Natural Metal finish - how to ?

[Tom_Weiss]

I was playing with a skin a bit, when I realized that I could use the base grey for a natural metal finish



but I am not that experienced with doing it, can someone indicate a tutorial or give me an idea on how to do it

[jcblom]

I was playing with a skin a bit, when I realized that I could use the base grey for a natural metal finish but I am not that experienced with doing it, can someone indicate a tutorial or give me an idea on how to do it

easiest thing would be to take any of my bare metal textures that you like, and open the texture file with DXTbmp.
That will show you the texture and it's alpha channel. The 'secret' is mainly in the alphachannel, white = dull, darker = shinier.
The accompanying spec file will give additional depth to the textures, and you can open it with DXTbmp as well to see how they are done. If you more or less copy those colors to your texture, you should be right.

Good luck, Jan Kees

[Tom_Weiss]

I found an app called DXTBmp, but I am still at a loss on how to do it.

I checked the other files that have that finish,

and there is a file p47d_t_spec that if I add to mine, give that natural metal finish,

in the paint kit, there is the same file, so do I need to edit that file ?

[jcblom]

you can find dxtbmp here.
It is a program that you use to convert bmp files that come out of your editing program (photoshop, gimp etc) to the extended bmp's (for FS9) or .dds (for FSX) files that your sim needs.
If you look in any of my texture folders, you'll see two files, p47d_t.dds & p47d_t_spec.dds.

If you open one of those in DXTbmp, you get something like this:
(this is a spec file)


You see the main image (or part of it here), but notice the little square in the top right corner? That is the alphachannel for this image.
The alpha channel controls the reflectivity on the main texture, and the intensity of the reflections in the spec texture.
The buttons below the main and alpha image allow you to save them as normal bitmaps, and then you can edit them, and import them back again.
Alternatively, you can use the files form the paintkit that you edited.
You open the main image in DXTbmp, you import the alphachannel, and you then save them combined as a DXT5 dds file, which you then use in FSX.

So, if you want to use my setting of a particular texture, where you like the final result, you open the dds files in DXTbmp, you export the main image and the alpha separately as normal bmp's and import then into photoshop/gimp whatever you're using, and copy the colors/grey's I used for your own textures. You then save those (so you'll have four files (normal, normal alpha, spec and spec alpha)), and you combine those into two dds files by importing them into DXTbmp.


Confused? So am I by now...
Give it a try and see how far you get.
You can also mail me direct, my e-mail adress can be found with all my textures.

Cheers,

JanKees

[Tom_Weiss]

no, it really helped me understand it - thank you






before I continue with the questions, can you tell me

in what format should I save the .psd file (I did it in BMP 32 bit)

when saving the BMP 32 bit (using DTXBmp) in what format should I create the DDS (I used the DDS DXT3 option)

[jcblom]

no, it really helped me understand it - thank you

before I continue with the questions, can you tell me

in what format should I save the .psd file (I did it in BMP 32 bit)

when saving the BMP 32 bit (using DTXBmp) in what format should I create the DDS (I used the DDS DXT3 option)

I do bmp 32 bits, and DDS DXT5

[Tom_Weiss]

OK , so I'll do the same.

there are 3 files:

p47d_t_ALPHA
p47d_t_spec
p47d_t_spec_ALPHA

can you give me an idea of which does what ?

[jcblom]

OK , so I'll do the same.

there are 3 files:

p47d_t_ALPHA
p47d_t_spec
p47d_t_spec_ALPHA

can you give me an idea of which does what ?

There should be four:
p47d_t as well

p47d_t = the main textures
p47d_t_ALPHA = reflectivity of the main textures (white = matt, grey= shiny, black = transparant)

these combine into p47d_t.dds, and alone are enough to give you an acceptable exterior. Some models do not have a spec file, nor does FS9. My paints for the Mustang do not contain a spec file. They look nice (well, I think so), but lack some of the depth of my paints for the jug. For this you need:

p47d_t_spec = color of the reflections
p47d_t_spec_ALPHA = intensity of the reflections

and these combine to p47d_t_spec.dds, which gives you an extra 'depth' to your reflections. Here, you need to experiment a bit until you find something you like, or copy the settings you like of course.

[Tom_Weiss]

Thanks

I am going to give it a try this afternoon, the finish I got yesterday is OK for a modern fighter, I'll try to get a more realistic one for a WW2 fighter.

[Tom_Weiss]

first version :

FSX P-47D-23 Thunderbolt , 348th FG 37C Blue 3 skin, you can get it here Download Link