night textures

[adams 1]

How to create night textures of buildings at airport ?B.Adamski

[Shaka 2]

Typically, the night texture will have the same name as the day texture, but with a "_lm" extension. For example:Day texture = mytexture.bmpNight texture = mytexture_lm.bmpIt may also depend on which scenery design program you are using. In FSDS2, you have to tag the textures as having a night texture when you associate them to a part.- Martin

[adams 1]

I know the _lm extension, but the buildings are dark and I'd like to get lighted windows and I don't know what to do for this.B.Adamski

[Shaka 2]

...so which design program are you using?

[Guest sapper42]

If you are using ex: Paintshop Pro from JASC, you can make a copy of the original texture file, save it with the _lm extension, then, create a new layer over the top that is very dark grey or black, adjust the layer setting for that layer by making it opaque to the level you desire. to get the windows to show light, add areas of yellow with the spray brush where the windows are. merge all layers and save. then convert to a 256 colour BMP or save as a 32 bit BMP then change with either Imagetool or DXT2BMP to a DXT1 BMP file. you will then have your night lighting effect. practise with your texturing will eventually pay off as your skills expand with your learning curve.rgds Jeff

[adams 1]

Personaly I'm using Micrografix, but it's not for me. Someone was asking me about it, but I'll try this method myself.Thank you.B.Adamski

[Guest JR Morgan]

Hi Adams..Here's the way I've been doing that for a few years. I think the process should work in any paint program that has decent edit capabilities:1. Open the daytime texture bitmap in your paint program and do a "Save-As" save, assigning it the same name but with the _LM appended to the file name just before the .bmp file extension.2. With the newly re-named (_LM) texture bitmap still remaining on your paint program's workspace, open (any) night time texture bitmap so that you now have both the renamed day texture and the chosen night-time bitmap side-by-side on your workspace.NOTE: If the texture bitmaps are 16 bit (DXT) format, you'll need to convert them to a bitsize compatible with your paint program's editing capability to do the editing and later return them to the DXT format after editing is completed. It's been awhile but I think Martin Wright's DXTbmp program can make this (bitsize) change for you if you send the file to the editing program via DXTbmp --- and after edit and return to DXTbmp, you can again save the edited *_LM bmp as a 16 bit DXT configured night texture.3. Select and a (Luminious) Window or Door (only) area portion from the NIGHT texture and that portion so as to overlay the windows, doors, etc onto the renamed (_LM) bitmap, You can select and very small portions of the Night-textured (luminous) areas if necessary to fill only the (small) window pane portions of windows, etc.4. When done, save the newly edited *_LM bitmap to your active texture folder. It can then be called with the "LoadBitmap" (ie: LoadBitmap( 0 L6 EF 255 255 255 xxx.bmp ) commnd OR from your 3D object design program if it has the capability for calling night textures.'Actually not all that hard (and somewhat fun) to do.J.R.