Gunslinger22 Posted December 14, 2024 Posted December 14, 2024 The link for the autoexec is sadly dead, does anyone have a backup? "I'm just a dude, playing a dude, disguised as another dude."
sinzov Posted January 8 Posted January 8 Hi, i am new to texturing in dcs, so i do have some questions: how do you pinpoint a certain part of the model on it's texture ? say you are looking for the gear struts or flaps or whatever you want to repaint ? is there a way to see the model's mesh projected over the texture ? there is a way to see the coordinates of a certain point / the cursors tip on the model if grid-view is turned on. but i do not remember how to switch on this feature. any idea ? any help is very much appreciated sinzov
Hoirtel Posted January 9 Posted January 9 (edited) 9 hours ago, sinzov said: Hi, i am new to texturing in dcs, so i do have some questions: how do you pinpoint a certain part of the model on it's texture ? say you are looking for the gear struts or flaps or whatever you want to repaint ? is there a way to see the model's mesh projected over the texture ? there is a way to see the coordinates of a certain point / the cursors tip on the model if grid-view is turned on. but i do not remember how to switch on this feature. any idea ? any help is very much appreciated sinzov This is sort of possible, not a tool option exactly but some people have made what are called UV layers which are essentially a flat file of numbered squares with the whole thing being a graduated colour range. When this is applied to the model as a temporary livery you can inspect it in module viewer and note down the squares that you are looking for. It also shows which areas are stretched or compressed. Can't remember where I got them from I'm sure they will be around somewhere on here, but actually you could make your own if required. A little bit of work but may help save time later on. Edit: Quick look and maybe it is something that you can generate in module viewer. I managed to download one from somewhere but I have just seen this old post. Might work for you. Edited January 9 by Hoirtel Update 1
ggrewe Posted January 9 Posted January 9 22 hours ago, sinzov said: Hi, i am new to texturing in dcs, so i do have some questions: how do you pinpoint a certain part of the model on it's texture ? say you are looking for the gear struts or flaps or whatever you want to repaint ? is there a way to see the model's mesh projected over the texture ? there is a way to see the coordinates of a certain point / the cursors tip on the model if grid-view is turned on. but i do not remember how to switch on this feature. any idea ? any help is very much appreciated sinzov 12 hours ago, Hoirtel said: This is sort of possible, not a tool option exactly but some people have made what are called UV layers which are essentially a flat file of numbered squares with the whole thing being a graduated colour range. Attached a Panel Finder map Hoirtel mentioned. Not mine, all credit goes to "Tom" @Hoirtel thanks for head up on the UV Map Convertor Tool - didn't know about that function Panel_Finder_by_Tom_4096x4096
Cydrych Posted January 10 Posted January 10 (edited) You'll want to use the UV converter tool and blender to extract the model's UV map as a layer. You can do it for any model. That will create the wire frame mesh "texture" you can overlay on the texture template. It will show where the borders of the parts are. The UV map layer is just a texture layer so you can also export it on the model's.dds texture to view the UV map in model viewer if you want. To locate a specific/difficult to identify part you can use the method ggrewe mentioned by using a UV checker texture. They are all over google in various colors and resolutions. You add it as a layer in the texture template and export. Then in model viewer you get what you see in the screenshot ggrewe posted. It is helpful sometimes but this method will not work well for really small parts. For that I suggest creating a new layer, select a bright unnatural color like pink or neon green/blue, activate the UV map layer, and just start painting things that look like it might be your part. Do that 1 at a time and export. When the part changes color in model viewer you found it. Edited January 10 by Cydrych 1
sinzov Posted January 10 Posted January 10 thank you for your answers. i already knew these coloured panel_finders and used my own ones - far less sophisticated for some time. they are useful, but time consuming ... i will try those different ways this weekend. cheers sinzov 1
sinzov Posted January 12 Posted January 12 today i tried various ways: using modelviewer to export a csv-file and then converting it to an svg-image via blender (great: UV Map Converter Tool) works fine and gives a clear mesh (much better than the one provided by the modelviewer's uv-mapping-feature in textures-tab). alas, it needs a careful setup of the texture-files and does not seem to work for each and every 3rd party model using a panel_finder works, though not for every small item of the model. it can turn out to be very time-consuming. highlightening by an extreme colour (pink): the same some years ago i played strike fighters 2, a lightweight sim. some guy provided a very fine modelviewer: just click an item, say a gear-strut, and it shows the exact place as a mesh on the texture file. hopefully some day ED will provide a similar feature. up to this happening i will stay with no. 1 thru 3 thx again sinzov 1
mikez69 Posted February 12 Posted February 12 (edited) I don't think the OP is updating the main post anymore, and pardon me if I missed this, but I have a tip. I am shooting (screenshots) panels so I can make 3D print files for all the aircraft I own and one of the issues I would keep running into is that, in Ortho mode I would often have a hard time seeing panels that were under things like canopy rails. That was until I figured out how to use the scene settings. So my setup is to make the scene BASE COLOR only (eliminating lighting, shadows, illuminations, etc.), set the camera to Ortho mode (Camera > Set Camera Mode Ortho), and then in the scene dropdown/floating window, under the model that you are viewing, there is "POS" - the position of the camera. There are three columns. The second one is height...but it functions differently than I expected. How this seems to work is it moves the camera plane up and down. Whatever clips the plane, you will see through now. So if I am viewing the F-16C Blk 50 cockpit, and set that first (of three) value to something like "4.150" I no longer see most of the ejection seat, nor do I see any of the canopy rail, leaving the left and right side panels fully visible. Not sure if that is useful to anyone else but it was super useful for my project. Again, apologies If this is already called out. Edited February 12 by mikez69 1
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