Help with skins

[Reynolds]

Those of you who dont mind helping an idiot, i am interested in making my own skins. I just need to know the basics:

1. Can i do it in Microsoft Paint?

2. I tried toying with the 110, but some colors dont work! I try to use yellow, and on some parts it comes out grey! Whats up with that?

3. Are there any FREE programs to make skins look good (add weathering without zooming in and making dot-by-dot black specks, crome effects...)

4. Anyway i cal clear a skin entirely, and just leave like... a stencil to fill in?

Please dont respond to this unless you are willing to help someone who has no clue what they are doing. And so ya know, im looking into doing a P40 skin (Not sure which yet), a Bf-109 G2 (Not sure again, but definately a yellow-nose), and a B-something.

[Reynolds]

Okay, i wanted to start with a 109 F. One of these three:

 


Bf-109 F-4 "yellow 1" of 9./JG52







Bf-109 F-4 "Yellow 8" of 9./JG52






Bf-109 F-4 "Yellow 9" of 9./JG52






Personally, i think Yellow 8 will be easiest. But can anyone help me MAKE them? (I have no idea what to do, and the only editing software i have is Microsoft Paint)

[rogerdee]

first off skins  are not easy  yo will get  annoyed  frustrated  and some time wound up.
the good thing is when it goes  right  it  looks great  and the feeling you get when its completed and others enjoy it to  is good.


Ok  ms paint  is not good enough to do a skin it will never give the quality you are looking for,ther are some programs out there that give  you a trial peroid  to use them then u have to pay.
  personaly i use paint shop pro 8 psp9 is out now  and i think you get  a 90 day trail which is ok if you dont like skinning you wont lose any money.
  also there is photoshop  and i think a program that is total free is called gimp.
   you need   a program where u can do things in layers.
e.g  1st layer green camo 2nd  brown 3rd panel line 4th rivits  ect.ect.

what ever program u get get one  that  supports layers.
    you cant get  just  a blank profile  and start from there you have to start with  the bmp of the plane yo are going to use.

  i dont kow if you have made  a folder already for your skin so ill start  at the begining.
  Firt you got to go in to AH  in to hanger  and pick the plane you ewant in this case 109f  right click mouse  and another box appears it should have something saying save default skin left click it to save the 109f skin,now you can exit game.
 you have to go i to your AH program next  so look in windows  for programs then HTC click on that to Ah2 tthen click  and you should fins a list of folders. find the skin folder and open this. now you should have  one yellow folder with bf109f  and a lot of files  ending in .res.
    now in ths  skins folder you need to make  a new folder  and rename it  109f1 as its your first extra 109f if you do more you need to do them 109f2 109f3 ect.
   if you refersh the page now  the new folder you just made should be next to the origional 109f folder  for ease.
  ok now  open the first 109f folder  and look for the bmp of the skin  and copy this  to the folder you have just made,also copy the text folder  as wellinto your new folder.
  now depends on what program u are going to use you will need to open the 109f1 folder in your program  and then u can start work.

  i hope this helps you

any more problems feel free to ask

[Stoney74]

Hey Reynolds, I just started myself, and the learning curve, as with everything in this game is steep.

But, there are tons of resources out there to help.  Go to the AH Skins website and United's website.  Lots of tutorials and so on.  The AH Skins site has some ready made templates for a lot of the aircraft.  That's where I got the stuff for the F4F I just posted.

For me, I was sure I'd be interested enough to justify the bucks for the graphics programs out there.  So, I downloaded GIMP, and have been using it.  There's not a lot of supporting documentation, but just experiment with it and you should be able to start learning soon enough.  Lots of trial and error.  But, you learn, and eventually you'll be able to put stuff together that's presentable...

Good Luck

[Reynolds]

Yeah, i just have no money for any programs with layers. I started last night  in MS paint, an im just about to see how ive made it look...

[MotleyCH]

I have not tried this program..but it's suppose to support layers.

http://www.getpaint.net/index.html

oh ya..here's another one.

http://www.gimp.org/

[Reynolds]

thanks!

[Stoney74]

GIMP works really well.  And, its free.

[Reynolds]

Alright, and how do i use these layers?

[Stoney74]

What I did to start learning was work through some of the tutorials posted on their website.  Some of them have absolutely nothing to do with making skins, but they'll get you accustomed to using the program.  Almost all of the tutorials use layers.  Then once you've learned a bit about the mechanics of the program, start trying some skins.  

A good one to try out is the gold text tutorial.  It'll teach you how to make some cool metal effects, and there's some layer use as well.

[Reynolds]

Alright... ill see what i have time for... Ummmm, how do i USE GIMP. How do i open it?

[Reynolds]

Okay, well, everytime i try this, when i test the skin out in-game, where i made the skins dark grey, they come out as the default... Also, if anyone has interest, i dont care if someone else does these, i just want to see them done!

[macleod01]

I think i had the same problem. Every time you select your skin, it goes back to default, am I right?

[Stoney74]

Make sure that the skins are saved as a .bmp file, and that they are 8 bit, not 24 bit.  I had this problem over the weekend.  With GIMP, in order to change it to 8 bit, you have to convert it to an indexed image.

[Reynolds]

Okay...