"Making Custom Skins
1. Go into the hangar and select the plane you wish to make a skin for. We'll use the P-51D in this example.
2. Right click the P-51D in the plane selection list and select Save Skin. This will export the default skin bitmaps for the P-51D to the folder ../HTC/Aces High/skins/p51d. The name of the export directory will always be the base name of the plane, vehicle, or boat.
3. Create a new folder in the skins directory with the same name as the export folder but with a number appended to the end. In the example of the P-51D, this directory would be named "p51d_1". For each additional skin you make for a specific plane, the number in the name of the directory should be incremented by one so that the directories for each additional P-51D skin would be named p51d_2, p51d_3, p51d_4, etc, all the way up to p51d_15 which is the maximum limit. This will be called your working directory in this discussion.
4. In the export directory, view the .bmp's and decide which ones you wish to modify. Copy the files that you will be modifying from the export directory to the working directory you created in step 3. IMPORTANT: Copy ONLY those files that you will be changing.
Note: There are 3 types of files in the export directory:
* ***.bmp - The color part of a texture. This is what you will be modifying.
* ***_a.bmp - The alpha channel of a texture.
* ***.txt - 256 color textures can have a transparent index, this contains that index. There is also a material.txt file, for some planes, which contains various settings to allow for painted, versus bare metal skins.
5. If the name of the .bmp that you wish to modify has an alpha or transparency file associated with it, you will need to copy that file to your new skins directory as well. Example: If you wish to modify a file called p51dside.bmp and there is also a file called p51dside_a.bmp or p51dside.txt, then you will need to copy those files in addition to p51dside.bmp to your working directory.
6. Modify the bitmap files in your working directory using a graphics editor. Note: Do not change the color format, all files should be 256 color bitmaps. Additionally, we will not accept a custom skin unless it is in 1024x1024 resolution. Older planes used 256x256 resolution and must be upgraded when doing a custom skin
7. Describe your skin. Create a .txt file in your working directory with the base name of the plane. Example: p51d.txt. This is a one line text file that contains the description of your skin and is displayed on the clipboard in the hangar. Open the text file and enter your skin description on the first line. Example: ###FG/###FS by PlayerName. Keep the length of your description short enough so that it will fit within the skin field on the clipboard, 30 characters or less.
8. To see your skin in the game, go to the hangar and select the plane you modified. Use the skin dropbox on the clipboard to select your skin. Now fly with your new skin. Or you can optionally download and install the offline skin viewer. Please note, the skin viewer does get updated from time to time. Always check for a new version as we release updates to the game."
