Skin making Procedure

[GlacierGirl]

Can someone please explane to me what steps I must do in order to make a plane skin and have it put into the game. thank you.

[rogerdee]

ok first u ned some thing like paint shop pr or photo shop.

 if u go to this link it is explained clearer then i can do it
http://www.ah-skins.com/custom-skins.html

there re also some templates and thins to give u an idea

[Citabria]

http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=164558

[GlacierGirl]

what do i have to do to get it approved for online?

[rogerdee]

you need to enclose all the information u use to create the skin ,eg the title of books  and names and addres of web sites used u then submit the skin and the info in a email to HTC who will then look at the skin and check out the information used  to create it

[TexMurphy]

A very good thing to do inorder to increase the quality of your skin is to post work in progress pictures here on the forums. That way you can get feedback on correctness of the skin and on how to improve effects such as planelines, rivets, metal, weathering, color ballance ect ect.

Good luck.
Tex.

[Krusty]

We can give you specific steps to start if you let us know what plane you wish to skin. You need to do something in the hangar and then look for a folder, and doing both of those depends on the plane you want.

You need to select the plane you want, right click, hit "Save default skin" and then look in your Aces High II directory for a "Skins" folder, and inside that for another, depending on the plane you chose it will be named something different.

[GlacierGirl]

ive done a rough draft of a P38J and it looks half decent offline, how do i post the picture in progress on the forum?

[GlacierGirl]

i was also wondering if there are any templates that have the grey background with the rivits and welds on them, because when i did the p38j skin i had to use the default skin and photoshop over the exsisting color and in doing that i lost alot of the detail that i wanted to save.how do most people start a skin.thanks

[Krusty]

Well I can't speak for everyone, but I will take the image into photoshop. I will create outlines over all the major parts (fuselage left, fuselage right, stabilizers up/down, wings up/down, etc) then fill them in with a solid color with the paint bucket. Usually I'll put each part on its own layer so I can work on it later.

Then when I've got all those outline areas filled in I'll start working on panel lines (on their own layer) and rivets (on their own layer).

[GlacierGirl]

when you said layers do you mean, adding on new things to the same template or adding things to several templates and meshing them together?

[United]

If you are using a true image editor such as photoshop or paint shop pro, you will be able to create new "layers" which are visible on the main background, but allow you to paint only on a specific layer.  This allows you to adjust and add different things without messing up the entire skin.

[Krusty]

Think of it as an animation cell. You might have 1 sheet of clear with just the ground painted on it. You might have a second sheet of clear with some trees in the background. You then have another sheet with Mickey Mouse's body and head on it, and separate sheets for his arms and legs. Now they've all got clear on them, so when you stack them all on top of each other they look like a single image, but it's really a composite, and if you don't like the way his arm looks you can remove that layer, you can move it, etc, without affecting any of the other layers at all. It's a powerful tool, and I'd not recommend skinning without using layers.