Converting FSX textures to FS2004

[Willy]

First off, I'm going to blame all of this on Huub as if it wasn't for his beautiful KLM C-47, I wouldn't have thought about trying this.

I've got the Manfred Jahn FS9 C-47 and was over at Flight Sim and noticed that there's a lot more textures for the FSX version than there is FS9. Being of a somewhat industrious type, I downloaded a couple of the FSX textures with the idea of converting them to FS9 version which I've heard you can do.

I unzipped the downloads and opened up the appropriate .dds texture files with DXT/Bmp and saved them as 32 bit 888 bmp files. Then I opened them up with Paint Shop Pro 6, resized to 1024x1024 and flipped the textures to match a stock set of FS9 textures that I was using for comparison. Checked with DXT/BMP to make sure they were still 888 32 bit and they still had the alpha layer and installed them into a FS9 textures folder and then put it all into my C-47 folder with the appropriate entries in the aircraft.cfg to make it work. Or so I thought.

In FS9 though, I'm just getting the model with no textures so obviously I screwed up something somewheres. Checked to make sure that the texture folder names matched what was in the aircraft.cfg and that was good to go. The actual file names are matching up as well.

Any suggestions other than blaming Huub who is really not at fault here? Did I miss a step or two in there?

[Tako_Kichi]

Are you missing all the textures or just some?

Don't forget that FSX uses a common texture folder that holds common textures unlike FS9 where you have to have all textures in every paint scheme folder.

You would need to convert the contents of the 'texture' folder too and add them to your paint folder in FS9. The downside to this is that you would need the FSX version of the aircraft in order to get access to the common texture folder.

[ian elliot]

I did this myself with some FSX textures for the Virtavia Hunter, looks like you got most of it right if i remember, but i do remember having to either check or uncheck MipMaps/include when saving box in the bottom right corner of Dxtmp, hope that helps.
cheers ian

[Willy]

I just converted the two main exterior .dds files and put them in a working texture folder to make sure I had all the other bits. It's all the exterior textures from those two files that are missing.

[kikas]

I do believe that fsx textures have to be flipped over also, plus sometimes you have to change alpha channels, some time i ago i converted few paints for carenados 185, it worked fine except for bare metal ones who did not looked right in fs2004.

[Willy]

Found the problem. I had stepped back and left it alone for a bit and when I went to view them again with DXT/Bmp, they were showing as normal bitmaps. Converted them to 888 32 bit again and they worked. Except for the alpha layer which is going to have to be redone. All the black lettering is showing as chrome now.

Thanks for the help and suggestions

[Willy]

Got the alphas squared away. This started out as a FSX Belgian AF VIP C-47. It's had the serial numbers and other identifiers removed and is now the new FS9 Merc Air Gooney Bird.

Other than my having gotten a bit stupid with the converting of textures, it was a piece of cake....

One thing I've noticed about the Jahn C-47 paints that I've found. The bare metal is atrocious on most of them. Huub did a pretty good job with his, but I'm going to see if I can do anything with the others.

[Bjoern]

Keep in mind that specular maps play a big part in getting bare metal to look "right" in FSX, so converting it back to FS9 will require a bit of intervention.

[Willy]

I kind of figured FSX would do bare metal different than FS9 does.

[philmoberg]

I did some work with the FSX paint kit for this aircraft early last year, and one of the most helpful things I discovered, based on what I learned from the C1 paint kit, was to include include a darkish blue layer which I set to something like 5-10% transparency. It made all the difference in the world to my eyes. The screenshot below doesn't show it off very well (I was flying in hazy weather), but the effect is still generally positive.