homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation Wings: Over Flanders Fields Wings: Over Flanders Fields - FAQs & Reference Skinning Tutorial

Here's a skinning tutorial that I put together for a challenge I am running:



Here are the software files you will need for your skinnin� goodness:
GIMP- Like Photoshop
DXTBMP Format and File Converter
IRFAN View Texture viewer

Good Luck, my fellow forumites!


I'll add new information as it becomes available to me...


Pro Tip: anytime you try ANYTHING, do it on a new layer!


Naming Convention
Here's OVStachel with a tip on skin naming that may save you some aggravation later on:

Here's some more info on naming:




Fullofit offered up some useful tips for using GIMP:


I decided I wanted to come up with a new paint scheme for Rick Rawlings flying the N17.

I wanted an alternating red/black pattern on the cowl, but had no idea how to divide it. So I added some color swatches to help define where things were going to be:

I was then able to use the ruler in GIMP to come up with a cowl that works pretty well:

You'll notice that despite my measuring it, the bars are still not evenly spaced:

For more on that, see Olham's tip below!

Then I decided I did not like the basic white body paint and wanted to do something different. I figured gray would be cool, so I painted (on a new layer, natch!) the body gray:

Yikes! That looks terrible! But, by using the Layer properties and layer opacity (circled in orange above), I can get some cool effects. Multiply produced this:

Nice! But I decided to go with Subtract:

That gives it a nice cool charcoal appearance that looks like this in game:




You can raid other skins and cut and paste them into the one you are working on. Here's a brilliant Albatros by RAF Louvert:



And here is his explanation of how he got the upper wing to work:



A lot of work indeed, but outstanding results. Here's how the texture looked in the .dds file:

You'll notice there are some places that are offset. This is because the model is not perfectly smooth, so there is some distortion. You could play around with it for a bit, or you could try Olham's idea:



So, if you took Olham's advice, you could find a pattern on line like this:


If you put that as a texture over your basic Nieuport skin, you would get this:

Interesting, but if you drop the opacity and change the layers properties, you get this:




These should help you line up some of the peculiar bumps and protrusions of your 3D model overlaid by a 2D skin... then just delete the grid layer when you are done!

Here, Cavaliere57 talks about selecting and changing colors directly, and uses Photoshop to do so:



Here is the basic Camel skin from which to start


starting from the background layer (the only one present at this point)select the upper wings and elevator surfaces


now with Ctrl-V copy the selection,and then Ctrl-C to paste it as a new layer,rename it as you wish,I use parts names


as you can see we have a new layer with only upper wings/elevator surfaces ( I have disabled the background layer to have a better view of it)


with the new layer active,from Selection menu,reselect again


from the Image menu,select the Substitute Color Tool


from the Substitute Color mask,clicking on the upper thumbnail,activate the color picker


point it to the brown on the wing


you now have a working color selection to work from,move the slider to the right to catch all the brown hues


now moving the lower sliders,get the color you aim for,desaturate always a bit and do not brighten too much,instead go for darker shades


now go again and select the lower wing/elevator surfaces,on a new layer, and chenge their color as well


we now have Green wings and light azure lower surfaces


From the Background layer,using the Lasso Tool instead of the previous Rectangular Selection Tool,select the lower fuselage section,as always Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V to paste as a new layer,name it and go changin' the color again,but this time keep active the lower wings layer,so to match colors



repeat the process with the rudders


we now have a Camel with green body/wings and azure lower surfaces,and five more layers


starting always from Background layer,select (wit Round Selection Tool) the wheel,and repeat all the process



Now select with Rectangul selection Tool,the engine cowling,copy and paste as new layer,rename it,and create stripes like these,with the Rectangular selection tool,and color them as the fuselage



et voila,our Camel is nearly ready to go


Let's add an emblem and some text


save as .dds directly from Photoshop


and here we are!!





Sometimes layers can save you in a different way...
Here's the Amerispad skin I was working on for my latest challenge:

I spent quite a bit of time working on it and liked the basic idea, but when I looked at it in game, I was getting this:

It's not terrible, but it's just a bit too garish, too primary colors... Now I could go back and re-tune all the color layers, but I asked myself what I wanted to accomplish, and I decided I just wanted to take it down a notch, just de-saturate a bit on the added colors. So I created a new layer and put a bit of tan over the other colors:

Then by dropping the opacity of the new layer waaaaaay down, I got this:

In game, that looks like this:


which was much closer to what I wanted in the first place. Using a couple of layers like this, you could add progressive grime as you plane ages, if you want the ultimate realism, which that flag skin certainly isn't!

Nietzsche just revealed a fantastic new camel skin:


Here's how he did it:


Here's more Nietzsche goodness!








end result:

Nice job Rick I'm sure it will be easier to follow then documents.
Thanks.

Interesting Good job

Thanks, guys!

Yeah, even a bonehead like me was able to make a skin.

I need some help, please. I'm wanting to paste a purple heart onto the fuselage of my Pfalz, but all the .jpg files I find on the internet are hearts on a white or black background. The Pfalz fuselage is gray.

In gimp, is there a way to "lift" the heart off its white background and paste it onto the fuselage. The way I've tried so far, with mixed results, is to paste the the .jpg onto the fuselage as a new layer, then try to erase the white part around the heart. This is tedious and difficult. Thus, I'm hoping that there is a much easier way to accomplish this.

Thanks for any advice or suggestions.

Slick, once you paste your heart in as a new layer, use the "magic wand" tool which looks, well, kind of like a magic wand! It is up by the lasso looking tool at the top of your tool dock. Touch the white area once and that should select all the white. Then right click and cut and it should be gone, with maybe some minimal erasure cleanup after. Let me know if that works or makes sense...

Thanks Rick! Your instructions worked perfectly. Great tutorial, too. I would be hopelessly lost without it.

Glad it worked!

I must be a bigger bone head.....still failed...

give us a bit on what's happening and we'll see if we can talk you through it!

Slick, you can also open the image "as layer", scale it to the size you want, right click on image, "layer", "transparency", "color to alpha". Whalah, only the image is left.

You could also use Select by Color

Always a million different ways to do something in these kinds of programs.

Wow, thanks MFair and pixelbaron! What an educational thread this is.

I got stickied! Woot! Woot! Thanks, whatever magical forum-powers-that-be that did that!

(this is for Photoshop or similar programs)

gaw, if you have more than one layer, make sure the layer you want to work on
is the activated one. Otherwise you cannot work on it's content.

If you have inserted a JPEG or whatever, and want to delete the white surrounding
your object:
- highlight the layer in the "layers" menue
- select the white with the "magic wand", and delete it with "delete"

It is also possible in Photoshop to open a JPEG or other picture, unlock the layer
in the "layers" menue (which puts the image over a transparent background now),
and then select and delete the white.
The image you now have - let's say a purple heart over a transparent background -
can be saved as a GIF format. A GIF allows transparency.

Now you could always copy and paste that Purple Heart GIF into any skin works,
and it should show no white surrounding.

What a Great little thread

Anyone know where the compass texture is for German planes?Fokker EI to be exact if they are different for the different models.

The interior model uses different textures from the exterior skin, as I'm sure you know. I haven't found them yet. Please post if you find them first!

I searched every file in the WOFF directory with no luck.Its no big deal as I just wanted to rotate the compass so that when I look at it I do not have to do the calculating in my noggin of where its actually pointing.