Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => Custom Skins => Topic started by: Reynolds on September 09, 2006, 04:33:35 AM

Title: Help Please!!!
Post by: Reynolds on September 09, 2006, 04:33:35 AM
Okay, I have GIMP. I have my default skin im going to do. Whats next?
Title: Help Please!!!
Post by: rogerdee on September 09, 2006, 09:29:24 AM
you need to go into the ah folder  and  make find the default skinfolder,now make a new folder in ah  eg  if you are doing spit5 as default your folder will be spit51.

now copy  from the origional the bitmap of the skin in to your new folder.
now open gimp  and find your new folder eg spit51  and open it  and find the bitmap of the skin you just put in it.


now  you have your starting point,i dont use gimp but i think it uses layers.
the skin should be 1024 x 1024 if you are doing a old model thats not been updated you might have to resize it.

start  a new layer  and do your first  changes  say bottom wing colour
1st layer grey
2nd layer top wing colour brown
3rd layer top wing grey
etc etc.

always remember  to do different things on different layer then if you **** up  you can just redo that one layer.
and always remeber to save your work as u go along becuase  if something happens  and u loses  a few hours work man u gona be annoyed.i know this from example.

when u want  to view somethng u have to save it in 256colurs 8bit bitmap .then u should be able to view it in the skin viwer to see your progress and line things up.

good luck  and dont give up and dont be afrad to ask things
Title: Help Please!!!
Post by: Reynolds on September 09, 2006, 11:22:30 AM
okay... no offense, I just need advice from someone who knows GIMP, because I am having problems with it. How do I color in GIMP?
Title: Help Please!!!
Post by: Stoney74 on September 09, 2006, 06:21:29 PM
Reynolds,

Have you done the tutorials I told you about?  They're on the same website as the download under "tutorials".  Work through them and you can learn GIMP like I did.  I didn't know jack about it or any other graphics program before I started...
Title: Help Please!!!
Post by: Reynolds on September 09, 2006, 09:28:48 PM
Ive tried. They dont work on my computer (Its a school computer, so things are blocked) and my home computers seem to block it, and I cannot fix that.
Title: Help Please!!!
Post by: Reynolds on September 10, 2006, 12:59:36 AM
Okay, I have TRIED a skin. Yes it sucks big time. I made it with MSPaint. I need the 'frames', I heard I could get just that somewhere, but this is the real big thing. For those of you who have made a P-40E skin with a mouth, how did you make it work? Here is mine, as well as some more pictures:

(http://www.freewebs.com/stepford_child/ahss4.JPG)
(http://www.freewebs.com/stepford_child/98.JPG)
(http://www.freewebs.com/stepford_child/ahss0.JPG) (http://www.freewebs.com/stepford_child/ahss5.JPG) (http://www.freewebs.com/stepford_child/ahss6.JPG)
(http://www.freewebs.com/stepford_child/ahss8.JPG)

Okay, it looks like ****. How do I fix the mouth? And how do I paint with GIMP? And where do I get just the frame?
Title: Help Please!!!
Post by: Stoney74 on September 10, 2006, 01:42:58 AM
I don't know why you can't get to the tutorials--they're just html files...But...

Read through the Help Contents.  They've got some good information in there.

I can't talk you through a skin over the BB.  Do google searches for GIMP.  I've found a lot of stuff that way too...

Good Luck
Title: Help Please!!!
Post by: Reynolds on September 10, 2006, 01:46:13 AM
it says "You are not authorized to view" blah blah. Just how do I do the basic painting? And would you know how to fix that mouth problem?
Title: Help Please!!!
Post by: Easyscor on September 10, 2006, 03:10:55 AM
Quote
Originally posted by Reynolds
it says "You are not authorized to view" blah blah. Just how do I do the basic painting? And would you know how to fix that mouth problem?
Use the help files accessable from the menu bar.  If you didn't install the help files, go back to the gimp site and download gimp-help-2-0.3-setup.zip and install it.  Otherwise the gimp help file default installation is file:///C:/Program%20Files/GIMP-2.0/share/gimp/2.0/help/en/index.html
Title: Help Please!!!
Post by: Schatzi on September 10, 2006, 05:29:16 AM
Stoney, would you mind pointing me towards those GIMP tutorials as well?

Wanted to use it but keep coming back to Photoshop cause i just cant do the things id need to do.
Title: Help Please!!!
Post by: Stoney74 on September 10, 2006, 01:52:07 PM
Hey Reynolds, I just remembered you could have downloaded GIMP from just about anywhere...

Schatzi and Reynolds, try this website...This is where I downloaded and I kept going back.  Sorry for the confusion.  Lots of good gouge on this site.  Honestly though, when I got stumped with something, I would just do a google search for "using gimp to [insert your effect here]".  Lots of blogs and stuff for gimp.  A good many of these tutorials apply.  Concentrate on the layers, selections, lines, paths, etc.  I'm not sure I have the patience to put a tutorial together for AH skins, but I'll be more than happy to help with specific questions on what tools to use for specific effects.

And Reynolds, part of the problem with that mouth is probably the way the model wraps the bitmap file.  I've had a lot of problems with my jug skin just getting the individual skin sections to match up.  Lots of trial and error.  I'll see if I can't maybe put some screen shots together to post to demonstrate how I try and line up the different sections.  If you look at the last post on Puck's LA, he has a screen shot showing how he tried to figure out the way the model wraps the skin sections...

http://www.gimp.org/

http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/
Title: Help Please!!!
Post by: rogerdee on September 10, 2006, 04:56:02 PM
the p40 e has  a mouth already on it in as  a seperate peice you have to great  a alpha layer i think  to block out this part of the skin.


you paaint that part of the skin say pink then you have to create  a text file in your p40e folder

as the side  is called p40esd  you have to create a text file and mark it p40esd_a  then once you have your bitmap you have to find the index colour for the pink u used  as the mask  then type this number in the text file.

that will block out the other mouth
Title: Help Please!!!
Post by: Reynolds on September 11, 2006, 12:54:45 AM
Holy crap that makes no sense!!! Um, anyway I can pick up that file from somewhere? Someone who already did it and understands the coding? Im as confused as a drunk monkey on crack when it comes to codeing.
Title: Help Please!!!
Post by: Furball on September 11, 2006, 02:02:23 AM
Quote
Originally posted by Schatzi
Stoney, would you mind pointing me towards those GIMP tutorials as well?


Having trouble controlling your GIMP?