How to convert DX9 textures to DX10

[Paul J 349]

Yup. Just backup the originals and try it! You can't mess it up!

 

All the textures in FSX - any version, are DXT1, DXT3, DXT5, 32-bit, as .bmp's or .dds's.

 

pj

[MarkW 1,493]

OK, now once you run this, for example in my WOAI MD11 folder, I end up with some .bmp files and some .dds files. So what is FSX going to do with these when it see an ai plane. Will it automatically select the correct files or are the dds files need in addition to the bmp's ?

[Paul J 349]

No, you need to remove the bmp's, Mark. The issue is pretty complicated, and I'm in the process of putting together another How-To, while rebuilding my FSX and doing testing and resource reading all the the same time!!

 

Check your pm's. :smile:

[jewel77 6]

Yup. Just backup the originals and try it! You can't mess it up!

 

All the textures in FSX - any version, are DXT1, DXT3, DXT5, 32-bit, as .bmp's or .dds's.

 

pj

OK I did the above inside the scenery folder of the addon "Flytampa Athens". I converted BMP to DXT5 files then I erased BMP files but nothing happened. The blue color taxiway was there again. :(

[DaveCT2003 1,820]

No, you need to remove the bmp's, Mark. The issue is pretty complicated, and I'm in the process of putting together another How-To, while rebuilding my FSX and doing testing and resource reading all the the same time!!

 

Check your pm's. :smile:

 

 

Paul, can't tell you how happy I am to "meet" you. Nice work indeed. Regarding those PMs, please do share!

 

Thanks again!

 

Dave (aka, just another old guy)

[Paul J 349]

:LMAO: You're in, Dave! I only pm when I don't know what I'm talking about, so there's a good number floating about when it comes to these texture thingy's. The only thing that I've found - that works - is the AddonConverterX, so far.

 

(aka, just another old guy)

:lol: Here we go!

 

I think Les (Mr. Francis Ford Coppola of the FSX Movie scene) is the oldest!)

[jewel77 6]

Am I wrong about the point of this thread?

 

Is this about scenery combatibility that not show well or about the blue color of runways and taxiways at dawn and dusk?

 

Because my BIG problem is the second! This wonderful DX10 pains me at the time I love most to takeoff or landing and that's dawn and dusk :(

 

Steve please do something about this because addon scenery developers will never make a DX10 update.

[ctiger 49]

Am I wrong about the point of this thread?

 

Is this about scenery combatibility that not show well or about the blue color of runways and taxiways at dawn and dusk?

 

Because my BIG problem is the second! This wonderful DX10 pains me at the time I love most to takeoff or landing and that's dawn and dusk :(

 

Jewel I just ran into the problem you mentioined on blue color runways etc at dusk. Was flying into KSFO at ""dusk" and the runways turned to blue when day switched to dusk. KSFO by Flightbeam is great during the day. In all fairness Flightbeam did state it was not compatible with DX10. IMO it is compatible duriing the day.

[TheDude71 6]

This might help. This is an email I sent to FlyTampa and their response:

 

 

Hi Brett

 

Thanks for writing. I installed and tested the current version of the DX10 fix.

 

The main problem that Addon Developers point out as you noticed is the "missing night textures".

What we mean by that more specifically is that night textures won't load on legacy BGLs (FS8, FS9).

 

I don't know if you recall, but FSX released without support for legacy BGLs while at the same time not providing a proper way for Addon Makers to render ground polygons. This affects Airport developers in particular since we need to use a lot of ground polygons for things such as pavement, lines, markings etc. After a long battle with Aces, they re-introduced support for legacy BGLs in Service Pack 2. This wasn't the solution I was advocating for.. I would have prefered a new native way of doing it... but it worked.

 

So what you have now is that 80% or so of airports are made using these old ground poly techniques.

 

This is where Night textures apparently don't work. The "ground" of such airports loads grey instead. Meaning it loads the object material, shaded for nighttime.... but not the _lm textures.

 

I just gave it a try with the 3.1.1 script installed and saw no change as far as these ground poly night textures not loading.

 

 

My name is Brett Lucas, and I own many of your products. I will be brief and try and

not waste your time, I have been working close with some gentlemen over in the AVSIM

forum, and working on DX10 for FSX and testing some fixes that some of them have come up

with. Our big hurdle is the night lighting issue. I was hoping that there would be a

possibility that maybe a couple of your developers could help us with this issue. As of

now, we have a Shadder mod 3.1.1 that takes care of all flickering, and there is a light

fix, but it is not sufficient. The problem is at night the runway lights are a little

blocky, and on approach, the runway lights are very dim. (too dim to see at around

10dme) Here is the link to the AVSIM DX10 forum and you can see what kind of work we

are doing over there.

http://forum.avsim.net/forum/569-dx-10-discussions-hints-and-help/

I know in your FAQ, you state with the FT software, night lighting is an issue, we just

feel the more developers we can get, the better, so I just wanted to send you all an

email and let you know what kind of work we are doing with FSX ran in DX10.

I have the mod's and fixes, if you would like me to send them to you for you to look

at, I would be more than happy to do that, I just wanted to make a first contact and

see if there would be any interest in helping or any suggestions that could help us.

Thank you very much for your time,

Brett Lucas

 

cheers

martin[flytampa]

 

[Paul J 349]

Well - Brett! That was a great email! - and not exactly a bad response (from Martin?), except he tells us that

80% or so of airports are made using these old ground poly techniques.

.. and that means we don't have too many programmers interested in the newer FSX techniques as suggested by ACES - I guess it's easier to use the old methods. This is probably because MS went to the "curved earth" method as applied with ground poly creation, and very few programmers have taken the trouble to learn how to do it. At least - that's my supposition...

 

A few more emails might be warranted, too - from all of us - not just Brett. If we truly want to have an indepedent FSX - DX10 - then we might have to do a bit of work... oh, well, it won't be the first time.. :lol:

[TheDude71 6]

Yeah. I'm going to keep up with them and see if anything can be done. But I would imagine if there was a cure Martin would of known.

 

Just have to keep plugging away. I believe there is a cure, we just have to find it.

[hcornea 4]

.... don't have too many programmers interested in the newer FSX techniques as suggested by ACES

 

Paul ... there are precisely NO techniques "suggested by ACES" for ground polygon creation in FSX. It was simply left "not done" in the FSX code for either DX9 or DX10

 

Those of us who have created FSX native ground-surfaces have worked it out more or less by ourselves (little or no help from ACES) and it is a workaround to say the least. And no, not all aspects work predictably with "stock" DX10.

 

As an aside, the DX10 issue is not simply about texture format, but rather the interaction of model material and shaders. Some progress has been made on this .. but that has occured in the realms of FSX code / shaders rather than modelling / scenery design.

 

If anyone has solved a "DX10 problem" simply by converting a DXT1 or DXT3 dds texture to DXT5, I would be intrigued to hear about it.

 

As a general principle, DX10 has faults, so the best solution lies in fixing those faults, not in altering scenery to work within faulty code.

[GSalden 4,672]

Sumary : textures with issues at night cannot be solved in a simple way.

 

Thorsten from Aerosoft said in 2008 :

"The DX10 feature was marked PREVIEW by MS and our sceneries work in DX9.

Think about Heathrow only showing day textures is also a kind of PREVIEW : of how the scenery could look in DX10 if only MS had developed a complete DX10 version and not only a half one.."

 

As MS didn't document the way DX10 worked many developers used the known DX9 way to built scenery.

[hcornea 4]

The conclusion you draw from Thorsten's comment is different to what he has said.

 

It is not the 'way of making scenery' for DX10 that is incomplete, it is the DX10 code within FSX itself.

 

That is the point he is making in the section you quote.

 

 

[Paul J 349]

Firstly - Thanks for this input, guys.. I appreciate it, as very few developers seem to want to talk about DX10, and seem to sweep it under the rug, as it were.

 

there are precisely NO techniques "suggested by ACES" for ground polygon creation in FSX. It was simply left "not done" in the FSX code for either DX9 or DX10

OK - I'll buy that, and that's not quite the same as what Martin(?) implied. (It's an interpretation problem with forums and short one-line sentences!)

 

The issue still rankles, though, and won't go away, because (again) Martin, said that 80% use "the these old ground poly techniques" - and that implies that 20% are, at least, using some other method of doing so - per this quote from hcornea.

 

Those of us who have created FSX native ground-surfaces have worked it out more or less by ourselves (little or no help from ACES) and it is a workaround to say the least.

This one sentence says it all. The "us" being interested, advanced/experienced programmers - like Steve (Stevejp) who have done some digging into DX10, and into the (FSX) shaders implementation particularly, and who have come up with ways to get around the lack of direction from ACES.

 

The fact (for us users with varying programming expertise) is - that Steve - one guy - went out of his way, dug into the shaders - and within two - three months has produced a viable alterative to the DX9 version of FSX, yes -still with a wart or two - but also with a bonus or two!

Those of us who have created FSX native ground-surfaces have worked it out

 

This is the rankle, hcornea. This is just what Steve did! If Steve could do this, and you could do this, then why hasn't the industry in general? This could have been done/fixed four years ago. FSX developers are not all driven by the Aerosoft - Orbx business model of "write it asap and get it out of the door". "It's just a preview" doesn't cut it - that's an excuse. A preview needs definition of what works and what doesn't work. Steve took it upon himself to ask questions - and found out what didn't work, and then he went about fixing it. This is the kind of developer that we would/should/will support - one that has not lost sight of that "I'd love to be a programmer" ethic. If one man can do this - what would a commercial team be able to achieve? I can understand the raw commercial side of the operation, but surely - in the basest motive of technical inquisitiveness - is it only 20%?

 

Perhaps Steve's patch wasn't there as an incentive, five years ago. Fact is - it is there now - and you developers ought to be able to see the interest - and the market potential. Perhaps now - there is an incentive.

I absolutely guarantee that a "Fully DX10 compatible KSFO San Fracisco Airport" (KSAN - KLAX - KPDX - KSEA - KPHL - KORD - KBOS and onward.. even one with a stated 99% DX10 compatibility - would revitalize FSX like nothing else - certainly not in LM's un-appealing "military/civilian training aid".

 

Thanks for reading this - I've tried to encapsulate how many of us feel, and the impact that Steve's patch has made on our hobby, and for many of us - many thousands of us - it's a hobby that lives with us every day of our lives.

 

All the Best

 

Paul Johnson