Help! Most planes are just Grey (missing textures?)

[Tinfish]

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON May-12-02 AT 10:59AM (EDT)[/font][p]Hi all,

I'm well impressed with FS2002. Trouble is, most of the default planes have no texture - they are grey in colour - and so are a few of the add-on planes that Ive downloaded recently from the Web.

I suspect its maybe to do with not having a 32-bit 3d card (Ive only got a 16bit). Funny why some planes are ok though, ie, both the default Sopwith and glider are fine ...and when I import a repaint of the Bell and 747 etc, the new paint job shows up!

Any ideas? (Maybe I have to convert the textures to 16bit or something?)

THANKS

Tinfish

PS: I downloaded a nice Pitts Special- S-1E - today, but it was grey as well! Really would like to get it coloured in :)


ReadMe file enclosed:


===

Pitts S-1E Special


Manufacturer: Pitts
Base model: S-1
Designation: S-1
Version: S
Nickname: Special
Basic role: Aerobatics


Specifications
Length: 15' 6" 4.7 m
Height: 6' 3" 1.9 m
Wingspan: 17' 4" 5.2 m
Wingarea: 98.5 sq ft 9.1 sq m
Empty Weight: 720 lb 326 kg
Gross Weight: 1,148 lb 520 kg
Max Weight: 1,150 lb 521 kg


Propulsion No. of Engines: 1
Powerplant: Lycoming IO-360-B4A
Horsepower (each): 180hp (200hp)


Performance Range: 315 miles 507 km
Cruise Speed: 141 mph 227 km/h 122 kt
Max Speed: 177 mph 285 km/h 154 kt
Climb: 2,677 ft/min 815 m/min
Ceiling: 22,300 ft 6,796 m



The Pitts Special is the brainchild of Curtis Pitts and a favorite for both competition and sport pilots alike. The Pitts is fully aerobatic with structural limits of +6 and -3 G's and has been the aircraft of choice for numerous national and international top ranked aerobatic pilots.


In the mid-1940s, Curtis Pitts wanted to build and fly an aircraft that would make the acrobatic planes of the day look like lumbering giants. Using a 55 hp Lycoming engine salvaged from a Taylorcraft destroyed in a tornado, Pitts built an extremely small biplane that was lightweight, strong and relatively inexpensive to produce. From very humble, home-built beginnings, the Pitts Special became instantly popular with professional aerobatic and other adventuresome pilots across the country. Over the next five decades, the appearance of the Pitts has changed little, although the aircraft has been improved in many ways. Most notably, Pitts added symmetrical wings to allow the plane to fly inverted as well as right side up, ailerons to the upper wing and a lengthened fuselage to accommodate larger engines. A two-seat version of the Pitts, the S2-A, was also produced for aerobatic training as well as competition flying.


While European countries developed new monoplane acrobatic aircraft in the late 1960s, the United States found its first success on the world aerobatic stage with the tiny Pitts S1-S biplane. The nimble S1-S, with its round airfoil, four ailerons and 180 h.p. Lycoming engine, was the ultimate competition aerobatic plane of its day. With a fantastic power-to-weight ratio, the Pitts was able to perform practically any maneuver, and its small size helped to hide mistakes from the judges during aerobatic routines. The S1-S achieved its finest moment during the 1972 World Aerobatic Championship in Salon de Provence, France. Charlie Hillard used the Pitts unique characteristics to perform his signature "Torque Roll," a delayed tail slide where the aircraft continues to roll while falling backward. His four minute freestyle performance earned his and America's first World Championship (also the only time a biplane won the World Championships).


The Pitts Special is a well constructed example of what aircraft enthusiasts can do on their own given enough time, space and resources. Today, the Pitts Special is manufactured in Wyoming by Aviat Aviation and may be purchased as a finished, ready to fly product or as a project for home construction.




Legal Stuff:

Do not make anykind of changes to the plane or the documentation without the original authors written permission and acceptance. Also do not include this package or any parts of it on any commercial add-on CD without a permission to do that. You can upload this plane on every site in the Internet as long as this file (s1oscar.zip) is not changed and our names are mentioned there as original authors. We do not take any responsibility of any possible harm/damage caused to your computer.


Installation:

Unzip plane in to your Flight Simulator 2002 MAIN directory. Just make sure you have the "use folder names" check box checked in Winzip and all should go well...



Happy Flying!!!

Copyright 2002

Plane and panels:
Mikko Maliniemi
mmniemi@hotmail.com

M.M.Niemi's FS Planes
http://www.flightsim.com/mmniemi/


Paintjob:
Paul Martin
pmmartin@bigpond.net.au


Sounds:
Aaron R. Swindle
duncancj@jmu.edu

SkySong Soundworks
http://flightsimmers.net/runway/pilot39/skysong.html


===

[Tinfish]

I still need help with this problem.

Is there any info/programme to repaint planes using a lower resolution?

Thanks,

Tin

[jcmissionary]

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON May-12-02 AT 02:29PM (EDT)[/font][p]Are you using any graphics card tweaking programs? I've noticed that using RivaTuner to bump up your Mipmap LOD Bias to 3.0 will take the textures off your planes. May want to check that first.

http://www.cableone.net/aragorn5/banner2.jpg

[Tinfish]

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON May-12-02 AT 02:39PM (EDT)[/font][p]Thanks JC. I tried it ..and it helped a bit, but still no proper coloured textures. Then I searched for a bitmap repaint programme (info enclosed). I then used it to open every bitmap in the "texture" folder of the plane that I wanted to texture properly, then I saved each file as "extended". The result is a spanking good Pitts Special in lime green!!! (Im happy :)

This utility is handy for basic repaints as well! :)

Cheers,

Tin

==BmpExt - utility to convert any size of 256 colour bitmap
to the FS2000 "Extended Bitmap" Format

================================================================
This program is an mwgfx program and requires mwgfx.dll in order
to function. If you have Bmp2000 installed (or any other mwgfx
program) then you will already have it. The latest version of
mwgfx.dll is always available from http://fly.to/mwgfx/ and also
the extra dlls to add extra image formats.
================================================================

Although Bmp2000 handles most variations of the new Extended Bmp
formats used by FS2000 it will only work with "Square" images.

FS2000 will accept asymmetric bitmaps as long as the width and
height are both one of the "Valid" sizes (8,16,32,64,....2048)

BmpExt will convert any image to a valid 256 colour Extended
Format Bitmap including creating all the sub-images, resizing,
and remapping to 256 colours from 24 bit. If images are not a
"Valid" width or height then the image will be resized to the
nearest valid size in each direction.

BmpExt can also be used as a Transparency Editor for any existing
256 colour Extended Bitmap. Extended Bitmaps must be loaded using
the "FS2000 Bitmap (Extended)" option.

V1.6 Changes :- Now offers the same filename for saving if loaded
using Standard or FS2000 format

V1.7 Changes :- Offers a "Transparency View" option when editing
the transparency of a 256 colour image. The Image
is displayed as a greyscale where the darker it
is the more transparent. Opaque areas will be
pure white (255,255,255) and 100% transparent
areas will be pure black (0,0,0). All other
levels will be an appropriate shade of grey.

Special Notes :-

If you are reloading a previously created image in order to
further edit the Transparency settings then make sure to load
it using "FS2000 Bitmap (Extended)" so that you don`t lose any
previous transparency settings and sub-images. This also applies
if you are loading an existing Extended Bitmap from any other
source (CFS, FS2000, Bmp2000) in which case it is your responsibility
to make sure the image IS a 256 colour Extended Bitmap as no checks
are made.

If you do further editing in a Paint program then any Transparency
settings you may have made will be lost as will the sub-images.
If you are likely to re-edit an image then you should use the
"Save Transparency Map" function to store a copy of the transparency
settings for reloading with "Load Transparency Map". You will need
to load any image that has been edited in a Paint program using
the "Windows Bitmap (Standard)" option to ensure that the extra
Extended data will be created when you "Save Extended".

Martin Wright
martin@mnwright.freeserve.co.uk
http://fly.to/mwgfx/
http://www.mwgfx.co.uk/


===