Darkened textures on portovers

[delta_lima]

About 2 weeks ago, having done nothing significant (that I recall) to my FSX install, all of a sudden, I noticed that on almost all my portover models, certain surfaces - usually moving/animated ones - are now really dark. When panning around it'll get better/worse, seemingly dependent on light angles.

I'm running FSX+Accel, on my standard old 2.39 MGz, 3Gb Ram, NVidia GeForce 9800GT. I run Shade and Diaz's Clouds, nothing else in terms of terrain/sky upgrades.

Here's a picture of the HJG C990, once resplendent in bare metal ... now all shadowy, esp in certain control surfaces.

Attachment 89371


Any ideas?

Thanks so much,

DL

[dhazelgrove]

I've had this before. I've found that converting all the skins from DXT3 to DDS helps. It's a lot of work - as you have to get ALL of them.
You have to make sure that you don't leave a single one in the old format. Have a go.

Dave

[delta_lima]

Hello Dave,

I'm curious why they worked before, in their original .bmp format; indeed, some still work as .bmps just fine now ...

DL

[dhazelgrove]

Nobody knows..... It could be an FSX 'feature', perhaps? It does seem to be linked to the number of BMP texture you have to be displayed at any one time.

We're not at all paranoid, are we?

I did find it worthwhile to give port-overs the FSX treatment - creating a 'common' texture folder with a texture.cfg file. Saves space, too.

By the time you've finished, you'll have earned the "I learned about going mad from this!" t-shirt.

Dave

[delta_lima]

Nobody knows..... It could be an FSX 'feature', perhaps? It does seem to be linked to the number of BMP texture you have to be displayed at any one time.

Hmmmm, I hadn't heard about this being correlated to # of BMPs .... did install a bunch of new sceneries (Europe 61), but this occurs on all the same planes anywhere. Can you explain more what you mean about the "number of BMP texturess displayed at any one time" ... I'm intrigued.

Perhaps the fix lies in undoing something I've unwittingly done .... I just can't think of what.

thanks,

DL

[Jafo]

I doubt it has anything to do with bmp texture numbers at all. I often convert DDS to 888 BMP without losing 'appearance'. The only issue is frame-rate hit when a bmp is so much bigger [uncompressed]. I'd be more suspicious of something in the settings....like DX10 preview - whatever....

[delta_lima]

Interesting. I'm not running DX10 (don't know how to enable that - have Win XP anyway, so that should not even be doable.)

Will keep digging ...

DL

[dhazelgrove]

.... did install a bunch of new sceneries (Europe 61), but this occurs on all the same planes anywhere.

Try disabling these sceneries and see if the problem resolves itself.

Dave

[Delta_Whiskey]

if all textures have been upgraded and this still persists - perhaps it has to do with the surface normals in the model.
the dark areas all appear to be animated parts and with the differences in animation between fsx and the older SDK's
something could be going on - i have seen this before when i am making a new model and have learned how to correct
my flipped / skewed normals , sometimes i have to scrap the animation keys to do it, and start over

just spitballing here ...
goodluck

[Dangerousdave26]

In FS9 this is caused by turning Reflections off in the Display settings under the aircraft tab.

Attachment 89595

In FSX that option does not appear in the aircraft tab.

Attachment 89597

I would first look for some other setting that is killing the reflection.

You may want to look in your FSX config in the [GRAPHICS] section.

[GRAPHICS]
AC_SELF_SHADOW=1
AIRCRAFT_REFLECTIONS=1 <----- Not in the options above at least by that name. Make sure it is a 1.
AIRCRAFT_SHADOWS=0
ALLOW_SHADER_30=1
COCKPIT_HIGH_LOD=1
D3D10=0
EFFECTS_QUALITY=2
GROUND_SHADOWS=0
..... SNIP



The other thing I would look at (although a stretch it is) is bump map and specular textures. They don't exists since this is a port over but that screen shot looks like what happens when you assign a bump texture to a material but the actual texture is not in the texture folder. It causes the aircraft to go all dull and loose any reflective properties.

To test to see if it is some freaky bump/Specular anomaly simply steal the C172 textures and drop them (one at a time) into the appropriate HJG 990 texture folder. Rename the files to 990_A_T_XXXX.dds. XXXX will be bump or Spec depending on which one you are testing. Fire up the sim and see if there were any changes to how it is displayed. Unless something is really freaky there should be no change. If those textures actually get applied you will notice a difference.

C172_t_spec.dds = 990_A_T_spec.dds
C172_t_bumb.dds = 990_A_T_bump.dds

990_A_T is the name of the Fuselage textures front and middle.

[delta_lima]

In FS9 this is caused by turning Reflections off in the Display settings under the aircraft tab.

Attachment 89595

In FSX that option does not appear in the aircraft tab.

Attachment 89597

I would first look for some other setting that is killing the reflection.

You may want to look in your FSX config in the [GRAPHICS] section.

[GRAPHICS]
AC_SELF_SHADOW=1
AIRCRAFT_REFLECTIONS=1 <----- Not in the options above at least by that name. Make sure it is a 1.
AIRCRAFT_SHADOWS=0
ALLOW_SHADER_30=1
COCKPIT_HIGH_LOD=1
D3D10=0
EFFECTS_QUALITY=2
GROUND_SHADOWS=0
..... SNIP



The other thing I would look at (although a stretch it is) is bump map and specular textures. They don't exists since this is a port over but that screen shot looks like what happens when you assign a bump texture to a material but the actual texture is not in the texture folder. It causes the aircraft to go all dull and loose any reflective properties.

To test to see if it is some freaky bump/Specular anomaly simply steal the C172 textures and drop them (one at a time) into the appropriate HJG 990 texture folder. Rename the files to 990_A_T_XXXX.dds. XXXX will be bump or Spec depending on which one you are testing. Fire up the sim and see if there were any changes to how it is displayed. Unless something is really freaky there should be no change. If those textures actually get applied you will notice a difference.

C172_t_spec.dds = 990_A_T_spec.dds
C172_t_bumb.dds = 990_A_T_bump.dds

990_A_T is the name of the Fuselage textures front and middle.

Thanks Dave,

I checked my fsx.cfg - confirmed that it indeed had reflections enabled (=1). I played around with both enbseries and shade, and found that I could worsen the contrast if I had both enb and shade, while having none installed caused the unaffected chrome areas to be "hotter" (whiter). Still haven't found out why the affected areas (flaps, landing gear doors, airbrakes, etc.) still render darker.

I might try your texture experiment - but I just think there's something with how these particular textures interact with the light. I've played with enabling/disabling all the shadow on ground/shadow on self settings, no impact.

Thanks,

DL

[Dangerousdave26]

I batch converted all of the textures in the HGJ Convair 990 folder to dds today. They look fine on the plane but for me it looked fine before.

If you want the textures let me know which one so we can test one of the paints.

[delta_lima]

Very kind Dave, very kind.

Of the 990s, I've got the 2 Swissairs ('64 and '69) and the early period ('65) NASA done recently by Tony. Though for test purposes, I'd take whatever you did/have.

I've pm'ed you contact details.

Again, many kind thanks!!

DL