Trotski

As you can see superb results can be acheived with Gimp, which is FREE But it does come down to personal preference , I do still believe GIMP is more complicated to use, but that may just be my perception , but free is good !! another useful tool is Paint.net , which is also free , and I find better than windows on board paint programme , other VERY VERY VERY useful tools are Mues tool box , which is available here on Combat Ace , in the downloads section , and therefore is.........Wait for it............FREE and is an indispensable set of tools for ALL modders and skinners alike , also read the how to do stuff guides in the forums, there are a lot of very useful guides and hints , that will send you off on your merry way rejoicing, and you will be banging out new skins before you know it !! Finally if in doubt ask , you may be told in some cases to go and look it up in the forums , because we encourage you and any new member to do this. knowledge is power .

It will do so because the decals.ini are giving the skin instructions to display the markings , have you downloaded any of the skins on Combat ace at all , as the ones that come with the out of the box sim, are all in the Cat directories , and you would need to extract the whole lot , to see what you are working with , it may be simpler for you to download an actual aircraft , from here , as it should then all be laid out in the correct order , so you can see how the file structures work .

Personally I find Gimp awkward to use for skinning , however there is I believe a tutorial in the forums on how to utilise it , as I say I only use it for making decals , also , the other issue is, most of the templates you will find in the downloads section are in photoshop format , and as I have never converted one to Gimp , I cant comment on how easy or hard that may be , as for new skins , I dont understand why you want to mod the aircraft data if you are just making a new skin , that is whole different ballgame , modding data can be .....problematic if you mess around with it too much , unless you know what you are doing . So if you want to make a new skin, it is best and simplest if you just copy and paste an existing skin folder, re name it , for example if you have a skin in the aircraft called , for arguments sake , USN Grey , and you wish to make it a green aircraft ( I am really simplifying this , so dont think I am being condescending here ) just copy and paste the folder , and rename it to USN Green , and re name the textureset.ini file in that skin folder, from USN Grey, to USN Green, so when you fire up the sim , it will be showing as a different skin option , Then do yourself a new skin , and like majik , you will have done your first very basic skin. I hope this makes sense , I am maybe not being very clear . but once you get the hang of it its a simple as breathing , and the more you do it the more it becomes second nature , and is really easy to acomplish. However you do need to get a handle on the program you wish to use to create the skin in the first place ............Oh and by the way it can be VERY time consuming , depending on how complicated a skin you wish to make is , and depending on how many meshes are involved . If you get really stuck , drop me a pm and I shall try to explain more clearly .

The best way to do it is to get yourself Photoshop, or failing that GIMP ( I use gimp mainly for Decal making ) and find a template , there are loads in the downloads section , and experiment , some skins are easier to do than others though , especially the old ones as those tend to be less advanced as models, and the skin template structure is very basic , however, they are good to experiment with !! and dont expect outstanding results straight off , however if you keep at it, you will find ( as I do ) a great deal of satisfaction , even if you are only doing the skins for your own personal use .

Well I have a system built around a Ryzen 9 3900X 12 core with 32 gig of ram , an RTX 2080ti card with 12 gig of vid ram , a 34 inch curved screen Asus PG348Q , and it works beautifully , and looks beautiful too , so yes I would say its worth it !!! Just waiting for the win 10 update of SF 2 ....better be bloody well worth it !!

Groovy maaan !

Oh and its uglier than me as well, so that is REALLY sayin' somethin' !!!

Nah its just a teensy weensy misunderstanding , mainly propagated by my misrepresentation of the TSR 2 for illustration purposes, I doubt it will denigrate into a full on claws out bitchin' match ...........and the F-35 is shit......this is my opinion......just sayin'

I do not doubt the possibilities of TSR 2 , had she been given the backing she needed, however, the story of over spending and over runs in development killed her off, and as I said in my previous post she had to be curtailed , although the reasons were most definitely misguided and ill advised, and I admit it is a poor comparison perhaps, however we then ended up with Canberra , which was and until recently still is a superb aircraft, we also had Buccaneer, an aircraft that no other nation could match in its given role !! So yes TSR 2 given enough time would have certainly become a world class warplane. I was merely using TSR 2 as an example of a money pit of horrendous proportions, and thus a similar issue to that of the F-35....However, the F-35 is just shite, it has zero redeeming factors, its a crap dog fighter, compared to even the Mig 29 or Su 35 , F16 or F 15 , its ground attack capabilities are piss poor , akin to the F117 which lets be honest though ground breaking for stealth tech etc, was about as useful as an ashtray on a Motorcycle , which is why the US still utilise dyed in the wool 100% proven aircraft such as the B1B and B52 . The Gr7 Harrier was a more effective attack aircraft for goodness sake, ok the avionics and airframes were getting on a bit , however it did the job, and probably to update and repair would have been a heck of a lot less that this POS I wish to state that I adore the TSR 2 , and I should not have used her as an example maybe, other than to illustrate the Cost over runs and development over runs that are twice as bad in F- shitty 5 .

Bloody Stupid, the Aircraft is crap, plus its pig ugly, and its designed for a cold war environment, which doesn't exist any more. We would be better served by buying Russian aircraft, those at least are built to do the damn job, The F-35 has no job, because it doesn't know what its job is FFS , it's the TSR 2 story all over again, but at least the Government had the sense to scrap that white elephant , even if it was for the wrong reasons..........Oh and the TSR 2 at least was a pretty aircraft !!

As if the skies over Strike Fighters aren't dangerous enough already hahahahaha

Well done chaps, keep it up !! ...........And dont forget about us lowly skinners hehehehehe

X52 does occasionally have issues with win 10 make sure your X52 is plugged into an usb 2.0 port NOT a 3.0 I have issues with mine at times some of the buttons refuse to work even though they are shown as working in the X52 setup screens in Windows, I maybe am going to purchase an USB powered hub and not plug the damn thing directly into my PC ........Sorry I do not speak enough French to reply in French so I hope this is understandable for you

Per Ardua Ad Astra

oooh more sweeties for us kiddies !!!

They make it look so easy dont they

At the end of the day, there is a plague.....lets call it one as for all intents and purposes it is one, although on a much lesser scale, there is no cure for it, it is transmitted by human contact, and it kills, ok, not a biblical scope of death toll, but still, it kills, and the ONLY way of containing the damn thing, is by reducing contact and therefore risk of either exposure, or, if you are a carrier, of passing it on. Therefore If by ignorance, stupidity, or just not giving a flying fuck, or because you believe its a huge conspiracy, and the evil empire is out to fuck you over, cause finacial problems for the medical services, and for businesses as a whole, maybe if it goes on for any protracted time, then you are first delusional, secondly selfish , thirdly a potential murderer , as if you ARE a carrier, and you pass it across to your elderly or infirm relative, they stand a good chance of contracting the thing and also of dying from it. So instead of moaning whining, and complaining, all actions which will have zero effect anyhow, just fuckin' deal with it, and fuck off with any conspiracy theory bollocks , deal with it ffs it aint fuckin' hard !!

I for one am fully aware, however the models Gerwin mentioned are certainly worthy of consideration should someone with the facility to make a model, wish to do so, they ARE indeed nice models, however not quite what I require , or have the ability to utilise, I also hope Gerwin doesn't think I'm being dismissive, as I am not. The opposite in fact.

Well I shall bear it in mind, however, I'm not sure how I could utilise these models, as I am no model maker , I only do skins as I have no way of making models as i do not and cannot afford max, also as a skinner I pump loads of hours into my work ( all be it not up to the skill of modelling in 3d ) and get paid nowt.........however I see your point about relative prices.

Hmm very interesting, however $44 for a single model ? a bit rich for my blood no matter how pretty it may be

hehehehe thought you MAY just have something in the pipeline eventually. I did have a thought though, all this discussion may be academic, as when the new win 10 version of SF comes out, there may be an issue with getting these things to work, I noticed there is a disclaimer on the downloads that these havent been tested in Win 10 , so i shall hold off for now methinks....Although, I really desire that there Skycrane.....oh and a decen Sioux....and...........dammit I'm like a kiddie in a sweetie store .....I may grow up one day hahahaha NOT !!!

I hope that young lady realises her dreams, the fact her parents take her flying is outstanding, and at that age , to meet ones hero like this is going to be a formative and driving factor in her adult life.

Thanks everyone for your valuable input, I think I shall indeed purchase some of the helos, and possibly a couple of carriers, even though I am totally crap at landing on them, it seems that purchasing any of the campaigns is maybe not that great an idea, but we shall see, I think I shall start with the skycrane and see from there, although the AH1Z ( which we dont have here, is also a possibility , so either the flight school or the weapons schools may be an option as well.

Skinning is not a massive issue for me, I have nothing but time, so if its a headscrachin' bum clenchin' problem, it may be worth my while, the helo's in particular though may be a problem if they need converting from SF1 standards, Crapuns choppers are a good case in point , where some of them, just dont want to work properly, the Seaknight in particular, where the wingmen, just refuse to take off and tool around in ever decreasing circles, like the fabled foo foo bird, unfortunately that side of modding is beyond my ken, and I would need some considerable help getting stuff to work, maybe some poor benighted soul would be able to assist in such an endeavour !!! Applications on a post card please !! I think I may invest in these yap offerings, in some part at least, and scream for assistance as and when I fail miserably at getting the buggers to work. The Banshee is sweet, by the way,

I do use Yakarovs stuff a lot, my main interest on the YAP site were the Skycrane for one, also the Sioux , as we only have the Craphead one floating around, also some of the marks of Huey are pretty interesting, the Frog for example, though we have a pretty decent UH-1B ( although it maybe needs a rework of the skins, which I will hopefully get around to ) there are no Huey Hogs available Jolly greens , we have those and pretty damn good they are too !! not looked at the aircraft themselves in too much detail as I have been looking at the helos more, however there do seem to be a few of interest, Shame about the Razbam stuff though, I read somewhere that the A6's were supposed to be pretty tasty, and I do actually have the Banshee, which I believe is a Razbam model. Anyhow please keep the comments rolling in, especially if you have or still do own any of the YAP stuff.