Assistance Requested of Experienced Repainters

[falcon409]

I have a question to ask concerning the loss of fine details when going from the original paint kit to the final product.

The project I am working on is Tim Conrad's T-33. . .a port over of his FS9 model. I built a new layered paint kit on a 4096x4096 texture size. When I save the new texture to the aircraft texture folder (as a bitmap) and then load that texture into DXTbmp for the conversion process, the details are already degraded. Is this a result of the save function from a layered image to a single layer bitmap or is there something I'm not doing correctly?

If what I'm doing sounds correct to you, then is there any way to maintain the original details.

Another question:
In FSX, aircraft textures are now saved using the dds format. . .does this preserve the details when going from the paint kit to the new file format or does it still lose detail in that process as well? Can I take the work I'm currently doing and save all the texture files as dds files and have it work correctly or is this something that the original mdl file has to be coded to use?

Thanks :salute:

[bushpilot]

If you save in 32bit BMP or DDS it should not lose detail. DXT compression loses the detail. (and so does saving in 16bit)

[falcon409]

If you save in 32bit BMP or DDS it should not lose detail. DXT compression loses the detail. (and so does saving in 16bit)
Ok, I understand that, but read the first paragraph again. The detail I am concerned with is what is lost in saving the layered image to a single layer bitmap "before" I get to the conversion process in DXTbmp, not after. When I convert it in DXTbmp I'm saving it as a 32bit 888 texture w/alpha.

[bushpilot]

Ok, I understand that, but read the first paragraph again. The detail I am concerned with is what is lost in saving the layered image to a single layer bitmap "before" I get to the conversion process in DXTbmp, not after. When I convert it in DXTbmp I'm saving it as a 32bit 888 texture w/alpha.


As I stated it should not lose detail if you save layered master to 32bit. I think some image processing programs save BMP by default in 24bit.

But if your whole workflow is 32bit and you're still losing details, then something is going wrong, really difficult to tell what.http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/images/icons/icon12.gif

[falcon409]

As I stated it should not lose detail if you save layered master to 32bit. I think some image processing programs save BMP by default in 24bit.http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/images/icons/icon12.gif
. . .and how would I be able to tell if it's saving at 32bit or 24bit?

[Bjoern]

I think some image processing programs save BMP by default in 24bit.


From a pure image format thingy, the only difference between 24 bit and 32 bit is the missing 8 bit alpha channel in the former format. Color depth-wise they're both exactly the same (16.7 million colors).

[bushpilot]

What program are you using? Photoshop has a separate saving dialogue when saving BMP's which lets you select the bit debth.

[falcon409]

What program are you using? Photoshop has a separate saving dialogue when saving BMP's which lets you select the bit debth.
I'm using Paint Shop Pro 8.0. As far as a way to change the "save" bit level, I've looked and I don't see any way to change that, unless someone reading this also uses PSP and knows where that's located.

[bruce448]

if you have imagetool.exe that ships with the SDK you can format the files to which ever format you want to (that FSX recognises that is)

(when i use PSP i save the layered files as .PSD's, then convert with imagetool normally to DTX5 format andsave as .dds)

Bruce

[Cazzie]

Falcon,

Firstly, 4096 X 4096 is fine for working the repaint, especially if you work with vector graphics, but the smallest size allowed by FS9 is 1024 X 1024.

On another note, why save the layered texture as a bitmap? Bring the DXTBitmap texture into your graphics editor and on your layered image, click Select All > Copy Merged, and paste the merged image over the Norm.bmp. Of course, since you are using 4096 X 4096 textures on your layered kit, you will need to Click Image > Image Size on the Norm,bmp first and change its size to 4096 X 4096 before pasting the merged image, then you will have to Flatten the image and change the size back to 1024 X 1024 before bringing it back into DXTBap and saving it as an 888-8 32-Bit Bitmap. This should solve you problems.

If there is an Alpha, the same should be done with it.

Caz

[falcon409]

That did the trick Caz. I had to take the paint kit down to 2048x2048 because I kept getting an out of memory error in PSP when I tried to cut or copy, but the end result is that the details are back. . .it has a somewhat "softer" look to it now, but at least I was able to keep the details. Thanks for the information!!:salute: