SP1 Aircraft Models Corrupt

[funksplutter]

Hi All,

This is my first post so please accept my apologies in advance if this problem has been covered elsewhere.

I'm new to FSX and was pretty happy with performance on my system (rough specs below) until I applied SP1. Since doing so the aircraft models have become corrupted so that odd elements can appear anywhere e.g. tyres hovering above the cockpit or wings on at a 90 degreee angle. This has happened to all of the default aircraft that ship with FSX Deluxe. In addition performance seems to have taken a real hit.

I'm running XP Pro SP2 on an overcocked quad-core with an 8800GTS running at stock speeds.

I've performed a complete re-install of FSX and everything is again fine until I apply SP1.

Can anybody help?

[Fr. Bill]

[color=#000000]
What you are seeing is caused by FSX not being able to find some textures.

[Gypsy_Baron]

What you are seeing is caused by FSX not being able to find some textures.  Just one missing or "not found" texture will cause the aircraft to appear "exploded" as you've observed.

-SBIP-

Just FYI, I've also seen this "exploded model" phenomena on my normally fine default Beach Baron
when the default flight loads when I've been making scenery modifications and\or airport mods
using some of the FSX tools that are available for this.
Usually an exit and restart of FSX corrects it but occasionally not. Then it was a matter of undoing
or redoing whatever I WAS doing

Also, when I experienced this "model explosion", if I continued on to free flight FSX was a slide show
and airport textures were loading like poured mollasses on a mid-winters day!

   Paul

[funksplutter]

Thanks to both for the quick reply.

Bill, I've tried editing the various texture.cfg files on a couple of models as per your advice but this hasn't helped. I have noticed that I don't have a Fresnel_Ramp.dds file in the Textures folder if that makes any difference.

Paul, I wish I could think of something I had been doing that I could undo but other than installing SP1 I haven't changed anything at all.

[Fr. Bill]

If you really want to discover whether the problem is a "missing/not found texture," simply add two diagnostic lines to your fsx.cfg file under the [Scenery] header:

Code: Select all

[Scenery]
MissingLibraryAlert=1
ShowMissingTextureAlert=1

[funksplutter]

I added the lines you suggested and it did throw a couple of errors regarding missing textures and then....it all worked Performance is much improved, all the aircraft models are fixed and I'm over-the-moon

Many many thanks. The help is much appreciated.

[CODY614]

Bill... If we can pound on this some more I am seriously frustrated!
After trying for a week now,to get textures to show up on the F1 Super 80.These are my own textures...as I do repaint's...
I read the above...and the first hit I got was about the "Fresnel_Ramp.dds"...Ahhh progress...But...Now it wants GLOBALENV_AC_CHROME.bmp! Yes it said .bmp?
Now here is my problem.
In the main F1 Super 80 are the textures that loaded off the installer.
And 2 additional "Added Re-paints" That where done by other painters.That I installed.
The textures that F1 loaded,and the one re-paint have...."fallback.3=..\..\..\..\..\..\Scenery\Global\texture" And they work and show up.
But the other re-paint has...
"fallback.3=..\..\..\.." And it also shows up!
I am so confused by this...No matter what I've tried I just can't "My" textures to show?
Bill if you any advice I would be forever in your debt...


Jeff

[Fr. Bill]

[color=#000000]First of all, the path fallback.3=..\..\..\..\..\..\Scenery\Global\texture won't exist on ANYONE's computer. That entry was made by ACES during development, and it points to a specific folder they used to "share" those textures with everyone on their network.

Perhaps understanding how the system works will help you find a solution.

1. Each entry in the aircraft.cfg file has a line that points to a specific folder in the tree where that specific livery (paint) is located. For example:

texture=Mytexture

points to a folder named ..\texture.Mytexture

2. In every livery folder, an optional file named texture.cfg may be placed. The entries in this configuration file provide a list of alternate locations where any bitmaps not present in this folder may possibly be found.

For example:

[fltsim]

fallback.1=..\texture
fallback.2=..\..\..\..\Scenery\Global\texture
fallback.3=..\..\..\..\Texture

The first "fallback" folder is of course the root ..\texture folder of this aircraft.

The second and third "fallback" folders point to the two places in FSX where bitmaps that are available for global usage are kept.

Now... as to the specific case of the call for GLOBALENV_AC_CHROME.bmp file, this is quite obviously an error, since FSX has no such file by default. You might possibly take a copy of the default GLOBALENV_AC_CHROME.dds file and convert it to a DXT3 bitmap format as a "workaround" for the problem...

[CODY614]

Well maybe this is where I'm getting tripped up is the "Fallback"...The Default install of the Super 80 use this and one re-paint that some one converted.
And the other re-paint I installed used the newer one with just "Texture" in fallback.3.
Even converting "GLOBALENV_AC_CHROME.dds" didn't do anything other then stop the missing texture warning.

The one that I used for this pic is...
fallback.1=..\texture
fallback.2=..\..\..\..\Scenery\Global\texture
fallback.3=..\..\..\..\Texture



Now I know you have seen this picture a thousand times...But no matter what I do...And I have double checked texture conversion from the re-paint template and 'Alpha' conversions...and using DXT Bmp converted to DDS DXT5 2-3 times now.Also made sure that the lines in the "Aircraft.cfg" are correct.Proper sequence and texture folder reference Etc..
Sorry Bill but I am at complete loss as too what I am not doing right!


Jeff

[Fr. Bill]

Let's back up a bit and start from the beginning.  I'm assuming that the livery that comes with the package works.  What is the texture folder's name?

IOW, list the entire file structure for me to see.  Open a Command Prompt in the aircraft's folder and type:

DIR > filelist.txt

in the box then press Enter. This should generate a text file with the entire folder structure you can then cut-and-paste to a message. This way I will be able to "see" what you "see."

[CODY614]

Well Bill...I kept beating away at it and had a friend install my texture pack...I sent him the textures and alpha's.His install worked. Mine still doesn't. So I went looking for a different problem. And this is what made the lite go on!


This is a default CoolSky Super 80 texture with one of my edit's.
So I think we have it narrowed down to my DXT Bmp program not converting properly..His worked mine doesn't. I've also done some snooping in other forums...FreeFlightdesign forums shed a-lot more lite on the subject. So...I think it is more a problem with me than the sim!
My version of DXT bmp is "4.0.0.94" And I have downloaded all the .dll's that are needed. But I keep seeing/hearing that his program doesn't save DDS DXT5 properly?
I know you know your way around this...Cuz I went and grabbed Photo CS(8.0) . I have the Photo-Shop plugins for DDS but they wouldn't work in Photo-Shop 5.5.

Jeff

[CODY614]

Well after doing it the way said you do it in Photo-Shop 8...This is what I get! I did just the nose texture there are 8 total to this paint. But you can see that Photoshop CS with DDS pluggin' worked just like you said it would! Now I have 30 days to come up $700.00 to buy it!...Can you still upgrade from 5.5?
So for some reason DXT Bmp isn't making the conversion properly?


Jeff

[Fr. Bill]

I'm not aware of any "upgrade path" from v5.5 to v8.0, unfortunately.

If you can still find a copy, Paint Shop Pro (the last version before JASC sold the program) works fine with the nVidia plugins also.

I've written a number of times to Martin Wright regarding the problem with DXTBMP not saving DDS files properly, but have never heard back...  :-/

Anyway, I'm glad you have at last identified the problem!

[CODY614]

I'm still not sure why my friends DXT Bmp does the conversion...Maybe a fluke?...I dont' know...But I will tell you this Bill...Photo Shop CS sure makes it easy!...
And don't count yourself out...It was you that set me on the path to the solution! Them "Idle little chats you have with people in other forums do contain a wealth of information when people listen to what you've said!"
So again thank you.

Jeff

[Fr. Bill]

And don't count yourself out...It was you that set me on the path to the solution! Them "Idle little chats you have with people in other forums do contain a wealth of information when people listen to what you've said!"
So again thank you.

Jeff

Jeff, thank you for noticing.  Because of my relationship with MS/ACES, as well as my professional work for Eaglesoft (and a few other 3rd-party devs), I really have to be subtle with not only what I write, but also how I write...

...the discerning reader will have no problems reading what I ultimately do write, and what I've left blank - between the lines.

I try very hard to give back to the community at least as much as I've learned from the community.  ;)