Re: Texture Problems

malkyson · 10-02-2001, 09:34 PM

[quote:bfcd0b688e][quote:bfcd0b688e][quote:bfcd0b688e][quote:bfcd0b688e][quote:bfcd0b688e]Martin,
Thanks, Martin - good to be able to speak to the authors.
I had a run at that last night but I'm not convinced that I've done it
properly.
So far, I've converted/"saved as r8's" the original bitmaps and tried that out
with the same no--show result. But at that stage I hadn't deleted the object
from Airport and then re-introduced it.
After your post, I renamed as bitmaps these newly named r8's - again with the
same result.
What I plan to do now is to use the original downloaded bitmaps and run the
process with a clean sheet and see what happens.
Magic piece of software, by the way, I've used it on numerous occassions and
it's great fun to use and much appreciated.
All the best,
Malcolm

Malcolm

It may be worth looking inside the api itself to make sure you are getting the
texture filenames correct. They need to be exactly the same as the name you
will find in the relevant Bitmap( ) or LoadBitmap( ) instructions in the api.

Your first attempt wouldn`t have worked as the scenery would be looking for
xxxxx.BMP. Your second *should* have worked providing the renamed R8`s match
exactly the xxxxx.BMP filename used by the api.

If you have the new textures in the Local texture folder of the scenery then
there shouldn`t be a problem. If you are putting them in the main texture
folder then check that you don`t have the original (BMP format) textures in the

[/quote:bfcd0b688e][/quote:bfcd0b688e][/quote:bfcd0b688e][/quote:bfcd0b688e][/quote:bfcd0b688e]

[quote:bfcd0b688e]
[quote:bfcd0b688e]
[quote:bfcd0b688e]
[quote:bfcd0b688e]Local texture folder as Local textures will be loaded in prefererence to
"Global" ones.

Just had a nasty thought......If the api uses LoadBitmap( ) to load the
textures there may be a problem. I don`t think FS98 supports this command.
If this is the case then you will need to edit the api in Notepad and replace
every LoadBitmap with the equivalent Bitmap instruction.
Every time you find

LoadBitmap( x x x x x x "texturename" )
(the x`s can be many values...just look for the "texturename" eg Barrels.bmp)

Replace with

Bitmap( "texturename" 0 0 0 0 )

and it should then work

MALCOLM,

This advice you are getting about the naming of textures is of course quite
accurate if the scenery you're using is originally designed for FS2K and those
texture files are in *.BMP format. However, it just occurred to me: did you not

[/quote:bfcd0b688e][/quote:bfcd0b688e][/quote:bfcd0b688e][/quote:bfcd0b688e]

[quote:bfcd0b688e]
[quote:bfcd0b688e]
[quote:bfcd0b688e]in your very first message state that this effect of the disappearing textures
only happened when switching between the "Windows" and Full Screen (Alt/Enter
combo) environments?

The reason I'm curious, is that no matter which environment you were in while
in FS98, those textures shouldn't have appeared at all if they were named *.BMP

[/quote:bfcd0b688e][/quote:bfcd0b688e][/quote:bfcd0b688e]

[quote:bfcd0b688e]
[quote:bfcd0b688e]
[quote:bfcd0b688e]extension......I find this quite weird!

Barney

Barney

Even in FS98 the textures would have appeared ...but not as expected. FS98
wouldn`t care what the extension was (R8 files can have any extension you
like...xAF, 0AV, PAT, 001 ....even BMP) and it will read them all as raw R8
data. They would appear pretty garbled though with all the wrong colours and
misplaced by the size of the Bmp header.

Why they only appear when Hardware accelleration is off is a bit of a mystery
though...

MARTIN,

I thought of that _after_ I had already hit the "Send" key!!! Anyway, I have
used and designed for FS98 but its been too long to remember everything. But
the Hardware Accel thing almost leads me to think of the card itself, which I
mentioned to Malcolm already. Without seeing what Malcolm sees when the crates
do display, its hard to know if they are indeed displaying correctly. Any
response Malcolm, if you're reading this? Are you seeing the textures the way
they are supposed to display?

Anyway, Martin, thanks for the reminder!

Barney

Barney,
as we said earlier, "weird". I tested it out yesterday again and with 3D
disabled inside of Fligh Sim itself, the textures come up just as they should
on full screen. But as I said before, when I restore 3d they disappear in Full
Screen Mode.
Which put me back to suspecting DirectX 8 in a way and went into the
diagnostics tool for it and ran the "Test Direct Draw" and "Test Direct 3D"
application. Result came back that in Full Screen "the file gbtntw9x.drv is
uncertified........" and "failure at step 7 (user verification of full screen
bouncing)"
I'm still none the wiser because all of the scenery I can notionally remember
setting up before "upgrading" to 8 still shows up fine. Not to mention the fact

[/quote:bfcd0b688e][/quote:bfcd0b688e][/quote:bfcd0b688e]

that I couldn't say for sure where I can solve the problem of this uncertified
file.
In the meantime what might be a worthwhile experiment is to download scenery
specifically designed for FS98 alone and see how that runs. It might just be
that this file capable of dealing with that.
And I'll be sure to file it in its own folder as well, Martin! I suspect that
what I have done in the past is make the call that new textures might be useful

in a universal sort of way and been dumb enough not to break the habit. In some

ways that was the case but it wont hurt to re--organise where I can.
All the best,
Malcolm

MALCOLM,

I can't remember if I was to provide an address for the DirectX removal tool or

not. But anyway, here is one which I found. I suggest you read the procedure
very carefully.

http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/do.../encoding.html

You'll have to scroll a bit down the opening page to find the file. Actually,
there's quite a bit of interesting stuff here!

Good luck.

Barney

Thanks, Barney,
much obliged.
I've just now downloaded the tool and will get to it as soon as I can. I did
notice, however, that the readme file isn't actually listed as such in the zip
file so I'll chase it very carefully before I do anything at all.
The other thing I did was to download some more scenery last night just to see
what would happen and, predictably enough, it gave me no problems at all! And
that includes one listed for FS98 AND FS2000. It just gets interestinger and
interstinger!
Once again, thanks for all the help. Somewhere out there is a solution.
All the best,
Malcolm

MALCOLM,

Should have thought of this before.....can you provide name and source for the
object in question? I'll d/l same and check it out at my end.

Barney

Barney,
that really would be above and beyond the call of duty and I would really
appreciate that. The file is crates.zip by Paul Harmon.
MAny thanks,
Malcolm

MALCOLM,

Ok, I d/l that file and created an *.apt in which I inserted all 5 *.api's. I
then re-loaded FS98 and checked them out. One of them, the light tan coloured
crate with the 3 images on it displayed not bad, in accelerated and
non-accellerated. The other 4 display multi-coloured and are totally confusing.

This is symptomatic of a texture that FS98 scenery engine can not decipher.

Using a program from Martin Wright (http://fly.to.mwgfx) called "ConvertR8", or

something to that effect, I converted the *.bmp textures to *.R8 format. I then

re-named these *.R8 files to *.bmp. I then over-wrote the originals with these
newly converted/re-named files and "Bingo"!! Only one glitch: for whatever
reason, the "new" textures are up-side-down!!

So, before converting the original *.bmp's, open them in a program like MS
Paint which is the default Windows program, and turn each of them up-side-down
and "Save", remembering to retain their names. Now when you convert them to
*.R8, they will be the right way up for FS98!

Confusing? Shouldn't be once you get going.

Quickly, here's the drill:

1) Flip the original *.bmp's 180 degrees.
2) Convert to *.R8 using Martin's program and save as same name, but new *.R8
extension.
3) Re-name to *.bmp (this gets away from having to change every instance of
"bmp" in the *.api to "R8").

Good luck....keep us posted.

Barney

Barney,
amazing, my man, and thanks again.
I messed around for 3 or 4 hours with the scenery stuff last night and have
come up with an understanding that "localises" the problem to my system rather
than Paul's files but which I haven't sussed out properly yet.
I'm running theses crates files on a piece of scenery that I made myself which
is then intended to run with Bob Wittick's "Scotland 5.0" scenery. For whatever

reason, I readjusted the scenery "level" order in FS98 itself last night and
put my scenry above Scotland 5.0, just to see what would happen. And lo and
behold! the crates files turn up in full screen but MY airport scenry file
obliterates Bob Wittick's scenery in the area. When I readjust the order with
Scotland above this scenery, the crates disappear again and Scotland 5
reappears!
I've tweaked this around - making Scotland "Regional" and mine "Local" and vice

versa but the only way they will show up is with my scenery layered higher than

Scotland.
I know this is the way it is meant to be but, for the life of me, I can't think

of a way of adjusting it. I suspect that it is now "ingrained" in the scenery
layout and might involve a lot of deleting and replacing to unstick it.
Needless to say I'm pleased that this might be an explanation, especially for
Paul's sake, and can only thank you again for chasing this as enthusiastically
as you and others have but I'm also embarassed about having you chasing off in
the wrong direction possibly. My apologies if this has been the case
All the best,
Malcolm

MALCOLM,

Sometimes the layering, etc., can contribute to scenery troubles, but if its
only the crates, and not every one of them either, according to your past
posts, I think something else is at fault. But whatever the cause, you have
nothing to lose by following the texture "conversion" discussed in my previous
message (number ends with 53, I think).

Keep us posted.

Barney

Barney,
In the first place, apologies for delay in replying. We're up in St. Andrews in

Scotland and the University began again this week and we own a bar and
reataurant in the town. Nuff said!!
Certainly right to say that not all the elements of the scenery disappear in
"Full Screen" - to date only these textures and one other building fail to show

up while everything else on the same Airport Scenery file DOES show up. That's
why I'm frustrated about not being able to remember when precisely I moved up
to DirectX 8 which I still suspect is playing a part.
Dumb question just to set my mind at ease. When converting .bmp's to r8's in
Texture Converter is it sufficient to simply "save as r8" or am I missing
something out of stupidity? I've actually "converted" the files in this way and

get the same result of no show but if all I am doing is essentially renaming
them then I'm probably wasting my time.
All the best
Malcolm

MALCOLM,

Well at least as the owner of the bar, you have an excellent outlet for your FS

frustrations!!

Anyway, to the point: yes, "save" as an *.R8 extension with the original name,
but remember to reverse the original *.bmp first, before conversion.

Once you have all the "new" *.R8's, rename them to *.bmp so that the *.api's
will still recognize the appropriate textures.

Keep on pluggin' away!

Barney

Barney!!
just to let you know - Fixed it!
Well, fluked it might be a better description. In order to reduce the
confusion, I finally got round to removing some of the "debris" of other
scenery files that might have been running at the same time, just to clear the
decks. And in disabling one of them, the crates pitched up in 3Dmode! No idea
how, no idea why!
I suspect that this particular file, also out of Airport, was one to which I
had attached an Exclude file for some reason and that even tho' I have since
removed that exclusion, there is a note or file of it drifting around somewhere
that is influencing other files. The offending scenery is maybe 10 or 15 miles
from the one that has been giving me problems, and I know for a fact that no
exclusion file I have used is that wide in its effect but for whatever reason,
"killing" off this second folder, gives me back my beer crates!
I'm now going to try and solve the problem of quite why I had this problem in
the first place, but in the meantime I cannot thank you and Paul and others
ehough for putting up advice, taking the time to actually help me out and help
me think about it myself,
Very many thanks,
Speak to you soon,
Malcolm

paultech · 10-03-2001, 12:01 AM

[quote:05c6dbbde7][quote:05c6dbbde7][quote:05c6dbbde7][quote:05c6dbbde7][quote:05c6dbbde7][quote:05c6dbbde7]Martin,
Thanks, Martin - good to be able to speak to the authors.
I had a run at that last night but I'm not convinced that I've done it
properly.
So far, I've converted/"saved as r8's" the original bitmaps and tried that out
with the same no--show result. But at that stage I hadn't deleted the object
from Airport and then re-introduced it.
After your post, I renamed as bitmaps these newly named r8's - again with the
same result.
What I plan to do now is to use the original downloaded bitmaps and run the
process with a clean sheet and see what happens.
Magic piece of software, by the way, I've used it on numerous occassions and
it's great fun to use and much appreciated.
All the best,
Malcolm

Malcolm

It may be worth looking inside the api itself to make sure you are getting the
texture filenames correct. They need to be exactly the same as the name you
will find in the relevant Bitmap( ) or LoadBitmap( ) instructions in the api.

Your first attempt wouldn`t have worked as the scenery would be looking for
xxxxx.BMP. Your second *should* have worked providing the renamed R8`s match
exactly the xxxxx.BMP filename used by the api.

If you have the new textures in the Local texture folder of the scenery then
there shouldn`t be a problem. If you are putting them in the main texture
folder then check that you don`t have the original (BMP format) textures in the

[/quote:05c6dbbde7][/quote:05c6dbbde7][/quote:05c6dbbde7][/quote:05c6dbbde7][/quote:05c6dbbde7][/quote:05c6dbbde7]

[quote:05c6dbbde7]
[quote:05c6dbbde7]
[quote:05c6dbbde7]
[quote:05c6dbbde7]
[quote:05c6dbbde7]Local texture folder as Local textures will be loaded in prefererence to
"Global" ones.

Just had a nasty thought......If the api uses LoadBitmap( ) to load the
textures there may be a problem. I don`t think FS98 supports this command.
If this is the case then you will need to edit the api in Notepad and replace
every LoadBitmap with the equivalent Bitmap instruction.
Every time you find

LoadBitmap( x x x x x x "texturename" )
(the x`s can be many values...just look for the "texturename" eg Barrels.bmp)

Replace with

Bitmap( "texturename" 0 0 0 0 )

and it should then work

MALCOLM,

This advice you are getting about the naming of textures is of course quite
accurate if the scenery you're using is originally designed for FS2K and those
texture files are in *.BMP format. However, it just occurred to me: did you not

[/quote:05c6dbbde7][/quote:05c6dbbde7][/quote:05c6dbbde7][/quote:05c6dbbde7][/quote:05c6dbbde7]

[quote:05c6dbbde7]
[quote:05c6dbbde7]
[quote:05c6dbbde7]
[quote:05c6dbbde7]in your very first message state that this effect of the disappearing textures
only happened when switching between the "Windows" and Full Screen (Alt/Enter
combo) environments?

The reason I'm curious, is that no matter which environment you were in while
in FS98, those textures shouldn't have appeared at all if they were named *.BMP

[/quote:05c6dbbde7][/quote:05c6dbbde7][/quote:05c6dbbde7][/quote:05c6dbbde7]

[quote:05c6dbbde7]
[quote:05c6dbbde7]
[quote:05c6dbbde7]
[quote:05c6dbbde7]extension......I find this quite weird!

Barney

Barney

Even in FS98 the textures would have appeared ...but not as expected. FS98
wouldn`t care what the extension was (R8 files can have any extension you
like...xAF, 0AV, PAT, 001 ....even BMP) and it will read them all as raw R8
data. They would appear pretty garbled though with all the wrong colours and
misplaced by the size of the Bmp header.

Why they only appear when Hardware accelleration is off is a bit of a mystery
though...

MARTIN,

I thought of that _after_ I had already hit the "Send" key!!! Anyway, I have
used and designed for FS98 but its been too long to remember everything. But
the Hardware Accel thing almost leads me to think of the card itself, which I
mentioned to Malcolm already. Without seeing what Malcolm sees when the crates
do display, its hard to know if they are indeed displaying correctly. Any
response Malcolm, if you're reading this? Are you seeing the textures the way
they are supposed to display?

Anyway, Martin, thanks for the reminder!

Barney

Barney,
as we said earlier, "weird". I tested it out yesterday again and with 3D
disabled inside of Fligh Sim itself, the textures come up just as they should
on full screen. But as I said before, when I restore 3d they disappear in Full
Screen Mode.
Which put me back to suspecting DirectX 8 in a way and went into the
diagnostics tool for it and ran the "Test Direct Draw" and "Test Direct 3D"
application. Result came back that in Full Screen "the file gbtntw9x.drv is
uncertified........" and "failure at step 7 (user verification of full screen
bouncing)"
I'm still none the wiser because all of the scenery I can notionally remember
setting up before "upgrading" to 8 still shows up fine. Not to mention the fact

[/quote:05c6dbbde7][/quote:05c6dbbde7][/quote:05c6dbbde7][/quote:05c6dbbde7]

[quote:05c6dbbde7]that I couldn't say for sure where I can solve the problem of this uncertified
file.
In the meantime what might be a worthwhile experiment is to download scenery
specifically designed for FS98 alone and see how that runs. It might just be
that this file capable of dealing with that.
And I'll be sure to file it in its own folder as well, Martin! I suspect that
what I have done in the past is make the call that new textures might be useful

[/quote:05c6dbbde7]

[quote:05c6dbbde7]in a universal sort of way and been dumb enough not to break the habit. In some

[/quote:05c6dbbde7]

[quote:05c6dbbde7]ways that was the case but it wont hurt to re--organise where I can.
All the best,
Malcolm