FS9 Ground Textures

joaopaz

Hi everyone,

Dedl's scenery conversions and also this thread launched by Momo got me thinking...

1) Would it be possible to use FSX ground textures converted for FS9? and

2) how would they look?

Well, as you know FS9 only recognizes 256x256 ground textures while FSX goes up to 1024x1024 - so there was(is) a good chance that, after an eventual conversion things wouldn't look good.

So, the answer to 1) is : yes, it is possible! I just did a "quick" text, using only the hard winter textures and loaded them successfully on my FS9! And even only those will change deeply my flying in northernmost Alaskan aiports!

The answer to 2) is : as I converted only a small part of it (341 textures) I can only judge partially. At far north they work wonderfully! I looked in other places where the mix with other textures and they looked really strange. But I'm convinced that if I do the whole bunch os FSX ground textures, as they match with each other, those strange effects may go away. I will see....!

In the meantime I'll share with you 4 comparison screenshots default FS9 first, converted FSX next.

Enjoy and let me know what you think!

Dedl

If you own a copy of FSX lying somewhere in a dusty corner of the basement of your home, it is no legal problem.

Otherwise you can buy FSX sometimes for 1€ on the second hand market and put it in that corner. And than, it will be no problem any more.

Dedl

Ministry of Truth

Finally! A use for FSX!

I have a copy here, unopened. At least I'm free to do as I like with the contents, on my systems at least.

One texture-related thing I'm inclined to experiment with, when I get the time, is to see whether you can override default textures at individual airports.

By this I mean that in an AFD you define a surface as Bitumen but then make a version of the bitument texture and put it in the texture folder for that AFD (AFD in Scenery, custom Bitumen texture in Texture) to see whether you can control the look of an airport more precisely.

FS already looks for things like aircraft lightmaps in the default texture folder if it can't find a lightmap in the aircraft livery's texture folder (I have a generic lightmap for all my AI types as a fallback texture). If FS9 cannot find TFS_A343_L.BMP for Air Tahiti in texture.THT, it will look in FS2004/Texture for it.

So, it would be interesting to know whether we can also override a default texture by putting it higher up the search tree, with the actual scenery.

That opens up the possibility for using some other surface types (ice, perhaps, or "treated") to create some more accurate variations on ground textures at airports.

joaopaz

Dedl

Of course! I have a Steam edition. I lost my old CDs during a house move many moons ago (that's why I ended up rediscovering fs9!) and bought the steam a couple of months ago, but have yet to log a flight with it

And I'm very aware that I cannot redistribute manipulated default textures, no worries! I may, however, explain what I did

@Richard

(first, I just read your other reply that will require a more lengthy and probably private reply - since there's a lot non-FS related

About your idea, I believe that's exactly what scenery designers do. Someone here may enlighten you about that, but I believe that you can create new things and then set some sort of "exclude" bgl to override the default.

In any case I suggest that you install both FS9 and FSX SDKs (they're on the CDs somewhere - FSX Steam does not have them(!) and then read the relevant parts. For instance, the TERRAIN_SDK has these 3 docs: TerrainTextureNames.doc, Creating Terrain.doc, Custom Terrain Textures.doc where they lay out the relevant structures of FS9.

joaopaz

Here's a few more examples. First is default FS9; then FSX converted - talk about climate change!

It sure looks different, not necessarily better... I discovered 2 things:

1) I may tweak the textures during the conversion process.. just for tests I darkened and added a bit of contrast, but I may, for instance, change the hue of the overall pack

2) FS9 default are 256x256 DXT1 textures, but I can use 256x256 32-bit. There's a very tiny difference, maybe not worthy the increase in texture size.

Here you go, these are summer textures and I'm at Flying S Ranch, California.

joaopaz

Seattle, FS9

Seattle, converted

Flugzeugfan

Hello Joao,

it is interesting to see that the same textures are used for FSx as they are in FS 9.

So the FS X is just an improved FS 9. It would have been better to modify the FS 9 accordingly.

joaopaz

Zitat von Flugzeugfan

Hello Joao,
it is interesting to see that the same textures are used for FSx as they are in FS 9.
So the FS X is just an improved FS 9. It would have been better to modify the FS 9 accordingly.

Hi Thomas,

Yes, I think so, too.

As a matter of fact, some FSX textures may even look better (in certain areas) in FS9 than in FSX

However there's a huge difference in quality. If you open with DXTBmp the same name-texture from FS9 and from FSX you'll see the difference.

What would be magic was to make FS9 able to "see" bigger textures. 256-square is really small.

You can throw in the FS9 folder 1024 textures but FS9 will use only the smaller mip-maps - so it's just a waste of size.

I don't know if this will be 100% effective. FSX has more variations for each texture and I don't know yet how those come into play.

But just the tundra-snow textures alone have made my day!

Flugzeugfan

That's what I've always said to myself. One could hane adapted the FS9 accordingly, as it is with P3D e.g. is made. If a new version appears there, add-ons will be adjusted accordingly.

A topic that has always bothered me personally are the blurres textures and wich are very clearly vivible at high altitudes.

That should have been adapted by Microsoft to better computers.

Ministry of Truth

Zitat von joaopaz

About your idea, I believe that's exactly what scenery designers do. Someone here may enlighten you about that, but I believe that you can create new things and then set some sort of "exclude" bgl to override the default.

Rather than consulting SDKs, I think it would be faster for me to experiment for myself.

What I might try is making an AFD for a small airfield in Scotland, asking for all the taxiways and ramps to be concrete, and then making a mini-scenery with the AFD in the scenery folder and the concrete taxiway texture from the default textures folder, but overwrite the concrete image with a tartan (why not, it's Scotland!), and then see whether other airports are still concrete and this particular one is tartan.

If that's the case, then it opens up the possibility for any distinctive surfaces at specific airports to be created without affecting all AFDs everywhere else. I've operated aircraft from some interesting surfaces even in the UK. The upside of the approach I suggested is that there would be no need for exclusions (at least, any more than normal).

One surface texture that is around a lot more now would be solar arrays in farmland. I might look into this when I'm next near the sim. I can be away from it for weeks at a time.

By all means shoot me a PM. I looked the other day for some film clips of flights to and from Adams, and some island hopping stuff (her ladyship filmed a lot of landings). I transferred the old video (recorded on a late 90s camcorder, so don't raise your hopes) to CD and they are somewhere around. The problem with being a musician who can master CDs is, there are lots lying around! I also have a helicopter transfer from Pointe Seraphine to Hewanorra somewhere.

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