[Pilot Of The US]

Being someone who has never made a FS2 model, i decided to try to make one. I suceeded in making a pretty basic model. I textured it and converted it to pof. It showed up fine in modelview, but as soon as i put it into the game, all the textures were 100% screwed, this even effects other models in the techroom (transparency, multicoloured tints, etc...)

I've done a search on the forums, and found a probable explaination. Since im using FS2 1.2 vanila, the PCX mode/version maybe wrong, but so far i havent found a way to try to detect what mode/version my PCX files are in.  Can anyone help? and suggest an image converter to convert the PCX into the right mode/version.

[Bobboau]

8 bit paletised?

power of two dimentions?

[Pilot Of The US]

wut the?????? ummm i dont know how to check those specifications using "Imaging For Windows (Kodak)". It comes with windows 98. probably later version aswell.

But it says something about 256 colours. or could you suggest another image editing program to use

[Bobboau]

paint
shop
pro

you, can find free copys of it all over the place, and I mean legal ones.

[Pilot Of The US]

thank
you
very
much

I'll try and find those settings you mentioned before, all by my self.

[WMCoolmon]

Or IrfanView. If you're using the default imaging program, you will LOVE IrfanView. It's like a genetically engineered "Imaging" on steroids. Reads more graphical filetypes than you knew existed, and some non-graphical ones too.

It also has a magical option, "Image/Decrease color depth" that usually does a good job of reducing an image to 256-bits of color.

As for the 'powers of 2 thing', what Bobb means is your image should be square and the width and height (in pixels) should be a power of 2. (64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048)

[Pilot Of The US]

This program sounds very interesting. Where could i obtain this program from.

[karajorma]

http://www.irfanview.com/

[Black Wolf]

Originally posted by karajorma
http://www.irfanview.com/

I've always kind of wondered why more people don't try that more often...

[Pilot Of The US]

ok, ive got infanview and ive loaded up one of my PCX files. It says that it has "8 bits per pixel" so im taking that as what bob said before (8 bit paletised?).

I still have no idea what "power of two dimentions?" means. but its 128 x 128  Pixels, if thats what you mean.

EDIT: oh and here's a pic from the techroom...

I was also wondering could this be caused by intersecting objects?

[Swamp_Thing]

Ok, 128x128 is too small for a texture map. Use 512x512 minimum. 1024x1024 would be better.
8 bit textures means they have only 256 colours. It refers to the colour palette used by the FS engine to render those textures.
So, if you have some texture that you would like to see on a ship, you need to reduce the colour definition to 256 (or 8 bits). It also needs to be a certain size, like 512x512, that´s what "power of 2" means. If you multiply 512x512 by 2, you get 1024x1024. Multiply that by 2 and you get 2048x2048. See the idea? You can´t have, for example, 1060x800, or whatever.
The correct formats are:
2x2
4x4
8x8
16x16
32x32
64x64
128x128
256x256
512x512
... etc etc.
Usually the texture maps are a perfect square, both sides are equal in size. Each of those sets of numbers above refers to a side of the square.

As for your problem, it seems like the FS palette was screwed over. Did you mess with the original map files?

[Pilot Of The US]

umm, i dont think i messed with anything. I just did a clean install of FS2 retail, so i highly doubt that any of the original map files are messed.

[Swamp_Thing]

Well, then...
How´s your game? Any graphic corruption in the game itself?
Are your drivers up to date, and do you play other games without graphic problems?
Try making a simple cube, texture it, pof it, and try it in-game. If it works, then your model is messed up. If the cube itself doesn´t work either, then your game is messed up, and you need a re-install.

[Pilot Of The US]

My game is fine, i installed hamo's modification of the GTC Fenris, it showed up perfectly. all my other games run perfectly. Im pretty sure it's the model, but textures show up perfectly in TS3 and modelview.

My model has intersecting objects, could that be the problem?

I was also wondering, my model uses default textures in the VP file, i just extracted and renamed them, could that be the problem?

[karajorma]

NOpe that should work fine. Do as Swamp Thing suggested and put a simple cube into the game. If it gets screwed up then we know a little more about the problem

[Pilot Of The US]

could my textures be scewing up because when i texture each separate part of my model in TS, i use the "texture whole object" option. and i dont delete the "white light" objects.

[Pilot Of The US]

Ok, ive done what SwampThing said. Ive made a cube, textured it and it showed up just fine. So i decided to radically simplifed my model (taking away most of the objects) and it worked just fine.

I think it is something to do with the geometery. I just wanted to know what are the model limits in the retail version of FS2 (polygons, max number of objects, max number of texture maps, etc.....)

[karajorma]

For retail ships you should try to keep the number of polys in a subsystem under ~750 polys.

You really shouldn't be hitting the other two limits.

[Pilot Of The US]

Hmmm, well there's my problem. My poly is 2777, but still i really do think that it's because ive got objects that are intersecting each other.

I actually got it working, but as soon as i add any of the following bits, it screws up:

Deflector Shields (those 8 rectangular on the sides)
Cylinderical connectors that connect the Deflectors to the hull
Radar system underneth
Scanner system on top

[Pilot Of The US]

Dont worry about my problem anymore. I got on my brothers comp that can handel the SCP and i got my model working first go! I really think that FS2 vanila had a bone to pick with my model, or something.

My next problem is trying to get subobjects rotating. Whenever i select my scanner subsystem (3 separate parts) and use the "move axes to centre of object" tool and export, the scanner appears inside my model and rotates in an "obital" way, and not in a "pivot" way. Im sure it's because of the axes circled in purple. Because the ones in green are centred perfectly. The only problem is that i cant move the axes in the purple circle.