What's with the non viewable (black) texture .bmp files...

[Guest McFly]

Hello all,I've tried not to embarass myself. Searching for tutorials that would answer this perplexing question. But now I must expose my ignorance.I have made many repaints for other sims but have not seen this oddity before. Most if not all the .bmp files that make up the aircraft textures won't open as .bmp files they appear to be all black. Some of the 3rd party DL's are just regular .bmp files and appear just fine. Is there some basic utility for MSFS that is required to view and manipulate these files.Thanks in advance.McFly

[Dark Moment 0]

Most of the MS texture files are saved as DXT3 files, which means they are more complex that just a simple bitmap in that they include an "alpha" channel for reflections or transparency. They can't be viewed in this format with standard viewers.I recommend that you find the excellent utility by Martin Wright called DXTBmp. With that, you can open files (back 'em up first if you're new to it!!) and save them as 24-bit bitmaps to work on in your favourite graphics program. When finished, you save them again as DXT3 files with alpha.It's more complex than that, of course, but Martin himself has brief tutorials with his excellent program.Go and get it here:http://fly.to/mwgfxGood luck!Mark "Dark Moment" Beaumonthttp://www.swiremariners.com/newlogo.jpg

[Guest McFly]

That's the ticket.For such an important and widely used tools I am a bit surprised at how elusive it was.Thank you kindly Mr. Mark "Dark Moment" Beaumont and Martin Wright.McFlyTerry McArthur