Texture Formats used by CFS3

It is recommended that you read the Texture Formats used by FS2002 document for a full overview of textures generally and the function of Alpha channels. CFS3 was a new departure in the series of Microsoft Flight Simulators. A new display engine was created for it instead of the previous method of taking and enhancing the current Flight Simulator version. This has many results including the total loss of any crosscompatibility (or backward-compatibility) with any other version of Flight Simulator or Combat Flight Simulator. It has however given the developers the chance to rewrite everything from the ground up in a fashion optimised for combat flight. As to whether they succeeded or not. One feature of this total rebuild is that they have gone over fully to DDS (DirectX DirectDrawSurface) textures. These are standard across a wide variety of games because they are the native internal format of DirectX and can be handled much more efficiently by the display code. DDS comes in many variations. The most common is DXT1 but it also supports virtually all the 16 and 32 bit formats as used in FS2002/4. See the FS2002 Texture document for a full description of the various internal formats. Unlike other versions of Flight Simulator CFS3 also supports the DDS DXT5 (interpolated alpha) format. This appears often in textures that require a more varied alpha (cloud textures are a prime example). It also seems that CFS3 expects textures to be square. I haven`t really tested it but all the default textures are square. CFS3 differs from FS2002 in the way it applies Reflections and specularity. Whereas FS2002 used the Alpha channel of the main texture to define transparency or reflection CFS3 uses separate map textures to perform the functions. In CFS3 aircraft the main texture is the one whose name ends _t.dds and is accompanied by one or more other textures that define various maps to overlay. Taking the B26 as an example you will see the following textures :B26c_t.dds B26c_t_damage.dds B26c_s.dds B26c_r.dds B26c_ct_bw_xxxx.dds DXT1 DXT1 DXT1 DXT1 DXT1 The main texture A map of Damage holes to apply to the main texture when the aircraft has been damaged on a particular part A map of specularity (or shine) to apply to the main texture in conjunction with the current lighting in CFS3 A map of reflection to apply to the main texture A number of textures that are used to apply the coloured bands (eg B26c_ct_bw_wingtop.dds, B26c_ct_bw_tail.dds etc). These are usually just black and white cutout maps that mask off the areas to apply colour changes to when the user selects a different Paint

As well as these pure texture files aircraft will also have a MOS file. This is a Mosaic file that provides all the information for mapping the coloured stripes, wingtips, flashes and Noseart. It also provides information about where to map bullethole decals when the plane has been hit in various places. The filename usually matches the filename for the main aircraft texture For the B26 this file is B26c_t.mos

Important note about CFS3 texture handling

Unlike other Flight Simulator versions CFS3 has no specific location for textures. They may be placed anywhere in any of the CFS3 folders and they will still be found and used. This feature has given rise to much confusion. People have repainted existing aircraft by moving the current main texture to a storage folder and replacing it in the Aircraft`s folder with a repainted version. If the storage folder is anywhere inside the main CFS3 folder then they find that the aircraft still appears showing the old paint. People have tried to make different versions of the same aircraft by creating a copy of the whole folder for that aircraft and then editing the textures. Again they are finding that their new aircraft appearing with the same texture as the old one.