Constellation texture situation

[SSI01]

Sorry, I had to pull the previous post and am now putting this new one back up. Someone was kind enough to reply before I noted something I wanted to change and pulled the original, and I've lost that reply. I hope you'll repost as I'd like to see your input. To recap:

I've downloaded an enhancement for Manfred Jahn's Constellations - all marks - that adds exhaust smoke to the aircraft during flight. The file is "connie_smoke_cockpit_frame.zip." Supposed to be compatible with FS9 and FSX. Enhancements are also provided for the windscreen post interior surfaces. What's happening is the aircraft textures are fine until engine startup, when only the horizontal surfaces (but not engines/props) grey out or become indistinct. I've tried starting with sound on and off, makes no difference. Reloading the aircraft may work once, but changing any view will result in the blurring again. I have noted when reloading the aircraft, from external view, for a brief moment the blurred surfaces will be quite clear and sharp before they revert to blur again. I thought the new sound pack that came with the textures and effects might be demanding too much from the video/sound setup for the sim, but trying this with the sound off produces the same results.

Here are some screenies to illustrate what's going on:

5729957300

Here is the "readme" from the download:

Something occurred to me the other day while playing around on FS20004, we have the most
beautiful freeware Connie in our inventory of downloads (thanks to Manfred Jahn and crew),
yet some companies want to charge us for a lesser model in FSX format just because it has exhaust smoke effects
and a ho-hum flight deck.
Well, that changes now. I've already tested this on ALL my Connies both FS2004 and FSX, here is the rest.
included in this file is the smoke effects for your L-049, L-149, L-749 and all super Connie aircraft by Mr. Jahn and crew.
In the effects folder you will find fx_smoke_L0049.fx. Put that in your FS9/fsx effects folder.
Next are the lines to be replaced. Scroll down to your L-049 through L-749 Connie [lights] in the cfg file.
Replace your [lights] lines with these. All I did was eliminate some unnessary lines and added lines 14 through 17.
This will give your Connie the exhaust smoke while in flight.
[lights] //From the L749
//Types: 1=beacon, 2=strobe, 3=navigation, 4=cockpit, 5=landing
light.0 = 3, -4.750, -61.650, 3.880, fx_navred
light.1 = 3, -4.650, 61.600, 4.000, fx_navgre
light.2 = 3, -61.100, 0.00, 3.40, fx_navwhi
light.3 = 4, 30.25, 0.00, 1.20, fx_749_vclight
light.4 = 4, 30.50, -1.44, 1.20, fx_vclight
light.5 = 4, 30.50, 1.44, 1.20, fx_vclight
light.6 = 7, 12.250, -13.8, -1.75, fx_049_exh // 2
light.7 = 8, 12.250, 13.95, -1.85,fx_049_exh // 3
light.8 = 2, 10.650, -29.90, 0.125,fx_049_exh // 1
light.9 = 9, 10.650, 29.90, 0.220,fx_049_exh // 4
light.10 = 1, -6.920, 0.0, 7.040, fx_049_beaconb
light.11 = 1, 7.900, -0.0095, -5.415, fx_049_beaconb
light.12 = 5, -4.40, -38.385, -0.575, fx_749_landing,
light.13 = 5, -4.40, 38.350, -0.575, fx_749_landing,
light.14= 7, 12.250, -13.8, -1.75,fx_smoke_L0049 // 2
light.15= 8, 12.250, 13.95, -1.85,fx_smoke_L0049 // 3
light.16 = 2, 10.650, -29.90, 0.125,fx_smoke_L0049 // 1
light.17 = 9, 10.650, 29.90, 0.220,fx_smoke_L0049 // 4
For the Super Connies with tip tanks, replace your [lights] lines with this one and it will do the same as above.
[lights] // WV-2 tip tanks lights
//Types: 1=beacon, 2=strobe, 3=navigation, 4=cockpit, 5=landing
light.0 = 3, -2.200, -62.397, 3.871, fx_navred // tip tanks
light.1 = 3, -2.100, 62.285, 3.871, fx_navgre // tip tanks
//light.0 = 3, -4.750, -61.650, 3.880, fx_navred // no tip tanks
//light.1 = 3, -4.650, 61.600, 4.000, fx_navgre //no tip tanks
light.2 = 3, -67.750, 0, 4.84, fx_navwhi
light.3 = 4, 41.25, 0, 1.20, fx_vclighth
light.5 = 7, 11.250, -13.8, -2.05, fx_1049_exh2_1r9 // 2
light.6 = 8, 11.250, 13.8, -2.05,fx_1049_exh2_1r9 // 3
light.7 = 2, 9.750, -29.90, 0.100,fx_1049_exh2_1r9 //1
light.8 = 9, 9.750, 29.90, 0.100,fx_1049_exh2_1r9//4
light.9 = 1, -62.452, 0.0, 16.205, fx_beaconb //-8.025, 0.0, 7.075
light.10 = 1, 10.5, 0.0, -5.477, fx_beaconb //10.5, 0.0, -5.425
light.11 = 5, -4.65, -38.385, -0.590, fx_1049_landing,
light.12 = 5, -4.65, 38.350, -0.590, fx_1049_landing,
light.13 = 5, 1.500, -40.560, 0.450, fx_1049_nacelle_refl // Opensky
light.14 = 5, 1.500, 40.530, 0.410, fx_1049_nacelle_refl
light.15 = 7, 12.250, -13.8, -1.75,fx_smoke_L0049 // 2
light.16 = 8, 12.250, 13.95, -1.85,fx_smoke_L0049 // 3
light.17 = 2, 10.650, -29.90, 0.125,fx_smoke_L0049 //1
light.18 = 9, 10.650, 29.90, 0.220,fx_smoke_L0049 //4
For the L-1049, L-1079, Super G and H, same as above.
[lights]
//Types: 1=beacon, 2=strobe, 3=navigation, 4=cockpit, 5=landing
light.0 = 3, -2.200, -62.390, 3.871, fx_navred // tip tanks
light.1 = 3, -2.100, 62.285, 3.871, fx_navgre // tip tanks
//light.0 = 3, -4.750, -61.650, 3.880, fx_navred // no tip tanks
//light.1 = 3, -4.650, 61.600, 4.000, fx_navgre //no tip tanks
light.2 = 3, -67.750, 0, 4.84, fx_navwhi
light.3 = 4, 41.25, 0, 1.20, fx_vclighth
light.4 = 6, 39.60, 0.00, -5.280, fx_1049_taxiR, // Radar nose
//light.4 = 6, 46.10, 0.50, -2.780, fx_1049_taxi, //Snub nose
light.5 = 7, 11.250, -13.8, -2.05, fx_1049_exh2_1r9 // 2
light.6 = 8, 11.250, 13.8, -2.05,fx_1049_exh2_1r9 // 3
light.7 = 2, 9.750, -29.90, 0.100,fx_1049_exh2_1r9 //1
light.8 = 9, 9.750, 29.90, 0.100,fx_1049_exh2_1r9//4
light.9 = 1, -8.025, 0.0, 7.075, fx_beaconb
light.10 = 1, 10.5, 0.0, -5.425, fx_beaconb
light.11 = 5, -4.65, -38.385, -0.590, fx_1049_landing,
light.12 = 5, -4.65, 38.350, -0.590, fx_1049_landing,
light.13 = 5, 1.500, -40.560, 0.450, fx_1049_nacelle_refl // Opensky
light.14 = 5, 1.500, 40.530, 0.410, fx_1049_nacelle_refl
light.15 = 7, 12.250, -13.8, -1.75,fx_smoke_L0049 // 2
light.16 = 8, 12.250, 13.95, -1.85,ffx_smoke_L0049 // 3
light.17 = 2, 10.650, -29.90, 0.125,fx_smoke_L0049 //1
light.18 = 9, 10.650, 29.90, 0.220,fx_smoke_L0049 //4
I have added a bonus!!! my Connie soundset mix. I guarentee you'll not find a more realistic soundset on the web!
It was mixed by me but, I didn't do any of the recording. These are all freeware sounds that I compiled
I've watched hours of footage to get it right.
Lastly, for the photoreal windscreen pillars, just copy and paste the contents of the L-749 texture
folder into your existing L-049 through L-749 textures. The Super Connie posts are part of the interior
ceiling upholstery, so add the contents of L-1049 texture to your existing Super Connie textures. The ceiling upholstery in this file is grey.
(Sorry, I haven't done the green yet.) I'll upload that one later.
I hope you enjoy.
Kelly McKernan.

[mjahn]

I see you are in the process of doing you own textures and may have used MIPs on the target file conversion. If so, try turning them off.

[SSI01]

These are the bare metal paintkits made available for repainting purposes; I've never done anything to them except set up a generic plain metal aircraft to fly, importing all other files (model, panel, sound etc) as needed - to me they look that good plain. I'm not sure what to do about the textures given I've never altered them. I did move the mip-mapping on the sim from 5 to 4.

I have changed the vc01 file back to the original, thinking that was the culprit, and tried starting the engines. The blurring still happens. A new wrinkle I've noted is the prop discs are now translucent, they used to just have the blurred prop blades.

[Sunny9850]

Have not tried this file yet, but I would suspect that the actual effect files are causing the problem. I do not have the shockwave files so I can't compare if the creator of this file has simply used them as is or modified them as well.
Manfred is probably correct in thinking that this is a case of MIP MAP in the textures of the effects ... Not the aircraft. Also remember that our Connie already had smoke and flame effects right out of the box. Smoke only during startup and flames linked to engine output.
Messing with that may cause problems because at least in part it is linked to the XML code running the sim.

Personally I do not want my Connies smoking in flight, that would mean either engine troubles or my Flight Engineer is running the R3350s way too rich.....losing power and wasting fuel in the process ;)

Cheers
Stefan

[SSI01]

Well thought out and reasoned statements.

I've downloaded the templates for the 749 and 1049 aircraft, and will try to reinstall the wing and prop disk textures for both aircraft, then give it a test run and see what happens. If that doesn't work, it's back to the old light config and things as they were.

[SSI01]

OK - downloaded the L-749 template pack and reinstalled the wing and propdisk textures, right over what was already in the texture folder. No effect, still getting the blurries. Then commented out the new lights in the aircraft config file, and put the old lights back in. No effect, still getting the blurries. Changed views from outside to cockpit to FE's panel back to outside. Wing textures fine. Went back inside to start engines. Came back out, wings blurry again. Tried reloading aircraft. Still getting the blurries. Then shut down FS9 and did a complete restart. Back to the aircraft. Wing textures fine. Went inside to start engines, did so. External view then shows blurred wings again.

Please don't tell me I've got to dump and reinstall the entire aircraft - I hope!

[Sunny9850]

Try commenting out all the effects and lights and then reload the aircraft in the sim. Repeat your tests as before and see if you still get the blurries.
I suspect that one of the effect files got changed when you installed this "upgrade" and just going back does not fix that problem.
If the problem goes indeed away when you comment out the effects you have as I see it two options:

Install the original effects from our package, complete with the textures associated with them.

Or

Activate the previously commented out lines one by one, re-loading the aircraft after each one, until you find the culprit. My guess based on the situation you describe it is most likely one of the start smoke fx files.

Cheers
Stefan

[mjahn]

In your testing I would strongly suggest to always completely shut down FS before you try a new texture (like you did last time). Takes longer, I know, but it's the only safe way. FS simply won't load what it thinks it's still got in memory - or sometimes it will and sometimes it won't. That's not good for testing. I learned this from bitter experience. Actually I vaguely remember that the Connie team did develop a smoke effect and that we did not use it because some of us experienced something like the visual degradation that you report.

[SSI01]

Very good. I thought that was what I should be doing, vice reloading the aircraft or switching out aircraft in FS9 before putting the problem aircraft back in to fly. I'll do some checking and tweaking here and let you know what happens.

BTW aircraft emits a rather significant belch of smoke when starting each engine, however, I've seen this in video of Connies starting, especially with cold engines.

Anyway, will do what you suggest and report results.

[Sunny9850]

Manfred's suggestion of completely shutting down is of course a very good one since you are likely dealing with textures in the effects folder....and those are not aircraft specific.

As for the smoke during start up, that is based on watching radials start in person and of course the videos you mention. The old saying is that if it doesn't drip when shut down or smoke a bit when starting you probably do not have any oil in your radial....

I still think that somehow one of these original start effects or more precisely a related texture got changed or replaced and is now causing the problem even when you remove the "new" cfg lines.

Cheers
Stefan

[tgibson]

I have found this to be a reliable way to reload all textures in the sim:

1. Go to Options/Settings/Display/Hardware
2. Move your Global Texture Size slider by one notch (either way) - it's at the bottom of the dialog box
3. Click OK.

I always keep it set to Massive, so I need to check this at the end of a session.

Hope this helps,

[Sunny9850]

Should have guessed that "Pappa" Tom would have a trick for this FS quirk in his bag. As any CC regular would know that bag seems to be endless in it's capacity.:icon_lol:

:icon29:
Stefan

[SSI01]

Well, here's the situation after applying what I've been told -

The aircraft in question is the L-749 base pack (i.e., unpainted textures supplied with which to repaint). I had one copy in an L-749 folder in the flight sim "aircraft" file that had other L-749s in it, with painted textures. The other unpainted L-749 was in its own separate file folder, complete with model, panel, sound, etc. I've noted the other L-749s in the first -749 folder, those with textures applied to them, start and display fine. Even an unpainted L-649 I have in the L-749 folder works fine, as do the unpainted L-649s in their separate folders. The problem lies with all L-749 unpainted textures, whether they're separate in their own folders or in the L-749 folder with other aircraft in it. I checked the two config files, side by side, the config file from the 749 folder with multiple aircraft in it against that from the 749 stand-alone, to ensure absolute duplication of data. I changed the variation of the plain 749s in the multiple 749 folder to read "unpainted 2" to differentiate them in the FS aircraft window from the standalone unpainted 749. My thinking was that somehow it was confusing the FS to be reading two identical config entries on two aircraft, even if they were in separate aircraft folders. Shut down and restarted FS9. Still had the problem. Next step was to transfer the config file from the working multiple 749 folder to the stand-alone 749 folder, and delete all aircraft entries from the config file save that for the stand-alone 749, thinking that somehow something I missed in comparing the two config files was still screwing things up. Now the config file general aircraft information is identical in both. Tried starting the stand-alone 749 with this setup - still get the blurries. I kind of know in advance it's going to happen because the prop disks will become translucent at startup, unlike all the other 749s that display the individual whirling blades. So what it boils down to is that the unpainted L749, L749A, or L749A with speedpack, either in the aircraft folder with the other painted 749s or in a standalone file, will get the blurries at startup.

[SSI01]

Went back and again commented out every single effect and light file. First external view of the aircraft at loading showed the blurries, even before engine start. Went inside to pilot and FE stations, went back outside and no blurries. Stayed in external view and started aircraft engines one at a time. No blurries, slight smoke at startup. Taxied to end of runway, ducked back inside cockpit for final check prior to TO, went back outside and had blurries again.

Just now - ran the TransCalifornia and plain 749 wing textures through ImageTool. TransCalifornia textures that display fine are in DXT3 format; blurred wing textures are in 32 bit format, Mip level 1. Need to change to DXT3 to test. How to do?

Later still - just figured this out & changed wing texture on L749 to DXT3 from 32bit. No blurries now no matter what. Starting to add back in all lights and effects. Will report results. Thanks for the tips!

[Sunny9850]

Ok, sounds good that you are almost back to normal, but now I am confused as to where these wing texture files are from. Are they from one of our original packs ???
I am 99.9% sure that all those were checked and double checked for MIPS. And this is the first time I hear of anyone having this issue with any of the Connies, outside of the team internal
issues Manfred mentioned.

Cheers
Stefan

[tgibson]

This is usually caused by including mipmaps in the textures, rather than by the file format. I would assume if you resaved the 32 bit textures (in a program like DXTBmp) without mips they would also display OK.

Hope this helps,

[SSI01]

I think I may have this thing licked, but like James Bond, I've learned to "Never Say Never." I ran the wing texture for the 749 through ImageTool, changed it from 32 bit to DXT3, both mip level 1 - wing textures now work with all effects and lights. I took a half-hour hop around San Francisco, wanted a place with pretty high-density scenery to try this out with - textures worked fine. I'm going to give this a conditional pass until I try the rest of the plain metal 749s and 649s tomorrow, but for this one bird at any rate, this was the answer. Tom, from your advice it sounds like I can re-edit the texture to completely eliminate the mips, so will do that tomorrow as well before I check out the rest.:salute:

[Tom Clayton]

Just a side note here - you said that you commented out all effects and then still got a slight smoke at startup. I've read before and this confirms that startup smoke is hard-wired. If I remember right, the only way to totally turn it off is to actually add an effect line calling for an file that's not there.

[SSI01]

Just a side note here - you said that you commented out all effects and then still got a slight smoke at startup. I've read before and this confirms that startup smoke is hard-wired. If I remember right, the only way to totally turn it off is to actually add an effect line calling for an file that's not there.

That wasn't all - I also got the taxi/landing lights even with all effects/lights commented out. I checked on this by reloading and starting the aircraft w/nothing commented back "in." If it still ran it meant whatever was happening I had no control over (that is, without knowing what you've said above), but it wasn't in conflict with the basic aircraft either, so leave well enough alone. It was an interesting experience.

Another way to disable the "hard-wired" effects, at least temporarily while one is working on a problem, is to remove the basic effect from the "effects" folder. Is this possible, without crashing the sim? Also - if one were to try to comment out a "hard-wired" effect, what would be the wording? This would be nice to know if an experiment determines the sim will crash if the basic effect is removed temporarily from the effects folder.

[Sunny9850]

Lights that are coded in the model such as taxi,landing and NAV lights can not be simply commented out. Depending on the actual effect you could temporarily remove the effect from the folder. That will not crash the sim, it simply will not show what it can't find.
I think encoding the effects in the Gmax model still calls up regular effect files.

Again the question where these wing textures are from ?? Our original package or aftermarket ??

Cheers
Stefan

[SSI01]

The wing textures, in fact all the textures involved, were from the L749 and L1049 template kits that are available on FlightSim. The file names are "l749temp.zip" and "1049pkit.zip."

[Sunny9850]

Ok thanks...I'll have to take a look at those.

Cheers
Stefan

[Sunny9850]

Had a look at these and they were basically meant as a starting point for new repaints only and not really a finished texture file. That might explain the MIP issue.

Cheers
Stefan

[SSI01]

Stefan - no sweat, they look fine to me "right out of the box." Thanks for looking into this, nothing is a waste if you learn from it - it's just that some experience is more expensive than others!:salute:

[Sunny9850]

That's the spirit. But I believe Maarten called these Templates for a reason. They were basically only meant to give prospective color artists a nice starting point with at least some of the tedious work already done for them. They sure look nice but to be used in the sim, even without any additional paint work they really do need to be processed with DXTBmp to make them all around usable.

Cheers
Stefan

[Maarten -]

Indeed! Stefan hits the nail on the head. :salute:

Cheers,
Maarten

[SSI01]

Gentlemen - a technical question for you both: Assuming textures you have in your sim aircraft are working properly and not giving you any problems in 32-bit format, would you still convert them from 32-bit to DXT3 format anyway? And, if it can be done, is it "always" a good idea to reduce mip-mapping of textures to "0" even if you don't have problems with them?

I ask because I am a devotee of the "If it ain't broke don't fix it" school, at least as far as FS9 is concerned; yet if the 32-bit textures are somehow affecting system performance it would be wise to clean them up. Your thoughts?

[johnh_049]

Gentlemen - a technical question for you both: Assuming textures you have in your sim aircraft are working properly and not giving you any problems in 32-bit format, would you still convert them from 32-bit to DXT3 format anyway? And, if it can be done, is it "always" a good idea to reduce mip-mapping of textures to "0" even if you don't have problems with them?

I ask because I am a devotee of the "If it ain't broke don't fix it" school, at least as far as FS9 is concerned; yet if the 32-bit textures are somehow affecting system performance it would be wise to clean them up. Your thoughts?


If you're going to release the textures to the public, it's probably a good idea to go without mips. some graphic cards just don't play well with mips. with 32 bit you can get more color depth and the alpha gets more shades of grey to work with.
however, dxt3 is a more compact file format.

[Tom Clayton]

It can also depend on the combination of aircraft and the system it's running on. I've seen some models that ran fine with DXT3 on other systems but sent my entire virtual world deep into the blurries. When that happened, I took the original 32-bit (remember to back up the originals) and converted to uncompressed 8-bit. The color loss was minimal if any, and since the model had its own dynamic shine, there was no need for alpha reflection.

As far as the advantage of smaller filesize, if you get good frame-rates with 32-bit, then the only other difference you'll see is texture load time. When dealing with something like Hiroshi's 777-300's, you can easily have six texture files @ 10242 and 32-bit each. Add separate files for each wing and more for the other bits, and you have one massive set of textures. When you switch to spot view it may take a few second for all of it to load. Converting 32-bit to DXT3 reduces the filesize, and therefore the loading time, by 75%.

[Sunny9850]

Basically with modern PCs and for textures used on user flown AC vs AI the general consensus is MIP = 0 ....there is virtually no benefit to having them and lots of potential for problems.
32 bit textures are capable to be much more detailed and nuanced....so if you are going for a particularly detailed paint job on that special aircraft I would go with that. I would however put the disclaimer in the README that this texture format can on some PCs cause the dreaded blurries and maybe a helpful hint on how to re-format the textures if that is the case.

Some textures I have seen lately at the major sites have two options in the zip files one High-Res and the other a more system friendly resolution. Of course that increases the size of the download which makes a whole new crop of people a little mad because they pay for every bite the move across the lines.

Cheers
Stefan