First attempt at painting.... Help!

[jon157uk]

Hello guys, I'm in the middle of attempting my first plane skin and I could do with some advice please. I'm working on a template that I downloaded of a Hurricane and fortunately it came complete with lots of layers so all I've had to do is hide stuff I don't want painting and just paint over the bits I do want painting. Now, I have skinned a lot of car models for the race sim 'rFactor' and this template is very, very similar to the ones I've worked with from there so I'm just wondering if the procedure is the same? I've added my basic 'test scheme' colours and I'm now at the point where I want to save it and try to get it in to the game. With rFactor, what I would do now is 'flatten all layers' (hiding the ones I don't want to show), then I would be saving it as a .DDS file, so can anyone tell me please if I'm working along the right lines and what do I need to do from here to try and get it to show up in the game?


Thanks... Jon T.

[ATAG_Lewis]

Hello buddy....

In photoshop you need to 'Indexed Colour'...and thats under 'Image'...and then 'Mode'....Then save your pic as a BMP....That is the same as 'flatten all layers' I believe as you mentioned so in short...Yes......Then you can put it in here..:

Documents\1C SoftClub\il-2 sturmovik cliffs of dover - MOD\PaintSchemes\Skins

If you don't see the actual model of aircraft in there you will need to create a new folder and name it.....You'll probably need to ask in this thread for the name of the aircraft if that happens......

Good luck and be sure to show us your results when you're done..as there are a few of us skinners that like to see them...

[jon157uk]

OK thanks Lewis, not quite sure what you mean by 'indexed colours' or 'mode'...... Do I just leave these settings at default? I.E. - that gives me a selection of palettes, colours - 256, forced black & white, transparency ticked, differ - diffusion, amount 75% and then finally preserve exact colours - unticked. (and in right hand column - preview is ticked).

Or, do I need to change any of these settings?

[ATAG_Lewis]

Are you using photoshop?..I don't recognise any of your terms there....

If not then experiment with what ever program you are using...You'll know if it has worked as it'll show up ingame for you...

Don't forget that in the ATAG server skins are turned off....This basically means that only you will see your skin ingame, no one else will...but there are other servers in the ingame 'Servers List' that do have skins turned on...and usually you'll see lots of fancy un-historical skins in there..racing skins and such....

The weathering is also in a different coded part of the game for all aircraft so we can n ot influence that...only in that you can add extra weathering on your skin

Here's a Hurri skin I made for someone of the captured Hurri...





Also Jon..we have a big meeting at the Duxford airshow this year (and every year)....check the thread...:

http://theairtacticalassaultgroup.co...ighlight=jolly

[jon157uk]

Yes mate, I'm using Photoshop 'CS5', I go to Image-Mode-Indexed Colour. It then asks if I want to flatten all layers, I select 'yes', it then brings up this window in the screenshot...



Very nice skin job mate but I don't like it in those colours...lol

[ATAG_Lewis]

Not sure about that jon......I have a different version of PS....Id just go with it and test it....I mean you, ll know if its worked or not.....The flattening of the layers was the only thing that threw me when I first started skinning..but everthing else was pretty straight forward.....

[jon157uk]

Well, well, well... Thanks to your help mate, I've only got it flying!

Hmmmm. I suppose, not too bad for a first try but needs altering here and there now I can see what bits go where. Good job I saved a 'workable' file of it...lol


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Brilliant job Lewis, thanks for your help mate. I'll probably be working on this most of the day now.

[ATAG_Lewis]

Perfect....Thanks for posting the pics....Looks good..~S~

All in the name of fun!!..

[jon157uk]

OK, my second attempt at a paint job. I did this on a template that I've found on the net and it already came with muti-layers which was good, purely fictitious of course and based on the same markings I did on the Hurricane above.
I had a load of trouble trying to find code letters, roundels, tail fin flashes etc, the ones I've used on this Spitfire where also found around the net and I've had to try resizing and altering them a bit so they're not very accurate at the moment.
(sorry if it's a bit boring to you folks who do all those amazing skin jobs out there but I've got to start somewhere....lol).


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[ATAG_Lewis]

Nice jon...Looks like you got the hang of that pretty quick....

Was it 69th_Stonehalo's template?

[jon157uk]

Nice jon...Looks like you got the hang of that pretty quick....

Was it 69th_Stonehalo's template?

Yes, that is the name on the bottom of the template mate, I didn't notice it before so I just opened it to have a look.

[ATAG_Lewis]

He's an owld buddy of mine from when I started flying sims in IL-2 Sturmovik and MFS.....

[jon157uk]

He's a talented dude mate, he knows how to make damned good templates! There's everything you could possibly need on this one and it's full of detail, must be something close to 15 layers on it to play around with.
I'm starting to get the hang of 'skinning' these planes a little bit now, they are actually very similar to the racing cars I've mentioned early, apart from you don't need to bother with all the 'convert to .DDS and alpha channel' stuff.
Excellent game, I'm starting to really enjoy now for the first time ever.

[major_setback]

There's no need to use indexed colours or save as a BMP, as was neccessary in the old 1946/Forgotten Battles game. Just save your skin as a jpg.