Bitmap Formats- A few Quick Questions

[Guest product]

Hi All,I'm new to messing around with the textures in FS aircraft, but very good with image editing tools like Photoshop and 3D modeling software. I hope to bring some nice free additions to the FS community in the coming months, though I'm a long way off from building my first plane:-)But I find myself a bit stumped by what's probably a very basic issue. I've read through lots of older posts and have had some questions answered, but I still don't know how big, what format(s), how many bits (ie 24 or 32) to save revamped textures in. Is there any basic tutorial/FAQ about .bmp formats/sizes to use for texture on FS9 aircraft, especially for editing VC's and interior window reflections (which I'm trying to tackle first)Thanks much for any info.Best,JOel

[Dark Moment 0]

Get Martin Wright's DXTBmp at http://fly.to/mwgfxIt is invaluable. When you open textures with this, you will see what they have been saved in by other authors and will see the alpha channels also. You can edit either by sending textures to your chosen graphics editor.If they already have alpha channels saved within them, you can convert them to 24-bit (clean, in other words) using FS ImageTool.Basically you will probably want to do all your painting in 24-bit but save in DXT3 with alpha (mipped or unmipped) if you want to provide reflections or transparency. Some people save in 32-bit for extra quality but that generates massive files.I am no expert and it's a massive subject, but go to Martin's site, grab the program and that'll get you started. Mark "Dark Moment" Beaumonthttp://www.swiremariners.com/newlogo.jpg

[Guest FelixFFDS]

I'll add to DM's comment...Martin Wright's descritptive texts include an excellent write up of the different texture formats used by flight simulator - from the R8 fixed 256-color palette used by FS5/98, to the current DXT3.Even if you were not to use DXTBMP, and limit yourself to imagetool, that reading is an absolute must.Felix/FFDSPegasus Aviation Design

[Guest product]

Thanks, I'll take a look at the documentation, had these programs downloaded already but didn't read the instructions:-)Joel