Is there a way for someone to create a skinning tutorial for aicraft used in ROF? Or is there something like that already available? So, just a tutorial to get started. I would love seeing our squadronbadge on an ROF aircraft someday.
Maybe there are other squadrons interrested in such a tutorial?
Its in the works, But I'm not sure what will happen when Neoqb release their skin thingo. If its just blank skins then this won't be a problem with the tute I'm creating. Also looking in to get help by a few of the guys who have made masterful skins already.
Thx for the replies. Am using Paint Shop Pro 12. Dunno if i can work with layers and stuff;prolly i think so. In a way u do with photoshop i guess......
Anyways, maybe waiting for neoqb's own skinthingy is better.
Well, this is how I do it in photoshop. Apologies for replicating what I also just posted in the Custom Skins thread, but until I can find a video program that will screen capture for me, this is probably the best I can do. The terms and such I've used are for Photoshop, hope they help you.
What you do is this:
Use "unGTP.exe" - available at www.RoF-tools.de to uncompress the GTP archives that Neoqb have bundled up game assets in to. Do this by downloading and unpacking unGTP, and placing it in your Rise of Flight directory. Drag the GTP file you want to extract onto unGTP.exe, it'll unpack it into a directory named (null). I forget which GTP file most of the aircraft skins are in - just unpack 'em all then look for the /null/data/graphics/skins/ folder. You can delete all the others.
Aircraft skins are in a folder named after the aircraft. They're stored in .dds format, which is a compressed texture format often used by games. You'll need the DDS tool from nVidia for Photoshop (or a similar tool for Paint Shop Pro) to be able to load and create them.
Load one of the basic DDS files into Photoshop, you get a 2048x4095 pixel image. The first 2048x2048 pixels are the main skin - what's seen up close. The next bit is 1024x1024, which is seen slightly when you're a little further away, then it's 512x512, 256x256 etc etc. Each of these different areas of the image are loaded as the camera moves away from the aircraft (saves on resources).
What needs to be understood is that this skin is a 2D image of a 3D object. So, it's like a peeled orange skin - it makes a 3D form when folded back up together. All the parts of the plane are there... just not where you'd maybe expect to find them. The wheels could be placed next to the tail, for example. The game itself knows where everything is, and will piece it all back together properly.
You can now edit this skin as you wish. The best way to do this, if you want to change the colour of the aircraft, for example (rather than just add icons/logos/text over the top of the current skin) - is to do the following:
Promote the locked background image to a new layer. Call it "Base" or something similar.
On the base layer, use the selection tools to only select an area you want to change the colour of. For example, the top/left/right sides of the fuselage. Get the selection to be a nice, snug fit around the aircraft body.
Then, with this selection still active, create a new layer. Call this one "Fuselage" (or whatever part of the plane you've got selected). Now, fill the selected area with pure white.
Go to the blending options for the new layer, and make pure white invisible by adjusting the blending slider. You can now use the "Colour Overlay" options to quickly and easily experiment with a fill mode and colour hue that will adjust the underlying base layer to the new colour you want. I find for light areas, using: DARKEN with about 60% opacity on the colour fill works well. For dark areas, LIGHTEN with about 30% works well.
This is MUCH harder if there is a lot of detail underneath the colour overlay. Ideally you want the base skin to be as simple and plain as possible. Most of the aircraft have at least one skin that's not got much on it.
It's important to leave some of the detail on the original skin showing through, otherwise you end up with a plastic-looking skin. By simply lightening or darkening the current skin with a new colour, you get a pretty good effect.
Skinning tutorial now watchable. It's been processing for three hours now and it's still working on it - full HD-level quality will be the end result, however.
I get an error when opening each of these in PS7. "Unknown data has been encountered reading "Weathering" and will be discarded. Continue?" When I do continue the template opens and the weathering layer is blank. A bugger, as it's one of the most important layers. Does anyone know of a cure for this? I'd like to be able to get this one just right...
Yeah, it states in the manual that the templates were created using CS3, so opening them in earlier versions of Photoshop isn't guaranteed. I am using CS2 and thankfully everything opened without a hitch.
I started work on a ROF template that Jason had posted using Photoshop 6.01. Before saving it as DDS, do I have to merge the layers? Whenever I try to save the psd file as dds, i get an error message "too many layers to export". I have done skins for IL2 where one has to merge the layers, but never used the DDS format.
I have the DDS plugin for Photoshop installed.
Last edited by 2GvSAP_Mohawk; 01/07/1004:38 PM.
My PC Specs: Traitorous transistorized toad....Blithering blatherskite....Hopeless heap of tainted tin
Thanks for the help so far. There's a couple of questions I still have (and I'm sorry if they've already been covered and I missed it).
1. What's up with the void downloads linked on the ROF main site? I try to download by following the directions, but it keeps wanted me to install some kind of software, but since I can't read or speak Russian, I can't figure out what's going on. Didn't Jason say he'd get that fixed? Or was he going to host them elsewhere (if so where)?
2. I am using Photoshop CS4 with the DDS plugin. I have problem that the skins display so extremely dark that I can barely see what I'm editing.
Masaq's excellent tutorial video shows what I'm talking about. The details of the skin in the dark areas are very, very hard to see.
I could lighten them by adjusting the bright/contrast of the image file of course, but then I figure they'd display super bright in game. Is there a way I could brighten the view without changing the brightness of the actual image file? Without resorting to maxing out the hardware brightness settings on my monitor (and yes, my monitor displays other games and graphics at an acceptable brightness)?
Thanks for the suggestion Oesau. Unfortunately I'm working off non layered DDS files (making them into my own PSDs as necessary), since I don't know where to get the templates (due to the the shady Russian web installer weirdness when trying to download from the ROF site).
Fantastic! Thanks Jason, that's exactly what I was looking for, I just didn't know if you'd posted them because I couldn't find them. But now the links are in this sticky thread!
Ok, I'm playing with the Dr.I PSD and found that turning off the "LEVELS" layer in the Advanced Users folder is solving my brightness issues (turning off "SHADOWS" and "WEATHERING" layers also help when I need max visibility).
I just gotta remember to turn the layers back on before I flatten and go DDS.
Thanks again Jason and Oesau, I am now a happy skinner!
Skinning tutorial now watchable. It's been processing for three hours now and it's still working on it - full HD-level quality will be the end result, however.
A few suggestions: When you open the file, select to open it with NO mipmaps.. you don't need them. When you are finished editing, save to dds and in the dds dialogue window, choose the "generate mipmaps" and save with the same number and type as the original dds file you edited. (no need to go though all the canvas sizing, copying and scaling, etc).
If you're handy with a mouse as a brush, just create a layer and paint right over the parts you want to change choosing multiply, hardlight, or over layer properties to get the effect you want, along with the layer transparency and color adjustments to the layer you can get some really good results. You also don't have to stay right inside of the edges unless they overlap onto another plane part, so exact selections are really unnecessary in most cases.
Somehow i can not convert skins back to same size, i use DXTBmb for convert them.(editor is CorelPhoto Paint X4) Can someone point me what is correct type of DDS-file?(i look from ROF-skins file, but those are "only" dds not like DDS-DXT1 etc. which they are DXTBmb....)
Edit:
The correct answer is DDS-DXT5 with alpha. All clear!
Last edited by LLv26_Pihi; 05/25/1007:19 PM.
Want to take part of LLv26 flight training? contact: pihi@lentolaivue26.org(please no spam)
Flying Red armys target, propably full of holes....
Oh if you need something to do I have a number of Jasta 30 Albatross DIII/DVa and Fokker D7 skins I'd love to get done but I don't think I have the artistic talent to competently do them.
The road less traveled is filled with fewer needy people.
I finally sat down and figured out the process of getting a skin edited and showing up in the game, but, I'm lacking some finer points. Can someone tell me where in the process my edited skin loses it's specular lighting effects?
I can take a default skin, add a small detail on the fuselage, convert the file back, load it up in the game and the cowling doesn't sparkle like before even though I didn't touch that part of the skin.
I'm using Paint Shop Pro X3 and converting with the DTXBmp deal. What am I missing?
------------------
Never mind! A little digging and I found some Alpha channel info. Good stuff; all sorted.
What version of Photoshop was the youtube tutorial done in? I would like to give skinning a shot but I don't want to invest that much money for the software only to find out the tutorial is a much more recent version and I don't have the tools shown in it.
Thanks,
Chef
The road less traveled is filled with fewer needy people.
I'm an absolute duffer at this stuff so THANKS Masaq for that video. Not massively into RoF but learning skins and Mission editor for when BoS comes out. Here's my first simple try, just a chalk Bomb Swan on an Se5a ...
