Need help with making a new repaint

[jiahao]

Hi

Can anyone provide me detailed instructions and guide me through as to how to use the paint kit? I have some trouble understanding the instructions that are given to me. Apart from flattening the layers and deleting the basic channel, the rest of the instructions I do not understand.

I proceed to repaint the aircraft anyways and ended up with a background layer without following the instructions(except flattening the layers and deleting basic channel) and saved it as a .BMP file and then converting it to a .DDS file. Copied the files over into a texture folder and made sure that in the config the fltsim.xx texture line is pointing to the right folder. When I loaded the new textures into the sim, the aircraft that I repainted keeps falling back to the default 0494 textures.

Would greatly appreciate it if any veteran repainters could give me some advice as to repainting the F15.

[RD1]

The biggest thing is to remember to rotate the canvas vertically (upside down) when converting from .bmp to .dds.

What program are you using to paint??

[jiahao]

The biggest thing is to remember to rotate the canvas vertically (upside down) when converting from .bmp to .dds.

What program are you using to paint??

I'm using adobe photoshop CC 2017. I save the .bmp files in photoshop then convert it to .dds using DXTbmp. Do you rotate the canvas in DXTbmp?

Edit: I went ahead to flip the canvas and loaded it into the sim. Still turned out to be the same default textures.

[RD1]

Did you create a new folder and name for the texture?? Did you create a new (fltsim.x) entry in your aircraft.cfg and have the texture labeled exactly as the texture folder??

What texture files are inside the new texture folder??

Something I always do when painting a paint kit with PSD files that will be converted to DDS. I open each PSD file one at a time. I then rotate the PSD file vertically and save it. I do this on all PSD files. This is because when you open the DDS file in DXT, it will actually be upside down. When you open with DXT, and then open in Photoshop, all is good. Now, when you open your PSD file, it will also be at the correct orientation. DDS is just another image file, but for FSX it will always be upside down compared to all .bmp files.

If you can post up a screenie of your F-15 folder, your new texture folder entries, and aircraft.cfg, I can see what might be the problem.

RD1

[N4GIX]

If you are both using Photoshop, why are you even messing around with DTXBMP?

Install the nVidea DDS plugin into Photoshop and it will take care of the vertical flipping automatically. It sure saves a lot of time and potential confusion!

[jiahao]

Thanks for the help guys. I found out where I went wrong this time. I saved the texture files as mapxxRSAF.dds. I went ahead to rename the texture files to mapxx.dds and my livery is now visible in FSX. Once again thanks for the help! I'll upload the livery once I've tweaked everything. Cheers!

[RD1]

lol... good you got it figured out.

I don't trust Nvidia plugins, N4GIX. As well, I've done it this way for so long, it's like breathing. lol

[Ron Attwood]

This reminds me of the old saying 'There is more than one way to skin a cat'

As long as it is skinned in the end.

[N4GIX]

I've been using the nVidea DDS plugin for over a decade and have had no problems with it at all.

Ron, have you ever seen a skinned cat? Ewww!

[Ron Attwood]

Ron, have you ever seen a skinned cat? Ewww!

Have I ever seen a skinned cat? Er...No. A skinned rabbit though, does that count?