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FSX Bump Maps show up OVER the diffuse maps

JohnC1

JohnC1

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I can make bump maps according to the Wiki here, and I know how to apply them because they seem to look OK when I use FSX generic bitmaps.

My Custom bitmaps, however, reverse themselves and the bright bluish green
bump maps show up over THE IMAGE instead of the diffuse maps.

I suspect it's the alpha mask somehow and I will keep trying.

However, I might have left some obscure box unchecked, or checked, and I hope someone may have run into this. (and fixed it).

I used DXTBMP to create them....the Blue Layer is white, the original Red Layer was converted to Alpha, the RED Layer is now black and the Green Layer was inverted.


FSX bump maps continue to appear when I apply the Alpha layer to the image, but my custom ones turn into a uniform gray square...this is why I suspect alpha layer problems.......
 
DXTBMP.exe is notoriously lousy* at creating viable DDS/DXT5 bitmaps.

Either use ImageTool.exe or the nVidia plugin to create the DDS/DXT5 bitmaps.

*Actually, I have never managed to get DXTBMP.exe to create a useful DDS/DXT1 or DXT5 bitmap.
 
Many thanks

I USED DXTBMP TO CREATE THE NORMAL MAP FROM THE BUMP MAP AND INSTEAD JUST SAVED IT IN bmp (888.8) FORMAT TO PRESERVE THE ALPHA LAYER.
THEN I RAN THIS AS A BATCH FILE....

imagetool -verbose -dds -DXT5 -nomip -detail -o Cntntl_exp_bump Cntntl_exp_bump.bmp.

LOOKS GREAT(finally)...

Banging my head running variations on dxtbmp wasn't fun..
 
Hm, the batchfile format suggested in the SDK is

imagetool -nobeep -nomip -dxt5 -RedInAlpha -dds -nodither MyFile_T_bump.psd

... and it creates MyFile_T_bump.dds, which is the "approved" format. 888 BMP may be lossless but it comes with a hefty size overhead and, more importantly, the FS engine searches for .dds files first, not .bmp's, unless you hack the the mdl file and rename the files.
 
The command line flag: -RedInAlpha is used if you haven't already manually cut/pasted the Red channel to the Alpha channel, and manually set the Red channel to pure black and the Blue channel to pure white.

In other words, if one is going to use ImageTool anyway, there's no point in doing all of the manual cut/paste/repainting! :cool:
 
I misread the help section of imagetool

This is my first use of imagetool....

1. RedinAlpha is something I overlooked..I see that "zeroing out the red" means make it pure black. My terminology is somewhat lacking.

I saw a -Create Alpha using the RGB (0,0) pixel but couldn't make sense of it.

I didn't use -nodither because I wasn't reducing the color depth..not on purpose anyway.:confused:

2. Mjahn, I only saved the DXTBMP output in 888.8 to provide a bitmap as an input file to imagetool. Based on Bill's input, I decided not to save anything in DDS format from DXTBMP.
The 888.8 is only used as input to imagetool. My output file IS dds.

which is what FSX uses for scenery objects.However, with Paint Shop Pro, I don't know how to add an alpha layer, so the process I used was DXTBMP just to add the alpha layer.

The flow (for me anyway) is

Paint shop Pro bmp>DXTBMP to add alpha>save 888.8bmp> imagetool dds file.

Creating a bump map requires swapping around RGB levels,and I do that in Paint Sho Pro first.

I saw nothing in imagetool to do that.

I don't know HOW TO PORT THE INDIVIDUAL COLOR LEVELS TO IMAGETOOL IN ORDER TO COPY TO AN ALPHA LAYER, unless image tool automatically does that as part of its normal processing of a standard RGB input.

Maybe -detail flag ???.

I ALSO FOUND OUT THAT VERTICAL LINES (COMMON IN METAL CLAD HANGARS) TEND TO FLICKER, AND I WONDER IF THIS IS AN EFFECT FIXED IN LATER GRAPHICS CARDS.

BACKING AWAY FROM A HANGAR GIVES AN ANNOYING MOIRE EFFECT, SO I AM GOING TO HAVE TO MAKE MY VERTICAL LINES WIDER.
FSX seems to have done the same as well.

Close up my bitmaps look much better that FSX generic ones for hangars...far awy, not so much.

Thanks to you both for the reply.
 
You're welcome, and some further remarks...

Yes, DXTBMP is good for adding alpha channel information. As a matter of fact, in my experience, DXTBMP is perfectly good at creating normal FSX dds's, too. It's only BUMP's that I prefer doing via Photoshop, the Nvidia Plugin, and Imagetool as suggested in the FSX SDK.

It may still be worth making sure your BUMP dds's are not Dxt5 888-8 because that would mean a horrible overkill. Typically, a bumpmap of size 1024 weighs in at around 1 MB. Don't accept more, it's definitely not worth it.

As for flickering lines, these may be due to less than optimal graphics card and/or FSX settings, typically antialiasing and anisometric filtering parameters. However, I have noticed that many modelers nowadays prefer to slightly blur very crips lines, or perhaps superimpose them on a blurred copy. Sure sounds absurd to fuzzify something that can be made crisp but it seems to work OK and so probably is the way to go.

Finally, here's an untried wild thought since you are doing hangars: why not install it as an aircraft, load it in FSX and turn it around full circle in Slew mode in order to look at it from all lighting angles. It's usually only this way that you can verify your bumps and specs are doing what you expect them to do.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Looking at it again.........

...I'm glad you pointed out that I should check the size..I was way off...I am using the accepted way to do this now and I am getting quick easy results with far smaller resulting files.....much obliged...when I get something good I will put it in the showroom....
 
I ALSO FOUND OUT THAT VERTICAL LINES (COMMON IN METAL CLAD HANGARS) TEND TO FLICKER, AND I WONDER IF THIS IS AN EFFECT FIXED IN LATER GRAPHICS CARDS.
Click to expand...

In imagetool there's an option to create mipmaps, that should take care of the edgies.
 
Flicker tradeoff

Mip maps fix the flicker problem, (thanks Mathias) but because my vertical lines are a darker gray than the rest of the image, the darker SMALLER) MAP shows up as a darker blurred shade. I can live with this.....when I taxi toward a textured wall at about a 45 degree angle, you can see where one size mipmap ends and another darker one starts. I haven't measured where FSX switches to a smaller map, but it looks like it ramps down fairly aggressively, so that a medium size hangar from 45 degree angles will have 2 or 3 separate mip maps on the face of it at the same time. Coming to the showroom soon......
 
Hi Folks

Just for clarity -
mjahn said:
more importantly,
the FS engine searches for .dds files first, not .bmp's
Click to expand...
From what I'd seen
FS searches for the file .ext explicitly called by the model,
then falls back to same, contained in a .CAB
if neither is found,
then falls back to the opposite .ext type.

For details, please see FSDev - Wiki - Missing textures



MipMaps
From looking at default model's "corrugated" rooves
MipMaps are stepped down extremely aggressively,
something like at ~3m, 6m, 9m, etc.



HTH
ATB
Paul
 
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