PMDG Paintkit Use

[Guest Night Rider]

Can anyone tell me how to convert the PSD files in the PMDG 747-400 paintkit to a form compatible with the standard forms used in the 747-400 texture folders? Maybe there is a save type I should use. I've tried converting them using ImageTool to bmp files, and while that method worked with the PMDG 737NG, it doesn't seem to be acceptable for the PMDG 747. I've also tried converting them using DXTBmp, but I haven't had success with that method so far either.

[Nyuni 1]

Save your final layouts as a 32 bit bitmap in Photoshop. Then run the resulting bitmap file through DXTBmp, and save as an extended bitmap in whatever format you want, whether that be 32 bit or DXT3. Don't forget to add your alpha channel via DXTBmp at that time if you need it.

[Guest Night Rider]

I use Jasc Paintshop Pro (version 8.10). I don't see an option to save it as "32-bit bitmap" Will "Windows or OS/2 Bitmap" option work?

[Guest Daniel Pimentel]

Do a google search for DXTbmp. It does exactly what you're asking.Daniel P.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpgMember of SJU Photography. [A HREF=http://www.jetphotos.net/showphotos.php?userid=9004]Click Here[/A] to view my aircraft photos at JetPhotos.Net!The official psychotic AA painter. :)

[CODY614 6]

http://www.mnwright.btinternet.co.uk/Here is DXTBmpJeff

[vscimone 16]

Collin,Try saving your artwork as a Targa (32 bit), then use Imagetool or DXTBitmap to convert to 32 Bit BMP, or a DXT3 BMP (DXT3 uses about 25% of the texture overhead, but doesn't look as clean as 32 bit).Best,Vin ScimonePMDGwww.precisionmanuals.comhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/devteam.jpg

[Guest Night Rider]

Ok folks. I'll take your suggestions to use DXTBmp to convert them to 32 Bit BMPs and I'll let you know the results when I'm all through.Thanks a lot, Gentlemen.

[Guest Night Rider]

Well, I tried saving the artwork as "Truevision Targa", the only Targa option available in Paintshop Pro. Then, I opened the resulting .tga files in DXTBmp, and noticed that the alpha channel looked garbled and apparently not consistent with the images. Anyway, the only save options DXTBmp gave was "Extended Bitmap" and "24 bit BMP image". When saving as Extended Bitmap and opening the .bmp files with DXTBmp again, DXTBmp reports that the images are only 16 bit files (size 1024x1024). When trying to use these images in FS, not only won't they load, they actually crash FS (actually they freeze it and I have to invoke the Windows Task Manager to shut FS down).Now what do I do?

[Guest thscholz]

Colin,when you save the texture as "Extended Bitmap" in DXTBMP, you will get a dialog prompting you for the file name. Below the file name there's a dropdown list where you can select the type. Select DXT3 or "Extended 32 bit". DXT3 is of lower quality than 32 bit, but DXT3 gives you better performance.CheersThomas

[Guest Night Rider]

Ok folks, I've tried what you've told me to, and still FS won't load the textures. I think at this point I'll relate step-by-step what I did so maybe someone can point out where I might have gone wrong.I first made a copy of the standard texture folder that was loaded in the PMDG 747-400 directory in FS. I made a copy of that whole folder and named this new folder "texture.custom". I then edited the aircraft.cfg file so that I have an additional variation (which I named "custom") to choose to load when loading the PMDG 747. I know that the aircraft.cfg file is not faulty, because I am able to load both the regular house livery selection and the new custom livery selection (even though at this point they both have identical textures) into FS with no problems at all.I then took the seven psd texture files in the paintkit and loaded them into Paintshop Pro (one-by-one, of course), and saved each of them as tga files. So now I now have seven .tga texture files. I now loaded each .tga file into DXTBmp, and saved each of them as two kinds of extended bitmap files (in separate directories, of course). One kind is the plain extended 32-bit bmp, and the other kind is the DXT3 bmp. So, at this point I now have 2 sets of seven bmp texture files.I now tried copying the seven bmp files into my texture.custom folder, overwriting any files having the same name as the ones I'm copying. That way, I'm only changing the original seven bmp files that was originally obtained from the PMDG house texture folder. I tried copying using first the plain extended 32-bit bmp files, then when that didn't work using the DXT3 bmp files. Then, I started FS and after loading the normal original PMDG 747 aircraft I tried to switch to the variation with my new custom textures (which hopefully contains the paintkit textures). Both times it caused FS to hang, forcing me to interrupt the program to unfreeze it.I hope I was clear with my above description. So, any suggestions as to what may be wrong?

[Guest thscholz]

Colin,first excuse me because I had written "32 Bit" instead of "24 Bit" in my previous post.;-) O.K., first the aircraft.cfg:There are sections "fltsim.0", "fltsim.1", "fltsim.2", ...Find the next number in the sequence for your repaint, for example "fltsim.7" (if "fltsim.6" was the last one you found).Copy the contents of another section (for example "fltsim.0") into your section and change the title (like "title=747-400 Custom").Then, and this is important, change the entry "texture" to "texture=custom" as your texture folder is called "texture.custom".Now to the textures.I think that your problem is the fuse. The paintkit comes with the files PMDG_747_FUSE_LEFT_T.psd, PMDG_747_FUSE_RIGHT_T.psd, 747400_Fuse_Cut_Template.psd and 747400_Fuse_Layout_Template.psd.If you compare PMDG_747_FUSE_LEFT_T and PMDG_747_FUSE_RIGHT_T from the paintkit with the textures from the texture folder you'll see, that they have a different layout.What you do is paint PMDG_747_FUSE_LEFT_T.psd, , then use the 747400_Fuse_Cut_Template to cut out the fuselage sections and place them in the 747400_Fuse_Layout_Template. Then save this as PMDG_747_FUSE_LEFT_T.tga and convert it with DXTBMP to PMDG_747_FUSE_LEFT_T.bmp.Repeat this procedure for the right side.I hope this helps.CheersThomas

[Guest Night Rider]

Thomas,I already made the "fltsim.x" changes accordingly in the aircraft.cfg file. I started with the next available number in the .cfg file and increased from there with each section (I'd tell you what I started with, but since I'm at work I am unable to look and tell you right now. I also changed the texture entries in the new sections from "texture=" to "texture=custom".So I guess that the problem is the fuse. When I get home I'll take a more in-depth investigation into that issue. However, from what I remember, I took a look at the 747400_Fuse_Layout_Template.psd with Paintshop, and from what I remember seeing I only saw two rectangles side by side, painted with different colors. I didn't see any template cut-out or something. Was there a special viewer or method to open and use this file?

[Mac_Paint 35]

Colin.If you we're painting a livery for the GW engined model, the config file info should read as follows;{fltsim.X}title=XXX - 747-400F GE CF6 Enginessim=B747-400Fmodel=GEF panel=sound=texture=XXXkb_checklists=PMDG747-400_CHECKatc_id_color=0xffffffffatc_id=XXXatc_airline=XXXatc_flight_number=XXXui_manufacturer=Boeing-PMDGui_type=747-400F GE-CF6 Enginesui_variation=XXXXXReplace the X's with your relevant info. You must change the ui_variation call out from any other livery installed in your aircraft folder else your repaint will fail to load.Make sure your fltsim number is unique and the next higher number and replace my curly brackets with the standard FS brackets.send me a request to our support site and I'll get you going on the paint kit.

[Guest Night Rider]

Pete, here is what the last original entry in the config file was:[fltsim.2]title=PMDG - 747-400 PW4000 Enginessim=B747-400model=PWpanel=sound=PWtexture=kb_checklists=PMDG747-400_CHECKatc_id_color=0xffffffffatc_id=N744PMatc_airline=PMDGatc_flight_number=744ui_manufacturer=Boeing-PMDGui_type=747-400 P&W PW4062 Enginesui_variation=PMDG House Liverydescription=Boeing 747-400 with Pratt & Whitney 4000 Series engines v 1.0nPrecision Manuals Development Groupnwww.precisionmanuals.com nFor use with BOEING 747 by PMDG nFor Technical Support please visit www.precisionmanuals.com or email support@precisionmanuals.com nPMDG Developer and Customer Forum available at our website. nSounds Developed by PMDG nFSUIPC Commercially Licensed from Pete Downson nAll Artwork encoded using Digimark Technology nThank you for supporting PMDG!nvisual_damage=0atc_heavy=1Now, here are the entries I added:[fltsim.3]title=No Livery - 747-400 GE CF6 Enginessim=B747-400model=GEpanel=sound=texture=customkb_checklists=PMDG747-400_CHECKatc_id_color=0xffffffffatc_id=N744NLatc_airline=atc_flight_number=744ui_manufacturer=Boeing-PMDGui_type=747-400 GE-CF6 Enginesui_variation=No Liverydescription=Boeing 747-400 with CF6-80C2B1F engines v 1.0nPrecision Manuals Development Groupnwww.precisionmanuals.com nFor use with BOEING 747 by PMDG nFor Technical Support please visit www.precisionmanuals.com or email support@precisionmanuals.com nPMDG Developer and Customer Forum available at our website. nSounds Developed by PMDG nFSUIPC Commercially Licensed from Pete Downson nAll Artwork encoded using Digimark Technology nThank you for supporting PMDG!nvisual_damage=0atc_heavy=1[fltsim.4]title=No Livery - 747-400 RB211 Enginessim=B747-400model=RRpanel=sound=RRtexture=customkb_checklists=PMDG747-400_CHECKatc_id_color=0xffffffffatc_id=N744NLatc_airline=atc_flight_number=744ui_manufacturer=Boeing-PMDGui_type=747-400 RR RB211 Enginesui_variation=No Liverydescription=Boeing 747-400 with RB211 engines v 1.0nPrecision Manuals Development Groupnwww.precisionmanuals.com nFor use with BOEING 747 by PMDG nFor Technical Support please visit www.precisionmanuals.com or email support@precisionmanuals.com nPMDG Developer and Customer Forum available at our website. nSounds Developed by PMDG nFSUIPC Commercially Licensed from Pete Downson nAll Artwork encoded using Digimark Technology nThank you for supporting PMDG!nvisual_damage=0atc_heavy=1[fltsim.5]title=No Livery - 747-400 PW4000 Enginessim=B747-400model=PWpanel=sound=PWtexture=customkb_checklists=PMDG747-400_CHECKatc_id_color=0xffffffffatc_id=N744NLatc_airline=atc_flight_number=744ui_manufacturer=Boeing-PMDGui_type=747-400 P&W PW4062 Enginesui_variation=No Liverydescription=Boeing 747-400 with Pratt & Whitney 4000 Series engines v 1.0nPrecision Manuals Development Groupnwww.precisionmanuals.com nFor use with BOEING 747 by PMDG nFor Technical Support please visit www.precisionmanuals.com or email support@precisionmanuals.com nPMDG Developer and Customer Forum available at our website. nSounds Developed by PMDG nFSUIPC Commercially Licensed from Pete Downson nAll Artwork encoded using Digimark Technology nThank you for supporting PMDG!nvisual_damage=0atc_heavy=1As you can see, there shouldn't be a problem.I'll contact you at your support site about the paintkit problem.Thanks.

[Guest Night Rider]

By the way, it didn't show on the above, but each section has a fltsim header before it (before the title= lines). The first section (which was the last original section) had a fltsim.2, then the ones after that I had put fltsim.3, then fltsim.4, then fltsim.5 headers respectively. The headers have a square beginning and end brackets before them, but I can't show them to you here because they are special characters for these forum postings and they won't display here.I mention this just so that nobody thinks I forgot to put them in.