Thanks for the compliment
To make a skin, 1st thing you do is decide which plane or other object you want to reskin, and know what you want it to look like in the end. Then you need the the AH map editor. Fire up the editor, create a new map, and put the editor in OBJECT mode. Scroll down the list until you find the thing you want to re-skin, then hit the SAVE TEXTURE button. This copies all the textures used by the plane into a new sub-folder called AH Editor/terrains/yourmap/savedtex. Now close the editor.
In the /savedtex folder, you'll see something like 80 or more .bmp files. Almost all of these are cocpit instruments which are common to all planes, so just delete them. You should end up with only a few .bmp files left. Most of these will have the plane's name in the filenames. Those with just the plane's name (usually 2 files) will be the external skins, while those with CPT or something similar will be the internal cockpit skins. Usually you don't have to worry about them, so just worry about the external skins. There might also be something like MARKINGS.bmp and MARKINGS_a.bmp. If so, you need to keep those as well, because they are either the national insignia or nose art used by the plane.
Once you've thinned the contents of /savedtex down to just what you want to work with, then use a graphics editor (Paintshop or Photoshop) to redo the skins and any markings files used by that plane. For example, when I did the B26, I worked on the following files:
- B26SIDE.bmp: Fuselage side, fin/rudder, and I think engine nacelle as well.
- B26WINGS.bmp: Upper and lower surfaces for wings and horizontal tail IIRC.
- LOGO.bmp: The "Flak Bait" nose art used by the stock skin, which I had to change to the "Missouri Mule".
- LOGO_a.bmp: Alpha mask for above. I'm not sure how this works, but if you have any nose art or markings files, each will have an alpha mask file that needs to be tweaked to match whatever changes you make on the marking .bmp.\
To check your work in the game, you have to build the new skin into a map file using the map editor. Put the skin files in the AH Editor/terrains/yourmap/texsrc folder, open yourmap with the editor, select File/Build, exit the editor, and put the resulting yourmap.res file in the AH/terrains folder. Then run AH offline, use yourmap as the terrain, and see what it looks like. Repeat MANY MANY times until you have it where you like it
