BS Skinning hard and not easy

[Ramstein]

I have been around and flying several flight sims since the mid 1990's. I have tried skinning in several flight sims. Black Shark has got to be one of the hardest. I am no artist, and suck at skining, but this one is so hard, and to compund skiining, there is tons of code in files that may/maynot need changes. Depending on what you want the skins to do. I started ona skin, and am thinking about just giving up. I would imagine doing a few skins would make it much easier after a while, but like I said, other sims you don't have to fight working with code in files like in Black Shark, and that's after doing all the Photoshop work.

 

It is amazing how the code is written so deep into the game files for skins.

:doh:

[Doomhawk]

Yeah, the racing sim LFS only needs one jpg. file for skins, this is a lot harder.

[Ramstein]

I neeed to give a big thanx to Moose, as I read and used his Tutorial and info to help get me started with making skins. But, even with the best help, I still suck at it..

:joystick:

[RCN_Moose]

Ramstein, the finished tutorial should be rdy by tomorrow night. It should be much better than my first WIP attempt and will cover all the methods of installing skins.

[Ramstein]

Just one of my many problems is searching dilegently through the templates and trying to find panels I need to paint and selecting them. Photoshop is not user freindly at all either. I look forward to the update.

:thumbup:

[Chibawang]

Easiest way to do that is to color each template file a bright, distinctive color and save it with the proper name as in ka-50.skins, then when you get confused as to what's what in the template you're looking at you just copy that file into Bazzar/TempTextures/ and open the model viewer to see what's changed to that color.

 

Just one of my many problems is searching dilegently through the templates and trying to find panels I need to paint and selecting them.

[congo]

Another thing you might try is a panel locater or make your own. They are available for download at the several sites. It is basically a grid with colors and numbers that you size to whatever bmp,psd,jpeg or dds. file that you are working with or you can downsize it and use it on various sections of the uv map. Then when you view it either in game or with a model viewer you can reference color and number. I have attached one from the steelbeasts site offered up by Tacbat but there are numerous versions out there. And as I said you can always develop your own. If you have experience with Mechanical drawing and ortho projections a lot of the individual uv maps are recognizable by their shape. The template so graciously offered up by ED as a color base layer that is helpful. If you did a simple transparent numbered grid and layered over that colored layer it would make an ideal parts locater for that particular in game model, namely the KA-50.

Finders.rar

Edited February 8, 2009 by congo

[Ramstein]

BTW, the new skin I was (stopped for now, I need a rest) making is a U.S. Border Patrol skin. It is that same bright Green they use here in California. Not sure if they use the same color for the whole USA.

:D