Good day all,Apologies for cross-posting, this falls between stools so to speak.I'm having a fiddle with some of the AFCAD textures...Does anyone know what file is used by AFCAD for "Water"?Thanks in advance.

Good day all,Apologies for cross-posting, this falls between stools so to speak.I'm having a fiddle with some of the AFCAD textures...Does anyone know what file is used by AFCAD for "Water"?Thanks in advance.

Do you mean the texture used in the AFCAD display or the texture used in FS?

Both really.I notice they can be different!

Both really.I notice they can be different!

Well I am not sure about what AFCAD will use but the one that matters is what is used in FS. I must admit that I cannot remember where they are but I am usre someone else will know

I think the colors displayed in Afcad are hard-coded and cannot be changed.Why would you want to? Different colors simply represent different materials.In FS9, it appears water runways are transparent and display as the underlying texture, which makes sense.Water taxiways and aprons use water.r8 in the main texture folder.I have been unsuccessful in learning how to edit *.r8 textures so far.If anyone knows how to convert this format into something editable, I would like to know how.regards,Joe[edit]Martin Wright has a program called convr8 that can read some .r8 files, but not this one.I guess you could create your own .bmp and convert it to an .r8 for use in the sim.[/edit]

OK here's what I have discovered so far - may be of interest to some too.I tried a converter by Luis Vieira de Sa which also cannot do water.r8 (and a good number of others too!)Thanks for identifying the file.I'll keep chipping away...there appear to be 2 orphan BMP's in there:taxi_tranm.bmp and taxi_trano.BMP

ADE devs have done some work on this too, relative to what surfaces AFCAD can assign and what can be assigned via FS9 bglcomp and FSX bglcomp over on fsdeveloper.com. One thing ADE does is it can open AFCAD-generated BGLs and its first step is convert it into legal bglcomp xml code, so some of the surface codes have to be mapped into bglcomp-compatible values. scott s..

ADE devs have done some work on this too, relative to what surfaces AFCAD can assign and what can be assigned via FS9 bglcomp and FSX bglcomp over on fsdeveloper.com. One thing ADE does is it can open AFCAD-generated BGLs and its first step is convert it into legal bglcomp xml code, so some of the surface codes have to be mapped into bglcomp-compatible values. scott s..

Scott is correct. Because AFCAD does not use the standard compiler it has listed a number of surface types that BglComp does not recognize and which cause the compiler to fail. We therefore map these to the nearest acceptable value. Having said that there must be a mapping taking place inside the AFCAD compiler to match the surfaces available in FS. We have done research on the different surface codes and what FS9 and FSX do with them. It gets slightly more complicated in that there are more surfaces in FSX and some of the codes used in AFCAD (FS9) become ambiguous in FSX.

As ever there's a workaround.Not being able to edit the water.r8 file, I found an r8 which would open, changed its texture, and saved as water.r8This duly appeared in the sim so problem solved.The format is quirky, and comes up with some unexpected results, as shown by the bmp before conversion, and the FS display below it:This has answered the original question, which was to fiddle the AFCAD textures so a casual user (Not a dedicated scenery designer) could have access to textures more appropriate to those being used in the sim.Many thanks to all for your insights.

Hello "Wingz":You've done an excellent job summarizing the AFCAD RWY textures into very nice graphics. :( I don't recall seeing tables quite like these presented in such a easy to see, "at a glance" format. :( Since AVSIM deletes attached files and images in the forums after approximately 7 days, I'd like to recommend making a Tutorial or Reference document and uploading it to the AVSIM Tutorials area:http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?autocom...ials&cat=12...and/or as either a HTML document or PDF document uploaded to the AVSIM file download library:http://library.avsim.net/upload.phpRather auspicious work for a self-proclaimed "newbie"; I'll be looking forward to seeing more from you here ...and at FSDeveloper: :( http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=95http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=32http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=17GaryGB

Thanks for the kind words!I intend uploading a package at some point, with some sample textures and pictures.The plan is to make it easier for the casual user to get some alternative AFCAD textures into the sim.

Excellent... please let us know back here... when (and where) you have posted your Tutorial / Reference Guide.Keep up the great work ! :( GaryGB