Retro_Repaint

[falcon409]

Don't get excited, lol. . .I'm not going to actually do any retro repaints, lol. My question has to do with FSX repaint textures and being able to reverse the repaint process and do them in the FS9 style, using DXT3 and 32bit textures.

I am flying the DH.88 Black Magic Comet (this is the default 2004 aircraft redone with dds textures and made FSX ready) in the Mildenhall to Melbourne Race and I want to do a nice slick redo of the horrendous looking default paint scheme. I have tried my luck at FSX style painting (dds, flip, flop, etc, etc) and find it tedious and unnecessary for my needs. So what I want to do is take the original textures, make a new layered paint kit and then repaint it in the traditional FS9 way using bmp's and converting to DXT3 or 32bit textures.
Can that be done, or is there something in the mdl file that requires that it only accept dds textures?

Thanks.

[kjb]

I *think* the mdl file will look for the bmp if the dds file isn't there, so it should work. You could always try a quick test, say paint it all red, and see if it works.

[CBris]

I am not sure if X recognises DXT3, but even so - just do dxt5 bitmaps.

If the mdl has speculars, then make one sete of pure white speculars with no alpha channel. You'll need these blanks in the retro paint folder, otherwise the mdl will simply call the fallbacks.

If the mdl also calls for bumpmaps and you don't want these, you may also have to create one flat set of bumps as well.

Anyway - you could use 32 bit textures in FS9

The main issues though would swing around the way FSX models render the alpha channels. In FS9 an all black alpha lead to transparency on the bitmap. In X you simply get a ghastly reflection that is way OTT (even for me :icon_lol: )

And of course FSX uses a different method of environment mapping for the way reflections are rendered on the painted surfaces. You get a full "cube" in FSX as opposed to the single face "envmap.bmp" in 9.

But then again... that black paint has some nice gold trim if I remember right. What a prefect chance for an FSX compiled DH Comet to actually create a beautiful new set of textures.

OR... have you just ported the FS9 version over?

Paint with a dark grey that is no more than 90% black by the way (believe us, that is black enough!). The alpha channel for that (with the default environment reflections in FSX) should be no darker than about 12% black and maybe 50% black behind the gold bits (porssibly lower)

Sherman eh? I used to be a regular visitor in Gainesville. Such a pity I don't have Weber as a customer anymore...

[Rich]

FSX will accept dds or bmp format whichever is there but if both FSX calls dds first not the aircraft model, I would sugest you do all your paint in 32bit format first and not DXT as DXT corrupts the colours every time you save in that format.
The default Fs9 Comet is I think in DXT3 format so needs changing to 32 bit format then you can retouch any existing colour corruption and carry on with your painting always saving as 32 bit.

When you are happy with your bmp paint then flip it as 32 bit and save as DDS DXT5 to minimise corruption, make a back up of your master bmp first.

The important thing is FSX will accept either format only thing with DDS is the thing is upside down, bump maps were not invented when the Fs9 model was released so the model will not call for them.

I have a whole load of Fs9 stuff working fine in FSX

[falcon409]

. . . . .OR... have you just ported the FS9 version over?. . . . .
No this is a "conversion" by Dave Grindel. He states in the readme that the airplane will no longer work in FS9 in it's converted state.


. . . . .Paint with a dark grey that is no more than 90% black by the way (believe us, that is black enough!). The alpha channel for that (with the default environment reflections in FSX) should be no darker than about 12% black and maybe 50% black behind the gold bits (porssibly lower)
Yep, actually I've used a blue/black color deep enough to give the appearance of black with a touch of blue in it which pumps up the gold accents.



Sherman eh? I used to be a regular visitor in Gainesville. Such a pity I don't have Weber as a customer anymore...
I'm originally from South Jersey and migrated here when I was active duty AF in the late 60's. Except for a few years after the death of my father in 73' I've been here in Sherman (or Ft Worth) ever since.

[CBris]

Sounds good - where do we get it?

[falcon409]

Sounds good - where do we get it?
flightsim.com. . . .decomet3.zip. . . .misspelled the gentleman's name, it's David Grindele.

[falcon409]

A quick WIP. . .I am liking the look of the color I picked a lot. I've also enlarged the texture size to 2048x2048 to keep everything sharper than the default was.

[falcon409]

Well, I've dropped this repaint. One of the irritating things about any graphics program is that sometimes it doesn't do what it's supposed to. After every major change I made to this project, I would merge the layers, flip the texture save it to the texture folder and reload FSRepaint to see the results. After I save it, I undo the flip, undo the merge and go back to work. . .well, this time the program didn't remember the undo process and so I can no longer undo the merge, so all I have is a partially done texture and no way to continue without starting all over again. I like the way it was looking but I don't start over from scratch on any project. . .if it get's screwed up somehow in the process. . .it's history. . .and this one is history.:hatchet:

[CBris]

Been there, seen the film, read the book and even bought the T-shirt...

That's why I don't flatten in the paint program at all any more. In Corel I can set all the different "merge" values and export as windows bitmap.

What I have done, though, is to use a previous paint as a starter for a new paint and forget to save it first to a new folder. Of course - having experienced data loss, I hit the "save" icon and ooops, oh dear, bless me... the previous paint no longer exists. All I have left then are the dds textures.

As I say...

"ooops, oh dear, bless me..."

[Rich]

Just downloaded decomet3.zip out of curiosity, it works perfectly well in Fs9 as indeed it should since it still has the Fs9 model dated 2003 so no conversion there, the model is still looking for bmp's, you could I think convert the textures to DDS and it would still work, it is FSX that determines the format used the bmp/dds extension seems not to matter.

The textures are 32 bit format not dds, origionaly DXT3 they have been saved as 32 bit and apart from 2 extra sets of textures they are basicly the same.

Apart from the addition of Shockwave landing lights in the aircraft.cfg along with entries for the 2 additional texture sets there is no difference, one clue in the entry for the silver textures is "Mark "Fire Ball" Rooks" who ports stuff to FSX with conversion claims.

So as far as I am concerned this is a straight port of the Fs9 origional with apart from the addition of thumbnails in the texture folders,the textures converted to 32 bit as opposed to DXT3 the, addition of the shockwave landing light and a AI sound folder.

There are no DDS textures anywhere

[Rich]

Messed a bit more with it converting the Black Magic to DDS, works fine, replaced some of the DDS with origional bmp's, works fine with mixed dds/bmp also works with dxt3 bmps so FSX controls which texture format is used not the model, certainly not Fs9 models which this is, I do'nt think Fs9 models can be converted to FSX.

[falcon409]

Messed a bit more with it converting the Black Magic to DDS, works fine, replaced some of the DDS with origional bmp's, works fine with mixed dds/bmp also works with dxt3 bmps so FSX controls which texture format is used not the model, certainly not Fs9 models which this is, I do'nt think Fs9 models can be converted to FSX.
I was just going by the readme that David had added which states that this aircraft will no function in FSX because of the conversion. Since my FS9 is not usable right now, I took it at face value.

[Rich]

Falcon, not a problem, there are a couple of clever clogs who upload Fs9 models claiming them to be converted to FSX when in fact they are not, the most you can do as far as I can see is to convert textures to DDS which is not the case here, they are a mixture of 32 bit, dxt1, dxt3 all of which will work in FSX wheras DDS will not work in Fs9 and you can swap gauges that will not work for ones that will, conversion of the model as far as I know is not possible.

In this case you can do your whole repaint in 32 bit only needing to flip and save as DDS DXT5 once when you are happy with it keeping the colour corruption to the minimum when converting to DXT.

I mentioned this name on one of the repaints, "Mark "Fire Ball" Rooks" , he has uploaded dozens of so called FSX conversions all of which are ported Fs9 models, so I avoid them, the Laddie who uploaded this Comet model says he is going to upload a lot more of the same sort of portovers so another one to avoid or accept it as a portover

[falcon409]

Yea, I know, I wasn't going to start over from scratch. The airplane's just too cool looking to not give it one more try. Just a quick WIP shot:

[kjb]

Sometimes you get over the mistake and start over...sometimes you don't. :icon_lol:

[CBris]

Definitely tempting! I like.

[falcon409]

Definitely tempting! I like.
lol, ok Chris. . .if you go and do a repaint of this one, don't post any pics cause if you do I'll just have to throw mine in the waste basket, lol, lol.

[falcon409]

A few minor things to tweak, but basically finished.

[CBris]

lol, ok Chris. . .if you go and do a repaint of this one, don't post any pics cause if you do I'll just have to throw mine in the waste basket, lol, lol.

Naah, not me :engel016:

Very nice! When I said tempted, I meant tempted to download the model and your paint to go flying in it. She was tricky on the ground, with that long nose, but in the air...