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Altering road texture

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Hi folks.I dislike the light grey roads we have in FS and would like to edit them. I found the right textures. I even was able to copy the night-time texture over the daytime one, resulting in black roads. Now I'd like to really edit them (or use the "major road" texture in one of the other default texture directories as a basis for a new one.The problem I run into is, whenever I edit the road file and save it, FS fails to load correctly when it gets to the Loading Scenery Textures part. It bombs out. I can copy existing alternate road textures back and forth all day long and it's fine. Edit the file and resave it, and it's a no-go.When I save the 8-bit BMP files, they come out to about 65k. The files FS is looking for are 87K. I can't get any program to save the 8-bit BMP files and have them come out at the expected size (I have tried Photoshop Elements as well as the built-in Paint utility). I examined the file with the info part of Graphics Workshop, and it indicated that the original file is compressed at a compression rate of NEGATIVE 30 percent (thereabouts). "OK," I thought... I then went back into Photoshop and selected the compress option when I saved the file. It came out to the same 65k.Any idea how to get this negative compression going so that FS will actually open the file? I felt really happy when I fired the program up and saw black roads rather than light grey, but would sure like to edit them and have some nice looking roads.--Tony

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Try to convert your texture to the extended format for FS using ImageTool afterwards.If you are using Fs2000 you can find it in the scenery SDK, for Fs2002 it came with GMax (and also one of the SDK's, but not sure which one).I think this would solve your problem.Arno


Member Netherlands 2000 Scenery Team[a href=http://home.wanadoo.nl/arno.gerretsen]http://home.wanadoo.nl/arno.gerretsen/banner.jpg[/a]

Arno

If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done.

FSDeveloper.com | Former Microsoft FS MVP | Blog

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Thanks for the suggestion, Arno. I'll give it a shot.I did open the file with DXTBMP. It identified it as a standard file, though, rather than any of the extended formats. I did try saving it out in some of the various extended formats available in DXTBMP, but to no avail.I doubt ImageTool will allow me any additional options, but I'll take a look.--Tony

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Humm that sounds strange. When I look at them they all have mipmaps.Btw, what sim are you using? And which files have you found to be the roads?Arno


Member Netherlands 2000 Scenery Team[a href=http://home.wanadoo.nl/arno.gerretsen]http://home.wanadoo.nl/arno.gerretsen/banner.jpg[/a]

Arno

If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done.

FSDeveloper.com | Former Microsoft FS MVP | Blog

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I'm using FS2002.The road textures are in scenedbworldtextureThey are:roadssu - regular, daytime road textureroadslm - night-time road texture-- these two are verifiable because you can swap the names and see results.roadshw - I assume this is used in daytime winter, but haven't tested it.--Tony

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hw is heavy winter, so probably with snow. If you look in the terraintextures.cfg file (in the Fs2002 root) you can also find the names of the highway textures, etc.So you have the correct textures, strange that you can not change them then. I still think it must be the file format then.Arno


Member Netherlands 2000 Scenery Team[a href=http://home.wanadoo.nl/arno.gerretsen]http://home.wanadoo.nl/arno.gerretsen/banner.jpg[/a]

Arno

If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done.

FSDeveloper.com | Former Microsoft FS MVP | Blog

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Hi scabbo.I looked at roadssu.bmp with imagetool.It's 8-bit, DXT1, with 9 mips, and an alpha channel with 9 mips. It's the mipping that makes the file 87kb. I think you can use a paint program, like PSP or Photoshop, to make and save a 24-bit 256x256 bitmap, with the alpha channel. Then load into imagetool to create mips, and save as 8-bit DXT1, with alpha.

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Thanks, guys. As Arno suggested, I got Imagetool up and running. Now that I've done that, I see exactly what Rhumbaflappy is talking about.I'll let you all know what results I come up with as soon as I work out all the ins and outs of image processing with mip maps. :)--Tony

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Update: I was able to successfully edit the texture. I think FS does something unexpected with it, though, as it simply never quite looks right. Not a complaint, more of a puzzle for me to work on. :)Just wanted to let you guys know that your advice was indeed helpful.Thanks again.--Tony

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How about a screenshot? or two. A sort of before after kind of thing.I've never felt the urge to change the texture of roads.

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