Repaints

[vilik]

Hello everyone.  I would like to thank everyone who helped me in my past issue,  specilay Mr. Haggar.
Now I have some converted planes from CF1 that work in CF2 without disturbing my other bussiness programs.

What I would like to do now is to find some skins or repaints for these planes.  I would also like to know if there is a way to apply skins from hundreds of repaints out there and just directly aply them to the respected planes.  For example I have P51d with regular CF1 stock green skin.  provided I make a copy of the plane,  could I change the skin with any of the numeros beautiful repaints out there for P51s by just changing the texture files.  If yes how is this done?
Thanks again,
Vilik

[Hagar]

Hi Vilik

I received your latest E-mail today. I've been having computer problems for some time which means I'm behind in answering my mail. Rather than go into a lengthy explanation here I'll mail you a detailed reply when I get time. I don't have CFS2 installed to this machine right now which makes it difficult to check anything out.

Basically, you're using the CFS1 default aircraft in CFS2. I haven't had time to confirm it but any repainted textures posted for the CFS1 defaults should display on those aircraft. These textures are no use for any other aircraft. For example, a repaint for the default P-51D will only work with the default P-51D.

There are several different methods for doing this but if you paste the repainted textures into the Texture folder of the appropriate aircraft (overwriting existing files) this should work. Please take a backup copy of the files before overwriting them. It's possible to create different variations of a specific aircraft but this is little more complicated. Hope this anwers your questions for now.

[H]

Just to elaborate, the stock CFS1 bitmaps are rather small and limiting to repaint but that's how I started out, one pixel at a time. For any effective results, after making a copy, you should have (a) graphics program(s) to change the texture to 24bit (16M colors) and, preferably, enlarge it. It's then similar to a page in a coloring book; retexturing can be applied close to the lines (you can "copy"  a section of the true black area, change it to white or another non-conflicting color to clarify outlines for your edit, paste the copied section back, then restore your true black area at the end of retexturing. Lastly, make sure you've returned the retexture to the same size and the 256 color format as the original.

[Hagar]

[quote]Just to elaborate, the stock CFS1 bitmaps are rather small and limiting to repaint but that's how I started out, one pixel at a time.

[vilik]

Hi,  Vilik here.  You are right.  I am not intrested to repaint the planes myself.  All I am asking is this;
Is it possible to take the texture file from plane made by Mr. X and apply it to the plane made by Mr. Y over writing the Texture folder to give the 2nd.. plane the look of the 1st. plane?

I have tried but with the exception of repaints made for stock planes, it dose not work.  So I conclude that I am mising something in process.
Thanks again,
Vilik

[Hagar]

Hi Vilik

As I mentioned in my earlier reply, repainted textures will only display on the aircraft they're intended for. Each aircraft is different & the textures are assigned differently on every model, sometimes even different versions of the same aircraft by the same original author. It should tell you in the Readme file included with the repaint the aircraft the textures are intended for.

Sometimes repaints are posted as complete aircraft which you can install in the usual way, just like those Allied & Axis expansion packs you already have. These should be listed on the CFS2 selection menu separately from other versions of these aircraft you might have installed. If just the textures are posted these must have the exact same file names as the ones they're replacing if you intend doing it your way. You must obviously have the original aircraft installed & working in CFS2 before editing or replacing the textures.  I thought you were only interested in using the CFS1 default aircraft in CFS2 which is the reason I didn't explain this earlier.