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FSX Texture Not Displaying

dickb

dickb

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unitedkingdom
I have a puzzle. I have a vehicle model (a jeep) that I picked up someplace (can't recall where) a long while ago. The other day I noticed that only half the model is displaying in FSX. I checked it out on MCX (where it textures and displays fine) and isolated the problem to one texture.

The model uses three textures, one for glass, the other two for the vehicle body and wheels. It is one of the latter that is failing to display. As far as I can tell, the two body/wheel textures are identical in format - DDS DXT1 1024 x 1024 699,176 bytes. And in the MCX material editor, all the parameters (most of which I admit I don't understand) are identical for both textures.

So I swapped the filenames. And guess what - the vehicle appears fully textured, using both textures, although of course it's all messed up. I then swapped the filenames back, and once again only one of the textures appears.

I have quite a few more things to try, but does anyone have any idea what may be causing this ? As indicated above, I didn't build the model, so I have no idea what tool was used.

All thoughts welcome !

EDIT: By all means read all this thread. But if you want to avoid a few red herrings and just read a summary, go to post #12.
 
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Reading my post above, I realise it isn't entirely clear, When I say the texture doesn't show, what I mean is that the parts of the model that should be textured with that texture are either not being drawn or are invisible/transparent. I don't believe transparency is the issue, as the alpha channel for both textures appears to be pure white. And in any event, as detailed above, if I swap the textures round they both display just fine.
 
Turns out that the problem is more complex than I thought, and is something I have seen several times before with different models but never been able to fix. The failure is actually intermittent. For example, if I start the flight with the model in view, only part of the model will display. If I then pan the view away from the model and then back again, the model is complete. If I then approach the model from a different angle, the same part disappears again as I get closer.

I have also proved that it is not just one particular texture that is failing. My earlier testing must have been flawed. I swapped the textures around again and the same parts of the model disappear irrespective of whichever texture is used. So something in the model itself it would seem. Probably not much I can do about that. Unless anyone has any bright ideas !
 
Here are some random thoughts.

You say your dxt1 dds clocks in at 699,176, this seems to indicate that it's got MIPs (because a non-mipped is only 524,416). MIPs have been known to cause similar issues, so try getting rid of them.

Your last post, however, indicating that other models are affected similarly, could point to a shaders issue, in which case you might want to rebuild your shaders folders. Better google this for correct procedure, but above all do make backups before you delete anything.

Finally, are you running dx10 or dx9 mode? Which FSX version precisely? And maybe include a screenshot with the Shift-Z frame counter set ON.

P.S. MY Jeep is doing just fine ....
FCqjOWUBqB.jpg
 
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Thanks MJahn - I love random thoughts !

And they are good suggestions. Unfortunately I tried them all without success.

Also - I have previously fixed this problem with models I have built myself by adding a subterranean (and hence invisible) single frame animation to the model, as was suggested by someone else on one of the forums. I don't know a way of adding this to an existing model, but I did try attaching various other things (effects, library objects, platforms) to the model using MCX without success, I guess I could create a single frame animated library object and attach that. (EDIT: Tried that - didn't work either).

As to your last question, I am running DX9. And the frame rate stays pretty constant at 24-25fps (it is set to 25 fps in FSX) throughout all my tests. No obvious frame rate change.

I should perhaps also mention I am seeing this problem on two systems - my older development machine and my newer (or less old) 'live' machine. I do keep these reasonably in sync, but they are not identical.

Love your jeep ! But I need a WW2 RAF version. I will go hunting.
 
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I know you all like happy endings :-)

I found an old (driveable simobject) USAAF jeep rusting away in one of my hangars. A quick run through SAMM and a respray and it looks that will work just fine.
 
So...no need to attach animations then. I'd reexamine the validity of that particular solution.
 
=rk= said:
So...no need to attach animations then. I'd reexamine the validity of that particular solution.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure. When that solution worked previously, it was on a model that I had created myself using FSDS. I created and added the 'animation' to the model using FSDS, and then compiled the MDL using FSDS. And it worked. What I did this time was create the animation as a MDL in FSDS, and then attach it to the failing MDL using MCX. That did not work.

But there is a wrinkle, which I reported at the time of the original 'fix', which only worked if I created the MDL via FSDS. If (for any reason e.g. to get a new GUID) I re-processed the MDL through MCX, then the problem re-appeared. I think that's why the solution did not work in this instance.

Not saying there is anything wrong with MCX, but re-processing a MDL through MCX does seem to nullify this particular fix/workaround.
 
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I'm still wrestling with this (the happy ending above turned out to be a false dawn - and there have been a few more since).

After much trial and error I am now in the situation where I have four versions of the same model (the jeep I created using SAMM as mentioned above).

Two of them use (more or less) the original textures and display fine.

The other two both use repainted (by me) versions of the original textures. And both exhibit the problem described above, where one of the textures (same one on both models) disappears and re-appears.

Now here's the curious thing - if I change the GUID on one of the failing models (using MCX), then both display fine.

All models originally had different GUIDs. And I have run Jon's Duplicate Object Finder, but nothing related to any of these GUIDs or models shows up.

So (again) I may have a fix/workaround, but I have no idea why !
 
Nope - another false dawn. What seemed a solid fix with just one of each model fell apart when I populated an airfield with a dozen of 'em. Every one displaying the problem. I must be missing something.
 
The number of times the model is repeated (and/or the failing texture used) seems to be significant. I've determined that I can duplicate one of the failing models up to 10 times in my scenery without seeing the anomaly, but when I add the 11th, all 11 instances fail, even the ones which were formerly good. This explains why I didn't notice it in early testing.

So it would seem there is some kind of limit on the number of times the failing texture(s) can be used. What would impose that limit ? And why only some textures and not others ?
 
I think I've got about as far with this as I can. Here's a summary. I don't know why it's happening (maybe someone does), but I have a better understanding of the problem and will recognise it again. I have also managed to mitigate it somewhat in my case.

It appears that some textures have a limit to the number of times they can be used in a scenery - like a 'use count' if you will. Which means that there is a limit to the number of objects which use those textures that you can place successfully. If you exceed the 'use count' then that texture fails to appear anywhere on any object that uses it.

For example - I have two objects x and y that both use one of these textures. I can either place (say) 10 of object x, or 10 of object y, or 10 of a mix of x and y. But as soon as I place an 11th object using the same texture, the texture disappears from all the objects that use it. It does sometimes re-appear/disappear as you approach or pass by.

Same is true even if the objects are in different scenery BGLs within the same Scenery folder. The 'use count' seems to apply to the scenery folder. I have tried placing using ADE and Instant Scenery with the same result. In my case, the 'use count' varies from 10-20 depending on the texture.

To mitigate, I have copied and renamed the subject textures so that each object/model now has its own version i.e. no sharing. The 'use counts' are still there, but now they are per object/model, not per texture. I can live with that.
 
Same problem for me but found a solution.
Symptom:-
object shows OK until too many are added to the scenery then a texture just disappears on all objects.
In my case it was a short length of fence with a post and 5 wires using one texture and a second post using another texture.
The post and 5 wires just disappeared on all objects when too many (10??) were added to the scenery. The second post was OK

Solution:-
On the 5 wires I had stretched the texture so that only a few pixels were being used. Wires did not need any color variation and I assumed less pixels meant less work for displaying.
Changed the wires so more of the texture was being used (more pixels). Problem fixed. Adding a 100s of objects now works fine.

Why:-
No idea. Maybe the video card does not like single pixels being spread over large areas but why 1~10 objects is OK and more not??
 
Interesting Colin. Sounds similar to my problem, but my textures were solid, not using a few pixels.
 
solid texture on say a tire could be using anywhere between 1 pixel (stretched out) and 16k pixels. Hard to tell with out looking at the original design or trying an experimental checker board texture to see how many squares you had.
The original designer of the object could be blissfully unaware his object only has problems when placing multiples.
 
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