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nema_flyboy

FS9 Textures and .mdl files..

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hi all,hopefully somebody here will be able to help, and i'd sure be grateful for a little right now.I have a repaint that I'm working on, however the entire paint kit is over 4 files of only 1024x1024 each, all as their standard 32-bit BMP files from FS9. One of the files contains both sides of the fuselage and other miscellaneous wing/antenna items, but after scaling up to 2048x2048 to paint the detail work, and back down to 1024x1024 to fit the original file dimensions, all the detail goes to fuzz.I've read that its possible to edit the aircraft.mdl file to tell FS9 where to 'look' for the correct textures. So taking this on board, is it at all possible to edit the .mdl and create two new texture files (one for each side of the fuselage - i.e. FuseL and FuseR) so that these are used over the original texture file???again, any help is gratefully received!cheers,Simon

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Guest wji

I'd forget about the model edit and simply concentrate on getting the repainted textures to display properly. It's been my experience FS9 blurries are caused by one-of-two things:1.) The Extended BMP Formats were saved with MIPS2.) The Extended BMP Formats were saved to DXT1======

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>I'd forget about the model edit and simply concentrate>on getting the repainted textures to display properly. It's>been my experience FS9 blurries are caused by one-of-two>things:>1.) The Extended BMP Formats were saved with MIPS>2.) The Extended BMP Formats were saved to DXT1>======>Thanks for the advice, however checking both of your points above I've eliminated both possibles by saving as 32-Bit BMPs with DTXBmp and ensuring MIPs and blurring are NOT selected.I'm not so sure that FS9 IS the actual culprit however, as the blurring occurs when dropping the working size from 2048x2048 for detailing in CS2 to 1024x1024 for exporting BEFORE saving as a 32-bit BMP and opening in DTXBmp.That's what made me think that it could just be that the texture file is just too small for the aircraft, and lead to my question being asked about editing the aircraft.mdl file... any other suggestions or help people??

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Guest wji

Your posts now beg the question: did you repaint the texture.BMP simply using the original 1024x1024? I've repainted hundreds of FS aircraft (FS9 & FSX) and using PhotoShop have never felt the necessity to change the size of any texture file I'm working with. To get a better view of details, CTRL+ (zoom in) works for me.[/font size]Have fun . . .

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Yeah, I can't say that I've ever heard of anyone upsizing textures for editing either. When you drop back to 1024 x 1024, you'd be effectively throwing out 75% of your pixel information anyway and when you downsize photos they almost always get a little blurry. You could probably sharpen them up a little with "unsharp mask" or even "sharpen" if they're really bad.I have noticed that you can shrink a 1024 x 1024 texture down to 512 x 512 (or even 256 x 256) and it will still show up correctly on the model in the sim (or at least it worked for some AI textures I did once), so chances are that they would also work correctly at 2048 x 2048. Might be worth a try, but it'll probably be quite a hit on your framerates.Jim

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Whenever you want to use a BMP in 1024x768 size , always work at this file when is in that size.Making a drawing larger for the purpose of making more detail and shrinking this picture afterwards to the smaller 1024 dimensions the texture gets ruined.Always work on your drawing when it has the actual size in wich it is going to be used.There is just a simple rule "You cannot shrink nor expand a single pixel"Leen de Jager


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I'd go along with the general comment "Don't upsize - downsize"...I have plenty of paints behind me too. Anyway, just think of one of the reasons for upsizing - you want a thin line on the fuselage. If you have anything 1 pixel wide on a double sized texture (or any odd number), where does that odd pixel go, when you half things back? Ain't no fractional pixels yet...The major detail loss is as you mention yourself - the size of the texture sheet against the amount of mdl being covered. Remember, the images are dimensioned in pixels, so there's no point in increasing the dpi level either. Try using 72 dpi or even less - that gives you more screen real estate in Photopaint for painting in the detail. Although a 1 pixel wide line remains that when you use a photo editing software.You can always use a vector graphic programme - I use Corel Draw a lot and copy/pasting detail objects from Draw to Paint does help keep the level of detail high.Have you used phototextures yet? The pros who can lay there hands on detail photos are at an advantage here. A high res photo copied over to the lo-res texture carries a lot of detail with it and the jpg to bmp losses aren't that bad. Besides, an Airbus A340/600 that uses only one 1024 texture for the fuselage has, by simple math, a lot less space for detail, than the DO27 where there are three sheets for the fuselage side plus two extra sheets for fin and nose - i.e. the number of pixels per foot of aircraft is another deciding factor. One paint I am working on is using three sheets for one fuselage side (i.e. about 250 pixels per foot for my project against about 5 or 6 per foot for the A340 implication above) and the plane I am helping develop is probably only half the length of the DO27 . The detail is high enough on this to actually recognise screws and the like. 32 bit textures aren't any larger than dxt bitmaps - they're still 1024 by 1024. There's just more detail per pixel so things like blends and anti aliases are a lot smoother. There's 4 times as much information per picture, so there are more colour nuances. There is a penalty for this of course - the more data you make available for the image, the more the PC has to think - there's an FPS penalty to consider. Best suggestion so far was to use the zoom function of your paint program. I'll expand that by saying paint your objects separately and paste them in to size.Another useful tool is the Gaussian Blur effect. Just a smidgeon on some objects smooths and blends no end of artistic mistakes out and it works out pixel fractions too. Oh, and finally, some modelmakers cheat. Well, a just a little... ;-)They mark off an area of the plane on the lo-res texture and map that part of the mdl to a separate texture sheet which is maybe just one sheet of things like decals, markings etc. The DA Cheyenne is one good example. The Cheyenne logo next to the pax door is about 400 pixels on the texture but only about 5 inches on the plane, so when you zoom in on the plane in external view, the Cheyenne logo is very highly detailed all the way up the zoom.


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Stormup, if there was a way of showing how grateful i am for such an informative and comprehensively explained reply to my initial question it wouldn't be nearly enough to show you my thanks!it looks like im doing the whole shabang wrong and need to start from the beginning again with the texture sheet. The paint in questions actually utilising the texture files for Kazunori Ito's Handly Page Victor obtained from the AVSim library...Anyways, look slike i've got some work to do, thanks again for the help!Simon>I'd go along with the general comment "Don't up size ->downsize"...>>I have plenty of paints behind me too. Anyway, just think of>one of the reasons for upsizing - you want a thin line on the>fuselage. If you have anything 1 pixel wide on a double sized>texture (or any odd number), where does that odd pixel go,>when you half things back? Ain't no fractional pixels yet...>>The major detail loss is as you mention yourself - the size of>the texture sheet against the amount of mdl being covered.>Remember, the images are dimensioned in pixels, so there's no>point in increasing the dpi level either. Try using 72 dpi or>even less - that gives you more screen real estate in>Photopaint for painting in the detail. Although a 1 pixel wide>line remains that when you use a photo editing software.>>You can always use a vector graphic programme - I use Corel>Draw a lot and copy/pasting detail objects from Draw to Paint>does help keep the level of detail high.>>Have you used phototextures yet? The pros who can lay there>hands on detail photos are at an advantage here. A high res>photo copied over to the lo-res texture carries a lot of>detail with it and the jpg to bmp losses aren't that bad. >>Besides, an Airbus A340/600 that uses only one 1024 texture>for the fuselage has, by simple math, a lot less space for>detail, than the DO27 where there are three sheets for the>fuselage side plus two extra sheets for fin and nose - i.e.>the number of pixels per foot of aircraft is another deciding>factor. One paint I am working on is using three sheets for>one fuselage side (i.e. about 250 pixels per foot for my>project against about 5 or 6 per foot for the A340 implication>above) and the plane I am helping develop is probably only>half the length of the DO27 . The detail is high enough on>this to actually recognise screws and the like. >>32 bit textures aren't any larger than dxt bitmaps - they're>still 1024 by 1024. There's just more detail per pixel so>things like blends and anti aliases are a lot smoother.>There's 4 times as much information per picture, so there are>more colour nuances. There is a penalty for this of course ->the more data you make available for the image, the more the>PC has to think - there's an FPS penalty to consider. >>Best suggestion so far was to use the zoom function of your>paint program. I'll expand that by saying paint your objects>separately and paste them in to size.>>Another useful tool is the Gaussian Blur effect. Just a>smidgeon on some objects smooths and blends no end of artistic>mistakes out and it works out pixel fractions too. >>Oh, and finally, some modelmakers cheat. Well, a just a>little... ;-)>>They mark off an area of the plane on the lo-res texture and>map that part of the mdl to a separate texture sheet which is>maybe just one sheet of things like decals, markings etc. The>DA Cheyenne is one good example. The Cheyenne logo next to the>pax door is about 400 pixels on the texture but only about 5>inches on the plane, so when you zoom in on the plane in>external view, the Cheyenne logo is very highly detailed all>the way up the zoom.

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Alltough I ,generally spoken ,agree with Stormup ( in a nutshell I stated the same before ) something he said is not completely correct.When Stormup says: 32 bit textures aren't any larger than dxt bitmaps - they're still 1024 by 1024. There's just more detail per pixel so things like blends and anti aliases are a lot smoother.Stating there`s more detail per pixel is not correct.A pixel is just a pixel , and one pixel cannot show more detail than another.A 32 bit pixture has 24 bit color information and 8 bit extra information( e.g. aplha ).The main difference between the colors of a DXT3 and a 32 bit texture is the fact DXT3 is 256 colors and 32 Bit 16 milj.Due to the fact there are so few different color nuances in 256 colors the quality of most 256 color textures is very poor.This means , when you paint a yellow or red plane with just some black and grey accents it will stay in reasonable quality when converting the files to DXT3.On the other hand , when we paint a very colorfull plane having all sorts of colors , the quality of the textures gets dramatically damaged by converting to DXT3 ( wich means reducing to 256 colors)RegardsLeen de Jager


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