Simviation Forums

Greetings Folks,

Just looking for some advice on repaints.  It seems that everytime I repaint my favorite bird (F6F-3) in CFS2, I get some funky things happening in game.  It seems to occur only when I repaint the area of the wheelwell and/or the inner-most flaps.  I will update this post with a screenshot to help explain.  I have a couple of ideas and wanted to run them by the experts here.  I'm really enjoying repainting planes, but it gets frustrating when things don't happen like ya want 'em to....right?  lol
Anyway... my guesses as to why things are awkward and these:

1.  I've used MDLEdit to correct my collision bubble, and that's causing the textures to look funny.

2.  There's something in the MDL file that doesn't like this area of the plane to be repainted.

Fixes:

1.  Reinstall CFS2 and never ever use MDLEdit again. (lol)

2.  Use Mr Hagar's repaint tutorial to do the repaints using the FRHED program.

3.  Repaint the planes except for the flaps and wheelwell areas.

4.  Give up and just fly stock planes.  (never!!  I don't give up...repainting is too fun  :o)   )

Any input would be greatly appreciated folks, thanks a million in advance.

Doc

Doc. Not an expert but I am familiar with the basics. By MDLEdit do you mean the M$ MDL Converter Tool or some other utility? It occurs to me that whatever it is might not like your hex-edited MDL file. Try patching it with MDLEdit first. Then add your repainted textures (using the original file names). Check it out in Free Flight without the hex editing. If that works, rename the textures, hex edit the MDL & try it again.

This might also depend on the aircraft you're repainting. tell me where to get it & I might be able to check it out for you.

PS. I always used Tcdfsview to fix the collision bubble on aircraft created with the original FSDS.

Hagar, MDLEdit is only a collision bubble fix, I'll fix you up with the link as soon as I can find where I got it..lol. I don't believe it's from microsoft, but I'll look into it. Something funny just occurred, and I hadn't thought about this before.

http://d.cackley.home.mchsi.com/


I'm a bit out of practice with web publishing, please forgive me.  There's the link to view the pics, sorry I couldn't get them to come up on here.  Thanks again.

Doc

Right. As I remember, this MDLEdit is for default aircraft only, unless they updated it. This might well have something to do with your display settings. It will depend on your system & video card & I'm not qualified to answer that, apart from making sure you have the latest manufacturers' certified drivers for your hardware. Installing the latest DirectX might also help. There is a slilght bug with the gear animation on the default Corsair which might explain the problem with the gear door textures.

Well, there were new drivers for my video card (ATI Radeon 7200) so I installed them...still no luck.  This problem is a recent one, and I can't think of anything that I've done (other than go to Windows 2000) that would be a change.  Maybe that's the issue, I dunno.  The plane I'm repainting is the F6F-3 Hellcat, so the Corsair gear error shouldn't affect the Hellcat, shoud it?  Heck, I dunno....gets frustrating..  Maybe this is an excuse to get some new hardware...lol.  Any other ideas guys?  Doc

Doc. I just read through your original topic again.
[quote]1.

Yep, I would agree hagar, but I did a cpmplete reinstall of the game, leaving out MDLEdit tweaks.  I just have the bone stock game now.  Could MDLEdit still be giving me troubles if I'm not using it?  Doc

PS I can't figure out how to enter a quote, but my second post (a reply to your first) stated that I had done a complete reinstall.  Does MDLEdit stay hidden in the bowels of the 'puter unless it's wiped out?  

[quote]Yep, I would agree hagar, but I did a cpmplete reinstall of the game, leaving out MDLEdit tweaks.

I had my fingers crossed that that would work too Hagar.