Repainting guide

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FireRescue85
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Repainting guide

Post by FireRescue85 »

Hey guys,

Just starting to look into repainting aircraft, and I was curious if anyone knew of any good tutorials or websites that offer a decent starting point. My end goal is a rather simple repaint of the B-17G in its post war Coast Guard colors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumbo_(air-sea_rescue)

Any help would be appreciated,
Thank you.
Fire Marshall, Firefighter/Emergency Medical Tech.

B-17G
B377
L-049

A-26Invader
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Re: Repainting guide

Post by A-26Invader »

+1 on a good tutorial for repainting!
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jcblom
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Re: Repainting guide

Post by jcblom »

I don't know of a good tutorial, but I'm working on something explaining some ins and outs for flightsim.com.

Repainting A2A aircraft is relatively simple, because they make excellent paintkits, including for the B-17.
Basically, you need two things: a graphics program like photoshop (expensive) of gimp (free), and a little freeware program called dxtbmp(http://www.mwgfx.co.uk/programs/dxtbmp.htm).
There are two different files for each texture, a 'texture' and a 'spec' file, and each contains a normal texture and an alpha texture.
The normal texture contains the colors, lines, rivets etc that you see, the alpha texture detemines the shinyness of these textures (dark: shiny, white: not shiny)
The normal spec controls the colors of those reflections, the alpha spec controls the sharpness of these reflections (dark: sharp, light: blurry)
With the A2A B-17 paintkit, you have PSD files for all the different textures, you edit them to your hearts content, and you save them as bmp files.
The different normal and alpha files are then combined with dxtbmp and saved as DDS files which you use in FSX.
That's it in a nutshell, it's the details that take a bit more explaining...
FS painter. You'll find most of my FS9/FSX/P3D paints here.

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CessnaSkypilotN7365W
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Re: Repainting guide

Post by CessnaSkypilotN7365W »

jcblom wrote:I don't know of a good tutorial, but I'm working on something explaining some ins and outs for flightsim.com.

Repainting A2A aircraft is relatively simple, because they make excellent paintkits, including for the B-17.
Basically, you need two things: a graphics program like photoshop (expensive) of gimp (free), and a little freeware program called dxtbmp(http://www.mwgfx.co.uk/programs/dxtbmp.htm).
There are two diff...
excuse my ignorance but what is the dtdbmp used for? is this just if i am using gimp, which i am?

did you ever come up with that "ins and outs" thing?

thanks, roger

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scottb613
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Repainting guide

Post by scottb613 »

Hi Folks,

DXTBMP - ConvImX (allows batch processing - same author) - just converts or compresses files... With FSX/P3D you probably just want to save as a DDS file...

As a recent convert - highly recommend the NVidia Plugin so can read and write DDS programs directly negating the need for DXTBMP - it's a big time saver...

Also Paint Shop Pro has all the features of Photoshop - minus the subscription fee - and is pretty reasonable in price... Granted - some of the paint kits need a little finagling to get them to appear right...

Regards,
Scott


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CessnaSkypilotN7365W
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Re: Repainting guide

Post by CessnaSkypilotN7365W »

scottb613 wrote:Hi Folks,

As a recent convert - highly recommend the NVidia Plugin so can read and write DDS programs directly negating the need for DXTBMP - it's a big time saver...

Regards,
Scott


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Do I need the plugin with gimp?

roger

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scottb613
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Re: Repainting guide

Post by scottb613 »

Hi Roger,

While I have used Gimp - honestly - I haven't looked for compatibility - or did Gimp have DDS built in ? I'll have to check and get back to you - haven't used Gimp in a while... Maybe someone else knows off the top of their head ?

Regards,
Scott


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scottb613
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Re: Repainting guide

Post by scottb613 »

Hi Roger,

Looks like Gimp had a DDS plugin at one time hosted by Google - but the links are dead... So from what I gather - no - don't worry about the plugin - save your file in Gimp as a TGA with Alpha Channel - then use DXTBMP or ConvImX to convert the TGA to DDS... Granted - it might take a little work figuring it all out... Check YouTube for some tutorials - I'm sure they are out there...

Regards,
Scott


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CessnaSkypilotN7365W
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Re: Repainting guide

Post by CessnaSkypilotN7365W »

scottb613 wrote:...save your file in Gimp as a TGA with Alpha Channel - then use DXTBMP or ConvImX to convert the TGA to DDS... Granted - it might take a little work figuring it all out... Check YouTube for some tutorials - I'm sure they are out there...
What do you mean by with Alpha Channel? After I have merged and/or flattened?

Roger

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CessnaSkypilotN7365W
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Re: Repainting guide

Post by CessnaSkypilotN7365W »

ok... I pulled up my merged and flattened file in gimp, right-clicked on the only layer, and clicked on add Alpha Channel. Is that what you meant?
I then exported as Targa and there is a dialog box asking me if I want the origin bottom left or top left. Does it matter? I then need that dxtbmp thing, right?

Thanks for you help :)

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scottb613
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Re: Repainting guide

Post by scottb613 »

Hi Roger,

Here - this should explain Alpha Channels a bit:

https://youtu.be/A9aZdPqs17M

I'm not sure you have to merge and flatten - I've used Gump the least - PS and PSP - if you save as a file that doesn't support layers - the software is smart enough to merge them on export...

I don't have the answer on origin - sorry... Trial and error ?

Regards,
Scott


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wrap23
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Re: Repainting guide

Post by wrap23 »

highly recommend the NVidia Plugin so can read and write DDS programs directly negating the need for DXTBMP - it's a big time saver...

Also Paint Shop Pro has all the features of Photoshop - minus the subscription fee - and is pretty reasonable in price... Granted - some of the paint kits need a little finagling to get them to appear right...
Hello Scott
I've tried numerous times to get NVidia Plugin to work with PSPro without success. Can you please tell me how you got it to work?

Thanks, Don

jcblom
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Re: Repainting guide

Post by jcblom »

FS painter. You'll find most of my FS9/FSX/P3D paints here.

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