fsx-ms World of AI FAIB airplanes appearing black

[kann123air 0]

Hey everyone, first time poster but long time Avsim and WOAI user.

I recently downloaded FSX on my new Dell XPS 15 and begun the process of downloading all my favorite WOAI airlines.  All the aircraft made by FAIB are appearing black; I've tried everything suggested to me by fellow simmers and nothing has worked.  

I have tried reinstalling WOAI, reinstalling the AA package (the only FAIB aircraft here, the 738, is black; I'm using it as my test), extracting the files for manual installation and proceeding to copy/paste the two files inside the texture folder into FSX/Scenery/World/Texture, and checking the aircraft.cfg document to make sure the "texture=" sections do not contain typos.

My older desktop computer has had WOAI on it for years and runs everything beautifully.  I have compared the file locations for the problematic aircraft, and they are the same.

I am very frustrated with the ever-present black 738s and would greatly appreciate any advice.

Thanks,
Amrit Kannan

 

 

 

[mazelda 124]

Don't know if you've tried this but acouple of things to look at are the following

1. Use the dxtbmp program and see if the black paints show up ok in that

If they do, then have a look at the aircraft.cfg file that is inside the woai folder of the aircraft concerened.

If the paints show up black in the dxtbmp program then your problem is most likely a bad paint texture file

[kann123air 0]

Don't know if you've tried this but acouple of things to look at are the following

1. Use the dxtbmp program and see if the black paints show up ok in that

If they do, then have a look at the aircraft.cfg file that is inside the woai folder of the aircraft concerened.

If the paints show up black in the dxtbmp program then your problem is most likely a bad paint texture file

 

Thanks for the reply.  I downloaded the dxtbmp program and checked the paints; they look fine.  So it looks like the issue is not a bad paint texture file.  What should I check in the aircraft.cfg file?

[mazelda 124]

well it depends on on how many paints for that particular aircraft type you have.But you will  have to go the section where the paints are listed

and check that they match the EXACT texture name and the [flightsim.xx] order is consecutive, remember the first one starts with 0.

if they all look ok check everything else in the section for the texture e.g sim= matches the sim of the aircraft and all the other lines make sense.

Unfortunately I don't use woai stuff prefering to create mine using aifp

but the general rule of thumb is,if you can see the paint in dxtbmp then the chances are high that the fault lies in the aircraft.cfg paints section for the ai aircraft . Something as small as a .will be enough to throw the whole thing out.

hope that helps a bit.

[Mike777 163]

I have tried reinstalling WOAI, reinstalling the AA package (the only FAIB aircraft here, the 738, is black; I'm using it as my test), extracting the files for manual installation and proceeding to copy/paste the two files inside the texture folder into FSX/Scenery/World/Texture, and checking the aircraft.cfg document to make sure the "texture=" sections do not contain typos.

 

Hi, Amrit,

 

The files for the texture should be inside a folder called "texture.XX" where XX is specific to the repaint - in your case it might be "American" or "AA".  The texture.xx folder should be in the folder for the specific aircraft. I don't think it will work to put the textures in the general FSX\Scenery\World\Texture folder, but in any case the textures should be inside the texture folder which is inside the specific aircraft folder, most likely under SimObjects\Airplanes.  Open the aircraft.cfg file for the 738 and find the entry for American Airlines.  Make sure the "texture=" entry agrees exactly with the name of the texture file without the word "texture."  If the texture folder is called "texture.AA" then the aircraft.cfg entry should be "texture=AA".

 

Mike

[kann123air 0]

Hey Mazelda and Mike777, thanks for the replies.

 

I checked out and tried everything you guys suggested; unfortunately, nothing changed.  I don't think I'm missing seeing anything in the aircraft.cfg file, but if I am, below is a screenshot so that y'all can check it out for yourself. 

 

fsx aircraftcfg by Amrit Kannan, on Flickr

 

Thanks,

Amrit

[Mike777 163]

 

I checked out and tried everything you guys suggested; unfortunately, nothing changed. I don't think I'm missing seeing anything in the aircraft.cfg file, but if I am, below is a screenshot so that y'all can check it out for yourself.

 

Hi, Amrit,

 

Everything looks good between your aircraft.cfg file and your texture folder names.  If something else were messed up you wouldn't see the aircraft at all, even black with no textures.

 

It turns out I have the FAIB 737-800 Winglets aircraft with the same American liveries you have (plus some others).  I made the aircraft visible by copying the stock B737-800 panel folder into the FAIB 737-800W folder.  I also opened the aircraft.cfg file and put "panel=" within each American livery entry, although I think this step isn't necessary, because ALL my FAIB 737-800W liveries then showed up. 

 

I loaded each AAL livery into the opening, Free Flight screen and they all displayed properly.  I didn't take the trouble to load each one into a flight setup, but if the liveries are showing in the opening window, they are probably OK. I did load one retro livery into the stock startup flight and it looks fine although it flies kinda weirdly.

 

SO: a couple of questions.  Please read through all of them:

 

1) Is this happening for only one specific livery or all AAL liveries?

 

2) How do you know that the FAIB is the AI 738W version that is causing the issue?  I have another WOAI 738W AIA model although it does not have AAL liveries (none of my AIA 737s, 738s or 739s has an AAL livery).  Or perhaps you are seeing a different AI aircraft or airline than you think -- when you flip through the AI aircraft from within FSX by right-clicking you should see briefly ID info on the aircraft in the upper right corner.  But if you do what I suggest above and make the AAL 738Ws visible, you will know for sure. 

 

2) This is a long shot: within each AAL texture folder you should see two files,  FAIB_737_800_L.bmp & FAIB_737_800_T.bmp.  If they are incorrectly named, even slightly, they won't work.  If one is missing it probably won't work either.  The names are all exactly the same for every texture.

 

Mike

[Guest JustanotherPilot]

Amrit,

 

I'm pretty certain there is  missing or incorrect text in your cfg file, sometimes they are so obvious they are overlooked. Also with some WOI repaints   'common' textures files need to be placed in a 'global' folder so that all repaints can access them, as your textures appear normal in dxtbmp, a typo error, missing line or texture are the only options causing this.

 

steve

[Mike777 163]

 

 

I'm pretty certain there is missing or incorrect text in your cfg file, sometimes they are so obvious they are overlooked. Also with some WOI repaints 'common' textures files need to be placed in a 'global' folder so that all repaints can access them, as your textures appear normal in dxtbmp, a typo error, missing line or texture are the only options causing this.

 

Hi Steve,

 

The texture names and aircraft.cfg file entries look good in his screen shots.  The thing that's so weird is that I'm pretty sure he used the WOAI auto installer, which should really make such mistakes very unlikely.  I have the same AAL repaints on the same model and I don't have a problem.

 

I just downloaded woa_americanairlines_v4_fsx.zip and manually decompiled it.  Steve, you are right that there are two files for the 738W that should be in FSX/Texture, FAIB_737_800_AlwaysOn_L.dds and FAIB_737_800_L.bmp. 

 

However they are in fact missing from my FSX Steam installation and my AAL textures still work! (They are missing due to my dual FSX:MS & FSX:SE installation).  So I'm sure something's missing on my installed FAIB 738W aircraft, but that alone wouldn't cause Amrit's problem.

 

 

 

I checked out and tried everything you guys suggested; unfortunately, nothing changed.

Amrit, is woa_americanairlines_v4_fsx.zip the package you downloaded?  Did you by chance download the FS9 version?

 

I hope you will make doubly sure you have identified the right aircraft that is showing up black

 

Mike

[Guest JustanotherPilot]

Mike,

 

Got me beat...it has to be something simple that is overlooked, I know I spent hours with a similar problem only to find that I had inadvertent deleted an underscore in one of the names. It'll eventually be resolved.

[Mike777 163]

Got me beat...it has to be something simple that is overlooked, I know I spent hours with a similar problem only to find that I had inadvertent deleted an underscore in one of the names.

 

Hi, Steve,

 

It's amazing how many times I've stared at a file name and not noticed an extra "-" or "." or a missing character.  I've developed the habit of copying and pasting whenever possible for this reason.    It's certainly possible to copy a texture folder name into an aircraft.cfg file and visa versa - same with an aircraft title into a TTools aircraft.txt file, when necessary.

 

But I am guessing in this case it's a different AI aircraft than he thinks -- at least I hope it is because then he will narrow down his search for a solution.

 

Mike

[Guest JustanotherPilot]

Hi, Steve,

 

It's amazing how many times I've stared at a file name and not noticed an extra "-" or "." or a missing character.  I've developed the habit of copying and pasting whenever possible for this reason.    It's certainly possible to copy a texture folder name into an aircraft.cfg file and visa versa - same with an aircraft title into a TTools aircraft.txt file, when necessary.

 

But I am guessing in this case it's a different AI aircraft than he thinks -- at least I hope it is because then he will narrow down his search for a solution.

 

Mike

 

 

Time will tell...