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Guest Peter Bruun

Pls. Mentors Help Urgently Needed for Foto-Texturing

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Guest Peter Bruun

HelloIm has nearly completed a scenery project, and want to use my Digital fotoes as Textures on the AP buildings. Im using NovaSim and Airport for windows. I use Paint Shop Pro for editing the BMP,s but are completely new working with this.I do following steps;I cut and edit the picture, save it via New Immage in 256 colour as BMP, (have tried 16 bit aswell as 32) put the BMP in main FS2004 texture folder, and in scenery folder of my project too.I Construct a test model (api) with Novasim, i use the BMP as texturing. I place object with APW at my construction site, but when i load fs2004, and look at the object, i only see blank grey sides, where there should have been nice fototextures, and no matter what i try. What a sad story.After severel days of trying to read manuals and extremely teq. stuff not friendly for a Complete beginner like me, im near to give up :((If anyone can give me a clue of what to doo, i am most thankfull

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I think the texture format is wrong, try to use DXT textures in the texture folder of your scenery. You can create these with either ImageTool or DXTBMP. You can create them right away from the 16 or 32 bit image, no need to reduce to 256 colours first (only reduces the quality).


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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Guest Peter Bruun

Hello Arno, and thanks for your quick reply.I think you are right, because i can use "ready made" textures without problems. Do yuo know where to find the 2 programs ?.Thanks in Advance ;o)

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ImageTool can be found in the SDKs of MS. I know it is in the GMax SDK and probably also in the terrain SDK.http://www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimul...wnloads_sdk.aspDXTBMP can be found on the website of Martin Wrighthttp://www.mnwright.btinternet.co.uk/


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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Guest Peter Bruun

Hej Again ArnoI have now DWL DXTBMP, and hope to get back on track with it.Thanks a lot for your kind Help.Best Regards

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Guest Peter Bruun

I still have problems with my texturing, all surfaces still gray.and after study hours and hours, i still cant see what goes wrong.My Digital photos are initially in JPG format, so i convert them into BMPs (paint or Photoimpact7), 16 ore 32 bit tried, same goes for 256 and 16m colours, but all same result.I have now installed DXTBmp, and have tried to open and save bmps in DXT, in the diff. formats, but some result only in"any2bmp.exe has found a fail and need to close down" show when trying to use the bmp, all other shows up only grey.The converted JPG's shows up in DXT (shown as a valid format), and also in NOVAsim when using it on a building, so everything seems to work well untill shown in the scenery.So im still stuck in the midlle, with a lot of software and pictures, and i have speded hundreds of hours vreating this project, so i am REALLY wondering how you other Scenery designers are handling this part ??Any help is very much appreciated

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Could it be that the size of your textures is the problem?All textures in FS must have a size that is a square of 2. So something like 64x64, 256x256, 512x512, 512x256, etc. All other sizes are not allowed.


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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Guest Peter Bruun

Hej Again Arno, thanks for replying one more time ;o)Size is 512x512, 1024x768 and 1024x1024I have tried them as "normal" BMP's (saved a JPG as BMP), and also to convert them in DTXbmp to extended bitmaps, and DDS format (the DDS format result in an error message).But i wonder, should there be more to it than cut and edit the picture (photoimpact), save it as a BMP (16m colours,512x512 size), put the BMP in FS texture map, creating the model (NovaSim)and put it in FS. That is what im doing.I agreed with you it seems that FS will not recognice my BMP,s but i really would like to know why.I have also tried to find a "Step by step turorial for a beginners", but it seems not to be avail.

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All sizes except the 1024x768 are valid to be used in FS, so that does not seems to be the problem.When you save them as DXT1 texture, have you also added the mipmaps? Textures without mipmaps sometimes do not show correct.The rest what you are doing all sounds correct to me.I wouldn't know a real step by step tutorial for textures either. Maybe this tutorual I have written helps:http://www.scenerydesign.org/forum/showthread.php?t=57It discusses the creation of transparant textures, but the final part also shows how I use ImageTool to convert them to the FS format.


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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Guest luissa

Hello Peter,Bitmaps in FS also have MIPs. I do not remember what MIP stands for, but is a multiresolution scheme. A 256x256 bitmap without MIPs is just that 256x256 bitmap. When you "add MIPs" to the bitmap it will contain not only the original 256x256 picture but also downsampled versions of it, eg, 128x128, 64x64, 32x32 and so on. These low resolutions versions are used when the distance between the viewer and the object increases.I thought that FS2004 would allow you to use bitmaps without MIPs. In fact, FS2000 and FS2002 would create internally, at loading time, the MIPs when they found bitmaps without them. As MIPs tend to blurr the objects there are even techniques to force FS to use the higher resolution bitmap in a "mipped bitmap". So I am not really convinced that the lack of mips is the problem. But who knows?I would suggest you:1) open one of your bitmaps with IMAGETOOL and save it again to make sure that that are in a read able format2) same as before but before saving "add mips".Also you said "put the BMP in .... scenery folder of my project too.". The BMPs should go into a /TEXTURE/ folder at the same level as the /SCENERY/ folder which contains your BGL.REgards, Luis

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Hello Peter,You said :"My Digital photos are initially in JPG format" (same for me)"I use Paint Shop Pro for editing the BMP" (same for me)"I have tried them as "normal" BMP's (saved a JPG as BMP)" : yes, but in 256 colors..."edit the picture (photoimpact), save it as a BMP (16m colours,512x512 size)" : no, must be in 256 colors...Try to convert your texture with Paint shop pro : this works without problems for me and my old PSP5.As said Arno and Luissa, check your texture size (512 x512 or 256x256 for example) in View Menu / view image information. You normally start with a texture jpg in 24bits-16M of colors format :http://perso.wanadoo.fr/p.dumat/photos/psp1.jpgin Colors Menu, choose decrease Color Depth / 256 colors (8bit) :http://perso.wanadoo.fr/p.dumat/photos/psp2.jpgvalid the following window with Ok :http://perso.wanadoo.fr/p.dumat/photos/psp3.jpgNow, your texture must be in format bmp 8bits-256 colors (and working in FS !) :http://perso.wanadoo.fr/p.dumat/photos/psp4.jpgCheck all is Ok in FS, your texture can work without MIPs, but your object may have a flickering effect. then you can convert your texture in DXT format with MIPs, if you wish.Hope this helps, best regardspascalhttp://perso.wanadoo.fr/p.dumat

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I would like to add that reducing the color depth is absolutely not necesairy. It will only make your textures look worse, while the DXT format is a 16 bit format.Only when you want to use the older 8 bit BMP format it is needed, but it is much better to use the DXT format in Fs2004.


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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Guest Peter Bruun

Thanks a Lot to You AllThis will give me something to work on, and i hope that i can make a nice result this time.I will let you know, and pls standby for further questions :-smile12

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Guest Peter Bruun

Hej PascalThanks for your very nice instruction.Yesterday i made my JPG to a BMP 512x512 and in 256colours, andended up with the result, as shown by you, in the immage viewmenu in PSP. Once again i have made a test sample in NovaSim, but again, when placed in FS, the result was grey textures.Can the problem be, that all my pictures initially was taken in 1024x768, but converted later ?.best Rgds

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No, the initial format and size does not matter, as long as you save it in a FS format later on.If you want you can send me the BGL file of your test object and your texture, then I will have a look at my PC what is wrong.


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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