thanks a lot.oh, DM, fixed the body textures using the texture converter. thanks!

I remove all the mip maps from my aircraft textures. I've owned a GeForce 2, Radeon 9200SE and 9600 and mip maps look awful on those cards. The blurring is unsatisfactory, and zooming in just to "focus" the texture is a waste of energy.I use DXTBmp and Imagetool to remove MIPS :)---------------------------------------"If it doesn't have a VC, I won't be flying it http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v615/DarrenA300/smug.gif" ... hang on a minute .... http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v615/DarrenA300/unsure.gif ... that is too restrictive! Most flight simulator planes don't have a fully functional VC .... I'm happy to fly non-VC planes such as the brilliant iFDG range, Samdim's fantastic aircraft, POSKY's wonderful planes, and many many others! I'm the richer for it :).[/b]Advice for uploaders: please remove those horrible thumbs.db files - they are useless :)

In the AI part of Flight Simulator - one of the most critical items to making a good AI aircraft is LOD - Levels of Detail.What that really is rather than one B757 the model file really has five B757 - each one more simple with fewer details and most importantly fewer polygons for the graphics card to draw and texture.(A better, more detailed explaination - http://www.ai-aardvark.com/modeling/LOD_101/aia_LOD.html)It is even more useful in making flyable aircraft perform better - but no one except Microsoft makes LOD models for flyable aircraft to my knowledge. They are a lot of extra work.MipMaps are basically the same thing for textures - several images in one file - each one smaller and with fewer details.BTW the default aircraft mostly have very good LOD and MipMap textures.When you view your aircraft from the spot view at about 100 feet distance - you get the highest Level of Detail model and the highest size / pixel detail texture - provided your FS is setup correctly.At 300 feet - you get a less detailed model - and the MipMap might change - it might be farther. This goes on until you view is about 3 miles away when you should be seeing the lowest detailed model and the lowest size / pixel detailed texture.As noted in other posts - this way of using the progressively less detailed models and textures while viewing aircraft really pays off in much better system performance and better frame rates.As someone said - "It's all about the frame rates"

Hi,I don't see any reason to add LOD's to flyable aircraft - you almost never view them far enough away to see any of the lower LOD's. I think that MS added LOD's to it's default aircraft since they are also used as AI aircraft - which must have LOD's to keep the frame rate up.Hope this helps,--Tom GibsonCal Classic Propliner Page: http://www.calclassic.comFreeflight Design Shop: http://www.freeflightdesign.comDrop by! ___x_x_(")_x_x___

Definitely, removing the mips from every texture in the sim is foolish. The only thing I ever remove the mips from is the planes I fly becuase, as has been noted, I find that when the planes skins have mips, they blur if you aren't viewing the plane directly from the side and I'm one of those guys who likes to snap a few screenshots now and then. :)

It is correct that you should have Mips, but I to have the occasional aircraft texture that gets blurry and removing the Mips fixes it. I wonder what the cause of this is since I want to keep the mips for the sake or performance. It can't be hardware related as I have 2 rigs and both are fairly high end and this still happens. Both have ATI cards and due to shimmering, raising the mip level above 5 is not an option, but that does SOMETIMES fix the blurries.Regards, MichaelKDFWhttp://www.calvirair.com/mcpics/mcdcvabanner.jpgCalVirAir International

I wish someone would get to the bottom of this blur nonsense once and for all.Has anyone ever noticed what it says in the FS2004 SDK about textures saved without mips (Aircraft Container)?"Flight Simulator will automatically generate the mipmaps for the texture, although these mipmaps will not be of as high a quality as mipmaps created using Image Tool."Is that true?If it is, why do so many people find that removing mips cures their blur problems?I've had terrible trouble trying to make a decent model with FSDS3 & gmax before that.I always seem to get ridiculous blur on at least one texture, not always the same one, even when all the mips have been removed.Is it a common problem with FS models generated by MakeMdl?DM

but why is it that AI Aardvark are able to make extremely good textures, and yet, keep frame rates friendly?And how the heck do you utilise AI Aardvark, because I had a look at it, and have no idea on how to use it... :(Could someone send me their AI Aardvark package on the library? ;)wuold appreciate. if you are asking, it's because I am using Flight 1 Ulitmate Traffic, and it sucks. :(

AI Aardvark are AI aircraft - not for you to fly - but literally moving scenery.Setting up AI aircraft can be relatively simple with automated packages.There are three commercial payware products - Ultimate Traffic, Traffic 2005 and My Traffic 2006.To be brutally honest - the quality of their repaints is about the same as a third grader would do with crayons.Part of the issue is how they design their texture maps, but a big part of the issue is that they need a couple thousand textures and don't have the time to do a quality job.In some cases - the modeler simply did not map parts of the model to the texture file - such as the extremely garish bomb load on the My Traffic A-10.There are two freeware sources of AI traffic packages.Project AI started the concept and has packages for about 150 airlines. Their packages may use some of the same models as Ultimate Traffic - and the others also. Many of the models were created by FSPainter - the ATR's, the Dash-8, the CRJ & ERJ jets. Project AI does their repaints and creates their packages. They have a very solid almost fool proof installer to install the packages. www.projectAI.com - Official Files. I do recommend that you visit the forums - there are some very important tips on installing the packages - basically install then with the option for individual traffic files based on airline name - not ICAO code. You really don't want them all in one big file - very hard to update.World of AI is a group of very experienced flight simmers who have worked out agreements with the best modelers, flight plan creaters and repainters. They have 40 airline packages available. http://www.world-of-ai.com . Some are airlines also available from PAI. Their installer is another excellent piece of programming - and WoAI does include some AIA models and EvolveAI models.And don't forget the GA packages available from UltimateGA - www.ultimatega.comBut you will eventually want to install different repaints and models manually - the Jet Doctor tutorials are the place to start - Steve Wilson keeps them alive on the web - http://www.wilsonsairspace.com/index.html - enter his web site and go to the learning center.Now how does AIA make such fantastic repaints?It comes from a couple key concepts.First is extremely close attention to the details when creating the texture mapping on the model - working with repainters to ensure every thing is exactly correct and well documented.The paint kit must be an Adobe Photoshop PSD - and PhotoShop and Jasc Software's Paint Shop Pro are about the only programs which can produce high quality repaints. Layered paint kits which allow different elements of the aircraft to be painted are critical.You simply cannot have a high quality repaint working on one flat .BMP file.Second is use of the available texture area.This is the texture from the Just Flight B744 in Traffic 2005:http://www.flightsim2004-fanatics.com/Flig...05_BAW_B744.jpgThis is the texture from the AIA B744http://www.flightsim2004-fanatics.com/Flig...IA_BAW_B744.jpgNotice how much more room is devoted to the fuselage in the AIA texture - this allows more detail.Notice the size of the tail (vertical stabilizer) - again more pixels and more detail available.Notice how each of the four engines has a separate texture area in the AIA bird - and two sides vs one common texture mapped to both sides of all four engines in the Just Flight model.Notice how much of the Just Flight texture is wasted.Notice how much room is given to the wings on the Just Flight texture - which is really not needed in that detail level.Notice the HUGE strut in the Just Flight texture and how small it is in the AIA texture.The guys at AIA spent a lot of time working with very good repainters.You might ask how can this texture with all this detail work better - more FPS friendly than the Just Flight texture?Both textures are identical in size 1024x1024 and use exactly the SAME resources to display.The key is in the model - and there AIA shines. The B747 series was a significant step in the improvement of AI models - much better than their previous aircraft - the early B737's, the B757, the B767 and DC-9's.AIA is very good about getting rid of extra polygons which do not display. They use LOD very well and ease the transition from each level to the next by keeping the polygon shifts relatively small.(I've shrunk the textures down to 800x800 to make them easier to view.)Ultimate Traffic, My Traffic 2006 and Traffic 2005 can be good shells to start with your AI - and work to replace the worst aircraft with better ones.But you have to work at it and spend time working on it.The PAI forums and the EvolveAI (www.evolveai.com) forums are good places to start - but don't forget the Ultimate Traffic support forums - they has a lot of very good information specific to UT on how to replace individual repaints and aircraft with better ones.Look at my response at the end of this thread - http://www.projectai.com/discuss/index.php?topic=51571.15