About textures
A texture is a bitmap image file which is mapped onto a polygonal surface. The way the texture is applied to a shape or object varies. Click on the shape's or object's help topic in the menu on the left to find out how... First of all, here is what you should know about textures:
- Size: A textures must have one of the following sizes: 256x256, 128x128, 64x64, 32x32 or 16x16 pixels. Although FS2000 supports larger texture files (e.g. 512x512) it is not recommended to make use of them. This is because some graphics cards like 3DfX(R) allow a maximum texture size of 256x256. They will scale larger textures down to 256x256, which leads to blurred texturing.
- Color depth: Although GroundMaker will display 24-bit bitmaps, only use 8-bit palette bitmaps for use with FS2000. 8-bit bitmaps can have a max of 256 colors. There are paint programs like Adobe Photoshop(R), Corel Photo Paint(R), GIMP(R) - freeware, which let you edit bitmaps in 24-bit color depth and convert these to 8-bit palette for use in FS.
- Transparency: FS2000 also supports transparency. It is possible to assign a transparency level for every palette color entry using BMP2000 by Martin Wright (freeware). You can achieve interesting dirt and light effects with transparency.
- R8 textures: They are 8-bit bitmaps without a palette entry. FS98 and before made use of such textures. It is not recommended to use them anymore.
The GroundMaker texture preview dialogs will show 24-bit, 8-bit and R8 files. If an 8-bit bitmap contains transparency info, colors will be faded accordingly.
Night and seasonal effects
If you want seasonal and night light effects, you must check any of the NIGHT, FALL, SPRING, WINTER or AUTUMN options in a shape's texture settings. Following shapes support these effects: POLY, TEXPOLY, LINE, TREE LINE and FOREST. FS will load another texture depending on the chosen season or time of day. The texture you select is the summer and day texture by default. Enabling the SPRING option for example, will force FS to load another texture in spring. The additional textures must be made available to FS and be named in a special way:
Effect File name Summer (default) MyTEXTURE.BMP Spring MyTEXTURE_SP.BMP Winter MyTEXTURE_WI.BMP Fall MyTEXTURE_FA.BMP Night MyTEXTURE_LM.BMP Note that a night texture's brightness will remain constant at night. In other words, bright pixels will seem to 'shine'. At dawn or dusk, the night texture will be blended with the current day texture.
Not all GroundMaker textures(GRM_xxxxxxxx.BMP) support the effects. Here is a list of the textures supporting them.
File name Supported effect(s) grm_grass1.bmp Spring, Winter, Fall grm_tree1.bmp Spring, Winter, Fall
Releasing textures with your scenery
When releasing your scenery, all needed textures must be copied to the scenery's TEXTURE directory. Don't forget seasonal or night textures when your scenery makes use of those. Read the EXPORT topic for more info...
To find out which textures are required to run your scenery, click the FILE\ LIST REQUIRED FILES FOR RELEASE... menu item.