Note to Texture Makers

[Guest EdrickV]

When you use 0 mips DXT textures I get planes that may look something like the one below or appear to be totally black. Maybe I'm the only person this happens to, maybe I'm not. Maybe it happened to other people who didn't discover what the source of the problem is and dismissed it as something else. I'm just saying that it would be nice if you would try not to use 0 mips textures. (Or at least make a version/texture pack that has textures with mips.) I don't expect you all to go and redo the textures for aircraft you've released that have 0 mips textures. I'm just mentioning it for future consideration, and you can do as you like. It's just annoying when you download a lot of planes and have to go and fix the textures one by one for a bunch of them due to this. (And if you really don't want mip-mapped aircraft, you can just turn off mip-mapping in the display options hardware tab, it's a lot easier.)Not everyone has the latest $200 3D card. :)http://members.aol.com/huntercomputers/FS2k2/B307.jpgBoeing 307, House Colors paint scheme"Let me help you out. You're cleared to taxi any way you can to any runway you see."

[PeterR 9]

Edrick,If the problem is the lack of mipmapped textures, load them into Imagetool (I believe it came with FS2k2 Pro, or is in one of the FS SDK packages from MS). It'll generate mipmaps for you.Peter http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/PeterR.gifBFU Forums Moderator[table border=2 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=1][tr][td][table border=0 cellpadding=8 cellspacing=0][tr][td bgcolor=#540000]http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/logo75t.gif[/td][td align="center" bgcolor=#FFFFF6]Bush Flying Unlimited"At home in the wild"Looking for adventure? Come join us! * [link:bfu.avsim.net|Web Site] * [link:www.cafepress.com/bfu,bfu2,bfu3,bfu4|BFU Store] * [link:bfu.avsim.net/join.htm]Join!][/td][/tr][/table][/td][/tr][/table

[Guest EdrickV]

ImageTool AFAIK only comes with FS2k2 Pro (think it's part of the GMAX package) which I don't have. I've been using DXTBMP, though the way it's load/save system is setup slows things down a bit. (I always have to triple check to make sure I'm not saving over the wrong file) It wasn't designed with this in mind. Until someone makes a batch converter, it can be annoying. I'd much rather be flying and checking out the two dozen or so new sceneries/scenery enhancements I downloaded overnight. :) (And I did download some 28 scenery related files last night. On 56k dial-up.) Some models use the same textures for multiple versions which helps. (Got 3 different BFU Nomads by doing one of them, since they use the same textures.) In the end just I don't see much point in not using mips anyways. It just means that DXTBMP users have to uncheck "Include Mips" every time they start it."Let me help you out. You're cleared to taxi any way you can to any runway you see."

[wsieffert 0]

It is also available in several of the SDK downloads from http://zone.msn.com/flightsim/FS02DevDeskSDK00.asp . The ONLY file not available to the whole world at large is the export dll, FSModelExp.dle. And I would venture if someone searched long and hard enough, it would be available on some crack (pirate) site also.BTW, it is stated that the next MS Flight Simulation will only have one version. So that means everyone can become a defacto designer when they purchase the software.

[Guest EdrickV]

None of the SDKs I've downloaded have ImageTool, including the scenery SDKs and the aircraft container SDK. Most of the SDKs consist of a single Word document and the EULA document. And I've yet to see any mention of ImageTool on that site or in the SDKs at all."Let me help you out. You're cleared to taxi any way you can to any runway you see."

[Guest EdrickV]

Ok, finally found ImageTool in the terrain SDK. (Which is about the last place I'd have expected to find it.) Between that and Explorer's thumbnail view it'll make fixing 0 mips textures a lot easier."Let me help you out. You're cleared to taxi any way you can to any runway you see."

[Guest]

I've seen this before.I think your texture is rotated.You just have to rotate the texture till it looks normal.Cees

[Guest]

Are you sure this is due to a 0 mips condition? I would guess it's a different format issue that DXTBmp is fixing at the same time as it adds mips. I have seen alpha channels and certain dxt formats causing similar problems for other people with older video cards.There are a number of good reasons for using 0 mip textures.1) Many older graphics cards cannot display mipmapped textures properly, leading to very blurry aircraft.2) Many newer cards can mipmap from the base texture better than a program like DXTBmp or ImageTool can anyway.3) Mipmapped textures are bigger, taking up more disk space and more memory, and slowing down performance.Matt

[Guest EdrickV]

With the experiments I've done (I tried saving 0 mips textures to test that) I'm sure it is the 0 mips thing. A DXT3 0 mips texture saved by DXTBMP doesn't show up while a DXT3 file with mips of the same texture does. And I doubt all these AC makers like Meljet, the makers of the Nomad, and the other aircraft I've fixed would be releasing them with bad textures. I've also just tested it with a repaint I've been making. I took a regular 256 color bitmap that works, opened it in ImageTool and saved it as a DXT3 file without adding mips. (So DXTBMP would call that a 0 mips file, ImageTool calls it a 1 mips file.) The texture I changed did not show up and the tail texture got put there instead. (Which is like the above aircraft was but on a smaller scale since only one texture didn't work.) As far as the rest:I think you have #1 backwards. I have a 3D card that is pretty old. A 3DFX Voodoo 3 2000 PCI. Aircraft with 0 mips textures either show up as totally black (like the Meljet ones) or looking scrambled like the above one. I think the problem is that the drivers don't support 0 mips DXT textures and, since 3DFX is gone, they never will. There won't be any updates to my drivers since the company doesn't exist anymore. Loading and saving the textures with mips using ImageTool has fixed the above aircraft and most of the others. (Except those I've yet to do.)As far as preformance, I get better preformance with mipmapping on in the options then when it's off. (In multiplayer last night my framerate dropped to 4 while landing at an airport where a few others were and made me blow the landing. With mipmapping on, it only dropped to about 6 or 7 which is much better."Let me help you out. You're cleared to taxi any way you can to any runway you see."

[PeterR 9]

Glad you got a hold of Imagetool to resolve the black texture problem.Having the mipmaps in the texture definitely speeds things up because without them, FS has to scale the images on the fly (i.e. uses up processor cycles). One of the appeals of making textures without additional mipmaps is the smaller file size for up/download--the old tradeoff of size versus speed. Nevertheless, I always make textures with mipmaps because users don't download the textures every time they fly, but FS will have to scale textures every time if mipmaps don't exist.Peter http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/PeterR.gifBFU Forums Moderator

[Guest EdrickV]

Know what you mean. Now I've got all the models I had problems with fixed (including the non-BFU MU-2's, the BFU one was fine) except for one that I'd deleted since before I found out what the problem was and how to fix it. (Was a model of, I think, the first helicopter. Will have to see if I can find it in GetRight's download history.) Download size isn't a big issue for me, I use GetRight and may leave my computer on overnight (or at least till the downloads are done and GetRight shuts it off) to let it download stuff for me to play around with the next day. Even with a 56k modem, I'm used to downloading lots of big files. :)ImageTool is almost perfect for batch style operations on a bunch of files. I just drag all the DXT bitmaps into it (can tell which are which via Explorer thumbnail view) and then do:Double click any image window. If the file doesn't have mips do:Alt+I,C,wait for mips to be made, click file close, spacebar, and up pops the next file.If it does have mips, close it and up pops the next file. Can fix textures 3 times as fast as with DXTBMP. (At least.) It surprised me, a Microsoft product I actually haven't had any problems with, yet. ;)"Let me help you out. You're cleared to taxi any way you can to any runway you see."

[PeterR 9]

Hehe. That's a pretty good drag-and-drop side effect--built-in queueing. I'll have to check that out.Peter http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/PeterR.gifBFU Forums Moderator