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garydpoole

Anyone Tried Resizing FAIB DDS Textures ?

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Hello All

 

In an attempt to reduce memory usage, I thought that I'd resize all of the new FAIB textures down from 2048 to 1024.

 

I thought that I'd successfully done this with the A319 CFM by converting to DXT5 bmp textures; reducing the file size down to the normal 1.3-ish megs.

 

Superficially the repaints appear to look fine, but once I zoom in, the A319 model seem to 'sprout' satellite blisters down its spine towards the rear of the fuselage. Zoom out, and the blisters disappear.

 

I've tried numerous file conversion types which all work fine provided that the resolution stays at 2048. As soon as I reduce down to 1024, regardless of format, the blisters appear when zoomed in ?

 

Just wondering if anyone can spread some light on the situation.

 

Gary 

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I resized all faib fsx textures to 1024 dxt5 dds format using Photoshop and Nvidia plugin and they looks fine to me. Can you post some image? This is mine: FAIB A320 (at 1024) and Nvidia plugin options.

 

 

 

 

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Thanks for the reply - here's a screenie:

 

FAIBA319Model_zps80f72503.jpg

 

The reason for the night time shot is that it highlights another issue, ie, the strip across the windows, which may or may not be related.

 

I don't use Photoshop, so my texture reductions were done using DXTBmp and PSS - generating DXT5 BMPs. Is there a simple way of reducing DDS textures directly as I must confess, that I struggled to find a method to do this...

 

Regards

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I think that your problemm is with BMPs. FAIB FS9 textures are BMP but FSX testures are DDS. Check your "FAIB_A3xx_CFM_L" textures in "fsx_folder\texture". Are they dds? (I had the same 'error' when tried BMPs as day and dds as night textures.) After reduction try to save them both as dds. I don't know if DXTBmp or PSS can do that becouse I never used them. But FSX SDK default ImageTool can.

 

All Best

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The info is all on the FAIB forum - i don't fully understand it myself but its all connected to how FAIB don't use lightmaps (in the .bmp/fs9 sense) and the night textures use the alpha channel rather than an xxx_l.bmp.

 

The satellite domes, and the light stripe, you see are actually textured using the alpha channel and any messing with the textures can destroy the alpha channel.

 

I too have looked to resize these textures down, without success, and if anyone can post an "idiots guide" i would be very grateful - imo a 2048 x 2048 texture for AI is silly as what performance you might gain (versus the older AI Aardvark models for example) with the FAIB models being FSX native, you might lose with the outsized textures (I might be wrong so please don't shoot me!!).

 

Regards

 

Steve

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As I said: I resized them all  to 1024. Day and Night. And it works. Just save them in dds. I have done small ekspriment. (Saved Lufthansa texture back to bmp.)

 

 

 

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Can you give us a step by step "idiots guide" as to how you do it??

 

Regards

 

Steve

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Can you give us a step by step "idiots guide" as to how you do it??

 

Regards

 

Steve

If your resizing textures with alphas its important you dont destroy them by just resizing the main texture sheet. I've been using this guys guide to resize my repaint and scenery textures to smaller sizes. This is a copy from what he posted in the PMDG forum. You can do it using GIMP or MS Paint if you dont have Photoshop, just find the .exe for your editor program.

 

Richard,

 

I assume you have photoshop to do your paints so here is the process, you'll need DXTBmp for this.

 

1. Open DXTBmp and in the Prefs tab, select editor find your photoshop.exe.

 

2. Once that is selected open the texture folder of the repaint you want to work with and drag and drop the texture into DXTBmp. For example, from your AA paint, drag pmdg_777_fuse_1.dds into the DXTBmp screen and it will load the 4096 texture.

 

3. Once its loaded go to the Image tab and select "Send to editor", it will then send the main texture sheet to Photoshop or whatever image editor your using. Keep DXTBmp open the whole time btw.

 

4. Then in Photoshop resize the texture to 1024 and hit save. Not save as, just save.

 

5. Go back to DXTBmp and select Image and Reload after Edit and it will reload the resized texture sheet. Close the window in Photoshop that has the texture sheet in it, but keep Photoshop open.

 

6. Then in DXTBmp, select the Alpha tab and Send Alpha to Editor. The alpha texture with the window outlines will be sent to Photoshop.

 

7. Resize the alpha texture in Photoshop and hit save again, not save as.

 

8. In DXTBmp go back to the Alpha tab and select Refresh Alpha and it will import the resize alpha texture. Close the window in Photoshop that has the resize alpha texture in it. Keep Photoshop open if your going to resume resizing the rest of the textures, if not then close Photoshop completely.

 

9. Now in DXTBmp, you will have the resized texture and alpha. Select File/Save and it will have the original name of the texture loaded and you can just hit save. Make sure you save as DDS DXT5 and also make sure on the right side of DXTBmp in the square outline section titled "MipMaps", you have the box checked that says Include when saving.

 

That's it, done. I know it sounds like a lot to do, but after you do it a few times it really quick. And as you know not all the textures have alphas, so the ones with no alpha you can just resize the texture sheet, send it back to DXTBmp, save it and your done.

 

 

 

Regards,

Sean Campbell


Avsim Board of Directors | Avsim Forums Moderator

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RESIZING FAIB FSX TEXTURES TO 1024 WITH PHOTOSHOP AND NVIDIA DDS PLUGIN

 

A320 Example

 

1. Open 2048 FAIB_A320_IAE_T.dds or FAIB_A320_CFM_T.dds in Photoshop

2. Resize it to 1024 (Edit / Image size)

4. Choose Save (Now Nvidia plugin is opening)

5. On Nvidia plugin select: DXT5 ARGB 8 bpp | interpolated alpha + Save

6. Close File

7. DONE

 

Do same with FAIB_A320_xxx_L in FSX\texture folder (this has to be done only one time)

 

p.s.

 

Tip: Record steps from 2. to 6. like Photoshop Action. Now you can automatically convert all textures at once using: File / Automate / Batch

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If your resizing textures with alphas its important you dont destroy them by just resizing the main texture sheet. I've been using this guys guide to resize my repaint and scenery textures to smaller sizes. This is a copy from what he posted in the PMDG forum. You can do it using GIMP or MS Paint if you dont have Photoshop, just find the .exe for your editor program.

 

Jim

 

That works a treat....thank you soo much!!

 

PS - Nermingk - thank you also for your help

 

Regards

 

Steve

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I resized all faib fsx textures to 1024 dxt5 dds format using Photoshop and Nvidia plugin and they looks fine to me. Can you post some image? This is mine: FAIB A320 (at 1024) and Nvidia plugin options.

 

 

Many thanks guys.

 

After much searching, I managed to acquire a DDS plugin for PSP which made life so much easier and did the job a treat.

 

nermingk - thanks for the heads-up regarding DDS plugins.

 

Gary

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The FAIB paints I have looked at are mipped.  Are you mipping your resized textures?

 

scott s.

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