Hi Frank...>> I'll do a file search for some *.r8s <<
R8 files are the 'old' FS texture files, which have been with us since fs3.0.
They are 256 colour (8 bit) 'indexed' (i.e they include a 256 colour index
table in the header) texture files, which unfortunately could not be
edited by standard paint programs, so a number of freeware and shareware editing
programs appeared for that purpose. These R8 files also required a palette
file to tell FS which palette to use when painting a texture. These R8
textures had a maximum resolution of 256 x 256 pixels, so you can imagine
why MS now wish to drop support for them - we would require thousands to
be loaded for each view direction !
FS2000 moved up to the '.bmp' format, which were not true bmp files, but
were compressed, being decompressed 'on the fly' by FS when they were loaded,
to save on memory and loading times. These BMP files were introduced to
provide 16 bit colour, and can be 'painted' much more efficiently by the
modern graphics cards, with far superior results. The files contain their
own colour data, and a palette table is not required.
MS are now going all out for the Gmax standard, where the textures are split
into Alpha channels (for file data) and the three primary colours. This allows
a far more versatile system for colours than the old 256 8-bit range,
providing 16-bit colour and above. Since FS2000, MS are slowly moving over
to BMP and MIP texture files, which contain far more data specifically for FS.
In fact the SDK informs us that the R8 format will not be supported after
FS7.0. These BMP files also permit MIP files to be included, which I suspect
are used for painting distant textures at a lower resolution, giving us
a better frame rate when painting distant ground textures.
Martin Wright, (martin@mnwright.freeserve.co.uk & http://fly.to/mwgfx/) who
wrote the paint edit util 'DXTBMP' is the expert on these texture files,
and could probably explain the file formats much better than I can <g>.
I'd recommend having a peek at his docs - it is worth a read if only to
explain why MS is moving the goalposts again <g>
The latest texture files are DXT format textures. These also cannot be
viewed in the normal way - unless you are using the MS ImageTool program from
the texture SDK.
Hope that helps !
Regards
Bill C
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Registered to: Bill Cusick
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