FS2004 textures format
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Thread: FS2004 textures format

  1. #1

    FS2004 textures format

    Hallo friends,

    there will be some questions for the experts:

    a) I downloaded the Buecker Jungmann 131 v2
    when I had a look to the textures I saw that some of the exterior textures are in format 2048X2048X16million
    and all is correct when I fly the bird
    Nice - BUT - I allways thought that FS2004 accepts only textures in 1024X1024 size
    what happens here?

    b) I love the B-26 Marauder as all the birds from Milton and his team.
    so I looked for french Air Force textures.
    I found two nice ones for the FSX version.
    As usual I converted the textures from DDS to BMP with DXT 1 Bitmap manipulator
    than in my FSrepaint I fliped the textures and rezided them to 1024X1024 size
    the plane showed well
    but than in flightsim - ploff -the plane had no textures
    than back to FSrepaint I decreased the colors down to 256 colors and all got right hmm

    As information as paint programm I use my old Paint Shop Pro 6

    So I wonder why in some planes in FS2004 the size 2048X2048 is accepted and in others not
    the same question is for the colors, why in some cases 16 millions works well and in other only 256 colors
    are accepted ?
    when I make my 2D panels the background bmp normally is also in 16million colors.
    But as I featured that when I decrease the colors down to 256 colors the frame rate will be better.
    This I would under stand as the pc has less to do with 256 colors as with 16millions.
    But concerning the ac textures my light is out
    I hope that some one give me a light to understand this.

    yours
    Papi

  2. #2
    I heard somewhere that FS9 will read 2048X2048 as long as mip mapping is used. Some of Tim Conrad's models for FS9 have 2048X2048 textures but I can't think of which ones. Maybe the OV-1 Mohawk and the OV-10 Bronco.

    I downloaded and installed the Buecker Jungmann 131 v2 in my copy of FS9, but I re-sized and saved the 2048X2048 textures as 1024X1024. Prolly didn't need to do that after all.


    BB686
    "El gato que camina como hombre" -- The cat that walks like a man

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by michaelvader View Post
    Hallo friends,

    there will be some questions for the experts:

    a) I downloaded the Buecker Jungmann 131 v2
    when I had a look to the textures I saw that some of the exterior textures are in format 2048X2048X16million
    and all is correct when I fly the bird
    Nice - BUT - I allways thought that FS2004 accepts only textures in 1024X1024 size
    what happens here?

    b) I love the B-26 Marauder as all the birds from Milton and his team.
    so I looked for french Air Force textures.
    I found two nice ones for the FSX version.
    As usual I converted the textures from DDS to BMP with DXT 1 Bitmap manipulator
    than in my FSrepaint I fliped the textures and rezided them to 1024X1024 size
    the plane showed well
    but than in flightsim - ploff -the plane had no textures
    than back to FSrepaint I decreased the colors down to 256 colors and all got right hmm

    As information as paint programm I use my old Paint Shop Pro 6

    So I wonder why in some planes in FS2004 the size 2048X2048 is accepted and in others not
    the same question is for the colors, why in some cases 16 millions works well and in other only 256 colors
    are accepted ?
    when I make my 2D panels the background bmp normally is also in 16million colors.
    But as I featured that when I decrease the colors down to 256 colors the frame rate will be better.
    This I would under stand as the pc has less to do with 256 colors as with 16millions.
    But concerning the ac textures my light is out
    I hope that some one give me a light to understand this.

    yours
    Papi
    Hello, Papi

    What textures are you referring to? If they are 'bare metal' textures, maybe you also have to export the alphas, then resize and flip horizontally, finally reimport in the texture file using DTX1-DTXBMP...

    I've converted some textures non 'bare metal' (for example, Valkyrie and Heavenly Body). I did exactly your procedure (only that I'm using Paint.NET), then reloaded after edit in DTX1-DTXBMP and saved as 'Extended 32 bits 888-8', and no problem.

    With the 'bare metal', I follow another procedure:
    1-Load in DTXBMP
    2-Export the alpha, name it as the edited file adding '_alpha' (e.g.: fusefront_t_alpha.bmp)
    3-Send to editor (Paint.NET) the texture
    4-Flip horizontally and resize, close paint.Net saving changes.
    5-Reload after edit and save as Extended 32 bits 888-8. Close DTXBMP
    6-Load the alpha file in paint.Net, flip and resize. Maybe also tinker a bit the luminosity, if the bird appears too bright in the sim, or the author forgot to paint in white some areas. Save the alpha file.
    7-Load the texture in DTXBMP, import the alpha file, save the texture as Extended 32 bits 888-8.

    Habitually, I keep the alphas (fusefront_t_alpha.bmp, fuserear_t_alpha.bmp, etc...) to increase/decrease the luminosity/contrast until the skin bright satisfies me (then I only follow the 6th and 7th steps).

    Regards

  4. #4
    SOH-CM-2024 Mick's Avatar
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    I also thought that FS9 could only handle textures in 1024 size or smaller, so I've learned something here. If they will accept 2048 textures only with mipmaps, I guess that means they only show a lower resolution, a mip equivalent to a 1024 texture. FS must ignore the highest level mipmap and show the next one down in resolution. I wouldn't be happy with no mips because on my rig, textures with mips get soft and blurry from a short distance away; the ow-res mips kick in too soon as distance increases. I always save textures without mips for that reason, and I have often had to open other painters' textures in DXTbmp and save without mips to get them to lok good in the sim.

    I noticed that the main external texture in the FS9 version of Brian Gladden's recent Vermont Air Guard skin for the F-94 was in 2048 size. I thought that must be a mistake, so I reduced it to 1024, and my DXTbmp setting is to always save without mips. Since that's already done, I can't load the plane to see how it looks with the 2048 texture, but the skin has been on the download list for a couple days now and nobody seems to have mentioned it, so I guess it must work that way.

    I'm surprised at what happened when you converted that Marauder skin. I've converted several FSX skins to FS9 format, and all I had to do was flip and resize. 256 colors is a very low resolution format and I'll bet the textures don't look as good at that resolution!

    In all my FSX to FS9 skin conversions, I've always saved the textures in 32-bit format and they look fine in the sim.

    Panels are different. Panel backgrounds have always worked in 24-bit format (as well as others) but FS doesn't read 24-bit textures.

    After all that, I must admit that I don't know why you have an issue with your FSx to FS9 Marauder texture conversions. You did exactly what I do and it works for me. Curious...

  5. #5

    Marauder fs9 textures here Valkyrie

    Hallo friends,

    here I will now esplain what happens by taking as example the Valkkyrie textures from the FSX Marauder release
    1) I downloaded the whole plane B26 Marauder for FSX and extracted it into a "work" folder outside of fs
    2) I opened the Valkyrie textures folder and with DXTBMP I opened the contained textures and saved them in 24 bit
    BMP image
    3) In my fs2004 I opened the FS9 B26 Marauder, I made a copy of the texture 558thBS and renamed it texture.Valkyrie
    4) I opend the concerned plane with FSrepaint
    5) now via fsrepaint I opened the original Valkyrie textures in the "work" folder
    6) I fliped them, resized them to 1024X1024 and saved them
    7) I left fsrepaint and copied by overwrigting the Valkyrie converted textures into the Valkyrie textures created in my fs9 B26 Marauder
    8) I reopend the plane in FSrepaint and all showd fine
    9) I started my FS2004 and when I choose Valkyrie - plop - all grey with out textures (I mean just the changed outside textures)
    the not changed textures of pilots tires show correct
    10) in fsrepaint I looked at the alpha channel bmps - the where all white and in 1024x1024 format
    Now normally I reopen the concerned textures via FSrepaint and size down the colors to 256 colors
    this time I reduced them to 64k colors using reduction method nearest colors
    I ropend the plane in my FS2004 and now all is fine
    Question: is that the right way now or should I do in an other way?

    Yours
    Papi

  6. #6
    Charter Member 2012 nigel richards's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by michaelvader View Post
    Hallo friends,

    here I will now esplain what happens by taking as example the Valkkyrie textures from the FSX Marauder release
    1) I downloaded the whole plane B26 Marauder for FSX and extracted it into a "work" folder outside of fs
    2) I opened the Valkyrie textures folder and with DXTBMP I opened the contained textures and saved them in 24 bit
    BMP image

    3) In my fs2004 I opened the FS9 B26 Marauder, I made a copy of the texture 558thBS and renamed it texture.Valkyrie
    4) I opend the concerned plane with FSrepaint
    5) now via fsrepaint I opened the original Valkyrie textures in the "work" folder
    6) I fliped them, resized them to 1024X1024 and saved them
    7) I left fsrepaint and copied by overwrigting the Valkyrie converted textures into the Valkyrie textures created in my fs9 B26 Marauder
    8) I reopend the plane in FSrepaint and all showd fine
    9) I started my FS2004 and when I choose Valkyrie - plop - all grey with out textures (I mean just the changed outside textures)
    the not changed textures of pilots tires show correct
    10) in fsrepaint I looked at the alpha channel bmps - the where all white and in 1024x1024 format
    Now normally I reopen the concerned textures via FSrepaint and size down the colors to 256 colors
    this time I reduced them to 64k colors using reduction method nearest colors
    I ropend the plane in my FS2004 and now all is fine
    Question: is that the right way now or should I do in an other way?

    Yours
    Papi
    Papi ; Looks like this is probably causing the issues:

    2) I opened the Valkyrie textures folder and with DXTBMP I opened the contained textures and saved them in 24 bit
    BMP image

    Save the textures as 32 bit 888-8 in DXTBmp or Image Tool NOT 24 bit.
    Do NOT change the colours to 256 - this doesn't help anything.
    Most men often say what they think!
    An honest man usually means what he says!
    A gentleman always says what he means!

    "Αίεν Υψικρατείν "

    A fool is not he who asks a simple question, but he who would simply have its asking denied. (Richards 2012)

  7. #7

    Dxtbmp

    Good evvening Nigel,

    when I open an DDS texture with dxtbmp I don not see how to save it as you say to do
    the only possibilities I see are:
    DDS texture
    Extended Bitmap
    Targa with Alpha
    24 bit BMP image
    ACE DXT1 texture
    Creative Assembly texture
    Infinity Ward Image
    I must say I' ma a bit lost

    Yours
    Papi

  8. #8
    Charter Member 2012 nigel richards's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by michaelvader View Post
    Good evvening Nigel,

    when I open an DDS texture with dxtbmp I don not see how to save it as you say to do
    the only possibilities I see are:
    DDS texture
    Extended Bitmap
    Targa with Alpha
    24 bit BMP image
    ACE DXT1 texture
    Creative Assembly texture
    Infinity Ward Image
    I must say I' ma a bit lost

    Yours
    Papi
    Papi: use Image tool to do the conversion to 32 bit bitmap format from DDS DXT5.
    Most men often say what they think!
    An honest man usually means what he says!
    A gentleman always says what he means!

    "Αίεν Υψικρατείν "

    A fool is not he who asks a simple question, but he who would simply have its asking denied. (Richards 2012)

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by michaelvader View Post
    Good evvening Nigel,

    when I open an DDS texture with dxtbmp I don not see how to save it as you say to do
    the only possibilities I see are:
    DDS texture
    Extended Bitmap
    Targa with Alpha
    24 bit BMP image
    ACE DXT1 texture
    Creative Assembly texture
    Infinity Ward Image
    I must say I' ma a bit lost

    Yours
    Papi
    Hello, Papi

    You must select 'Extended bitmap'; then, in the save dialog, there is a list of formats. You must select 'Extended 32 bits 888-8'.

    By the way, the last weekend I've uploaded the FS9 conversion of the Valkyrie texture for the B-26 Marauder.

    Kind regards

  10. #10
    SOH-CM-2024 Mick's Avatar
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    Don't forget that "Save" and "Save As" offer different options on the DXTbmp drop-down menu. The Extended Bitmap sub-menu falls under the "Save As" menu, not the "Save" menu.

    FS can read 256 color textures, but the resolution is painfully low and the colors are limited to 256 shades.

    FS can not read 24-bit textures. Curious, since it reads 24-bit panels, but not textures.

    The DXT formats are better than 256 colors, but they are all very "lossy" formats, so every time you open one and save your changes, it loses a lot of quality and resolution.

    32-bit format offers very high resolution and it's not lossy at all, so you can open it, change it and save it as many times as you want and it will keep it's quality and resolution. 32-bit texture files are large and in the early days they gave some users trouble because of the demands they made on processors and video cards, but with today's computers (even my almost 10 year old one) that's no longer a problem.



  11. #11

    Your help

    Hallo friends,
    thank you a lot for your replies!
    It is very warm to read how you try to help me.
    In you answers I see a bit more how to do.
    I supose "Image tool" is an soft outside of dxtbmp, would you please tell me where I downloa it?
    I love SOH - a real fine site with very good guys
    Yours
    Papi

  12. #12
    Just for clarification, FS9 will use a 2048 only with MIPmaps. It does not use the 2048, only the 1024 and smaller Mips.

    Imagetool is part of the Environment/Terrain SDK and can be downloaded. Just search the web for it.
    Milton Shupe
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  13. #13
    SOH-CM-2024 Mick's Avatar
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    Good point about mipmaps, and interesting.

    Something that I don't understand about mips is that mipmapped textures work very well for many and perhaps most folks, displaying the lower resolution mips as the viewpoint gets further from the plane, but for others of us (myself included) the lower res mips kick in when the plane is still much too close to the viewpoint, making the plane look all fuzzy and out of focus, or even completely black.

    I don't know why it's like this, but it is. Rather annoying! I have often had to open and re-save other painters' textures without mips to get them looking right on my confutor, and surely those skins wouldn't have been released that way if they didn't look right on the painter's rig. So I have DXTbmp set to save without mips by default.

    Others in my situation might keep this in mind if they have DXTbmp set to No Mips as default, and use 2048 textures in FS9; if they make any changes to them, but sure to either save with mips or reduce to 1024 size.

    I have no idea why it's different on some folks' systems than on others'. Just another way FS manages to annoy us. Or at least some of us.

  14. #14
    Charter Member 2012 nigel richards's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mick View Post
    Good point about mipmaps, and interesting.

    Something that I don't understand about mips is that mipmapped textures work very well for many and perhaps most folks, displaying the lower resolution mips as the viewpoint gets further from the plane, but for others of us (myself included) the lower res mips kick in when the plane is still much too close to the viewpoint, making the plane look all fuzzy and out of focus, or even completely black.

    I don't know why it's like this, but it is. Rather annoying! I have often had to open and re-save other painters' textures without mips to get them looking right on my confutor, and surely those skins wouldn't have been released that way if they didn't look right on the painter's rig. So I have DXTbmp set to save without mips by default.

    Others in my situation might keep this in mind if they have DXTbmp set to No Mips as default, and use 2048 textures in FS9; if they make any changes to them, but sure to either save with mips or reduce to 1024 size.

    I have no idea why it's different on some folks' systems than on others'. Just another way FS manages to annoy us. Or at least some of us.
    Hmmm... with you there re; mipmaps, Mick. :-)

    So far, I've tried them on 5 different machines with rotten results - have permanently banned them from DXTBmp - be rid of them, says I.
    Most men often say what they think!
    An honest man usually means what he says!
    A gentleman always says what he means!

    "Αίεν Υψικρατείν "

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  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Mick View Post

    I have no idea why it's different on some folks' systems than on others'. Just another way FS manages to annoy us. Or at least some of us.
    IIRC a lot of mipmap issues are purely down to the graphics card and drivers that are in use. Whether you Nvidia or AMD, or a 3rd party card based on either Nvidia or AMD.

    While they might use the unified drivers, the end result can be different depending on whom manufactured the card.

    Ttfn

    Pete

  16. #16
    SOH-CM-2024 Mick's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Motormouse View Post
    IIRC a lot of mipmap issues are purely down to the graphics card and drivers that are in use. Whether you Nvidia or AMD, or a 3rd party card based on either Nvidia or AMD.
    While they might use the unified drivers, the end result can be different depending on whom manufactured the card.
    Ttfn
    Pete
    Makes sense, I guess, though I don't understand such matters well enough to have an informed opinion. That should, it seems, explain that the issues don't come from within FS, but from things that vary among different users, thereby producing different outcomes for different users.

  17. #17
    Hi everyone,

    I'm re-opening the subject, as I discovered similar things recently :
    With the DoughBree L-39, it will accept either 1024 texture & 2048 with mip selected. (DXTBMP)
    Both texture resolution being compressed in extended bitmap 888 - 32 bits.

    With the 2048 one, on an identical livery, there is a small improvement in term of resolution.
    So i tried 4096x4096 (Baltic Bees scheme from Jafo - FSX converted to fs2004 mapping by flip) and again it works provided mip is selected while saving.
    Again, a small improvement can be seen compared to 2048 one, but this time, the 4096 extended bmp start being huge (around 80 90Mo per texture.bmp)

    Didn't know fs2004 was capable of "sort of" HD.
    Will give a try with my next repaints.

    L'iguane

  18. #18
    SOH-CM-2024 Mick's Avatar
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    I think I know what's going on. If the larger texture file size only shows when mipmaps are selected, then FS9 must be skipping over the 2048 mip and showing the next size down, 1024, even when the viewpoint is up close to the model in the sim. If the texture doesn't have mips, then there's nothing that FS9 can show, so it shows nothing. I'll bet that's what's happening.

    I wonder if that only works if the original texture file had mips to begin with, or if DXTbmp adds the mips when you select for them, even if they weren't originally in the texture file??? Some experimentation would reveal the answer to that, if someone's curious enough to it.

    BTW, going back to the earlier posts in this thread, if you want a nice Free French skin, I made one for the B-26 back when it was released, and it was an FS9 skin from the beginning. It must be in the library here.

  19. #19
    I did some experimenting regarding texture sizes and formats a few years ago while working on the texture sheet for a ground polygon of a scenery.
    Here is my experience.

    My conclusion is:
    FS9 will only display textures of a maximum size of 1024x1024 pixels.
    These can either be true 1024x1024 size textures or 1024x1024 size mipmaps of a larger texture sheet.

    So "HD" is not possible. You will never get any bigger resolution than 1024x1024 pixels to display in FS9.

    What really makes a difference is whether you use an extended 32bit texture or a compressed DXT format.
    The 32 bit format will have the best quality showing fine details in the textures.
    Due to the compression a DXT format of the same texture sheet will always look less detailed or pixelated, blocky.
    Even the colors might change slightly.
    In addition I found that it makes a difference in the quality of the compressed texture whether you use DXTBmp or Imagetool to convert textures into a DXT format.
    These are that two tools that I use. There might be others.
    There seem to be different algorithms for the compression in these programs.
    In general for me DXTBmp gives the better results. So I use it most of the time for converting aircraft textures.
    However Imagetool offers the possibility to do batch conversions. I only use it for sceneries when there are huge amounts of textures to convert.

    How did I come to my conclusion?
    I started my work for this ground polygon with a 2048x2048 size texture sheet.
    The content of the texture sheet was hand drawn, so it was not a photo.
    I drew 1 pixel wide lines in a pattern, like tiles. The 2048x2048 texture sheet was saved as 32 bit BMP with mipmaps.
    These 1 pixel wide lines did not show up clearly in the sim. They were kind of blurred, washed out due to the downsizing.
    Actually in game the 2048x2048 textures with mipmaps looked the same as the texture sheet resized to 1024x1024 manually and saved as 32 bit BMP.
    So I am convinced that what you see in game is a 1024x1024 texture.
    In the end I used a 1024x1024 texture sheet in 32 bit format for my scenery.

    From my point of view using bigger than 2048x2048 textures in FS9 does not really make sense since the 1024x1024 mipmap will alyway be less detailed due to the downsizing.
    In addition the file size is more than four times bigger which has negative impact on loading times when you use big amounts of these oversized textures.
    It simply takes longer to load bigger files into the memory. This might not be an issue for small numer of files. But e.g imagine you have dozens of different AI aircraft with these large texture files on an airport then you will see the textures loading in sequence.

    I think it is an easy way to use higher resolution textures that were made for FSX in FS9 by using these mipmaps without having to downsize them which can be tedious work.
    Mipmaps can be added or be removed back and forth without a problem. However I do not know whether this also has an effect on texture quality .

    When you add mipmaps using DXTBmp or Imagetool the resizing of the mipmaps is done automatically with preset algorithms.
    You have no control regarding the output quality.
    When you resize textures manually using a paint software (I e. g. use PaintNet for all my work) there are often options regarding the interpolation algorithms that are used and this can have an effect on the texture quality.
    Hartwig
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