Decal Help!

[kukulino 1]

Thanx LloydNB :yes:

There are some crazy days in life, and we have some of them in this week

I know your feeling after long work and no good result. I had it many times before. My english is not the best, so I need long time to do everything in SFP1 series. And if there is something wrong...

 

Well I sent files to my friends, so I hope they will test them and we will see. It is just easy prob, I think.

 

So good luck in Marlet paint too, and be carefull. Marlet is my favourite naval WW2 plane. I love it in Pacific fighters (I had PF before my first WOV). Landings with this bird are really exciting (no hard, but really nice)

Edited November 28, 2007 by kukulino

[kukulino 1]

Hallo pilots again

Well, I have another little "big" problem with numbers. I have numbers displayed on my planes in the single mission.

But numbers won't show up in the campaign.

I have Decals tutorial downloaded, but my english is still not the best, so I miss something interesting in that tutorial probably

 

On the other hand:

I have this problem with czechoslovak units added into campaign. I am not very skilled in adding. New units are flying good, but no nums.

I suppose, that I miss some .ini edit. Squadronlist.ini?

 

This is screenshot from single mission

 

And this is from campaign

 

It is new Czechoslovak Mig-23MF skin WIP by my friend blackrat I made nums (I am biginer ) Well, we need some permissions and than we can upload this skin in the near future (TWO weeks )

Blackrat made one of the nicest skins for MF version, I think

 

So, please, can anyone more skilled in campaign or decals making help with nums prob?

THANX for any reply :yes:

Edited December 24, 2007 by kukulino

[+Jug 99]

No probs guys! It'll be nice to have another target....

 

Wadda mean, you can't post when you sleeping??? Most of the time I do!!!

 

and yes, decals - especially the maunfacture thereof - is a real PIA!!! There's a couple of B-29 mods here that I did (ww2 PTO and WW2 ETO: 46) that have a humongous amount of decals. The WW2: 46 ETO version is the ENTIRE 91 BG...something like 400 decals for the one skin set....serial numbers, squadron code/individual letters, nose art. The PTO set runs about 300 +/- a few.

....I truely feel your pain.

 

Wrench

kevin stein

 

Wrench, this probably needs to be in another thread, but this thread reminded me of a question I have had for some time. During VietNam and since, pilots could label their aircraft with their names (left side, just below the canopy rail) and their crew chief (right side, just below the canopy rail). I have seen a red strip with white letters on F-4s, low-vis lettering on F-16s, and various other kinds. Do you have an idea as to how it could be done in this sim? It would add a real personalization to the sim and would be kinda fun to fly your own bird. I assume it is a matter of assigning background color, length, width, letter color, and then positioning. Got any good ideas?

[Wrench 9,847]

The 'Wildcards' F4U Corsairs that are here have individual pilot names...it's just treated like another decal (size would need experimenting with, of course). Since they'er applied to aircraft like serial numbers, they'll be DecalLevel=2....

 

Below is the example, for the -1D Corsair:

 

[Decal015]

MeshName=Fuselage

DecalLevel=2

DecalFacing=LEFT

FilenameFormat=F4U-1D/VMF58/D/PName

Position=-1.10,0.50

Scale=0.5

DecalMaxLOD=3

 

IIRC, Pappychksix and Ghostrider883 have both done this...Pappy did it for the Thunderjet, and Ghost did if for the "SF AirForce" MiG-21s. It's very cool to see your name on the side!!

 

 

The only thing you'd need to find is the MeshName=. For 3rd party birds, if you have the OUT file, you can find it that way. For stock birds, you'll need to look for the likely candidate; canopy rail or something like that for Rhinos. There's a 3 decal limit (that I've found -- sometimes it's 4) per mesh, so locating and putting it on the rail would be better than placing it on the fuselage, depending on the aircraft. Which is why lots of skinners try to paint the insiginas and other markings directly on the skin...it "opens" a decal slot so to speak

 

As to decal creating, it's just like any other -- choose a nice font, make sure the image is "square" (128/128 works pretty good), and Bob's your Uncle (sorry, was watching "The Worlds Fastest Indian" the other night, and Hopkins kept saying that!)

 

Wrench

kevin stein

[+Gocad 26]

I have this problem with czechoslovak units added into campaign. I am not very skilled in adding. New units are flying good, but no nums.

I suppose, that I miss some .ini edit. Squadronlist.ini?

 

So, please, can anyone more skilled in campaign or decals making help with nums prob?

THANX for any reply :yes:

 

It's a simple thing actually. The engine uses a RNG to determine what number is used. Most third party skins have usually 10 to 20 individual numbers, whereas the stock skins have 100 numbers. And the RNG picks a number between 0 and 99.

 

Example:

 

[AirUnit001]

AircraftType=A-7E

Squadron=VA22

ForceID=1

Nation=USN

DefaultTexture=USNGrey1

StartNumber=25 <- this entry makes sure that the first aircraft of this unit will have the number '400', which is the 25th number listed in the numbers file in the skin folder.

 

In your case I would set the StartNumber to 0. This should fix it.

Edited December 30, 2007 by Gocad