Saving Decals

[+suhsjake 11]

I am working on Marineflieger squadron insiginas. I have Jasc Paintshop Pro 9 and I was wondering how people work on there patches in Paintshop pro 9. What I am basically asking is how do you get the patches to work.

 

Thanks

 

suhsjake

[Caesar 305]

First and foremost, let me just say there are a lot of guys out there with far more experience than me in this area and they can tell you a lot more than I, but here's my 2 cents from my own experience:

 

In order for a decal to work, you need to make it a targa file (.tga). PSP, IMHO is not the ideal program for decals (though skinning is fine with PSP). A far easier tool for decals is Adobe Photoshop & ImageReady. From APS you make your decal (i think with no background); then when finished, hit edit in ImageReady, from IR, select export, then Original Document, and from there, you can save the decal as a 32-bit .tga file. From here it can be used on an a/c. I'm not sure what the restrictions are for PSP on exporting files or saving them as Targa images, but I'm almost certain all decal files have to be 32-bit Targa images, so if PSP can produce those, so much the better for you. I initially tried decals with PSP and ended up failing miserably, then switched to PS and actually got it working.

 

Good luck with your work; I hope this was of at least some assistance.

[+streakeagle 871]

I have extensive experience with making decals using Paint Shop Pro.

 

Paint Shop Pro 7 handles tga files perfectly, but the technique for loading/viewing/editing/saving is somewhat cumbersome since the mask is not treated as a separate layer, yet has to be loaded and saved separately:

 

Open tag using PSP7.

Edit the color bitmap part if needed.

Load mask (alpha channel) from the file.

View and or edit mask.

Edit the color bitmap part if needed.Save mask to the original alpha channel in the file.

Hide mask.

Edit the color bitmap part if needed.

Save the file (with the mask hidden).

 

Unfortunately, Paint Shop Pro 9 and Paint Shop Pro 10 changed how tga files were handled in such a way that when you save the file, it doesn't work right in the game. According to the FAQ at their website, this problem was fixed by a patch a long time ago for PSP9. In my experience, they didn't fix anything. So, to this day, I have to use PSP7 to save my tga files for SFP1 series decals. Sometimes, I need the features of PSP10. So I edit the tga in 10, save and close it, then open it with PSP7, load the mask, and save it per the above procedure. Apparently, Adobe Photoshop has none of these hassles.

Edited September 14, 2006 by streakeagle

[+suhsjake 11]

If anybody wants to make the badges, I am posting them and if you actually get them to work, I will include them in my next F-5F release, and will give you credit. I am also looking for a good substitute for a german carrier, preferably a small one, (i know they never had one) to add to my campaign.

MarineFleiger_Badges.zip

[+streakeagle 871]

If someone else doesn't beat me to it, I can do it for you. I am at work right now, but maybe sometime tonight or tomorrow I can make your decals. It doesn't take long.

[+streakeagle 871]

I used a vpn connection to get to my home PC and PSP7 from work :)

 

Try these out. The decal tga files should be square and it is useful to have them in a binary dimension (512x512, 256x256, 128x128, etc). I made two versions: large (512x512) which are 1 MB in size and small (256x256) which are 256 kB in size. I think the smaller ones will be better to use, but try them both to see what works best for you.

MarineFleiger_Decals.zip

[+suhsjake 11]

Thanks,

 

Now I have more than one squadron to add to my German Carrier.

 

I will give you credit for them.

 

Regards,

 

suhsjake

[+streakeagle 871]

I did those very quickly and didn't have time to test them, so let me know if there are any problems.

I am not worried about getting any credit. All I did was resize the gif files you provided to 512x512 squares, copy them into an existing tga file, mask out the background color, save the mask to the alpha channel, save the tga.

 

For all its "complexity", one advantage to using PSP7 over Adobe Photoshop is that it can be bought dirt cheap from eBay :)

Edited September 15, 2006 by streakeagle