What is the sky textures format ?

[Daube]

Hi all,

Recently I've been playing a little bit with FS Skyworld 2004 in order to change the cloud textures in FSX. It works just great, now I finally have nice clouds in my sim  8-)

Unfortunately, I also tried to change the sky textures, for having different sky colors at dawn and dusk, and this didn't work very well: for some reason I ignore, in down and dusk the sky is not "refreshed". Everything that is displayed in front of the sky (for example, mountain peaks or clouds) leaves a flashing trail of repetitive textures (a little bit like this old bug of Windows interface, when a windows would make a trace on the screen when drag and dropping it around)

I don't know exactely the problem, but I guess it's a problem with the format of the sky texture which is no more fully compatible. I would like to know the correct format so that I can try to convert those textures, please

[garymbuska]

At this point in time I am not sure if there is a means of converting the textures for fsx. But give it time and I am sure one or more will pop up. After all FSX is still in its first year it will take time for third party programs and utilities to be developed. 8-)

[Hagar]

They're most likely in DDS format. These can be converted with the DDS Converter or good ol' DXTBmp.

[Daube]

At this point in time I am not sure if there is a means of converting the textures for fsx. But give it time and I am sure one or more will pop up. After all FSX is still in its first year it will take time for third party programs and utilities to be developed. 8-)

The fact is that I overwrote the original sky textures. I have a pre-SP1 backup somwhere but before reinstalling those original sky textures, I wanted to check if a simple format conversion would allow be to use the FS SkyWorld 2004 ones, to get those beautifull sunsets again.

Agar gave the answer, I'll try that tonight if I have the time. thanks for that

[Hagar]

If you're converting from BMP to DDS you might need to flip the image before saving.

[Daube]

Ok, I had a look into the texture folder. The files we're talking about are all begining with "sky_*"... unfortunately they are all in BMP format, not DDS.... or did I miss something here ?  :-?
Anyway, I compared the files from FS SkyWorld and the ones that were in the saved archive, and they are just the same format, BMP, 92x92, 32 bits colors... I don't know what was the problem.

If anybody has an idea, I would be very interested to know...