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Repainting Textures
with Paint Shop Pro
By Hugh Shoults
Gryphon Aviation
shoultsh@yahoo.com
Index
This is the readme for the *.psp source files for our P-38-5-LO in the CFS 2 section but has good info if you don't want to d/l the whole file.
Do not--at any time-- reduce your colors below "16 million colors" (24 bit). Altho this is required for CFS1 it is not required if you convert your files with imagetool.exe or DXTbmp.exe (see Mips and DXTs).
The P-38L:First some notes on the P-38L. All of the P-38L's produced (as well as many of the later P-38J's) came from the factory in a bare-metal finish. However, there were some that were painted in various schemes in the field, particularly in the CBI.
Eventually I'll do a P-38J version. Many of the J's (and all of the earlier Lightnings) came from the factory in olive drab on top and gray undersides (like my example below). The biggest difference in the earlier J's is that the landing light was mounted under the wings and (before the P-38J-25-LO) they didn't have aileron boost or dive breaks (although many were upgraded with dive breaks in the field). The J version, when I do it, will use the same textures as these, with the following exception:
If you have any other suggestions, let me know. If my J version hasn't been released and you're ready for it, drop me a line and I'll let you know the status.
The Textures:All these textures use Paint Shop Pro 7 by Jasc Software. A free 30-day evaluation version can be downloaded at their home page so you can convert these file to an earlier version (or maybe even into MS Photo Shop) if you would like to.
When you open up this zip file, you'll find three folders. "Gryphon" simply has all the screenshots for this tutorial. Of the other two, one is labeled "Paint" and the other "texture". The files in each will look something like this:
PAINT FOLDER:
click for large view
TEXTURE FOLDER:
click for large view
We will do all your painting on the ones in the "PAINT" folder, and then add them to the ones in the "TEXTURE" folder. You'll then save all these as DXT files, and then copy them into your Aircraft\P-38-5-LO\textures folder. I'll walk you though the methods I use to do all these steps. Remember, these are only MY methods, and aren't necessarily the best. If you have a better technique please let me (and others) know!
For all these examples we'll be using the "nacelle.psp" texture. It's the most difficult of all, and once you understand how it's modified an added to the textures it'll be easy to do the rest.
Layers are best accessed by the Layer Palette, although you can also use "Layers" pull-down menu if you want.
I use layers extensively in my texture files. I usually have one named "Color" or "Metal" at the bottom, then one or more "Insignia" layers next, followed by "Light Lines" and "Dark Lines", "Weathering" and finally any "Guides" for that file.
If you open "nacelle.psp" with Paint Shop Pro (PSP) and then look in your the Layer Palette you'll see that it's made up of several layers:
click for large view
If you take time to look at these you'll see that you can select which ones you're going to view and the level of transparency on each. The "Metal" and "Insignia" layers are all 100% on the transparency scale, while the "lines" and "weathering" are less than that. If you want more information on how these "Line" layers were done there's a tutorial at the Gryphon Aviation home page.
We'll do our repainting on the "Metal" layer. This can be easily done without having to reaping new insignia or lines:
click for large view
Once you've repainted the "Metal" layer and made any changes to the "Insignia" or "Weathering" layers, you may have to adjust the level of transparency on the "Lt. Lines" and "Dk. Lines" Layers. This can be easily done by sliding the bar on the left side of the Layer Palette.
When we're done painting, it's time to crop the textures and get them ready to paste into the textures. There are several ways to do this, but I'm lazy and keep finding more shortcuts. Here's my current method. It's a little convoluted, but I think you'll see why I do it this way.
If you've looked at the files in the Texture Folder you've seen that the nacelle texture we've been working on must be cut and pasted 21 times! Here are just a few:
And this doesn't count all the little bits and pieces for the cooler intake interiors and such! If you resized each of these individually, you'd go nuts!
So, let's start with the Nacelle Booms. Here are the steps we're going to follow with a detailed description of each step below:
Selecting the area: In the nacelle.psp file in the PAINT folder, select the "Crop Guides" layer:
click for large view
Now, using the Magic Wand tool, click on the blue box in the "Crop Guides" layer. If more than the blue box is selected, then go to your Tool Options and lower the "RGB Value" tolerance.
Select the visible layers: Now, in the Layers Palette go back to the "Metal" Layer, and also select the layers that you want showing for the "Nacelle Boom Right, Out" side view.
click for large view
Merge Visible Layers: Go to the "Layers" pull-down menu and select "Layers/Merge/merge visible". If "merge visible" isn't selectable, then you're currently on a layer that is not marked as visible in the Layers Palette (that's why we selected the "Metal" layer again after "cropping".
click for large view
Copying and Pasting: After merging the visible layer, hit Cntl-C (copy) to copy the "Nacelle Boom Right, Out" selection. What you have on the clipboard will look like this:
click for large view
Now open your Texture/nacelle.psp file. Click on the Magic Wand, go to your Tool Options and set the "RGB Value" tolerance to 200 (this will select ALL colors). Using the Magic Wand select the "Nacelle Boom Right, Out" side (it's the top one on the layer named "Nacelle OUT") in the Texture/nacelle.psp file.
Now all you have to do (you're going to love this) is hit "Cntl-shift-L" (Paste into current selection) and ZAP! The "Nacelle Boom Right, Out" will be pasted into the Texture/nacelle.psp file without you having to do ANY resizing at all. Too easy.
click for large view
Un-merge and Repeat Now go back to your Paint/nacelle.psp file. Hit Undo a couple of times to Un-merge the "Nacelle Boom Right, Out" layers, select the visible layers for the next boom side, and repeat. Soon you will have pasted all of your nacelle sides.
For the final step you'll need a few programs. You'll need the latest version of DXTbmp.exe by Martin Wright, available at MW Graphics and you'll need imagetool.exe from the FS2000_Scenery_SDK.EXE, available at the MS FS2000 Home page. Install imagetool.exe (which is in the FS2000_Scenery_SDK) and DXTbmp.exe on you system in a location of your choosing.
NOTE: There are several directions to go from here. I'll show you two. The important part is that you use "mips".
A "mip" is a bitmap file (*.bmp) that has extended file information. It actually has several pictures of the same texture in decreasing size. If the original is 1024x1024, then the others will be 512x512, 256x256, 128x128, 64x64, 32x32, 16x16, 8x8, 4x4, 2x2, and 1x1. When this aircraft is loaded into CFS2, which one you "see" depends on the distance away from the aircraft you are (this is oversimplified. If you want more info write Martin or one of the other smart guys click for large view The two choices of "miped" files that I'm suggesting are the 16 bit Extended (565) bitmap (developed for FS2000) and the DXT Texture bitmap (developed for CFS2). Both have Mips. The difference is that the "DXT format" is compressed and is only 1/4 the size of the "565 format". However, the 565 formatted textures are much better quality. I agonized for a long time over which version to include with my P-38, and finally decided on the DXTs. The aircraft zip file size was large enough already! But if you're only going to upload the textures (and not the whole aircraft with gauges and panel) then you might consider using the 565 format. However, I don't know how that would effect frame rates.
To create DXT Texture bitmaps, open DXTbmp.exe and click on Prefs\16 bit settings\Locate Imagetool and point it to "imagetool.exe". Then return and check Prefs\16 bit settings\use image tool for mips. Now open your Texture\nacelle.psp file as a Normal Image and then Save DXT (Image Tool). That's it. There are several different ways you can adjust this process using DXTbmp.exe. Rather than copy them here, I'll let you read the instructions in the DXTbmp.exe zip file.
click for large view To create 16 bit Extended (565) bitmaps you can use the same process with DXTbmp.exe and simply Save Extended bitmap (565), but there's a better method. You can use image tool and paint your own mips. To do this, open your Texture\nacelle.psp with Imagetool.exe. Go to Image/create MipMaps and then Image/Extract MipMaps. This will create all the mips in you image as separate files (this is how I created the "Mips" screenshot above). You can now save each of the mips as bitmaps and modify them in Paint Shop Pro (or simply reduce your Texture\nacelle.psp file in size and save that as a bitmap), then use Image/Add MipMaps to recombine the final 565 bitmap. This way you can be sure of the highest quality.
click for large view
And that's all. If you have any questions, or a better way to do and of this please drop me a line. I look forward to seeing your repaints!
Hugh
shoultsh@yahoo.com
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