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Hi all, I'm new to the forum so please excuse any questions that have been covered in the past. Heres my problem. I just completed my latest project (I'm using TSM). It's a Trailer Train F39 75' flat w/ 2 35' trailers. When I view the model in MSTS Shape Viewer the textures look fine. But in Train Simulator the texture looks like the color depth has been reduced. Does anyone know why this is happening or how to correct it? I would post pictures to show the difference, but I didn't know how large the pictures should be. Thanks for your time, R. Bishop
MSTS does reduce the color depth to 16bitsThe Shape Viewer has an option in the Edit menu to "View Low Quality textures" this simulates MSTS.DXT1 textures are 16 bit by default Solid textures use 5 bits for Red, 6 for Green and 5 for Blue (65000 colors) Transparent textures use 15 bits for color 5 each, 1 alpha (32000 colors) and Translucent textures use 4 bits for color and translucency - only 4000 colorsAdding "noise" or dithering a texture can improve its appearance.I sometimes use the paint tool to reduce the number of colors to 256 using the dithering option for the tool, then convert it back to RGB before exporting the texture.
Thanks Paul. That explains why I had Photoshop set to "web colors only." I turned it off to edit some photos. I guess I'll try again. Thanks again, Randy
Hi Randy, Using DXT compression when coverting your textures to the ace format will degrade the template, try using the ZLib compression it isn`t always as harsh on the template during the conversion process. 16 bit ace files ?? I thought they converted to 24 bit as default, and capable of 32bit.Regards Stew aka 6330trainfan Albany WA Australia
ACE files convert to 24 and 32 bit, but MSTS only ever displays them as 16 bit.DXT "degrade" is not always noticable (depending on the texture), they take up far less video memory and improve performance. I would recommend using them first if possible, if the degrade effect is noticable, then use ZLib (which get uncompressed internally before they are used)