Repaints

[NigelC]

Hope you've all had a good Xmas?
Can anyone point me in the direction of
a good beginners guide to repainting?

N

[DaveB]

My living room needs repainting mate. Pop on over and I'll let SWMBO guide you through it

What ya repainting for matey.. FS9 or FSX? While the two are similar, they're not the same.

ATB
DaveB

[NigelC]

Gonna be X. Just want an intro to see how it goes.

[Garry Russell]

[DaveB]

Ah.. something I know little about (ok.. another thing I know little about)

If you can repaint for FS9, you can repaint for FSX mate. I've only ever cheated in FSX.. that is, I've repainted FS9 portovers but the principles are the same with one big difference.. the image is flipped on FSX native paints. There are more subtle things you need to know but I'll leave that for a 'proper' FSXer FSX native models also use .dds textures (DXT5) so you'll need a prog that can handle the conversion (DXTBmp should be able to do the job and the price is right.. FREE)

ATB
DaveB

[NigelC]

OK. Any good guides out there online that explain the basics?

[DaveB]

Nige.. put FSX Paint tutorials into Google and it throws up pages of info mate. The bottom one on page 1 looked like it might be interesting but I didn't delve too deep I've looked on our Developers Forum and there are links for model builders but sadly, none for repainters

ATB
DaveB

[NigelC]

Yeah, done that alrady. Just wondered if there was a recommended one. Thanks

[Garry Russell]

Nigel

Take it easy

Look at this site

http://www.simmerspaintshop.com/

Firstly though try something simple like altering just the registration and get that as a different version in the Sim...that is the most important thing

Then build from there, try changing the colour of the cheatline for example. It doesn't have to be real.

Use DXTBMP as Dave suggests to convert the image to extended BMP and also to uncompress images already DXT compressed so they can be opened up in your paint programme

Basically if you view the folder by thumbnail if there is a preview it will open up in the paint programme. If it does not have one you will need to open it up in DXTBMP and resave as a 32bit 888-8.

There is a good freeware programme called GIMP. That is widely used so you should get help if you need it.

But first, just concentrate on getting then into FS and slowly build.

[NigelC]

Thanks Garry/Dave. That's the plan, baby steps. Watch out for screenshots of my progress or shouts of frustration, the latter more likely at first.


N