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Seasonal texyures for an mdl

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Firebird
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Seasonal texyures for an mdl

Post by Firebird »

Gents, I wonder if somebody could supply me with some info here to help finish something I have been mincing around with for myself.

The story is that somebody made available a scenery for EGYP, for FSX, and I wanted to see if it was possible to convert at least the objects and the base afcad for use in FS9.

The AFCAD was easy. Load into ADE in FSX mode and then save the splits, along with the xml.
I simply converted the afcad from FSX to FS9 in AFX. The objects were trickier but the creator did supply information about the libs he used and supplied one he created for this scenery.

So managed to convert the libs to Fs9 format via MCX and converted the textures where necessary using DXTBmp. Apart from one piece of personal stupidity which prevented me seeing any objects for over 2 days everything worked well.

I then was immediately struck by the so-so grass texture, so this was replaced. Then I started to think of how much better it would be if the grass covered objects could be converted to be seasonal textures rather than your basic summer texture - which stands out a bit down south.

This is where I have got to. I tried to activate the option in mcx to enable HasSeasonalTextures but it does not work. Even trying to export after amending the parm for the textures in the Material Editor does not alter it. When reloading it stills says false.

I have tried exporting the individual mdl but no good. I even tried using Mdl Tweaker II and adding the viable suffix textures and saving the mdl. This seemingly created the that the various suffixes could be used.
I then loaded the modified mdl into mcx and it does indeed load the _wi texture.

I replaced the original mdl with the modified one, and re-checked to ensure that all was well. When the amended bgl was loaded in game the same summer textures were still showing.

So can anybody tell me a way of adding the seasonal textures using a method that they know, or tell me what i am doing wrong please.
Steve
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hawk_sh
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Re: Seasonal texyures for an mdl

Post by hawk_sh »

Hi Steve,

when I designed scenery objects many years ago I used Model Tweaker II to add the seasonal textures.

As far as I remember this worked flawlessly.


These questions may sound obvious, but:

Your winter texture file looks different than your summer texture file so that you will recognise it in the sim?

You checked the winter textures in the sim during winter time or to be more specific during the time that you specified in Model Tweaker II as winter time?

Are you sure that there is no duplicate object library or a duplicate GUID?
Hartwig
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Re: Seasonal texyures for an mdl

Post by Firebird »

Hi Hartwig,

Not dumb questions at all. The personal stupidity that I mentioned earlier was in fact because I left the original FSX version in an active folder. It was picking up the FSX guids first. Doh!

I can confirm that the winter textures are indeed predominantly white in colour. To avoid mincing around too much I just found a set of textures that fit the bill I wanted and renamed them. The other 3 sets are just different shades of green however.

I have just got this nagging feeling that there is something that I have forgotten about.

It is useful to know that I am at least using a tool that works.

If you think of anything else please feel free to suggest it.
Steve
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Re: Seasonal texyures for an mdl

Post by hawk_sh »

Hi Steve,

Glad you found the issue.

Two additional things that I remember:

When making textures for bunkers I took a screenshot of the ground texture (land class) of the area where the objects will be placed during every season. That way the object will later perfectly blend with its surrounding colorwise.
However this approach will only work well when users have the same set of landclass textures.

You should also determine the exact dates when the seasonal textures change on the location of your scenery and then set these values in Model Tweaker II. The dates when seasonal textures change vary depending on the location. So you make sure that the landclass and the objects change the textures at the same time.
Hartwig
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Re: Seasonal texyures for an mdl

Post by Firebird »

That's what I was missing!

Of course the scenery lib is being used for the Southern Hemisphere. So Winter actually starts Jun 20 but the textures are using Northern Hemisphere months. So I need to slide two seasons for each mdl that uses seasonal textures.

Thinking ahead what that also means is that I need a duplicate lib with different guids so that the mdls could then be available for Northern sceneries.

What a pain but at least I can get to achieve what I set out for.
Steve
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Re: Seasonal texyures for an mdl

Post by Firebird »

Just a final update.

That all worked. I now have two libs, one for Northern and one for the Southern Hemispheres. I realise that I could have added the mdls with the different season texture settings to the bgl but I wanted to keep the original authors work as it was.

So when i get some time all I have to do is add the fencing that was included in the original FSX scenery and I will be done - for now. A good exercise overall.

Thanks for the help.
Steve
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Re: Seasonal texyures for an mdl

Post by VulcanDriver »

I did have the season days in a spreadsheet I downloaded. Can't remember where I got from but it would useful for me as I'm designing FS9 scenery for Russia that has lots of time zones and seasons.
John

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Re: Seasonal texyures for an mdl

Post by Firebird »

I don't think it matters for time zones just Northern and Southern hemispheres, as the seasons are opposite but it is not beyond the realms of possibility that I am wrong.

It would seem that either nobody thought of it, or realised the issue. What I found was that it was possible that people only created libs for Northern seasons or that people didn't create seasonal grass textures for their libs.

Of course it could be the case that people did create libs with both Northern and Southern textures and duplicated the objects in the lib and that I just haven't found one yet.

I guess I stumbled onto one other thing that poor scenery designers have to take into account.
Steve
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