photo ground tiles - help!

[moriarity]

I've almost completed my aerodrome, but now I'd like to replace the ground polys with satellite images to give it a more professional look. However, I'm having enormous problems trying to accomplish this.

The images I've got look excellent, and I can get the full effect I want using gmax - but the when I use the gmax produced bgl, the surface rips like crazy, so back to airport....

I'm using 256mx256m ground polys with bitmaps of 256x256x256 sliced from a satellite image. Here's an example of one of the tiles:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tim.dale/uploadimages/tile.gif

I've tried all sorts of utilities (although I don't really know what I'm supposed to do with them) from MS FS Image tool to DXTBmp. I need to use polys so that I can place the tiles accurately, but here's what I get:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tim.dale/uploadimages/tilex.gif

as you can see, the tile is quartered and re-ordered. Can anyone out there help me before I pull out what little hair I've got left in my head....

PS - Would I be correct in assuming that I should generate MIP maps and save the tiles in DXT3 format for FS2002?

Thanks in advance...

Tim

[Simpit]

I'm a real neophyte here as well, but I have done some work in Gmax recently... In order to get rid of the rippling effect, try adding a z-bias command to your texture. With Gmax, you do this by adding "Zbias_x_" to the front of your material name... where x is 0 to 9. I had a poly on the ground that stopped rippling when I put a bias of 2 in there.

By the way, I didn't come up with this - Try hanging out in the forums where people are discussing creating aircraft as well as scenery with Gmax - I think the principles are the same. This particular tip came from the http://www.freeflightdesign.com forums...

Oh - and "Yes" to the mip maps, but I'm not entirely sure of the differences between dxt1 and dxt3. I've been using dxt1 with good effect...

Hope this helps!

http://www.flightsim.com/dcforum/User_files/3ca108f200cb1a6d.gif Derek