Changing reflections

[CBris]

Hi Pete, I have just been thinking about what info FSUIPC can access during a flight. Perhaps you would care to comment?

You may well be aware of the envmap.bmp texture in the FS9/textures folder? This is the background reflection that adds an image to the shine. Well how about if this could be changed in flight according to season, weather or location? What I would envisage is FSUIPC sending appropriate date to a module and calling a new envmap.bmp from a library of appropriate images.

At a guess, I'd say this is possible. The problem may be in convincing FS9 to change envmaps "on the fly". At the moment it appears you have to shut down and restart FS9 each time.

I have posted a couple of images here: http://forums.simflight.com/viewtopic.php?t=55665

Now that would be a pretty piece of eye candy.

[Pete Dowson]

You may well be aware of the envmap.bmp texture in the FS9/textures folder?

Not really. The graphics parts of FS are those which I've never learned anything about nor delved into.

Well how about if this could be changed in flight according to season, weather or location? What I would envisage is FSUIPC sending appropriate date to a module and calling a new envmap.bmp from a library of appropriate images.

That sounds to me like a job for an application, not FSUIPC which is intended as a mere portal.

At a guess, I'd say this is possible. The problem may be in convincing FS9 to change envmaps "on the fly". At the moment it appears you have to shut down and restart FS9 each time.

I expect that's because it is treated like the scenery, for which you also need to shut down FS and reload to change.

I'm not sure why you think it is actually possible, but even to find out one weay or the other it is going to take some expert in FS graphics (and that's not me) many hours of hacking to get into the appropriate FS modules. If you do this and work out a way to do it, let me know and I'll try to make an interface for it in FSUIPC -- but I think you should be looking forward to FSX now, not backwards to a three year old product.

Regards,

Pete

[CBris]

Fair comments Pete.

As far as I can tell though, FSX has the same envmap in use and the same principles. OK, a graphics problem - maybe. I thought of FSUIPC because it can tell the time (weather, location...) and pass this on. The proposed module would not need a graphics specialist though, but someone who could create a module that changes a file on the fly. I can see now, that this texture is like the scenery textures (i.e. you need a reboot)

But if it's numbers, nothing is impossible - it just hasn't been done yet. Whoever does this would need to move the new envmap into RAM and overwrite the present "scenery texture" ones and zeros - so they'd have to know FS9 source.

Just needs someone from MS to read this and get the idea :wink:

Thanks for your patience

[Pete Dowson]

The proposed module would not need a graphics specialist though, but someone who could create a module that changes a file on the fly. I can see now, that this texture is like the scenery textures (i.e. you need a reboot)

Yes -- that's the problem. The "graphics speciality" I meant was specifically FS graphics modules, someone who, burrowing into FS code, would be able to actually recognise what he saw. You need to be able to get the correct procedures called to activate the changed files.

Whoever does this would need to move the new envmap into RAM and overwrite the present "scenery texture" ones and zeros - so they'd have to know FS9 source.

Yes, exactly, although I think even then you might be over-simplifying matters. I went through all this with weather, and in the end had to give up. The data imported to set the weather is processed through so many levels and in so many forms that it really was never a simple "overwrite this with that" business. Yes, that's a start, and then there's the need to call a whole succession of routines which actually bring those changes to fruition.

I managed it for global weather, but had to give up on the local weather stuff.

Regards

Pete