Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => Custom Skins => Topic started by: Gary26 on March 08, 2011, 11:34:49 PM

Title: Help with nose art.
Post by: Gary26 on March 08, 2011, 11:34:49 PM

Could any of you paint shop or photo shop wizards fix this and make it look good for the game. It turns out I am rather retarded when it comes to this sort of thing. I have been beating my head against the wall for 2 months now and am throwing in the towel. You can repost it here or send me a message in the forums.
Thanks!(If anyone can help)
(http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z184/shortbus1701/noseart1.jpg)

Title: Re: Help with nose art.
Post by: Gary26 on March 08, 2011, 11:36:30 PM

Or maybe if this one is easier.
(http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z184/shortbus1701/bitmap.png)
Just dont want he "square" to show in game.

Title: Re: Help with nose art.
Post by: Chilli on March 09, 2011, 02:34:41 AM

What you are looking for is transparent color to eliminate the gray box.  I think USRanger did a nice tutorial on how to make the nose art.  The problem that I seem to run into is that when I go to convert the bitmap into indexed color mode, it looses a lot of the smooth textures.  So, as the tutorial pointed out using less colors probably results in the best looking product.  Also, watchout for pixels within the art that may convert to the transparent color, leaving holes where they shouldn't be.

I hope this helps if no one is able to do it for you. 

Title: Re: Help with nose art.
Post by: GNucks on March 09, 2011, 10:04:53 AM

Oh, I can try to help you out right here, man.

Software: GIMP. I used PhotoShop in school but I don't have my own copy of the program, but GIMP is great is pretty damn good and it's free. www.gimp.org

Here's a tutorial link I found that teaches you how to make transparent images in GIMP http://www.fabiovisentin.com/tutorial/GIMP_transparent_image/gimp_how_to_make_transparent_image.asp
(I had to read it once because I'm pretty rusty and GIMP's interface is pretty "different")

I only work with .gif's and .png's but I've heard that making transparent colors in a .bmp is a little different. Here's the best wording I've found on the subject:

Quote

To make a transparent bitmap you must make sure that the bitmap has been converted to Indexed 256 colour. 24bit Bitmaps will not make a transparent image. Make sure that pixel (0,0) in the top left most part of the picture has the colour you want to be transparent.

If you have a background colour that you do not want to be transparent put another colour at pixel (0,0), preferably 1 that doesn't appear in the rest of the image. Some image editors allow you to add a colour to the palette if needed. In some cases setting colour 0 in the colour index also can help.

So here's a transparent .png:
(http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/yy170/gnpatent/squadart.png)

Making transparent colors in .png or .gif is just a matter of adjusting the threshold on the fuzzy select tool and maybe using the eraser a little bit and adding the alpha channel.

But for the bitmap I think all you need to do is convert it right and keep that top corner pixel in mind, not sure if I did it correctly...
(http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/yy170/gnpatent/squadart-1.jpg)

You'll notice that a lot of the other nose art in the Aces High squads folder has some sort of gray box. My squad's, for example, has a gray box but it doesn't show up in game.

Good luck man.

Title: Re: Help with nose art.
Post by: Bellator on March 14, 2011, 05:13:26 PM

Aw heck. Gary26 I'll give it a try.
I'm just not smart enough to get it on the forum but I see the e-mail link I can send it to.
I can't read what it says in red so that won't be there.
Here goes.  Check the e-mail

<S> BELLATOR

Title: Re: Help with nose art.
Post by: Gary26 on March 16, 2011, 11:12:13 AM

Thanks. Im working on it slowly. To post pics on here you have to host the pic on a site like photobucket or a site like it. Start a free account add pics then when you start your post in the forums just copy the link in the body of post.