My first skin in DCS

[Bearcat]

 

All things considered ... you know this had to be the first one right? :megalol:

 

Thanks to everyone in this thread by FDNY that pointed me in the right direction to see just what the heck I was doing..

 

I had to get adventuresome... At first I kept getting thee missing texture things on the AC.. I took the description.lua file from the Bare metal skin and added it to my skin.. Needless to say that didn't work well.. I couldn't figure out how to edit the description.lua file at first but then I decided to try notepad.. and at first that threw me off because notepad never showed up as an option when I right clicked it and looked for Open With.. anyway I just hit open and selected notepad.. and there it was.. I went all the way down to the bottom.. and changed the description to Buffalo Soldier.. went back in the sim and ... big yellow still .. then I took a closer look at the .lua file and saw 38 entries that still said "Silver" in the text ..

 

{"P51D_FUZ_FRONT", 0 ,"p51D_DIF_Silver_Fuz_Front",false};

{"P51D_FUZ_REAR", 0 ,"p51D_DIF_Silver_Fuz_Rear",false};

{"P51D_WING_L", 0 ,"p51D_DIF_Silver_L_Wing",false};

{"P51D_WING_R", 0 ,"p51D_DIF_Silver_R_Wing",false};

{"P51D_FUZ_FRONT", 2 ,"p51D_SPEC_Silver_Fuz_Front",false};

{"P51D_FUZ_REAR", 2 ,"p51D_SPEC_Silver_Fuz_Rear",false};

{"P51D_WING_L", 2 ,"p51D_SPEC_Silver_L_Wing",false};

{"P51D_WING_R", 2 ,"p51D_SPEC_Silver_R_Wing",false};

 

 

 

{"P51D_BORT_NUMBER_COCPIT_01", 0 ,"p51D_DIF_Silver_Fuz_Front",false}; -- òàêòè÷åñêèé íîìåð, îäíîðàçðÿäíûé. íîìåð ñàìîëåòà â ãðóïïå. äëÿ êàíàäñêîãî ñêèíà

{"P51D_BORT_NUMBER_COCPIT_01", 2 ,"p51D_SPEC_Silver_Fuz_Front",false}; -- ðàñïîëîæåíèå. íà áîðòó ñàìîëåòà â ðàéîíå êîçûðüêà îñòåêëåíèÿ ôîíàðÿ

{"P51D_BORT_NUMBER_COCPIT_01", DECAL ,"empty",true};

 

.... and a LOT more..

 

 

so I changed all of them to the name I used for my texture files and BAM! .. there it was.

 

This skin is an ongoing WIP and I see I am going to have to do some editing.. I think I need to unify the red textures between the tail & the nose.. I used the rear fuselage from the Redtail skin that came with the sim.. until I make my own full layers.. I also had to modify the wheel well covers to get rid of the red. In a few days I will totally redo this .. but I had to do my ride.. :lol:

 

Another question though... a few actually..

 

1-The spec layers.. I gather those layers remove some of the glare or highlight the areas of the skin where they are highlighted? I noticed that in the stock Redtail skin the nose markings (which are of the 100th by the way not the 302nd) where tyhe chevron extended from the nose to the rear.. and the red tails as well were highlighted in the spec layers and you can see the difference fron thsi screenshot between the red on the nose that has the bare metal spec layer.. and the red on the tail.. Am I in the ball park with that? The first skin I ever made that used a spec layer was the one in my sig which actually came from WoP .. as most of you know IL2 skins are not that complicated in that respect.

 

2-Editing the description.lua file... Will I have to do that for every skin? Edit all 38 references to the skin I made? There are some skins in myh liveries folder that do not even show up in the payload screen and I suspect it is because the description.lua files are not right.. Is there a one line solution to that to make it look for the textures in a specific folder regardless to what they (the dds files) are named?

Edited May 18, 2012 by Bearcat

[Bearcat]

Lol... 65 looks .. no comments.. is it that bad? LOL

[VBS_Nero]

:thumbup:Bravo buon lavoro

[Teapot]

Nice one mate. Especially considering it's your first attempt, not bad at all!

Now if I were to make an attempt at skinning a Mustang, it would probably result in a ban on purchasing any DCS product for the term of my natural life :D.

[Daze]

Good job man! :thumbup: I tried doing it but found it incredibly tedious and time consuming. Might have another go when I have more time.

[TwoLate]

Real nice Bearcat. You have one mighty fine ride there. I am getting started on my own skin.

[Bearcat]

Thank you.. here is a screen of the finished product..

 

 

Edited May 20, 2012 by Bearcat

[cichlidfan]

Lol... 65 looks .. no comments.. is it that bad? LOL

 

Unless I am mistaken, view counts include non-members but they can't post.

 

It does looks really good, btw.:thumbup:

[NineLine]

{"P51D_BORT_NUMBER_COCPIT_01", 0 ,"p51D_DIF_Silver_Fuz_Front",false}; -- òàêòè÷åñêèé íîìåð, îäíîðàçðÿäíûé. íîìåð ñàìîëåòà â ãðóïïå. äëÿ êàíàäñêîãî ñêèíà

{"P51D_BORT_NUMBER_COCPIT_01", 2 ,"p51D_SPEC_Silver_Fuz_Front",false}; -- ðàñïîëîæåíèå. íà áîðòó ñàìîëåòà â ðàéîíå êîçûðüêà îñòåêëåíèÿ ôîíàðÿ

{"P51D_BORT_NUMBER_COCPIT_01", DECAL ,"empty",true};

 

.... and a LOT more..

 

Looks good, I assume all these extra lines are for number decals on the planes, but I havent personally figured it all out yet...

[Blaze]

Looks good, I assume all these extra lines are for number decals on the planes, but I havent personally figured it all out yet...

Yes, open the TEST BORT NUMBER livery in Modelviewer to see what all of the number overlays are.

 

Also for the lines in the description.lua, when you set a line to "true" that means that the texture resides in either "TempTextures" or a zip file that has been named in the graphics.cfg, and when you set a line to "false" that means that the texture is self-contained in the folder with the rest of the files for that livery. Hope that helps. :)

Edited May 23, 2012 by Blaze

[NineLine]

Yes, open the BORT TEST NUMBER livery in Modelviewer to see what all of the number overlays on.

 

Ok, thanks Blaze.