Mipmapping and the lack of.....

[N2056 33]

Thanks Mike. Because it is important to me to get it right I will continue here. I am thinking that I could learn something. :( Here is what I have done. I took the texture used on my fuselage & processed it with mip maps. I then slewed it next to a stock AI plane. To my eye it would seem that I am indeed having an issue...the Mooney doesn't look too good either! :( I have an ATI HD2600 Pro video card, w/512 MB of ram. According to the CCC I have mips set to high quality. I have AA & AF set to 'program controlled'. I guess I know a lot more about Gmax than I do about FSX :(

[ramsa329 0]

Thanks Mike. Because it is important to me to get it right I will continue here. I am thinking that I could learn something. :( Here is what I have done. I took the texture used on my fuselage & processed it with mip maps. I then slewed it next to a stock AI plane. To my eye it would seem that I am indeed having an issue...the Mooney doesn't look too good either! :( I have an ATI HD2600 Pro video card, w/512 MB of ram. According to the CCC I have mips set to high quality. I have AA & AF set to 'program controlled'. I guess I know a lot more about Gmax than I do about FSX :(

In this case it appears to me as if your video card settings are not "correct" if you meant that the video card is set for 'program controlled' AA & AF.Michael Gwww.fs-gs.com

[N2056 33]

So I did some experimentation with my settings, and lo & behold going to just 2x AF & AA cleaned it up nicely! :( But...here is the thing. How many potential customers actually know this? How many of them are able (or willing) to fool around with video card settings? If I don't use mips I know it will look good for any user.An interesting quandry...

[cmpbellsjc 2,960]

Thats very interesting, I get just the opposite results.

Me too. After anything I buy, scenery or planes, the first thing I do is look to see if it is mipped. If not, I load the sim check it out and see how it looks, then go back and mip away. Typically everything I add mip maps to looks way better than without mips.

[Guest PPSFA]

Me too. After anything I buy, scenery or planes, the first thing I do is look to see if it is mipped. If not, I load the sim check it out and see how it looks, then go back and mip away. Typically everything I add mip maps to looks way better than without mips.

Tks, I just learned something new, I had no idea you could mip the scenery ! Ain't this place great!

[n4gix 4,947]

I doubt very much that i am patronizing or dismissive at all to tell you the truth. When and where applicable I use everything that I read and study so that I can enhance my own and my clients enjoyment and knowledge of the sim. But I do not worship the ground you walk on nor do I accept everything that pops out of your mouth just because it's you.Nor do I expect anyone to accept whatever I say just because it's me.I find your tone and your attitude to be obnoxious and it's not the first time I've said so.It's not your knowledge it's your delivery always taking a superior attitude getting agressive when someone doesn't immediately accept your gosple.You need to calm down.

I cannot help but note that even though you quoted my entire reply, you did not address a single point raised. Instead, you've chosen to "attack the messenger" and not the message...I repeat: I do honor and respect your superior knowledge in the area of your expertise; why can you not reciprocate?

[cmpbellsjc 2,960]

Tks, I just learned something new, I had no idea you could mip the scenery ! Ain't this place great!

Yeah I had to mip a lot of aiports from Aerosoft. After I would install some of them I notice that a few had some shimmering textures. One of the worst was the Madeira scenery. After mipping it, it looks perfect. So far the only addon sceneries I don't have to mip are the ones by FlyTampa and FSDreamteam. Glad you learned something new. The only bad part of mipping sceneries is that there are a lot more textures to look at compared to an a/c. :(

[Mathias_P 9]

The issue allready begins at the design level, namely while laying out the texture coordinates for any given object thoughtfully.That means if the designer uses for instance insane 4096 pixel textures and gives the left wing a pixel width of say 1800 pixels you would expect blurries with mips and stair effect with mips off.Unfortunately many devs these days believe the larger the texture the better the quality but that's not true.Getting a good balance of texture sheet pixel space per part versus screen resolution is an art in it's own that not many do master.

[newtie 533]

Me too. After anything I buy, scenery or planes, the first thing I do is look to see if it is mipped. If not, I load the sim check it out and see how it looks, then go back and mip away. Typically everything I add mip maps to looks way better than without mips.

How can you tell if a file is mipped? I presume I'm looking for a series of files within a single one?Thanks,Mark

[ramsa329 0]

The issue allready begins at the design level, namely while laying out the texture coordinates for any given object thoughtfully.That means if the designer uses for instance insane 4096 pixel textures and gives the left wing a pixel width of say 1800 pixels you would expect blurries with mips and stair effect with mips off.Unfortunately many devs these days believe the larger the texture the better the quality but that's not true.Getting a good balance of texture sheet pixel space per part versus screen resolution is an art in it's own that not many do master.

I would like to say a big thank you to you for your post.With what you have just said we are now arriving at the most important point of understanding.This is the absolute best explanation for the reason behind "fuzziness" and "stair effects" which I had been sincerely hoping to hear from a developer. Now if others would apply it we all would benefit and see more oversight from the users and more value for the money we all spend.Thank youMichael Gwww.fs-gs.com

[Guest RobertAlley]

I am a client of Mike's and I don't tweak or complain about FSX much LOL...Some devs have said that if they release a plane mipped there will be screaming to get an unmipped version. So why not release an unmipped version and offer mipped textures as a separate download? Mipping makes all my stuff look better...Robert Alley

I would like to say a big thank you to you for your post.With what you have just said we are now arriving at the most important point of understanding.This is the absolute best explanation for the reason behind "fuzziness" and "stair effects" which I had been sincerely hoping to hear from a developer. Now if others would apply it we all would benefit and see more oversight from the users and more value for the money we all spend.Thank youMichael Gwww.fs-gs.com

[cmpbellsjc 2,960]

How can you tell if a file is mipped? I presume I'm looking for a series of files within a single one?Thanks,Mark

You can open the texture file in DDS Converter 2.1 and it will show on the right hand side if it has mipmaps.

[GeorgeT93 1]

You can open the texture file in DDS Converter 2.1 and it will show on the right hand side if it has mipmaps.

Greetings,If a texture isn't mipmapped, is there a step-by-step tutorial on adding them that would also preserve any alpha channels? I've got a few aircraft that I'd like to try this on, but am unsure where to begin. I just downloaded DDS Converter 2.1, but haven't fired it up yet. Note that I'm not looking for information on editing or painting textures, just how to simply add the mipmaps, and possibly resize them (in the case of 2048x2048 textures, to bring them down to 1024x1024). Thanks for any tips or pointers to a tutorial that would cover these basics (including what tools I may need).Thanks again,George

[Mathias_P 9]

Some devs have said that if they release a plane mipped there will be screaming to get an unmipped version. So why not release an unmipped version and offer mipped textures as a separate download? Mipping makes all my stuff look better...Robert Alley

That's what we do at Classics Hangar and learned the hard way, LOL.The download comes with the mipmapped versions and you can get no-mip textures from a check-for-updates link.Seems to work out for most user scenarios as we didn't have any further complaints about "blurry textures" since we're doing so.