If anyone wants to add just mip maps there is another handy program called Mipmap manager:

http://stuff4fs.com/...?Folder=Mipmaps

 

From Don Grovestine, who has an array of handy utilities.

 

This is a godsend, atco, the GUI looks faster to handle than ConvImX. All my textures have an alpha channel now, but I haven't mipped any of my aircraft (both user and AI) textures because, even with ConvImX, the process for selecting the textures is a little bit slow. Specially when there are two bitmaps per texture folder, such as with AI.

Hi everyone, after scanning my system and getting a list of missing Alpha Channels I proceed to DXTBmp, im just wondering how I create the Alpha Channel and how I save it? Also will this give any improvement to Aerosoft Schiphol X?

If you open the texture bitmap with dxtbmp and resave as dxt3 it will automatically create the alpha for you.

kavs8, if you are using DXT3Fixer (or DxtFixerX) then it fixes the alphas for you. You don't need to do anything more.

So, tried in FSX, and it gave me a really smooth ride.

It works! Hail to the King!

Thanks Peter, I don't know enough about DDS files either yet to know for sure. I have to believe that DDS DXT3 and DDS DXT5 behave in the same way as non DDS versions.

Actually Imagetool can open DDS textures but you need the latest version of it from the FSX SDK, which can be downloaded separately if you don't have FSX.

 

I can't edit my post now, but as mentioned the best solution now to fix the "alpha less" DXT3 textures is to use DXT3Fixer or DXTFixerX which had not been released when I wrote it ! Much easier than hand doing each one.

Honestly every simmer who cares about smooth, stutter free flying should use this piece of software, I would regard it as essential. Great job by Peter developing it.

 

Peter if you need any help carrying it further please let me know, would be glad to help. Perhaps we can get it working effectively to fix all texture types in FS9 and FSX.

Thanks for the kind words, really appreciate it!

I do have FSX but have used it so little so I didn't even know about the newer Imagetool. Thanks for the tip!

I'll get back when I have some news.

Hi all,

Tried to get the file from 2 shared but it would only let me download all the bolt on programs, archiver etc.

So would someone let us know when the file is available in AVSIM library. Plus the other mentioned program for the mip mapping utility, gives a link to get the required dll's, which goes to Yahoo and requires that you sign up for Yahoo and BTInternet services. Is there any alternative for this one?

 

Regards JohnT

Just a slightly confused question: should _lm suffixed .bmps be fixed with the DXT3Fixer tool?

 

Ran the tool in simulated mode and my log shows 25 textures to fix, of which 15 are _lm (light maps). Is it safe to repair these (I do have backups)?

 

Enquiring minds an' all.

 

Great little app btw. Many thanks for creating it.

 

Regards,

Dorian

If anyone wants to add just mip maps there is another handy program called Mipmap manager:

http://stuff4fs.com/...?Folder=Mipmaps

 

From Don Grovestine, who has an array of handy utilities.

 

He also has a VERY versatile utility called Texture Manager:

Found under Developer Utilities menu, it too is a free/donationware download.

 

Could this be useful in present circumstances neumanix and atco ? :Thinking:

Just a slightly confused question: should _lm suffixed .bmps be fixed with the DXT3Fixer tool?

 

Yes, it fixes all *.bmp files that are dxt3 compressed and have bad alpha data.

Thank you.

 

Regards,

Dorian

He also has a VERY versatile utility called Texture Manager:

Found under Developer Utilities menu, it too is a free/donationware download.

 

Could this be useful in present circumstances neumanix and atco ? :Thinking:

 

Unfortunately I have never been able to get it to work, it crashes as soon as I start to run it on any texture. It certainly does look like it could be useful, although for this particular problem I don't believe it can replace missing alphas.

Unfortunately I have never been able to get it to work, it crashes as soon as I start to run it on any texture. It certainly does look like it could be useful, although for this particular problem I don't believe it can replace missing alphas.

 

Neither do I :( I'm getting a message error saying "Unable to create folder; The path is not of a legal form". Has anyone ran successfully this program?

 

EDIT: Oops, I was talking about Mipmap Manager. Anyway, I found a quirk with this still godsend program: it does not recognize directly the "Texture.something" folders. I tested using its parent directory and then searching in subfolders. I'm getting errors reported in the log file, something about an error creating extended bitmap; however, both Alpha Searcher v2 and the file sizes say I have mips. I'm puzzled :unknw:

neumanix, thanks for the work investigating this and creating your macro.

 

I'll have to fly several more flights but I may have seen a minor improvement (but too hard to currently tell; some sceneries/aircraft stutter pretty good still unfortunately.).