FSX sparrowjet + Acceptible/Possible questions

[decapod]

A couple more screen dumps of my Sparrowjet now it has some textures (not that they are very detailed yet) and env mapping
I have a few questions for developers out there...

1. Texture sizes/format
The SDK states 1024x1024 textures max, yet I just downloaded the Beaufighter and that uses 3 2048x2048 textures with the same sized spec and bump maps - that's 9, plus a few smaller maps.
I imagine this was done to remove the lossy compression artifacts of DXT5.
However an uncompressed ARGB8888 1024X1024 DDS file would be a similar size file (on disk and in graphics card memory) and produce a similar, if not better result - Which is preferable/acceptible? Do people care as long as it looks good?
The reason I ask is that my 1024x1024 DXT5 file shows a few "jaggies" around the edges of the numbers.

2. Can you use the prop still/slow/blurred animations for jet engines? That way I can show the turbine blades when the engines are stopped.

Click on the images for the full sized version:

[decapod]

One more question...

Canopy translucency - do developers prefer to use the Texture Alpha channel (and the spec map to control the env map) or the material Opacity to control translucency?

[SkippyBing]

There should be some animation codes for jet engine blades as well, along the lines of N1_Still etc. you'll also need to use the matching visibility tags.

[decapod]

There should be some animation codes for jet engine blades as well, along the lines of N1_Still etc. you'll also need to use the matching visibility tags.

Thanks - I wondered what they were. The SDK doesn't describe what the animations do, just where they are used.

[SkippyBing]

Reference the textures question, I've used 2048x2048 DDS textures without any problems. I think this is better performance wise than using 4 1024x1024 textures to cover the same area with the same level of detail as it uses one drawcall rather than four to achieve the same effect.

[Garry Russell]

For the Bristol 170 cooloing fan I have a still part linked to Prop stil and two discs one linked to prop slow and the other to prop blured

So the visuals for the fan blade would work the same with a still part and two discs........just what you would name them for a jet??? but Skippys suggestion look good.

As to transparency I think the normal is to use a combination of the two

Garry

[decapod]

Reference the textures question, I've used 2048x2048 DDS textures without any problems. I think this is better performance wise than using 4 1024x1024 textures to cover the same area with the same level of detail as it uses one drawcall rather than four to achieve the same effect.

The draw call performance is better in that case but I was thinking of using a 1024 texture over the same area to keep the draw calls the same.
DXT* compression uses groups of 4 pixels - effectively reducing the resolution of the texture from 2048 to 1024.
I'll experiment with using non-compressed DDS textures tonight - If that fails I may look at 2048.
99.9% of graphics cards used by FSX flyers willeasily support them.

I'm generally very hot on efficiency as part of my background is 3D programming - That beaufighter is a bit of monster with over 360 draw calls and 140,000 polygons
My sparrowjet is quite a sparrow in comparison with 11 draw calls and 9000 polygons.

[decapod]

FYI....

Here is the comparison of DXT5 1024 DDS texture (left) and Uncompressed 32 bit DDS - Uncompressed looks a bit better.
Uncompressed DDS was about 1 FPS slower (at about 46FPS), but DXT5 2048 was also about 1FPS slower (with rate slider set to unlimited)
Click for larger image:


I think I may stick with 1024 uncompressed DDS as there are fewer artifacts.

[decapod]

A small addendum - the DDS textures used above both have Mipmaps.

I notice a lot of aircraft textures do not have them. If I remove them the texture quality goes up in both cases.

Mipmaps are generally very good for performance when a model is far away (i.e. AI aircraft or scenery) - is there any opinion regarding using them for aircraft?
I presume most are going to be viewed close up most of the time.
Could developers provide 2 models? one for flying (no mipmaps) and one for AI (with mipmaps)

[SkippyBing]

I now turn mipmaps off as the level of detail on the model looks that much better close up. You could set up one of the texture directories with a set of mipmapped textures for AI use and define it as such in the aircraft.cfg.