Colour conundrums and other musings

[+Trotski 936]

Hello Combat Ace World, got a quick question for one of you 'orrible lot wot is in the know. I am fiddling around with the Mezec's and Messers, and I have run into a bit of an issue which I am struggling to rectify ( if rectified it can be )  As those of you in the know are aware, this little gem from the AVIA stable both the S-99 and the S-1-99 carry cannon pods , now, I am trying to match the curtains to the carpet, ie I want the darn things to match the colour of the parent aircraft wot is carrying the bleedin' things, I have got the drop tanks to work in the colour department, but these pesky gun pods are bugging my silly little head , one would assume ( and I know one never should ) that as in each skin folder it has a bmp of the drop tank and if you change the colour of  that bmp , like majik it matches, and the Squadron Commander is a happy Teddy Bear !! and going by that assumption, ( there I go again !) you would think dropping the  bmp file from aforesaid bleedin' gun pod folder that  it would work the majik and CO's happiness enhancing factor would be most high , and he may then confirm my leave..........errrm sorry I digress, however doing this does not have the desired effect, and I am stumped and confustimicated as to how ( if at all ) this end may be acheived, and I can go on leave, the CO will be happy, and my AVIA will be all a matching and pretty like. please refer to this piccy to see what I am attempting to get at. 

[+daddyairplanes 10,252]

have you tried using Mues lod viewer? it has a feature to highlight a part on the displayed model, then right click and select show on texture (or something similar). change that part of the bmp or jpeg to what you need and it should work. reload that skin in the viewer and you wont even need to fire up the game to check your work (shame it doesnt work on decals too). experience has shown that the part you think you have may not be where you thought it was on the texture.

and its been too long since i've been around you Tommys as i had to read that twice to see what your getting at!

[+Trotski 936]

No that wont do the trick, as the gun pods are not part of the skin but the same as a drop tank, or any other ordnance, like I say I have got the drop tanks to change colour with the skin of the aircraft , ie, if I have 2 aircraft in my flight, and one is that green one in the picture, and my wingman has a silver finish, the drop tanks on each aircraft will match the airframe they are hanging off, in theory, if you can achieve this with a drop tank, then the same should go for the gun pods, as the file structure of the GP's is exactly the same as those of the FT's , and in this particular aircraft along with the skin jpgs there is also a bmp copied from the FT but coloured to match the skin , this works very well , but these bloody gun pods are horrible, I mean, no one will engage me in combat as my  bits dont mach !!!....true story !! 

[+Crusader 2,101]

Montys or TW's AVIA ?

[+Trotski 936]

montys

 

[+Trotski 936]

I have both in fact but I find montys to be better, just a personal flavourite

 

[+Crusader 2,101]

In the gunpod folder, it can be that the old skin file (bmp or jpg? "overrules" the new repainted file.

Move all original/extra skin files into a zip or extra folder or elsewhere and leave only the new texture for the gunpod.

[+Trotski 936]

leave the texture in the skin folder its self but not in the gunpod folder you mean ? so the gunpod folder will only have the 2 inis, and the lods yes ?

 

[+Trotski 936]

Tried that but no joy grrrrrr........sometimes the simplest of thing are the most irritating

 

[+daddyairplanes 10,252]

sorry another quick statement but it seems that they are gunpods rather than actual bits of the aircraft itself from

if i unstand that correctly, what i do in that instance (using GIMP) is to have both items open at once, use color picker (the eye dropper) to select the desired color from the one texture, then go to the other texture and fill in or paint what you need to in the color from the first.

i know it works in gimp as the tool bar stays the same across open windows. not sure about Photoshop (havent used it in a couple of years now so memories of how are fading) or other apps.

 

if you want send me what your working on, will see if i can figure it out

[+Trotski 936]

Yes that is correct it is a gunpod, and no its not integral with the airframe , like it is on the 3W S-199, if it was then the problem wouldnt exist hehehehe...........as for re colouring or repainting the thing, again not the issue as I can do that quite simply, as I have dne with the Drop Tanks, the problem is this, I have arranged the drop tanks so for each different coloured skin there is a matching tank , so for example if I was flying with for arguments sake 2 aircraft, ie, myself and my wingman, and my aircraft was a sand coloured one, and my wingmans was a green one, my drop tank would be blue/grey and his would be green  like this ................................................from my aircraft to my wing man.

then from my wing man back to my aircraft 

as you can see same flight but the drop tanks match the chosen aircraft, this is done by placing the texture bmp/jpg from the drop tank folder into the skin folder, then re colouring the tank IN the skin folder to the colour you want......so that is simple , and no hassle or issue........however !!!! and here is my conundrum.......with the gun pods, it dont want to play, like so...........  same example but now with gun pods carried, so fram me to my oppo.......

As you can see my gun pods are the correct colour, and match the drop tank colour and the aircraft  as well...........then.....yeah you guessed it !! 

'orrible blue narsty gunpods hanging off that nice green aeroplane....no wonder the enemy flies away in disgust, and the CO? is having kittens !!  and even if that Czech aircraft was flying alone, it would still have blue pods

Now, one would assume, that to solve the issue, you follow the same story as the one with the tanks, simples , right ????....errr nope not having it, refuses to play, and tells me I can have any colour gunpods I like as long as they are blue !! Logically speaking, as the file setup and architecture for the guns file as it is for the tanks file you would thingk adding the bmp/jpg of the guns into your skin folder and recolouring ( as with the tanks ) to taste that would be the answer, but as with many things in SF/FE it wants to make your life miserable, annoy your C?O, and cause the Enemy to bog off and fight someone who has the common decency to have matching carpets and curtains, I hope this clarifies the situation better.

[+Trotski 936]

As a further note, just to bore you a bit more, the easiest work around I hear you say is to fly the 3W version, however, I hate that aircraft it looks wrong , and Montys in my opinion is a far better model, plus Montys has the sliding Galland hood which is nice too its just a shame he didnt make the model with the gunpods "hardwired" in as the 3W version is, but no doubt he had his reasons for doing so, but who would want to fly this aircraft without gunpods ? its a minor issue I know, but one that offends mine eyes and sends my OCD into overdrive harharharhar  

Edited October 26, 2018 by trotski00

[+daddyairplanes 10,252]

ah  gotcha (sorry, ben on the road since last posted) iirc theres a bit in the knowledge base about decals and special skins for the models with drop tanks as part of the model, but it doesnt work on weapons like gunpods

try making a copy of the gunpod. change names of each to the color of the gunpod (gun_green, gun_tan etc). then in the drop down menu you can select the correct color (having the proper texture in each folder of course). will be doing this down the line with B-52 pylons that are added in as fake gunpods (so that short pylons or long ones can be selected) and i think it is an answer to your problem

as an old instructor of mine said, not THE answer, just AN answer. but given to help you get more gooder.

Edited October 27, 2018 by daddyairplanes

[+Trotski 936]

At the end of the day, its just a minor niggle really, as I seem to spend more time cataloging, all the bloody files I have, so many duplicates and extraneous garbage, will take me a month of Sundays to beat it into a manageable and workable order,  I keep getting side tracked making new skins for different aircraft, I need to get the Skyraider ones I was working on finished, the other disaster area is the amount of weapons I seem to have accumulated, most of which I will never use, or are really not needed so trying to thin that particular trash heap down as well, and I havent even go on to the aircraft I REALLY like yet arrrrrrgh....the humanity !!