Alpha chanels, the opaque canopy.

[3/7charlie]

Well, I'm out in the toolies again, and am muddling long with laptop#2. This machine has a graphics chip set that is incompatable with SP2 and acceleration, and after rebuilding the chipset on the MB in the other lap top, something I wont ever do again, at least untill memsistor based IC's come along; I'm stuck with SP1 on this machine. Now, on some FSX native models, the glass comes in opaque,or missing.. I have had some success with identifying and substituting alternate glass textures, or fresnel ramp.dds , or what ever. Its a hit and miss process to find out what to replace, although some are proving difficult to solve. Like the(external) canopy on flying stations Wyvern(missing). And the glass on the Aerosoft Catalina(opaque white). My question is, how does one go about modifying the alpha channel, as this seems to be where the problem lies, or any thoughts on where the glass textures are.

Cheers.
3/7charlie

[Roger]

Charlie,
For modifying alphas I use DXTBMP by Martin Wright: http://www.mnwright.btinternet.co.uk/framex3.htm and you'll need to download the necessary .dlls from there too. I use Irfanview as an editor as it's free and easy to use.
As to the texture problems in Sp1 alone, I went straight to Acceleration so I never had to content with the issues. Some issues may be to do with your video card and some trial and error will be required.

[3/7charlie]

Roger, Roger.
Accel does fix it up, but I'm dragging around a machine that wont run it, as I dont feel like lugging 2 laptops around(living out of a drop-bag for the next 5 months or so!), and this one has the card reader in it to talk to an engine trend monitoring system. I have had pretty good luck fixing texture problems to run without Accel, though. Its often a matter of identifiying and replacing the appropriate texture so I can run non compatable add-ons. I suppose I should put FS9 into this one,but I like X too much. Thanks for the info.