How The.....

[bkbandit]

I want to start doing my own skin for my 51, i read the skins page and it went right over my head. SOunded like some computer programming stuff. Could you help me out. I get alot of ideas for skins but i cant bring it to life. Please explain to a knuckle head like me.

[Nr_RaVeN]

The  tutorial has all the info you need it will make sense if you keep reading it. Then try it out first hand
Ill try to simplify it  in steps for you.

1.First open the game and select OFFLINE.
2. From the hanger find the DEFAULT skin of the air craft you what to paint.
3. Then right click on the default skin. A menu will open you will see on the bottom SAVE DEFAULT SKIN.
Click that.
4. Now open your aces high main folder and go to skins......  open that.
5 Lets say you picked a spitV you will look for a folder that says........ SpitV.
6. Ok now next to that folder on a blank spot right click and select new/ then folder. (make a folder)not sure how much help ya need so im getting a bit detailed.

7. Now name that folder spitV1  if you paint another spit call the next folder spitV2 and so on.
8. Now into the folder called spitV and find the BMP of the defult  skin copy it.(it will be named spitV1)
9. Go back and open the spitV1 folder and paste it in there.
10.  Ok now open a text file.  Give the new spit your painting a name type the name lets call it "spit test"  close the folder it will ask you to save.. save it.
11.  Now rename that text file spitV.
12. You are ready to paint . open your favorite paint program and do your thing.
13. when your done save it as a BMP @  256 colors, that will give you a 1 meg file.
14. drop that file into your  new spitV1 folder making sure you named the BMP spitV1
15. Then go in the hanger OFFLINE and find it it will be calle "test spit "because thats what you named it   in the tex file spitV.
that's it.
I would recommend that you downloaded the 1024x tex pack that you will fined were you read about skins. print this out and go step by step and you see  that it's very simple once you do it.  
I hope I was clear.... if not feel free to PM me
~S~ RaVe

[bkbandit]

thanks alot

[bkbandit]

Thanks 4 the step by step helped me tons.. thank you raven. BUT.......now here is the problem im haveing. Im useing the crapy paint program that comes with the pc and when i shrink the pics to fit them on the plane they get distorted to the point where it isnt easy to make out. how do i get around this??

[Nr_RaVeN]

I don't know a thing about "PAINT" im the wrong guy on that one.
I do know its best if you start with images that are close to the size you need instead of reducing them.
if you  want to put stars and bars on that mustang of yours I would suggest finding some pre made markings  


Try this link

[rogerdee]

bkbandit  got to some where like paintshop  and get there free trial sample,u gt i think 3 months  to use it before you have to pay or not pay.

  you will make life easier for u

[bkbandit]

It just ran out lol. I was saying that all last nite, i had paint shop pro 8 or something like that.

[Krusty]

Frankly, you cannot use MS Paint to make skins. It doesn't have the options needed. You *could* make skins with it, but it will take 1000x the effort and will look 1/1000th as good in the end.

[Skuzzy]

Also note, the P51D's slots are all filled.  We have a limnit of 15 custom skins per plane.  However, if a skin is good enough and different enough it will get rotated around with the others.  Not often, but it can happen.

[bkbandit]

WHat program should i use to make skins??

I dont want to submit any skins to htc, i just want my ride to have its own look.

[Kev367th]

Heard Gimp is a good freeware one.

[Bullethead]

Krusty said:

MS Paint ... You *could* make skins with it, but it will take 1000x the effort and will look 1/1000th as good in the end.

This is most definitely the case.  I made my 1st skin with MS paint, and it was a complete and total *****, and looked like crap.  You have to do all anti-aliasing by hand and eyeball, 1 pixel at a time, without benefit of layers.  I cannot advise against attempting this strongly enough.  But I was happy enough with the result to want to do more skins, and thus could justify dropping the $$$ for a real editor.

But that's the rub:  you don't know until you've made a skin whether you'll enjoy the process enough to justify the expense of a real editor.  So my advice to you is either get a trial version of Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro, or try that free Gimp thing I've heard about but never used.  Make a skin with one of these, and if you enjoy it enough to want to do another, you'll be cool with spending the money on a real editor.

[Nr_RaVeN]

Originally posted by bkbandit
WHat program should i use to make skins??

I dont want to submit any skins to htc, i just want my ride to have its own look.

Did you know that you can only use the skins you make offline?

[bkbandit]

So i cant make my own skin and use it online.  I though u could make a custom skin for "your" own planes.  I though u only submit skins if you where that good at makeing them and wanted to share them with the rest of ah.

[Nr_RaVeN]

yea you cant make one and use it online unless HTC  accepts it
only off line