A closer observation of the DX10 issue with IVAO MTL aircraft

[Paul J 349]

DXTbmp +PS, I think Richard - but I've never used IVAO aircraft or have the knowledge that Brian has.

 

PhotoShop is 100 times easier than Gimp, it's free, and it's backed up by thousands of You-Tube instructional videos, and so well documented - it's almost a no-brainer.

 

I use PaintShop Pro or PS to play with - they both have great features, one being easier than the other in several ways, but the end result is the same.

 

Best,

 

pj

[WebMaximus 372]

I didn't know Photoshop is free but in that case of course I'll go with that instead of Gimp!

 

Since I'm extremely new to this kind of stuff and currently not even sure where/how to begin I think I'll wait for Brian but please Brian don't feel any pressure and only put time into a quick intro if/when you find some time for it.

[Brian Doney 127]

Hi Richard (and Paul :smile:  )

 

You can grab Paint.net here, and it is free:

 

http://www.getpaint.net/

 

I'd also recommend you install the FSX SDK if you haven't already, and grab DXTBMP from here:

 

http://www.mwgfx.co.uk/programs/dxtbmp.htm

 

Link is at the bottom of the page.

 

Get those things installed when you have a chance and we'll go from there. Still trying to figure out the best way to show you the process.  :lol: I'd actually prefer to use Paint.net for this, since it is actually a bit more capable than older versions of Photoshop, is free, and does a great job for this purpose. 

Edited February 24, 2014 by Brian Doney

[WebMaximus 372]

That's great news about the software but again Brian please don't put lots of time and effort into this if it's hard and time-consuming for you.

 

Sure it would be nice to be able to fix some of the IVAO models but I can live with the problem especially considering I do most of my flying during daytime when the issue isn't present.

[Brian Doney 127]

No worries Richard, but I do appreciate the sentiment.

 

I might not get to it today, or even tomorrow  :lol: , but this actually is one of those things that I've been wanting to post about for awhile now, and never got around to. You just gave me a good opportunity  :drinks:  

[WebMaximus 372]

Well...in that case I :drinks: to that and looking forward to whatever you'll come up with. I'm sure it'll be great and I'm equally sure I'm far from the only one who will be very happy and grateful for that kind of tutorial/guide!

 

Just noticed another thing I would like to :drinks: to, we both signed up here almost exactly at the same time over 10 years ago...time flies when you have fun :wink:

[Brian Doney 127]

I have a few minutes today so thought I'd at least start talking this through :smile:

 

I described the three tools above that we'll be using, and now I will describe what to do with each one. I will try and keep things simple initially, and go into detail as required:

 

(note, this may not be the most efficient way to do this, but does provide the best results using freely available tools)

 

DXTBMP:

 

Not really used for much in the way of editing, but I like it because it is capable of opening any FS related texture, and sending it in a common, 24 bit format to any editor (PS, Paint.net, etc). Depending on what the original texture artist used to convert his final texture to an FS-friendly state, there are some that PS cannot read, some that Imagetool cannot read etc, but DXTBMP has never failed to read them all.

 

Paint.net:

 

This is where you will actually do any editing. DXTBMP can be configured to send textures directly to Paint.net ( or any editor ) for editing. For the night textures we all be creating, this will primarily be contained to:

 

- Re-sizing: We need to make sure the night texture and day texture are the same dimensions before adding them together as layers. Very often, older FS9 paints will have a 256x256 light map, as opposed to the common 1024x1024 or sometimes 2048x2048 day textures.

 

- Touch up: Anything that would not be lit while at the gate must be removed from the night texture. I personally leave pretty much only the tail and any windows. The rest must be removed using pure black. (reference Delta lightmap posted above) For the best results, make sure to edit after re-sizing for the best clarity. I also like to apply a bit if Gaussian blur to the tail areas to soften it up before combining with the day texture.

 

- Combining layers: After editing the original night texture as described, we than add the edited night texture as a layer over the day texture, and then apply a Multiply blend mode. If satisfied, we then flatten the image and save it for conversion.

 

Imagetool (from the SDK): 

 

As Paint.net is not able to export textures into a desirable format for FS use, we will use Imagetool for the final conversion. From Paint.net, we will have a 24-bit .bmp after editing, that we need to convert to a DXT format, and also, if you are so inclined, we can change from .bmp to .dds with Imagetool, but that is not required. I personally prefer using the command line method via a batch file, but the GUI is capable of doing a decent job. I will caution though, that I have not figured out a way to apply dithering via the GUI, so some textures really should be converted via command line for the best results.

 

I do have a few batch files I can share (I'll just post the script, and you can add to your own so there won't be any issues).

 

OK that's all I have time for at the moment, but that should make it easier going forward.

[WebMaximus 372]

Thank you very much for this intro, looking forward to try this out tomorrow and will most likely come back with some questions :smile:

[WebMaximus 372]

Check this out guys  :lol:

 

 

My first test making one of the IVAO MTL models display correclty during night in DX10.

 

This is after following the intro above written by Brian and using the tools recommended by him. However I'm sure I could have had a much better result if I knew a bit more about what I'm doing :wink:

 

This was really nothing but a very quick and dirty Next-Next-Finish type of conversion and I skipped the parts I didn't fully understand such as removing parts from the night texture that would not be lit at the gate, applying a bit of Gaussian blur to the tail and applying dithering when exporting the texture in the final step to a DXT1 bmp file.

 

A couple of questions and screenshots showing what may be proof of the steps I omitted and thus resulting in not so good quality.

 

First of all when making sure the textures were in the same size I chose to increase the night texture to 1024x1024 which was the size of the day texture. Was this correct of would it have been better to instead decrease the day texture to 512x512?

 

Then the screenshots where you can see the result that wasn't perfect, first a shot taken at night and the second one at dawn

 

 

 

However I'm very happy at least I managed to get come this far without bombarding you with questions :smile:

[WebMaximus 372]

Brian, was thinking about what you said about you're not sure how to make a tutorial in a good and easy understandable way.

 

Couldn't you make a YouTube video clip instead where you show things and talk about them as you go along? Then you wouldn't have to write everything down and I think it would also be easier for you to explain how some things work if you can show what you're talking about "in real time" sort of speak.

 

Just a suggestion :smile:

[Brian Doney 127]

I was thinking about just streaming to my twitch channel  :lol:

 

I just finished some hardware upgrades so I'm not quite there yet, but we'll see.

 

For a first try with not so easy to follow instructions that's not bad though !

 

Some examples to maybe help make things more clear for now:

 

Original lightmap

 

 

Edited lightmap

 

 

Finished night texture

 

 

It would be great to be able to leave in the landing light splashes among other things, but without some very heavy re-configuring of the model, that just doesn't work out, as they would be lit at all times, even while the aircraft is parked. This is what I meant by only leaving in the areas that would be lit at the gate, or better, while parked - namely the tail sections, winglets if equipped, and windows.

 

I would always recommend upscaling the lightmap to 1024, rather than reducing the day texture to 512. There would be a very noticeable loss of detail going that way.

 

Also, make sure the both the day and night texture, once finished, have pure white alpha channels. There are some uses for alpha channels for AI aircraft, but only when using the more advanced methods chosen by FAIB, et al. For our purposes we do not want anything in the alpha space but pure white.

[WebMaximus 372]

Yeah, I understand now what you meant about only leaving in the parts that would be lit at the gate but thanks anyway for the great examples that clearly show this.

 

Too bad you can't have AI models where the landing lights come ON when the pilot commanding the aircraft actually switch them ON and in the same way goes out when he/she switches them OFF. The way it is now I'm not sure if I rather have them ON or OFF all the time but I think I'll keep them ON because I think it looks very weird having an aircraft on final with no landing lights.

 

How do I check that I only have pure white in the alpha space and what could be the outcome if I don't, could that be the reason for the ugly effect seen in my was it dusk or dawn screenshot in my previous post?

 

I think this was quite fun doing and I do feel a bit proud of myself having fixed at least a couple of textures now but considering I have some 5600+ liveries fixing all of them manually like this seems close to impossible. I wish there was a way to automate these steps letting you simply select all liveries you want to convert this way and then just press the button...

[Brian Doney 127]

If you open any texture with DXTBMP you can look at the alpha channel in the top right corner. Double-click on it to send to your editor of choice.

 

If your finished night texture is of good quality, the only things that can then effect quality in the sim would be the original alpha, or the compression method used, and if the texture is converted to DXT without dithering. I also recommend against saving/converting textures with DXTBMP, as it hasn't been kept quite up to date with better compression/dithering methods, and can often produce very poor results after conversion.

 

Here is the batch script I use for Imagetool conversion from 24 bit to DXT1 DDS with mips:

 

:START
echo.
echo (Converting original textures to DDS format)
"C:\ImageTool\ImageTool.exe" -dds -DXT1 -nogui -dither -mip -r *.bmp
echo COMPLETE
:END

You'll need to change the path to reflect where you have Imagetool installed, and you could also change the -mip flag to -nomip if you prefer unmipped textures. You'll also want the textures you are converting to be in the same folder as Imagetool for this to work. I personally keep my batch files in the Imagetool folder as well.

 

The rest just comes down to personal preference, as far as light splashes, etc. I personally remove them, as while I agree it would be nice to have them for aircraft on the runway, it just looks a bit strange to see them on with aircraft at the gate. As said though, personal preference.

 

 

 

 

[WebMaximus 372]

 

If you open any texture with DXTBMP you can look at the alpha channel in the top right corner. Double-click on it to send to your editor of choice.

 

If your finished night texture is of good quality, the only things that can then effect quality in the sim would be the original alpha, or the compression method used, and if the texture is converted to DXT without dithering. I also recommend against saving/converting textures with DXTBMP, as it hasn't been kept quite up to date with better compression/dithering methods, and can often produce very poor results after conversion.

 

Here is the batch script I use for Imagetool conversion from 24 bit to DXT1 DDS with mips:

 

 

:START
echo.
echo (Converting original textures to DDS format)
"C:\ImageTool\ImageTool.exe" -dds -DXT1 -nogui -dither -mip -r *.bmp
echo COMPLETE
:END

You'll need to change the path to reflect where you have Imagetool installed, and you could also change the -mip flag to -nomip if you prefer unmipped textures. You'll also want the textures you are converting to be in the same folder as Imagetool for this to work. I personally keep my batch files in the Imagetool folder as well.

 

The rest just comes down to personal preference, as far as light splashes, etc. I personally remove them, as while I agree it would be nice to have them for aircraft on the runway, it just looks a bit strange to see them on with aircraft at the gate. As said though, personal preference.

 

 

 

I checked the alpha channel but it was all white so that's good.

 

A question regarding DXTBMP, you say you don't advice using it to save or convert textures but what about using it to open textures and then send them to the editor in my case Photo.net? So far it seems I need to use it that way because if I try opening a texture directly from Photo.net I receive an error message the texture can't be opened.

 

So far I've used the Image tool GUI and like you said previously there doesn't seem to be a way to use dithering when converting to DXT1 via the GUI so I'll try using the command line instead in the same way you do in your batch file making sure to include the dither switch and compare the results.

 

Realizing there's no way I could fix all my textures manually I took a decision to only keep textures for the most common aircraft models and airlines rather than having thousands of them where the majority still is never used. This way the number of textures for me to fix is reduced to a realistic number and also it feels good doing some FSX housekeeping. I noticed for instance how the FSX loading time is much faster after getting rid of all these textures.

[Brian Doney 127]

Yep, you have it right.  :good:

 

Open with DXTBMP, send to editor (Paint.net or other), save from editor as 24 bit bmp, convert to DXT with Imagetool.

 

Believe me Richard, I am well aware what a big job it can become  :shok:

 

 

...and that's just one aircraft...and I still have so many more airlines to add  :vava: