A tip for finding the right textures...

petermcleland · Post by **petermcleland** » 21 Jul 2007, 16:33

If you are using a .BGL file to add models to a library or whatever...it is often difficult to find WHICH of the textures in the texture folder are used by that .BGL file...Here is a method:-

Place your pointer on the .BGL file and after RIGHT clicking, choose "Open With"...Then choose "WordPad" as the application to open it with.

The result will be a mess of unintelligible rubbish...However place your pointer up at the beginning of it and click once. The go Edit > Find...in the find window type ".BMP" without the quotes and click the Find Next button.

The highlight will go to the name of the first texture used and if you keep pressing the Find Next button it will tell you the name of every texture used by that .BGL file.

I wish I had known this a long while ago...would have saved me many binary searches.

Try it now

Post by **Garry Russell** » 21 Jul 2007, 16:36

Wow Peter

Thanks for this

An answer to many a prayer .

Just the other day someone asked me that very question and I could offer nothing but trial and error.

Garry

petermcleland · Post by **petermcleland** » 22 Jul 2007, 12:25

My pleasure Garry...I was pretty delighted to discover it. I used to do a rather fiddly Binary Search procedure using an extra three folders called NOT, REMOVED and YES

...Thank God I can forget that now

BTW...You would find it hard to believe but I had to search a huge folder of textures with this method. I was looking for the texture for a certain bridge (the green girder one in McLeland Field). The correct texture happened to be the very last one at the bottom of the list...So the removal of HALF the files for each test run each time, went the full course down to the last two files :roll:

Post by **Garry Russell** » 22 Jul 2007, 12:45

Oh yes the old copy the lot and sort procedure

And yes I believe anything to do with finding it's the last one.

A bit like looking for a book...it's always at the bottom, unless of course you get wise and start at the bottom.

On those occasions it was at the top :curse:

Garry

basys · Post by **basys** » 22 Jul 2007, 13:07

Hi Folks

May I suggest XnView,
an excellent powerful freeware utility for viewing/browsing and converting graphic files,
which has a built in hexviewer.

You can point it at any BGL, and view the contents.

External file references tend to be very near the top of the file.
i.e. Textures, effects, etc.

It will also take screenshots.

http://www.xnview.com/

HTH
ATB
Paul

Quixoticish · Post by **Quixoticish** » 22 Jul 2007, 13:32

basys wrote:Hi Folks

May I suggest XnView,
an excellent powerful freeware utility for viewing/browsing and converting graphic files,
which has a built in hexviewer.

You can point it at any BGL, and view the contents.

External file references tend to be very near the top of the file.
i.e. Textures, effects, etc.

It will also take screenshots.

http://www.xnview.com/

HTH
ATB
Paul

I've just downloaded this and tried to view a .bgl and it's having a bit of a hissy fit and will only open them through notepad, I don't suppose you have any ideas as to why this may be?

petermcleland · Post by **petermcleland** » 22 Jul 2007, 18:02

Yes, I just tried it and it failed to recognise the format of any BGL file that I pointed it at.

basys · Post by **basys** » 22 Jul 2007, 18:16

Hi Folks

Apologies for the questions -

In XnView
Did you double-click the file ?
If so, your OS will try to open with the associated application.

Single-click only,
as per your OS's file manager,
single==view, double==execute.

Is your preview window turned on ?
Menu -> View -> Preview (bottom of list, there's 2),

On selecting the bgl,
is it displayed as hex in the preview window ?

In the XnView browser window,
right-click the bgl,
click "View in Hex mode"
it'll display in a view tab.

How big a file ? (irrelevant, just opened a 130MB bgl).

Was XnView still reading the folder's contents ?

re: bgl opening in notepad
Have you previously associated .bgl file types with notepad ?

To check -
In filemanager/explorer, (not XNview),
right click on a bgl,
click properties,
a tabbed properties dialog opens.

On the General tab,
for variable "Opens with"
what is the value ?

To dis-associate the file type,
easiest done in XnView,
right-click on the file,
RH context menu opens,
click "Opens with",
click "Remove All".

HTH
ATB
Paul

basys · Post by **basys** » 22 Jul 2007, 19:23

Hi Folks

Gents
Did you download the Minimal, Standard, or Full version ?

Mine is the Full version,
bottom of page at - http://perso.orange.fr/pierre.g/xnview/ ... win32.html

PS
Make sure you don't set the thumbnail preview size as too large.

HTH
ATB
Paul