FSX AI Aircraft Textures Placement

[jgrant66 2]

I am in the process of importing all of my FS9 AI aircraft into FSX. In FS9 it was possible to place the common aircraft night lighting texture files (xxxxxx_l.zip) in the main texture folder so you didn't have to use up disk space by having that night file in each aircraft texture folder. I read an early "how-to" article shortly after FSX was released that a similar approach could be used in FSX but can't find that article. The texture.cfg file in the FSX aircraft texture files allows other folders to be accessed for texture files. I thought about using the main FSX texture folder as in FS9 but don't understand what the exact syntax should be for the entry in the texture.cfg file to direct the system to that folder. Is anyone using that method, what texture folder have you put the night textures in and how does the line read that you entered in the texture.cfg file?Thanks for anyone's help.JayGee

[Mace 1,902]

Yes you're on the right track. You can place all common textures (such as the night textures to which you refer) in the aircraft's texture directory.Then you can place all *differing* texture files in your texture.BritishAirways directory, for example.Make sure your texture.cfg has good fallback dir's in it. My best advice is to take a look at some of the default aircraft, like the A321, to get an idea about how it is set up. I think the SDK (if you have that installed) also discusses this in the aircraft container section.Also, remember this...check the aircraft.cfg of each AI aircraft you port over to FSX. In the aircraft.cfg is a value "wing_span=(some number)". This number should match the wing span of the AI aircraft in feet. It will be flat out WRONG 75% of the time, so you'll want to fix it for FSX.Failure to do so, will result in your AI not parking correctly in FSX.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

[fbass 1]

I was a little confused by the response there so I thought maybe I could provide a little clarity. If this is too basic I appologize.Each repaint consists of a number of files. The primary "painted" *.bmp file is usually a "t" file. The lightmap is usually an "l" file. Other textures also include props, wing lights, tires, glass, and others.What I do is remove all but the primary "paint" texture file(s). I place these "common" textures in the fsxtexture folder. Be careful removing files because sometimes various developers have two "t" files that are the primary "paint" textures (FSP uses two on many aircraft). You can use a small utility "TView" to check all the files in a particular folder to see which ones are common and which ones are the primary "painted" files.IMPORTANT. In each of your aircraft's texture folder you will need to place a texture.cfg file. There is a standard "fall-back" texture.cfg file that causes FSX to search for texture files in the main program's directory. I've adapted the MS config file to allow a direct pointer to the specific FSX directory where I store all of my common aircraft textures (including lightmaps) - fsxtexture. The following statements are from my texture.cfg file.(fltsim)**fallback.1=c:fsxtexture**Remember, these parenthesis are really braces in the actual file.This texture.cfg file resides in every one of my aircraft texture folders (repaints). One note of caution - if you're not sure you have a standard set of textures for a particular aircraft, always check your common texture storage location. I've found that sometimes I forget to copy a set of textures to the proper directory. After you've deleted these textures you may find some very weird aircraft display problems. So, unless you're absolutely sure you have a standard set, check your storage location. What I do if I'm not sure is just "cut" the common files out of the repaint folder and attempt to paste them into the storage folder. If they are pasted without the "duplicate" message then I know I forgot at some point in the past to accomplish this action. It's also possible that this is a new aircraft and I haven't been required to place any common textures in the storage location.Note: Every time you install a new aircraft or a new repaint you're going to need the texture.cfg file. I place a copy of this file in each of the main aircraft folders so that I can copy it into a repaint's folder when I install new files. This avoids having to search all over the place for this file. Note: Unless you're using more than one "common" texture storage location, ALL of the texture.cfg files are exactly the same - no matter how many different aircraft you have.I hope this helps.fb

[jgrant66 2]

Thanks both for your responses. They're what I was looking for.JayGee