Texture Display Dilemma with CYVR

[nigelgrant]

This problem has beset me since version 3.0 of my Vancouver International Airport scenery. I posted this on the design forums at both AVSIM and FlightSim under the Subject: "Sporadic Texture Display at CYVR", back in July 2004. There were no substantiated resolutions based on results but I received several suggestions but none resolved the problem. So I gave up and decided to live with the problem.

I have recently uploaded version 4.2, and I am creating a fix to improve its frame rate performance, but this buggy texture really bugs me and I want to fix it!

The textures at the west and east ends of the large Air Canada hangar near the threshold of 26R, appear sometimes and not other times when they are a grey fuzz. This can vary from view to view and boot to boot. Those are the ends that have a large Air Canada logo and a row of windows. I have multi-checked my texture files and they appear in order, and (I think) they were created in the same manner as my other custom textures. They are in extended bmp format and I have even tried converting them to DXT format without success. I use PaintShopPro7. The multi-component building was created with NovaSim and there is no problem with textures displaying properly on any of the other hangar faces.

I have tried it on other computers with different video cards and the problem still occurs.

However, subsequently I did find out that if I zoomed right in on the offending texture then hit the backspace key, the logo and windows would appear correctly. But if I changed views and came back, the textures were fuzzy and grey again.

So I have just recreated the wall texture using another background, and copied the window strip and Air Canada logo in as separate layers then merged, changed to 8bit/256x256, then converted to extended bit format. I still have the same problem.

Next I created the Air Canada logo and window strip as individual panels using NovaSim – still the same problem. The panels won't show unless I zoom right in and backspace. I even tried copying the Air Canada logo from the other large Air Canada hanger, which always displays correctly – this did not resolve the problem either. I recreated the main hanger structure in NovaSim – still no resolution.

So I am lost and frustrated!! I suspect the zooming and backspace technique might be a clue?

Has anyone experienced this situation and resolved it, and if so how?

Nigel
Vancouver

 

[arno]

Hi Nigel,

The only thing that comes to my mind at the moment is that the size of the texture is maybe not set correctly in the texture list. If you map different areas to different polygons with have a very different size, it could be that this value is too much of. And as the value is used to determine which mipmap to display that could cause your problem.

 

[nigelgrant]

Hi Arno

Thx for responding at what must be a difficult time (I trust you have an understanding spouse).

All my textures for the building are 8bit 256x256 (I presume that is what you mean by size) except for the roofs of some ancillary buildings which are MS default 128X128, and I have used these roof textures elsewhere without problems. This is the only structure in the airport giving problems.

Nigel

 

[arno]

Hi Nigel,

No, I did not mean the format in which you saved the texture. In the source code there is a size parameter included in the texture list. That sets how many meters the textures spans. This parameter is used to select the mipmaps.

I never used FsNova, so I don't know how it works. But I expect that that parameter is calculated for you (like in GMax). If that calculation is wrong, you can get blurry effects. So you could try to increase that valie and see if it solves you problem.

 

[nigelgrant]

Hi Arno

I presume you mean the scasm code? I would be grateful if you could expend a bit more, I have done a little editing of SCASM but cannot find a reference to size in the textures section.

One thing I have noticed which I cannot explain. The hangar in question requires a scale of 0.3 in Airport to come out the correct size, whereas my other buildings prepared in NovaSim in the same manner, take on a scale of 1.0 in Airport.

The main hangar building is created with a NovaSim hangar object but I have just tried creating it with a separate box and hangar object, with its side walls reduced to zero to create a hip roof - still same problem of the texture not showing properly.

cheers
Nigel

 

[arno]

Hi Nigel,

I presume you mean the scasm code? I would be grateful if you could expend a bit more, I have done a little editing of SCASM but cannot find a reference to size in the textures section.

Yes, I mean the SCASM code. But can you maybe post the part of your SCASM file here that contains the TextureList command? As I mainly use GMax (that has ASM source files) myself, I don't have an example of a SCASM texture list.

One thing I have noticed which I cannot explain. The hangar in question requires a scale of 0.3 in Airport to come out the correct size, whereas my other buildings prepared in NovaSim in the same manner, take on a scale of 1.0 in Airport.

A factor of 0.3 usually means a meters vs feet unit problem. I am not sure if you can set a unit in FsNova, but it might be something to check.

 

[nigelgrant]

Hi Arno

Thx for all your responses. Going to the last subject first, yes I did wonder whether it was metres vs inches In NovaSim I changed to USinches then re-saved the API and compiled, and at scale 1.0 the ACHangar was the correct size (but no change to the texture situation). But I presume that if I re-saved the API's for my other buildings they would then become 3x too small, since the measurement parameter, I think, applies to the whole program and not the individual object.

I have attached the API file for my AC hangar (HangerCA) and the offending texture is "cahange.bmp", I have tried to upload it but without success, presumably because it is a bmp file.

I have had a similar post at the NovaSim forum for several days but so far, no response from Rafael Sanchez

Is there any way I can convert this hangar to Gmax and would that accomplish anything? It is composed of 6 separate but adjoining buildings

Nigel

 

[arno]

Hi Nigel,

In the texture list you find a line like the one shown below for each texture:

  6 ff 255 255 255 0  [ 0.3  *  %4 ] cahangs1w.bmp
256  ff 255 255 255 0  [ 0.3  *  %4 ] cahangs1w_lm.bmp

The parameter before the texture name sets its size. The code looks a bit weird with the %4, but that is to scale the size when you scale the object. So in this example the 0.3 is the size of the total texture in meters when scale 1 is used.

I think you should be able to spot the textures of your hangar in this list and then increase the size for them a bit. So remember how big the hangar is and how often you repeat the texture, then you should be able to guess the scale quite nicely. But 0.3 seems a bit low to me.

 

[nigelgrant]

Arno, you have done it again!!

I changed the 0.3 to 109.73, which was the same as the parameter for the texture for my other Air Canada hangar wall, which was about the same length as the wall of the culprit Air Canada hangar where the textures were not displaying.

And it worked!

Thank you so much, I am most grateful and I suspect likewise for a lot of CYVR enthusiasts out there.

The pity is that there are not many people like yourself out there who could have analysed that situation and know what to look for. Even Rafael Sanchez could not provide a solution and I will send him the result from this string. I presume you have had formal computer training at some time?

Nigel
Vancouver

ps by the way, Happy Birthday tomorrow November 11.

 

[arno]

Hi Nigel,

Good to hear that solved it .

The pity is that there are not many people like yourself out there who could have analysed that situation and know what to look for. Even Rafael Sanchez could not provide a solution and I will send him the result from this string. I presume you have had formal computer training at some time?

I learned this when I encountered the same problem in a GMax scenery I made. So you can say that I know a lot, because I encountered a lot of the problems myself.

Besides that I find it a nice challenge to understand how the code works and what it does. So sometimes it is much more fun to study and tweak the source code, then to make an actual scenery. I guess you can call me a bit weird for that

I never had a real formal computer training btw. Of course I got some courses during my study of Aerospace Engineering, but most things like programming I learned myself without following a course.