how to repaint

[maddhatter]

Hi there all. I'm new to the form and i have a question. I've been simming for years now. but im not sure how to repaint aircraft. I recently found the beautiful T-28 trojan in US navy, white and orange trainer colors, and I would like to have a trainer yellow sceme. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
Greg

[Fettler]

Hello Madhatter.

Here goes...(takes a deep breath..)

First of all you need to go to your aircraft folder, right click on it and click Copy.

Then click Paste. The computer will now make a copy of the folder entitled "Copy Of Texture"

Rename the folder Texture.myairline (or whatever you want to call it)

Now, you'll need DXTbmp which you can download from
www.mnwright.btinternet.co.uk

Open DXTbmp and click File- Load Extended Image

Browse for your new folder. (Click on it and click the_T folder- e.g b737_400_T or whatever the aircraft is called)

Then go to the right hand part of DXTbmp ( the alpha channel) and click on the button below it (here you can decide what your Default Paint Program will be. I use MS Paint but Adobe Photoshop is thought by many to be the best)

Now click Image- Send to Editor

(This opens your paint program)

When you have finished repainting your aircraft click Save

Go back to DXTbmp and click Image- Reload After Edit

Then click File-Save Extended Image Then go to your Texture.myairline folder.

(You must make sure that you save it in the _T folder or it wont work) e.g b737_400_T

Now, your nearly done, but you need to modify the cfg files.

Go to the aircraft folder (e.g.b737_400) and click on aircraft.cfg. Make a copy of the last cfg file and paste it in below.

Change the flight sim number to the next one up (if the last one was 3 change it to 4)

Change the ATC, ID and UI to myairline (or whatever you want to call it)

Then go into Flight Sim and your newly painted plane should be ready to fly! (If it isnt, try altering the cfg and make sure you havent made any mistakes in there)

Hope this helps

If you need any more help, ask Hagar, he helped me a lot.

[Fettler]

Madhatter, I forgot, dont forget to save your modified cfg files.

[maddhatter]

thanks alot. i'll try all this real soon and let you know how it worked.
cheers
greg

[maddhatter]

ok. a couple of problems.

1.there is no _T folder. do i have to make one?

2. when i save the finished produuct, where do i save it to?

cheers
greg

[Travis]

Okay, I can catch the rest of that . . .

There is no _T folder, that is correct.  The _T thing is on the end of the actual textures, meaning the *.bmps inside the "texture" folder.

Once you have everything the way you want it, save it in a new folder titled "texture.something-or-other" and put them in there.  The folder can be named whatever you want, so long as the first part is "texture".

Then open the aircraft.cfg file and add the new entry part, with the name of the texture folder where  it reads "texture=".  So if your new texture folder is named texture.boink, then the line will read "texture=boink".  Capice?

[FaxCap]

What does that DXTbmp actually do?

The painting part is fairly easy but I would like to understand just how DXTbmp is "converting" the BitMaps???

Thanks

FaxCap

[Moach]

basically, fs2004 uses a different type of bitmap that you can't get from your regular image editor, therefore, you need DXTbmp to convert a regular bitmap into FS format...

[RNLAF-Goessen]

if you cant repaint the file jst tell me where i can download it and i will do a re-paint for you?

regards
RNAF-Goessen

p.s. anyone know how to put a picture into your signature  ???

[ricktobin]

Hello all, new to Simviation and I gotta tell you, Fettler's explanation above as short as it is did much more than all the tutorials I've read on repainting A/C. Thanks!

My question is:

I open up for example B737_400_T from the default 737 file in DXTbmp and get the image transfered to PSP8 fine. In PSP8 it opens as one layer, does anyone know how to get PSP to display all layers? I've seen some textures that had a windows layer, doors layer, fuselage layer...so you could just drag the windows back onto the repaint when your finished I suppose, or as you're painting just the fuselage the paint covers everything but the other layers?

Thanks in advance. Any comments, help, advice welcome.

[Stratobat]

Hey Ricktobin,

Welcome to SimV

Does anyone know how to get PSP to display all layers?

PSP will only read the texture as one layer because when the textures were done all the layers were compressed into one layer. So if you wanted to do a repaint, you would have to add the layers one by one using PSP's Layer function. Some designers release PSP Templates of their aircraft so that repaints can be done quickly with layers, but unfortunately for all the default aircraft you would have to create the layers all over again in PSP.

Regards,
Stratobat

[ricktobin]

Thanks Stratobat, for the welcome and the info.
That's what I figured about the layers but hoped otherwise.

I'm using one of ProjectAI's paintkits for the 747-400. The paint actually turned out much better than I expected for my first attempt. Well, until I looked at it on the A/C. Not sure what I did wrong but it took the entire background that contains all the A/C parts (fuselage, wings, engines, tires...) and wrapped it around the A/C. I gotta good laugh out of it if nothing else. Thanks again.

[Stratobat]

Rick,

I used to get the same problem with my old graphics card. It didn't read/produce the texture format correctly. I found that changing the format (8 bit too 16 bit 565 for example) seemed to fix the problem.

Regards,
Stratobat