daddyairplanes

you misunderstand what im saying, in saying the payment was a month subscription to the site i acknowledge that none of us (that worked on it) got a single cent from it. its the pay for content rather than access or just to support the site that i had reservations about (however roundabout it may be to call it as such). yes, i've gotten the messages and updates on whats going on. i just happen to be skittish of slippery slopes, however good the intentions that get you to them are. it appears i am just being a paranoid old man on the whole thing, and i hope that is the case. but ive gotten through the four decades of my life listening to the paranoid tingle and calling out what causes it. how this was handled has the possiblitly to change up this site overall in the future esp if it was very successful in Eriks eyes. we havent necesarily shown him the way, just a way to inject funds to support teh site. but again, i hope im just seeing things. finally, the fact that a subscription is required would make it a paid product. who gets the money is irrelevant, the end user to dispense funds to get the access to the whole package

going back and rereading the thread. size does and doesnt matter in exporting your tga from gimp it does matter just because of the file size going up in the bigger it is (examples in a moment) it doesnt because you can play around plenty wtih the sizes. the DC-9 project i'm wrapping will be the example. i developed almost everything in 1024x1024. but thats a 4MB file size across 8 files, or 32MB per each airline, times 12 per skin. (now you see why my mods can get huge). I resized the bulk of them down to 512x512 if they had basic geometric patterns, to a 1MB size. but the ones with finer detail got reduced only to 768x768 for a 2.1MB file size. on the extreme end, i made one for the nose gear doors to extend paint when needed but that was only 12x12 and i did the no no as an advanced trick: i ran the color all the way to the edge so it would bleed out and "paint" the whole nose gear door mesh with a 1 KB tga just some thoughts before coffee, hoping theyre useful

now i'll ask it Kev, why not tga them onto a bare metal skin? im quite aware of the PITA im setting up in the beginning but once the intial skin and placement are done, you can knock out as many as you please very easily only (actual) one skin to work on, about two days (maybe less, youre good with finding positions on a model) to set up the tga then off to the races. and nothing stopping you from doing it with one airliner per skin with serials rather than my everybody is a serial in the skin method up to you, and doubting you go for it. but it seems a solution to your current issue (at least to me)

said it before, say again: its the modders that keep this show rolling check out the ODS campaign. while i wasnt the happiest about it being a paid mod, the payment is a month subscription to the site so it helps everyone (esp Erik) not just one. and it does have alot of good work from the current active crowd all compiled together. not DCS peak quality but i think it will be awhile before we see one third of whats in it from Eagle Dynamics plus,i might know the guy that painted up alot of the big birds in it

damn, did Dave settle into being Norm?

almost ready, all historical airlines (that im doing) done

USG charter in central Europe, mid 90s timeframe course look who else showed up this time around

i would talk to allenjb42 or emre mola (i forget his handle here), iirc alot of work on the FB page is based on FS models so they may have a better clue course this is where a baremetal skin and buncha stickers comes in handy you know

you know, im just working through the list trying to get the north american birds done. then i realize what date i knock this one out on

awesome that you have software to help those that need it however i will point out that i have been using GIMP for 10 years for my tga work, with never any issues (well non user created ones anyhow). even used it while i was still paying the subscription for Adobe as i liked it better for tga work. of courrse now its my goto for everything as it is .... free i just have to leave a pixel space from the edges, remember to turn of RLE compression the very first tga i export (each time i fire up the program that is), and in some very rare instances add an alpha channel in the transparency tab. my solution is more habits based, but i know there are many out there that seek a software based solution. not meaning to knock your project, just mentioning another way

top banana in the west....

so i was trying out balkan terrain again thought it would be interesting to see the for the allied planes to go low to avoid serb fighters (came in at 139 characters. would go more, but there are no Super Tweets in 2021 )

just reading this, but it is important to UNCHECK that particular box i usually leave GIMP up and running so i can work projects when i can get time in. when it does close out (because i shut my sytem down going away or MS forces an update) its one of the first things i have to check on if it doesnt show up right also when looking over youre folder of new tgas, if one of a series is much smaller than the others, open it and resave turning off RLE

there is, although to the best of my recollection it calls the stock decals only straight from the CAT files. i dont recall seeing that in any mods since SF2 first came out. though it may have been tidiness rather than function while not exactly what you are looking for Gepard, most new or different nation tgas that ive seen just have the nations name in the decal folder within the mod folder. ie just "insigniaNewNation" rather than "insignia213". im sure someone else will come up with the answer, but most folks seem to take the easier route

you know youre supposed to do feet knees head on the ground not in the bird?

now departing Sarajevo

well what ever floats your boat. when you get cold and come back inside my advice stands. and having used both, GIMP is nearly as functional as Photoshop, but much cheaper at 0.00 dollars, euro, dinar, ruble or any other denomination you can think of but watching out of curiousity t osee what other methods/tools popup

back to your question on weps packs as pointed out there is no ultimate pack. i would start with Gunnys pack (way back in the beginning of SF2 time), it is the biggest, but it acts as an executeable, so park the folder outside of an install at first many of the current weapons got their start in that pack, so after opening it up, try looking for the campaigns and installs that came after Gunnys and adding/updating as needed, then weapons packs. have a working copy to sort outside of any install, and an install to park it inside of to check out how its working. i understand both sides of the cnversation on what youre doing, having a massive squadronlist ini built up with many different squadrons and even iterations of squadrons (7th FBS, 7th FS, 7th TFS etc). after a point it does get overwhelming and you move on to other things, but you determine that point, not the rest of us saying "wow really". anyhow, just two more pennies from me heres the link to Gunnys weps pack

i like it but you are setting yourself up for a massive amount of work, given how many weapons mods there are out there still interested to see how far you carry this.

why not create a general blank map then use Photoshop (if you have money) or GIMP (if you dont)? its how the rest of us do things if your talking about seeing how it looks on the model as you work, work the texture then check work in Mues LODviewer (in the download section). sounds tedious but if you have two screens, you can have the viewer on one, the program youre working on the other and refresh as soon as you export the new image. works for skin textures and decals too

the american mk 80s series bomb is what makes it special to Vietnam. the pylons do look pretty much factory standard

even as it is, i cant help but think this is some serious gourmet shit!

if you want to go post american war, there was an An-26 that was converted to carry mk 80 series bombs pic courtesy of the Soviet Aircraft Archive FB group

old army wisdom if you aint cheatin, you aint tryin you get caught you aint tryin hard enough

it might irk v2k, but that skid Cliff7600 points out could be a solution. if the Greyhound has a RL tendency to tailstrikes, put a skid on the model as another (wheel less and short ) landing gear