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

Excellent write up, jerbear!

Right off your tutorial Rick. That's something I stupidly omitted Becker. Go to YOUtube and see Rick Rawlings "circus Skinning tutorial" You can see all this in action and explained very well. Could'a saved myself a lot of typing. Jerbear

Omg! Thanks! You reminded me of that stupid broken link to the video in the first post. I have fixed it now so the video should show. Also, having the steps written out is useful so you don't have to keep rewinding, so I've added your steps into the first post as well!

Thanks for explanation @jerbear!
I will try it at the weekend.

Hallo @jerbear,

now I have a little bit time to follow your steps for making the own skin-files smaller after GIMP.

I have 2 questions:
a) step 4: I must download DXTbmp, right?
b) after work with GIMP (see my text above page 8): Is the bigger skin-file (ca. 12MB) a problem for WOFF or is it even for the sim?

Thanks for answer!

Hallo @jerbear,

all is clear!
I did read a little bit more in the skinning-threads and now I have the answers (fortunately there were other members with the same questions before).

See you later

I hope to not get the people's wrath for necroposting here, but I'd need some help. I'm trying to make a skin, for the Pfalz DIIIa, the struggle is that neither side of the fuselage is alligned (they're actually disaligned when applied to the plane too), same for the top and the bottom which are at completely different positions when working on the skin. So the stripe I'm trying to make, which is a ring that goes around all the fuselage, keeps appearing disaligned, like this:


Does anybody have a tip on how to manage to get em aligned, or do I just have to be lucky in getting the right position? Thanks a bunch.

Hi Trustie: I'm afraid there is no completely perfect fix here. This is a warpage area on the model.

To see these warped areas, make a grid layer on your skin, then look at it in QC. The grid squares in the warped area will be...well...warped.

Look at one of the Pfalz skins in the WOFF skins pack in QC that has a band in this area. You'll see that, although they were able to make it a little better, it is still warped in the worst areas.

Here is a shot of Rudolf Stark's Jasta 34 Pfalz. It's mostly fixed but has some bad areas on both sides a the top. If that's good enough for you, (and you really can't see that from a distance) then use Stark's existing skin as a template. I can give you some tips on how to do that if you need.

If you want it not to have this warpage, you will have to move your band further back. If you still want it in front of the national markings you will have to move them as well and possibly shrink them.

Do you use Gimp or something else?

Jerbear

That's looking great, by the way, trustworthykebab! As jerbear said, using a graph paper grid can help, there is some additional info on it in the first post on page one as submitted by Olham. You can also look at my attempt to get the N 17 cowl lined up in the same post. Keep us posted on how it is going!

Thanks both for the heads up, I'll keep you updated on the skin!
Also yes, I'm using GIMP

NP, also keep in mind that sometimes constraints can lead to inspiration. What if you made the band go under the cross, almost like a cigar band? That might look cool!

It indeed inspired me, as I decided to abandon the band idea, while keeping the ailerons coloured, adding a blue rotor nose and wheel coverings. Seems like it's better to keep it clear when skinning Pfalzen, they can come really handy when hiding from faster enemy scouts!

Well, we're going to need some pictures!!!

Aalright. I'm back from the ashes after I bought a new laptop. This means...Another question about skins! I made a custom skin for my DiD pilot in J27, and one thing I noticed (on other custom skins too) is that the skin tends to be glitchy, flickering and becoming invisible when looking at it from certain angles. Any idea on how to fix this or is it standard?

Here is an example of what it does, by the way.

First of all, Looks great so far!

Second of all, is this in the new WOFF or an older version? I have noticed some wonkiness with the damage model with the wings where it flickers in and out kind of like that.

Other questions: Are you up to date with the latest patch?
Does it always happen from certain angles or is it random?
How are you modifying the base skin? What programs and formats?

Let's see if we can figure this out!

FIrst of all thanks!
Secondly, I use GIMP (just normal work, work layer then fuse it with the base one). It's BHaHII, patch 1.06. The glitch happens mostly only on ground, before taking off, at angles on both sides at around 45 degrees like in the picture. If I zoom in max from outside I do not see it, and in first person it happens only if I zoom in/out. It's not really a problem, I'm just curious

Trustie:
I had the same problem a few weeks back. Try this:

Choose another skin to use for your bottom layer > cut and paste the details you want to use onto that, even if you have to cut up a copy of the skin you are using as a base layer now.

I don't know why this happens and it has, so far, only happened once. I suspect it had something to do with the fact that I used that skin several times as a base layer, but don't know for sure. Also lots and lots of saving can cause problems.

Jerbear.

I am wondering if it is related to this:


As I was capturing video for my latest challenge intro, I noticed this Albatros, which from certain angles flickers between the damaged and undamaged wing state. So I am wondering if your plane is pulling from the default skin at certain angles? If so, it may have nothing to do with anything you did wrong. Maybe Pol will see this and chime in...

Could be. But this thing happens to me only on custom made skins and it doesn't have anything to do with damaged/non damaged graphics, just the skin becoming invisible/deformed when close to ground. In air everything goes as fine as it can be.