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Need a little help .

X

XLR8

Charter Member
Hi all, I have a couple of questions that maybe someone could help with .

1> I have been trying to get thumbnails pics of the aircraft from IRIS freeware in to the menu of FSX . I have read and tryed a couple of turitoritals but no luck . How do I do this ?

2>I installed the IRIS F14 and everything seems to work,eccept for the cockpit glass is gray/black. Is there a fix for this . Thanks
 
XLR8 said:
Hi all, I have a couple of questions that maybe someone could help with .

1> I have been trying to get thumbnails pics of the aircraft from IRIS freeware in to the menu of FSX. I have read and tried a couple of tutorials but no luck. How do I do this?
Click to expand...
My method is this, I load FSX, get to the aircraft selection screen, load the aircraft I need a thumbnail of and when it loads in the screen and it's about 3/4 front view I click a screenshot of it. I crop that shot to just show just the aircraft, save it as a "thumbnail.jpg" and add it to the texture folder for that airplane. Size doesn't matter because FSX will size it to fit.

XLR8 said:
2>I installed the IRIS F14 and everything seems to work, except for the cockpit glass is gray/black. Is there a fix for this. Thanks
Click to expand...
That's an alpha channel problem and can usually be corrected by darkening the alpha channel for that texture (whichever one is for the glass):salute:
 
falcon409 said:
My method is this, I load FSX, get to the aircraft selection screen, load the aircraft I need a thumbnail of and when it loads in the screen and it's about 3/4 front view I click a screenshot of it. I crop that shot to just show just the aircraft, save it as a "thumbnail.jpg" and add it to the texture folder for that airplane. Size doesn't matter because FSX will size it to fit.


That's an alpha channel problem and can usually be corrected by darkening the alpha channel for that texture (whichever one is for the glass):salute:
Click to expand...


Thanks ,the thumbnail sounds a bit simpller than what I read. Will give it a shot .

The alpha chanel thing went over my head. I don't want to sound stupid here,but is this a easy thing to do ? What do I need to do this ?
 
XLR8 said:
. . . .The alpha channel thing went over my head. I don't want to sound stupid here, but is this an easy thing to do? What do I need to do this?
Click to expand...
Not a problem really. You'll need the freeware program "DXTbmp" from here: http://www.btinternet.com/~mnwright/
Scroll to the bottom of the page for the download link.
If you have a graphics program like Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop, that's ideal, if not, for this problem, MSPaint will work.

Open DXTbmp, at the top of the menu bar is a drop down for "Prefs", click that and either set it to MSPaint or browse to find your favorite program. Once that's done, you're ready. Load the glass texture, to the far right you'll see the area for the Alpha Channel and under that a row of icons. . .click on the down arrow and it'll send the alpha channel to your editor.

Now select either solid black or a gray tone somewhere in the middle between white and black and fill the alpha channel using the "bucket fill". Once you've done that, click on the save button (but don't close the program yet).

Now go back to DXTbmp, click the up arrow under the alpha channel area and you'll see your new alpha loaded. Now, click the save button to save your work back to the texture folder and close DXTbmp.

Load your airplane and see what you have. It's possible, if you used a medium gray that it wasn't dark enough to clear the glass completely, you can just repeat the steps you just did and make the alpha darker. That should do it.:salute:
 
Thanks for the great help Falcon409 . I got the thumbnails to work great,but still working on the alpha problem .
 
XLR8 said:
Thanks for the great help Falcon409 . I got the thumbnails to work great,but still working on the alpha problem .
Click to expand...
Yea, that method for thumbnails works very well and keeps the images consistent. As for the alpha, if you can't get it, send the texture to me and I'll run the alpha for you.:salute:
 
falcon409 said:
Yea, that method for thumbnails works very well and keeps the images consistent. As for the alpha, if you can't get it, send the texture to me and I'll run the alpha for you.:salute:
Click to expand...


I think the problem I am having is due to, just not for sure what file . I found a cockpit file , but that did not work . Not even for sure what I am looking for . The software you suggested is pretty simple .
 
XLR8 said:
I think the problem I am having is due to, just not for sure what file . I found a cockpit file , but that did not work . Not even for sure what I am looking for . The software you suggested is pretty simple .
Click to expand...
Yea, sometimes the Glass texture is given some "off the wall" name or code rather than just calling it GLASS, lol. it may be VC_glass or something like that.
I don't have the F-14, so I can't help you, but I know the IRIS forums are back up (you have to re-register again), so maybe someone there can tell you which texture controls the canopy transparency.
 
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