Decal Advancement Help

[+Richo 65]

Hi Modder's can any one steer me in the right direction on making Decals that look like this?

I am using Adobe 7 and used the Decal Tutorial and just need to get to the next level.  Help Please?

I just want to change the color and able to read what is on the decal like this one.  I have the stencil set that Wrench and Daddy Airplanes gave me I am trying to make some Ship names.36915-Decals Tutorial for serial numbers.pdf

[+daddyairplanes 8,675]

A few disclaimers: I use GIMP for my tga work, have even back when i did have Photoshop proper. And yes i have read that tutorial many moons ago. 

That said, like any craft, good tga work takes time. Some of my generic tips that should work across any graphics program 

- mainly use mue's lodviewer. It saves so much time for checking things than firing up the game. But occasionally, still fire up the game just to be sure.

- set up your decal ini with a test decal before going full bore on decal product. It can be the first decal in the series or something you whip up to check positions

- for serial decals ( numbers, nose arts anything that is different aircraft to aircraft), not only have your number.lst file done in advance and open while working, have some other file up with all relevant info. Since I like to do whole hog across the years mods, I often use excel to keep track of serials, tailcodes, nosearts etc as I serialize all of it normally

- making the tga itself, clear the alpha channel and usually keep at least a pixel of space around the produced artwork. Seems basic knowledge, but think of iconic pics of basketball players in game winning poses: they are usually displaying form taught since elementary school on making the shot.

- when you can, use good source imagery  to produce images. Pictures of subject, not copyrighted artwork. Bigger is always better, you lose more detail when scaling up than when scaling down. Ninety percent of my nosearts and unit patches are pics from Google or books. Of that, fifty percent need no editing other than to remove( erase) the picture around the desired image.

-Most of the rest gets perspective shifted, color tone changed, lightened or darkened. Play with the tools; every program has neat stuff to create your artwork

- When you can't find good source pics, or when doing serial work, use the text function in your program. GIMP I know uses whatever fonts are available in my copy of Word, 

- use Word or other similar programs to match fonts with source pics. A spot on match is great, and sometimes you can download the needed font if not available in your program. Other times you get as close as you can and make minor tweaks after typing it all out

- when using the text function for your program type out a series, the backspace and type the next one. IE: D1234, save as whatever000, backspace the 4 away, type 5 to get D1235, save whatever001. Seems time consuming and it is. But to me less so than than tutorial and once I get going its not that long in happening.

- remember when i said usually leave a pixel of space? Give i often do complete paintings or major parts of paint jobs as tga rather than on skin i use that extra pixel at the edge to an advantage for pinstripes and colors. The colors all the way to the edge will cause that color to go all the way to the end of the mesh. If all along the tga edge it puts color all along the mesh; if a stripe that touches the edge it runs a pinstripe along to the end of the mesh. I will use the pinstripe effect esp as it produces the desired effect without hours spent bending, expanding and matching a line direct on skin.

-So long as the meshes are listed in the decal ini, you can have text and a stripe on the nose, with the stripe running clean an true to the back of the aircraft! Keep the same location and scale information in each entry, changing only meshname as it progresses along the model

Biggest tip of all: backup your work regularly. I do a decent job at this and will still lose some hours of work when Windows updates overnight or i goof and delete a wrong file. It's worse if you don't back up stuff and lose days or weeks of progress.

 

[+daddyairplanes 8,675]

One other tip i forgot: play with opacity, but almost never have a tga at 100%. For something with bright colors, or a light tga over dark surface i will go 90-95%. On average i go around 70%, but have done dark serial nums on light surfaces as low as 35%. That's what I use, play with it and find whats best for you

[+russouk2004 6,951]

if you use gimp for tga you dont needback layer ...just make your decal (numbers or whatever) and put them on layer,in gimp select only layer of 1st number and export as tga in export dialogue,uncheck compression box and done.....set opacity of the layers 1st though...I usually set opacity of mine to 90 - 95 %

result main tga on left and on right how it looks on model

Edited February 16, 2021 by russouk2004

[Wrench 9,461]

always, Always ALWAYS make sure you text/image in CENTERED. All decal must be square (128x128, 256x256, etc)

Also, it's reccomended you read TK decal tutorial (don't tell ya how to make 'em, but how the decal system works) REQUIRED READING'

as someone who's made, literally, 10s of thousands of decals.... once you past the first 1000, it's super easy 

DecalTutorial_11-12-02.zip

[+Richo 65]

Thanks everyone for the tips and tricks and I will get some more practice and perfect my decals and art work!!!

Cheers Richo

[PeacePuma 546]

Hi, here's another mini tutorial .... I did it because of a similar post above, see it's Photoshop-based and has comments and contributions from our legendary forum modders.