Simviation Forums

I am excited to try my own repaint(s) but so far confusion has set in.  I've visited various sites and I keep reading about this DXT3 stuff to do repaints but I have not been successful in locating a program that allows me to do repaints or any PDF manuals on the subject either.  All replies would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

u need a graphics editor example paint shop pro or adobe photoshop...

and then u need to convert the fs9 texture using dxtbmp to a 24 bit image.. then edit save it as i recomend a none commpressed jpg, then convert to dxt3 or 32bit...

FS9 will not read 24bit so dont try it...

I have Macromedia Dreamweaver Studio MX that packages Fireworks [a powerhouse graphics manipulation software], I 've never tried to alter FS9 graphics with it tho  :P

As noted, DXTbmp conversion is the key to repainting FS9 aircraft. Convert it to 24bit to edit (repaint) and back to 32bit to use. Always backup the aircraft texture folder BEFORE experimenting I've even used Irfanview to make simple changes to paintjobs (even MS Paint is fine)

It's not what you've got it's what you do with it.

bill

I've never used Fireworks but I believe it's intended for web graphics. It might be powerful but not necessarily suitable for working with FS textures. The most popular graphics editors for this are Adobe Photoshop & Paint Shop Pro which are both commercial applications. There are various freeware graphics editors that are equally suitable. One example is Pixia. http://park18.wakwak.com/~pixia/

You would obviously have to be familiar with whichever graphics editor you choose to get the best results. Even the most expensive & powerful tool is useless unless you know how to use it. It also helps to know a little about the various image formats. DXTBmp Help gives basic details on all the image formats used in FS.

As always, you people are top notch for providing answers, thanks  :)

Yes, I use the Dreamweaver MX Studio for my business website and so I have confidence in your replies that say it probably is NOT the best software for this purpose.  

I repaint with Paintshop Pro and have found it to be an invaluable tool in doing so.  I've tried painting in Photoshop, but I prefer PSP over Adobe...I'm not a huge fan of Photoshop to begin with though, so that could be a factor in the opinion.  lol

My friend's son paints with Adobe Photoshop CS...he's only 13 and has already produced some stunning paints.

Search for 'Mehdi Badali-Magtalo' at Avsim... you'll see what I mean.

He tells me he paints by converting the 32bit BMPs into TGAs... after painting them he saves a copy of it as a PSD file so that the layers are not flattened... and then saves it as a TGA again and converts the saved TGA into a 32bit BMP with Imagetool.

Works great!

Rob the Educated by a child.

...

PS. DXT is another type of BMP, like 32bit. DXT is split into five types of compression... 1, 2 etc. DXT3 is the most popular format for DXT. Put simply, 32bit BMPs are much better quality than DXTs, and DXTs are of a reduced quality but reduces loading times also. DXT also make the paint look unreaslistically glossy, whereas with 32bit you can paint hand-painted shine and it looks far superior.

Microsoft's imagetool can convert. Use paint for the rest.

I don't know where on the MS website it's from, I found it in one of the DMFlightSim VC-10's.

well i dont really know what u are trying to ask but if it is a converter ur looking for this site has two that i know of and i use one of them http://www.simviation.com/cfs2utilities1.htm the first one is first and the other is the 14th down. I just started repainting CFS2 aircraft using Pixia here is my first repaint (i used MS PAINT)

lol not bad for mspaint i spose hehe  i repainted an extra 30 with ps  ;D looks funny