bump
textures.

Have you tried cube maps for reflections?

How knows that sim engine what square is for whar direction or how to
compile the six cube views to one image?!

Greetings
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top