Help please! DXTBmp doesn't always save

[Mistwalker 3]

This prog is driving me nuts. It wouldn't be so bad if it consistantly buggered me about but it's doing it at random just to annoy the (insert expletive) out of me.

 

Many times when I save a texture I've been working on..... it doesn't. It says it has but when I come to load it, it hasn't. Then I can go back an hour later or the next day, follow exactly the same routine and this time it will. I just can't figure out what's going on. Here's what I do to edit a texture....

 

1 - Open it up in DXTBmp.

2 - Send it to editor. In my case, Paint.NET

3 - Add new layer

4 - Change layer properties to 'Multiply'.

5 - Edit as required.

6 - Merge layer down

7 - Save

8 - Go back to DTXBmp and 'Reload after Edit'.

9 - Save.

 

At this point, since having trouble, I then reload the just saved texture back into DXTBmp to check it's saved. Sometime it has, sometimes it hasn't.

 

Have any of you repainting gurus experienced the same thing or am I doing something stupid?

[allardjd 1,853]

Save yourself some grief and get FS Repaint from Abacus. 

 

John

[brett 2,316]

I thought about getting that program John except for some less than stellar reviews. Theyalways keep me from pushing the button on it. I also have a problem with intermittent saves with DXTBmp like Steve has mentioned.

[Mistwalker 3]

Same here. On the surface it looks like a really good prog but I've seen a lot of whining about FS Repaint including that it will not read dds files which many, if not most, new A/C come in these days.

[allardjd 1,853]

Let me start by saying I'm not an expert repainter and don't really do much of it, so take my opinions on this with a grain of salt.  Having said that, I've used both methods a little - enough to have some basic level of understanding of the primary differences. 

 

DXTBmp works but is a bit arcane and you have to keep an eye on it and what it's doing.  The possibility of losing all the work in a session is always lurking - it's happened to me more than once.  For expert repainters who understand all the intricacies and are willing to manage them, it's fine.  I suspect, but don't know for a fact, that DXTBmp and a high-end payware graphics editor can allow you to do things that are not possible with FS Repaint.  I certainly mean no disrespect to Martin Wright of JF who created DXTBmp and made it available to the flight sim community as freeware.  He's done a great job with a very flexible and powerful utility that makes all manner of things possible for us.  The help files alone broadened my horizons on the topic of compressed bitmaps a hundred-fold.  It's just not always easy to use and understand and isn't bulletproof in the hands of less-than-experienced users.

 

FS Repaint is very easy to use and is (almost) immune to lost work.  It saves reliably.  It also permits you to select an existing FS aircraft and paint job as a "base" model and creates a duplicate in FS for you to work on.  It handles all the folders and files needed, including the changes to aircraft.cfg to make a new version available to FS.  It does that at the beginning, when you kick off a new repainting project.  You can actually fly a partially repainted airplane in FS between sessions since the new one is put into the FS stable right from the start.  I think you could do that in DXTBmp too, but would have to edit aircraft.cfg and create the new texture folder, etc. manually before you could do that.

 

FS Repaint's editing shows the results in real time as you work.  You see a 3D image of the aircraft that you can manipulate with the mouse to see from any angle.  Painted bits show up in the new colors at the time you make changes to them, so viewing results (and backing up if necessary) is instantaneous.

 

Abacus has a reputation for middle-of-the-road software but FS Repaint (and possibly FS Design Studio) may well be the best titles they have ever released.

 

For the casual repainter, or the beginner who is just starting out and who isn't sure this is going to be a new major sideline for him, I think FS Repaint is worthy of consideration.  If you're Jankees, or intend to give him some serious competition in the future, then maybe you ought to go the other way.

 

As a parting thought, it's not either or - you can have and use both.

 

Your mileage may vary...

 

John

[brett 2,316]

Thanks John, great review.  I feel a little more comfortable considering it for myself.

[jankees 917]

It's true, I have never used FS repaint. I downloaded the demo once, but could not get it to work, so I forgot about it.

I now use Photoshop CS6, in combination with DXTbmp, and that works well for me.

I do have this 'no, I do not want to save now' problem occasionally too. I see it as a clear sign I have been spending too much time behind my computer, so I switch it off, I make myself a nice cup of espresso, and when I switch my computer back on, the problem is usually gone. Computers, don't you love them?

[Mistwalker 3]

Thanks for taking the time to put together that detailed post on the pros and cons of both. Now I have a decision to make.

[jaydor 345]

Never get a problem with it Steve. This is how I do it.  I use P/shop but your Paint  is OK.

 

Make a folder on your desktop, call it Paint holder.

 

When you have finished your paint save it into this folder (Paint holder).

 

Open your Paint holder on the desktop in a small window.

 

Then open DXT in a small window.

 

Drag your paint from Paint folder drop into DXT.

 

Orient the paint, then choose under Alpha, create alpha template.

 

Then choose save as, .dds texture,  then in the drop down choose save as DXT5

 

Press save, you will now see a .dds file appear in your paint folder.  That's the one for the FSX file..

 

Then rename the .dds file to the FSX file name, open Simobjects  and drag and drop in the FSX file, press replace file when the window comes up.

 

Hope this help's you..

 

James

 

 

[Mistwalker 3]

James, yer a gennleman and a scholar, mate. I followed your instructions and did two textures without a hitch and in a fraction of the time. For some reason the shade of the paint comes out a tad lighter but that's no biggy because I can redo the the others to match now that it only takes a quarter of the time.

 

Thanks very much for the help.

[mutley 4,498]

Nice one James.  

[Alky 0]

I know this is an old thread, but since this is my first day as a member here, that's my excuse & I'm sticking to it 

 

What I do with DXTBMP without any failures is to load the texture into it, send to the editor, copy & paste your flat painted texture to the the image that DXTBMP provided. In my paint program it's called norm.bmp. This is where the OP may have screwed up now & again, it has to be saved first before sending it back to DXTBMP, if you don't, DXTBMP doesn't "save" the new texture to the flight sim when you import it back from the paint program. The norm.bmp is buried somewhere in the C:\users hiarchy and it just gets overwritten each time you use it, so don't worry about it.

Before I learned to do it this way I had nothing but problems and thought that DXTBMP was the most gawdawefull program on the planet. 

 

[brett 2,316]

Thanks Alky and welcome to the forum.

 

All pearls of wisdom are greatly appreciated.

[allardjd 1,853]

Welcome, Alky. Hope you enjoy our little corner of the world here.

 

John