DM Comet shiny mainwheels

[Nigel Edwards 0]

Hi folks, 

been using Steve’s fixer for a couple of years and it’s great; my FSX smooth with great frames , shadows and working really well. I decided to reinstall Dave Maltby’s Comet and it is fine except the mainwheels change from black at night to shiny metallic silver during the day. Any ideas if this can be fixed and if so, how?

best wishes

Nige

[SteveFx 258]

first try the 8bit fix in the fixer other dialog.  Do not leave it permanently set on as it breaks other things, but tell me if it helps with the comet.  If it does then we need to convert the texture to dxt1

[SteveFx 258]

Ignore the above as they aren't 8 bit textures - I downloaded the aircraft to look for you.

[Nigel Edwards 0]

Thanks Steve! Scratching my head at the moment but wondering if it might be how the mainwheels are compiled.  Nose wheel is fine!

Best wishes

Nige

[SteveFx 258]

I wil look into it for you, but I cannot promise that I can fix it.

[Nigel Edwards 0]

Thanks Steve, very grateful. 

Best wishes

Nige

[SteveFx 258]

It is an 8 bit texture issue in fact.   

There is a  texture that you need to alter which is called COPILOT_T.bmp  - it is used for all the wheels but the mainwheels are drawn with very old style FVF rather than with a shader.   There is a copy in each of the texture directories BOAC, DANAIR etc and you need to change them all.

Just open the texture using imagetool  - there is actually a copy in the comet directory - change the image format to DXT1 (from menu  image->format->DXT1)  then save.

If you cannot do this come back and I will help further - there is a way to do it with the DX10Toolbox program.

 

 

[Nigel Edwards 0]

Thanks Steve for looking into this; much appreciated. I’ll give it a go.

Best wishes

Nige

[Nigel Edwards 0]

Steve, 

it works! Very many thanks indeed, the Comet is my favourite aircraft. Do you mind if I share this fix over at CBFS? Thank you for your time.

Best wishes

Nige

[SteveFx 258]

Go ahead.   The DH Comet is an iconic British aircraft and more than deserves to have a correctly textured undercarriage. 

In chapter 16 of the fixer manual  ( subtitled "where is that undercarriage") it explains how to use the toolbox to locate 8bit textures in old models and convert them as an automated process using imagetool.  Normally such a texture appears transparent, but it is possible that it will instead appear metallic silver.

the 8 bit fix fixes the transparent case ( with bad side effects) but doesn't catch the silver case.  The proper solution in both cases is always to convert the textures to dxt1.

Sadly the vc shadows don't seem to work though.

[SteveFx 258]

Actually I take that last comment back - I had the NGX shadow fix enabled and that messes up HD shadows for legacy aircraft.   With HD shadows enabled and  legacy aircraft self shadows it seems ok.

[Nigel Edwards 0]

Thanks Steve once again, Iooking forward to trying out the shadows next time I’m on the sim. 

Best wishes

Nige