JustFlight P-38 missing gauges & textures, scenery blurries

I believe that 'pop-up' is the DOS box they're referring to. It should close by itself, when it does the conversion is done. At least that's how it works for me.

You can tell if it worked by comparing the before and after file size, a 1024x1024 32 bit bitmap is usually 4.00 mg and the dxt3 version is usually 1.00 mg, assuming no mipmaps are included.

I have the JF P-38 pack and this helped me to cure the texture blurries. The vc still loads kinda slow, but it does load and is readable.
 
OK, I have nothing else to work with except that box, so I hit the "3" key and "Enter." Those showed up inside the box, first line of type. I closed the box after saving the changes. The texture file sizes are identical at 42.5 MB.

Later - fingered this out, I think. Opened basic Image Tool using icon. Dark grey box appreared w/tool bar at top. Clicked "file." Copy of F-4 texture file appeared, each bitmap shown. Selected first bitmap. Bitmap image shows in grey box. Check "format" information on right side of surround on grey box. "Format" says "32-bit." Selected "format" from tool bar on top of grey box. Further selected "DXT-3" from options on scroll bar. Bitmap image flickers slightly. Clicked "save as" under "file." Image Tool dialog box opens. Typed original bitmap name in first box toward bottom of dialog window. Clicked "OK" button. Program says file already exists with this name, do I want to overwrite? Click "yes." Did each bitmap separately this way. File size went from 42.5MB to 17.3MB. Will now reinstall in F-4 folder and see what happens.
 
ok my pack of batch converters are available, if you download that then drag and drop imagetool into one of the texture folders along with a batch converter .BAT file of choice, now double click that Batch file, should bring up 2 windows, one shows what it's working on, the other is the DOS box... check filesize again... (Don't forget to move the batch converter out once it's done it's stuff) :salute:
 
Matt I may want to take you up on that, but I'm experiencing problems with this aircraft. I was able to look around the virtual cockpit maybe a little more quickly than in the past (pan rate seemed better). Cranked the left engine, everything functioned perfectly inside the cockpit. Same thing happened after starting the right engine. Going outside I got greyed-out landing gear and a translucent prop disk, no blurred blades at all. Went back inside the cockpit and it took a LONG time for the panel and gauges to change from a washed-out grey to functioning. Went back outside again to help with taxiing and the entire aircraft was grey, except for the cockpit which was fine - except for the panel, which was again washed-out grey-white. I don't jump quickly from view to view, I give it a little time to settle before moving on. Thinking the sound file might be too much to run on my machine with the aircraft's textures (even after conversion), I changed the sound from what came with the aircraft to a V-1710 sound file I had elsewhere on my machine. It is an alias, not the actual sound file. Tried again and got the same results. In both cases, after hitting "esc," I got the screen asking me if I wanted to "end flight" - and discovered I could not end the flight, the machine had locked up. I had to ctrl-alt-del out of the sim. Unless I come up with a fix for this there's no point in keeping the bird on the computer using up space I could devote to a different, more tractable P-38. A little upsetting considering I had to pay for this frustration. Should I run the instrument panel through ImageTool as well?
 
what format are you converting the images to? 32-bit or DXT3 and then with or without MIP's ?

the VC will use texture sheets inside the texture folder if i recall.... so batching them with everything will convert it, as for 2D panels they use a different format if i recall...

someone more in the know may pop in so we'll see...
 
OK, that makes sense - I put the aircraft texture files into DXT3 format from 32-bit. I recall the mip-maps being set at 1, pretty low. I'm probably wrong, but I saw on another forum that if you wanted to bump up your frame rates you lowered the mip-mapping, the higher numbers ate into the rates. If that's not the case, though - can't you compensate for that by changing the mip-mapping setting on the sim itself?

I checked the settings in the Image Tool - the width and height of the bmps are 1024 X 1024, format DXT-3, alpha - none, no. of mip levels - 1, with all displayed.
 
You must have a different version of the batch converter than I do.

I have two files: a DOS command doohickey called 'bmp to dxt' and the actual 'imagetool' .

If I copy these two files into my texture folder, double click on the 'bmp to dxt' icon, a dialog box similar to the one you described opens, a bunch of text goes by that resembles the stuff you posted, then the box closes by itself and the conversion is done.

You should end up with dxt3 bitmaps that do have an alpha, but no mips, at least that's what I get.
 
SSI01 said:
I found the ImageTool via a Bing search, and downloaded it. Opened it into a separate folder in "C" drive SEPARATE from FS9. I then put the texture converter.txt file in this folder, and renamed it to "texture converter.bat" IAW instructions. Next step was to put a copy of the texture of the F-4 into the "ImageTool" folder. I then double-clicked the "bat" file to start the process............
What's the next step, folks - I never got a DOS dialog box, just the pop-up window w/this text.
Click to expand...

Sounds like you might need to check you have 'cmd.exe' in your windows\system32 folder; and if you have given windows permission to run
.bat files; your anti-virus may also be stopping it execute the .bat file too.

hope this helps

ttfn

Pete
 
pfflyers said:
You must have a different version of the batch converter than I do.

I have two files: a DOS command doohickey called 'bmp to dxt' and the actual 'imagetool' .

If I copy these two files into my texture folder, double click on the 'bmp to dxt' icon, a dialog box similar to the one you described opens, a bunch of text goes by that resembles the stuff you posted, then the box closes by itself and the conversion is done.

You should end up with dxt3 bitmaps that do have an alpha, but no mips, at least that's what I get.
Click to expand...

I downloaded the image tool from the internet. What I've got when I open the file is some folders, one called "samples," and another one called "terrain tool." Terrain tools has one icon called "tmf viewer" and an exe. file called "re sample." Samples has one folder called "Niagara Falls" and another called "NiagaraWithSeasons." Niagara Falls has a folder called "Niagara Falls Sample," containing one scenery and one texture file; the scenery file has one bgl file in it; the texture file has nothing in it. It has another folder called "Raw Images" in it. This folder in turn contains one B&W overhead satellite photo of the falls. There is also a "setup information" icon in this folder as well as an MS-DOS batch file called "Niagara." "NiagarawithSeasons" has one folder called "Raw Images" containing 6 tga files, a "NiagarawithSeasons" MS-DOS batch file and a "NiagarawithSeasons" setup information file. I created a third folder called "Image Tools," this in turn containing the ImageTool execute file, and the texture converter document provided earlier that I changed from a .txt to a .bat format file. That's all I got with this download from the internet.
 
Motormouse said:
Sounds like you might need to check you have 'cmd.exe' in your windows\system32 folder; and if you have given windows permission to run
.bat files; your anti-virus may also be stopping it execute the .bat file too.

hope this helps

ttfn

Pete
Click to expand...

OK, I checked the Windows/System32 file, there is a "cmd" icon there. Not sure how one goes about giving windows permission to run .bat files though.
 
pfflyers, can you please give me the download site where you got your file - there are a number of these things available on the web, I don't know which one to download . . .:mixedsmi:
 
If I knew how I'd PM you the whole thing. Both files together are only 185 kb.

Sadly I have no idea where I got them. I think someone created the DOS batch file and posted it along with instructions on where to get the imagetool seperately.

There is a small text file included which gives these operating instructions:

1) Copy these two files into the texture folder you wish to convert from 32 bit to DXT3
2) Double click on the .batch file (the one with the gear on it) and stand back!!
3) Delete these files from texture folder when complete

No author's name or anything else to identify it.
 
I'm trying to attach a zip file of my converter.

It seems to have worked OK. I wish I could give credit to whoever created this.

I'm sure it must be OK to post this, if it wasn't freeware I wouldn't have it, and I take no credit for the creation of any of it.
 
Thanks pf - I received it and unzipped - it's got the files in it as you described. Will give it a go tomorrow and post results.
 
The Imagetool batch files can be coded to work several different ways. The ones I have pop up not only the DOS window, but also a batch specific GUI built into Imagetool that shows a thumbnail of each texture as it's processed. If you make a batch file with just imagetool -? as the only command, you'll get a list of all the supported commands. Too bad it's a graphic. The text can't be copied - you have to write it down yourself.
 
Tom, that's the one i uploaded, with all the -BAT files, handy that little GUI is, the amount of times i've spotted something in there....

gotta love texture conversion :icon_lol:
 
OK folks, here's the latest go-round - ran the texture folder for the F-4 through the converter using the process as described herein. It works pretty quickly, it does. After the conversion, put it back in the F-4 folder and started FS9. Externals look fine, pan rate smooth. Back in the cockpit and started the first engine (L). Start goes smoothly. Shifted back to external view and got greyed out aircraft. Went back to inside view, all gauges (but not stenciling, levers, handles, switches, etc) greyed out as well. I have noted default AI aircraft passing rapidly through the scenery (i.e., 737 on takeoff) are also greyed out. The problem starts when the F-4's props begin to spin, as this apparently overwhelms my cutting-edge video card (ADM Radeon HD 6800 series). Anything taxiing at a low rate, such as the default AI C-172s, keep their textures OK.
 
If you've converted 32 bit to DXT3, that may be the cause. I've run into one or two aircraft that just don't like DXT textures and will throw the entire Sim out of joint. Try converting to 8 bit uncompressed. You may lose some of the alpha shading, so if you see something that suddenly looks chromed or too transparent, you may need to go back and resotre one or two oritinal 32 bit files.

If you don't have a batch file for 8 bit, you can convert the one that makes your DXT's. Just make a copy of the original and rename it, then Right-Click > Edit. Look for -DXT3 in the code and change it to -8 to change the output format.
 
Maybe it is a vid card issue.

When I installed the JF P-38 pack I had a real problem with slow loading vc and blurry textures on the aircraft itself but no noticeable effect on the rest of the sim.

I converted all the textures to dxt3 w/out mips and it runs and looks much better for me (nVidea 8500). The vc still loads a little slow but everything else works ok. I did change the propblur tex just because I didn't like the one it came with.
 
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