311Gryphon

It may be beneficial for others for me to answer here, and I have a feeling others have a better idea on this than I do. Putting the text on the skins is something that frustrates me quite a bit. I use GIMP and I've used every single font they have in the text function and none of them are perfect for the types of fonts that go on these skins. So basically I create a new layer (or duplicate a layer that has text in it if I need to so I can edit those words) and just type whatever I want to type. Then I can change the color, move it, rotate it, scale it, etc. That gets a little tricky in GIMP because the text boxes behave oddly compared to the layers and if the text box is in it's own text layer it won't move with the normal move command, but it's not that hard once you know the quirks. I had some issues with the "PERIGO" text as well, and it looked awful when I first put it on the texture. But it feathered nicely and in game you won't notice unless perhaps you are able to zoom right in on it and look at it pixel by pixel. I'm not sure on the beacon base. I'm still a bit confused about where some things are in the textures. I'm befuddled by the handle things on the end of the tail boom that seem to not be on the tail boom in the texture but take on the color of the tail boom in game. One thing I did in A-10C to find out where things were was to set up a goofy, multi-color layer that I could make invisible easily when done with it. Then I would create the appropriate .dds files then go into the game and take lots of screenshots all around the model. Then I would go back to the texture files in GIMP and start labeling parts of the texture with yet another layer so I could reference it. It takes some time and smaller parts are very hard to find even that way, but if you section the textures of with different colored lines (kind of a grid pattern of various colors, or various colored boxes) you'll eventually find everything. Time consuming and it stinks but in the end you'll have everything mapped and layered so that future skins are easier to do.

I just stared using http://www.zippyshare.com the other day. It requires a login but it's easy to upload. I think it will work with .rar. I was using .zip. Otherwise the DCS user files but that takes a long time.

I am not.

No problem. Good luck on your private pilot exam! If you get a chance, there are some doors and panels with words on them that I deleted on the textures I made (I left some but deleted some others). I'm not sure if they are on the Brazilian UH-1s but if you can translate them I'll add them on if you want. The following is a list of the panels. "STEP" "ACCESS FOR FIRE EXTINGUISHER" "ENGINE OIL TANK INSIDE MIL-L-23699 OIL ABOVE -25F MIL-L-7808 OIL BELOW -25F" "TURN SLIDE" "TURN PULL" "JETTISON HANDLE INSIDE" If these would not be on the real chopper I won't include them, or if other oils would be used in Brasil and someone knows what those would be I'll change that - otherwise I'll leave them as the Mil-Std on the chopper now. Thanks in advance.

I'm working on the Israeli UH-1 at the moment and I have my MultiCam one that I need to work some things out on. Both of those may take me a bit because I only have so much time...but if you can provide a link or a photo or something for me to go on I'll give this a shot as soon as I can.

Welcome to the A-10! You're going to love it on many levels. It's by far the most frustrating game that I've never hated playing. Even when I'm angry I've still enjoyed it. Happy flying.

I think some others will be along shortly who know more than I do; however.... 1) Hydra rockets are still used, but they are also inaccurate compared to many modern weapons. I've used them a bit in the game and I like them some but they just aren't that handy. I'm sure with practice you and I both will get a little better at employing them but there are just better weapons to hang on the wings. 2) There are various emergency procedures for landing gear failure starting on page 594 of the manual. I won't go into them because they would take up some space and depend a bit on exactly what is going on. But that's probably the best resource on the general subject of landing gear failure. 3) I don't know on that one because I pretty much do high altitude, straight and level bombing with Laser Guided and GPS bombs. I have tried diving with dumb bombs but not with any success at all. Good luck.

I don't use photoshop but I'm sure it can make the mip-maps. I use DXTbmp (which is free) to create my .DDS files and it does it automatically. Works pretty smoothly. Also, I haven't troubleshot this issue yet but my skins wouldn't work when I put the: name = "Whatever Name" I'm sure I messed something up in that line of code and that's why it didn't work, and I haven't had time to check into it yet. I just deleted it in the meantime.

Okay, here's a try at the solid green Brasil skin. Not quite as cool looking as apaut's. Also, I only did the external skin. I personally would suggest downloading apaut's skin and using the pilot, copilot, gunner, helmet, and patch textures with this one if you want it to be a bit more imersive. Because honestly, I'm not going to get around to editing any of that! It would probably be easiest to copy the "description.lua" file from his then editing in the three texture names I used for mine. Here's the link: http://www67.zippyshare.com/v/15198360/file.html Let me know if anything is way off. I'm kind of new. Also, thanks to Marker for helping me troubleshoot my personal custom skin, pointing me toward zippyshare, and helping me learn some cool features of Notepad++.

Ah, I can't tell from the picture that it's an arrow. I'm assuming it points backwards.

Wow. Nice job and you beat me to it!

What does the red decal on the tail boom between the red lines say?

Nice pictures! But if you post too many more with those beautiful, old war birds in them I might start tearing up. :cry:

Nice! I like seeing that. Can't wait to see the textures loaded!

NICE! Welcome, Waits. I'm fairly new and still learning quite a bit in the small amounts of time I'm able to fly (I really need to learn faster so I can put some time in on the Huey and then be ready for whatever awesome air frame comes out next). The community is great and obviously you're already enjoying it...so all I can say is welcome and happy flying.

THANKS! I've been using Notepad++ but I didn't notice the red bars and didn't know that was a feature. Very handy. Thanks for spotting it and for the tip on using that program. Thanks again, +REP!

Start up a single player mission where you have a wingman and practice shooting him down. If you turn tags on it will give you his distance so you can start visualizing what the distance looks like. Or if you're going to that kind of trouble just start putting different planes in the mission editor so you can visualize the distances on different sized planes. If you want you can even put in enemy planes with no weapons as well. Just another couple of options to the infinite ammo/invincible thing. I spent a lot of time practicing startup, take off, landing in a mission I created with just me and a wingman so I wound up shooting him down quite a lot. Then I'd strafe the airport to work on gunning things. That's why I chose that route. It was a way for me to practice a lot with less time input and a mission without a lot in it to slow my machine down.

I've got it uploading on the DCS user files website. If it get's approved I'll send you a PM with the link. I looked it over last night at home and couldn't figure out where I was going wrong.

If I can figure out to make the UH-1 skins work in DCS I will certainly try to hit up some of these. The texturing is easier for the UH-1H than for the A-10C because there are fewer files to create seams. But for some reason my UH-1H skins aren't working yet (something wrong with the way I've set up the .lua I'm guessing). Anyway, if I get a chance to work that out I'll see about hitting some of these patterns.

I think she's a sexy beast!

WOW! Those are some awesome pix! Good looking model and I can't wait to get in on this thing!

So just to help my own understand, we're talking about "weather cocking" here and not "drifting", correct? I was taught that a plane will drift with wind. Thus if you want to travel due north at any given speed but you have a crosswind you would wind up flying slightly "off course" with the wind "pushing" you to your destination. We were given "in flight computers" to use the flight vector and the wind vector to calculate our true speed, flight time, and the heading we needed to make to arrive at our correct destination. Is this correct or am I misunderstanding?

I have to say in the name of learning that what mhe is saying does make a certain amount of sense to me. I'm not very experienced although as I've said some in other posts that I took ground school before. There's a lot that we learned in that that I've forgotten and a lot that you can't learn from books and only in application. So if mhe is incorrect I for one would like to know how he's incorrect and why so that I don't learn the wrong things or even learn the right things but for the wrong reasons. Thanks.

These guys have you covered and I certainly don't know the specifics of how and why but my plane almost always rolls a little. And most of the time I can't trim it perfectly but I can get it close enough that I don't have to watch where I'm flying even if I chose not to engage auto pilot. If you haven't yet (I suspect you have but just in case) I would remap the trim hat on your HOTAS stick to...trim. I'm not sure why it's mapped to views as default. Maybe to help those that don't have some kind of head tracking????

Yeah, it's the first one in the list so when I go into the ordinance/load out screen I just make sure it's selected in the drop down skin list. I hesitate to upload it because if it's broken people will waste their time on it. I guess I could name it something that would cause people to pass it over! But I've successfully made and used several A-10C skins. It's weird that I can't even get it to give me a missing texture file. I just had an idea that I'll try out and see if it works, then I'll post here if I figure it out.