Texture Problems

[FlamingZeros]

I just got CFS2, and a little bit after installing the game and messing around with it I decided to try some add-ons.  I downloaded, among others, the "Lady in the Dark" P-61 Black Widow.  I wanted a custom texture, so I modified the existing one.  When I tried the texture, it didn't work and only showed a blank black P-61.  I thought it was an error only with that aircraft, but now none of my textures, even on the stock aircraft, are showing up!  Has anybody ever gotten this bug?  Should I try reinstalling CFS2?

[Hagar]

Hi FlamingZeros. I can't imagine how changing the textures on one aircraft can possibly affect all the others. Can you explain exactly what you did.

This could be completely unrelated to your efforts at repainting. It might be a display problem of some kind. Have you recently changed anything on your system or experimented with the display settings?

Be careful if you decide to reinstall CFS2. The usual Uninstall/Install route will destroy all your addon aircraft. Please read my CFS2 FAQ page before trying anything.
http://www.simviation.com/lair/cfs2faq.htm

The Reinstall option shown will safely restore all default files. I can't promise this will fix the problem.

[FlamingZeros]

I don't really mind losing any add-on aircraft, seeing as the ones I have either don't work (P-61) or sink into the ground (Spit).

All I did was:

1.  Install the P-61 using the exe file.

2.  Modify and replace the skin for the P-61B.

3.  The P-61 skin then stopped working.

4.  All aircraft skins stopped working, leaving me with a bunch of blank aircraft.


I have played around with the Image Quality Slider, but that shouldn't affect it.  Perhaps the airplane has a bug?

[Hagar]

If this is the P-61 I think it is it should be fine. You can always uninstall it by simply deleting its folder from CFS2\Aircraft. Even if there is some problem with it this should not affect the other aircraft in any way.

I suspect the original texture problem was caused by your repainted textures being in the incorrect format. It's a good idea to take backup copies of any files before modifying them in case anything goes wrong. Let's sort the other problem out first, then maybe we can fix that.

[FlamingZeros]

The original texture was a bitmap.  I overwrote it with my modified bitmap.  I'm beginning to suspect that the skin didn't work in the first place, although I don't know for sure since I (stupidly) didn't test it out before I modified it.

Back to the major problem of all the other plane textures.  I think I should just reinstall the game.  It doesn't take too long, and it should solve the problem.

[Hagar]

CFS2 aircraft textures are usually in a special Extended BMP format. Ordinary BMP images will not display in CFS2 or any other M$ sim unless they're in 8 bit or 32 bit format. Most graphics editors only save out in 24 bit format. I suspect this is the cause of the problem with the P-61. I'm sure that it was fine before you edited the textures & I'm surprised you didn't check this out first. As I mentioned earlier, this shouldn't affect the other aircraft.

I suggest you Uninstall CFS2 from the option on the CD then exit setup & delete the CFS2 main directory folder before starting again. This will give you a fresh install but it might not fix your problem.

PS. You didn't mention your system specs. This might well be a display problem with your video card.

[FlamingZeros]

Well isn't this strange...

[Hagar]

How very strange. At least it seems that's fixed.

DXTBmp will come in very handy for your repainting. http://www.mnwright.btinternet.co.uk/index.htm  
You might also check out the Aircraft Repainting forum for tips.