Texture problem with ai?

[oldpropfan]

I've been slowly porting my AI from FS9 to FSX and recently ran into this problem, some of the planes are black until you get close to them then the textures appear. This is great for an F-117 maybe ;D, not so great for everything else . The reverse happens as the AI moves away from you, they go from textured to black ( bottom two shots).











I've already tried converting the textures to .dds and making sure the textures have mips but no joy. Is the problem in the models themselves and if so what is the fix?

Thanks for any help,

Al

[Tom/CalClassic]

Hi,

There is no fix that you can do. For FS2004 many AI aircraft are created without textures after reaching a certain distance away from the user (these simpler versions of the plane are called LOD (level of detail) models). They turn gray in FS2004, which doesn't look too bad. In some versions of FSX, untextured surfaces of FS2004 aircraft turn black instead. That is what you are seeing. I have been slowly converting my AI propliner models to turn untextured later than before, to minimize this effect. But unless the plane's author textures the middle LOD models, this will happen in FSX.

I have heard that a later version of FSX (SP2 and/or Acceleration?) does not do this, but I have no confirmation of this.

Hope this helps,

[oldpropfan]

Thanks for the help Tom. Is there a flag in the .mdl file that will turn the multi lod off. I'm thinking something along the line of what you do with a hex editor to make the AI planes not show up in the user plane menu.

Or, what has to be done to the model to move the "untexturing time" to further away.

Al

[Tom/CalClassic]

Hi,

As I said, there is nothing you can do about it without rebuilding the plane. You would need the source file for the plane (GMAX or FSDS) and know how to texture aircraft (or move LOD levels). If you have that, let me know and I'll try to help.