Blurry Textures

[DanJones]

Hello all! This is my first thread. I am not totally new to repainting but not a veteran either. I know just enough to be dangerous. As my signature states, I am the Vice CEO and fleet manager for Transload Virtual Airlines. I just added the Posky E-767 AWACS to the fleet which I painted myself. I did an Air Force version in dark gull grey and a Coast Guard version. The layered paint kit from Posky was very confusing to me at first but once I understood it I didn't have a problem using it. The problem I am having is that the right fuselage and wing textures get blurry on the Air Force paint only. I think the right wing is the only one affected on the Caost Guard paint (I used the same texture as on the Air Force). You can clear the textures up by cycling through the views. They will stay clear until you change views then go back to the chase view where the textures have to re-load. Now, the only difference between the two paints is that I applied more alpha to the Coast Guard skin versus the Air Force paint. I tinkered with the idea that I may have to add a touch of alpha to the Air Force paint, but the left side of the aircraft is always clear so I have kind of ruled that out as a solution.
I used an Imagetool compiler to convert the texture files into DXT3 without mips. I have noticed that there is less of a tendency for the textures to blur in 32 bit format but leaving them in that format is not an option. Any comments or suggestions would be greatley appreciated.

[e-b-o-]

Hmmmm, since I've never had a MS flight Simulator on my computer it's maybe a silly suggestion... but can you disable the mipmaps in the games graphic setup?

If this doesn't work: are you able exporting dds files as dxt1 without mipmaps?
if the texture(s) itself had enough resolution (may I ask which resolution you're using?) I'd look into this.

[DanJones]

I have mips turned up in the simulator. I turned them off and it only made matters worse. The textures are 1024x1024 resolution and are Bitmaps compressed in DXT3 format. Again, I only have trouble with half the aircraft which really makes tough to troubleshoot. You would think if I did something wrong painting the aircraft that it would affect all the textures that I touched. Thanks for the reply.

[adlabs6]

Hi there and welcome.

Only half of the plane gets blurry? Well you mentioned saving with no mip maps, so what I would first wonder is... are the halves of the fuselage on different texture map files? If so I'd double check that the file for that half of the aircraft indeed has NO mip maps.

It's late and my mind is not super clear right now, but as far as I can recall in FS, if a texture has no mip maps saved, then there won't be any used in game. Tomorrow I'll review this and think some more on it.

[DanJones]

I have checked and re-checked and re-checked the mips. I sent out a couple replacement textures for the pilots to check as I had some success so far with them. I opened the offending files in DXTBmp and clicked on the "create alpha layer" button. I then edited the color of the alpha from the default 255,255,255 color to 250,250,250. I read somewhere on another forum (Avsim I think) that if there was no alpha layer then the textures would be blurry. This solution is just a shot in the dark. The halves of the fuslages are mapped seperately but the paintkit I used was just one half so you I had to mirror the text on the right side. Here are some screen shots from the thead in the Transload forum I took. So far I have had luck. The blurries were the worst in a multiplayer enviroment or in heavy fps areas such as add on scenery. We have regularly scheduled flights on Saturday nights so after the flight I switched to the E-767 to see if I still had issues. The textures stayed clear but I would need more testing before I call it a fix. Thanks for your reply.

[Serval]

Note: people must register to that forum to view your screenshots. Maybe it's an idea to upload them here as well, so everyone can see them (1280x 1280 by 400 kB is the max size)

[DanJones]

Boy, do I feel stupid. Here are the pics. So far my previously mentioned solution is getting positive reviews.

[adlabs6]

Well great news on finding a solution there, I had never heard of that alpha issue myself. I've star rated this thread as a signal to others who may scan the forums for similar information. Thanks for sharing the solution.

[DanJones]

We still have to give it a test in an online session but from all the reviews from the pilots offline it has been a success. Just one of those goofy quirks I guess. Now I have to revisit a certain Tornado I did a while ago with the same problem. The plane itself is such a frame hog, I wrote it off as the model causing the texture problem.

[adlabs6]

Yes, could be hard to identify in those cases. I had a model a few years back which on my old machine, simply never was able to give good texture performances, constantly swapping them in and out between the VC and exterior.