DXT3 vs 888.8 textures

[Guest JohnC]

I used 888.8 textures for my airport building and I am curious as to what advantage would obtain by my using DXT3 textures, other than perhaps files sizes being smaller? In addition to this I notice that my brick textures sometimes show a Moire pattern in FS9 at certain distances. Am I correct in assuming that this is unavoidable with repetitive patterned textures at a distance?

[Shaka 2]

The moire pattern may be due to you not having used mips in the texture. You can add them in DXTBMP or imagetool.exe- Martin

[Guest GerrishGray]

You shouldn't use DXT3 unless you need the partial transparency. DXT1 is normally the best choice and has the smallest file size and fastest performance.The file sizes of 888-8 are too big for mosr scenery programming and you really don't need that level of detail nost of the time. This is probably the cause of your interference fringes - they will probably go away in DXT1/DXT3 because the mips are deliberately smoothed for this reason.CheersGerrish

[Guest JohnC]

great...thanks...I do have mipmaps so I will convert some of them and report what I find. I am still a little baffled about my experience in the other post.....I added just one more 128 x 128 map 100% transparency which very effectively eliminated the inside wallls I was seeing, but the fps went way down... I wonder if resolving all those 100% transparencies INSIDE a 50% transparency might be taxing the CPU somehow.............just a thought....perhaps looking thru two different transparencies makes a difference?

[Guest GerrishGray]

There are some known problems with DXT3 partial transparency when you are looking at several surfaces that either intersect or visually overlap, if the surfaces are part of the same model and share the same RefPoint. The method used by DirectX to render partial transparency only works if the drawing order is correct, and FS is unable to get this right in some circumstances.I haven't heard before of the problem with the dramatic drop in frame rates that you report, but perhaps that is because I have always been looking at the incorrect drawing and haven't noticed that it is also accompanied by a frate rate problem!!!Merry Christmas by the way!Gerrish

[Guest JohnC]

Thank you for the Christmas wishes and a Merry Christmas to you as well.Mulling over this business of enclosed glass structures, I would like to share a possible solution for easily making complex large glass enclosed structures without any inner surfaces that might show up and thus require texturing to remove them, neatly sidestepping any double texturing.I have seven side by side quasi-rectangular boxes that were required to form a structure that is part of a building that arcs in part of a semicircle.It occurred to me that if one were to simply place 2-D polygons directly over the textured faces of the boxes, texture them the same way as the underlying face, then delete the inner boxes, one would have geometrically accurately placed 2d structures that completely enclose an empty structure which then could be filled with something else without the visual interference of the sidewalls of the boxes.PS With regards to my Moire effect it is still there and is visible form only 100 meters away depending upon the viewing angle of incidence.I have an accurate brick texture with a horizontal pitch of 10.5 inches and a vertical pitch of 3 inches.I hope I can post this project in the screenshot Forum soon. Looks pretty impressive when I compare it to a lot of payware."modestly koffs"