Hey, folks. An extreme Newbie here (JUST started learning this craft this morning...lol).Anyway, a couple of questions if you don't mind.1) what exactly are mip maps and their purpose? I was working on repainting one of my favs (PSS A320). I put text on the livery, followed the steps in the 1st tutorial listed above to save etc, opened it up in FS9 (FSrepaint crashes my system for some reason). There, the Text and aircraft were very blury. COnfused, I went back into DXTbmp, and noticed the save mip map function and deselected it (I remember readin in threads "remove the mip maps!") and the worked. So, I would like to know what the heck they are--if there's a simple exlanation that is...lol2) The text I put on the AC looks great in PSP etc. Hoever, upon zooming in on the ac in FS9, parts of it look "dirty". That is, there are some pixels that are darker in colour than they appear in PSP. any ideas?Anyway, any help at all would be appreciated. I finally decicied to learn this and, after downloadin the free trail of PSP 9, and the other tools mention in the tutorial thread, I'm enjoying the learning process. It's slow for me (no previous graphics work at all) but fun.So, thanks!Shane.

Hi Shane,Welcome to the world of painting, its a fun one :-lolAnyway, mips maps?, they are the spawn of the devil.There are "supposed" to increase performance, but I have never found any performance increase or decrease in performace by using them, plus I have never seen any hard evidence to suggest they do increase performance, all they do is ruin paint jobs.I think the "dirty" effect you are seeing is the conversion from a 24-bit image in PSP, to a DXT3 image.There are 2 ways to combat this, in my eyes a good way and a bad way.The bad way is to use 32-bit textures out of DXTBMP, why do I think this is bad?, because I think 32-bit textures are unneccesary, bloated, and slow loading down.The good way is to run the 24-bit image through a few filters in PSP THEN convert it to DXT3, try using the "photo fixer", and sharpen filters, experiment and you will get good result.Another little tip is always keep a backup of your files in the native file format of your paint program, if you convert back and forth from DXT to 24-bit bitmap and vice-versa you will quickly end up with a mush.Any other help you need just shout.Dan.

Thanks, Dan! :)I now hate mip maps..lolI'll try what you suggested for the "dirty" textures...makes sense to me!I'm sure I'll have further questions.Appreciate the help :)Shane.

Welp, gave up on the A320 from PSS for now...found it too hard to paint with that kit-- 90% is on one layer. A little beyond me for the time being. So...I moved on to my other fav-- the meridian from Flight 1. This kit is much easier to work with.Question: In the kit, the Fuselage is in two pieces (front/rear). Using PSP, what is the easiest way to line up text that spans both? as an example, I'd have "Air Ca" on one, "nada" on the other. Is there a tool in there to assist? or do I gotta eyeball it? Looked around in the program, didn't see anything.PSP is quite the program, I certainly have a way to go :)Shane.

Shane, welcome to painting! What I do when I have parts (as in the new 172) is copy them to a new page and line up all the parts (given they are all the same scale) to create a full fuse. then make a new layer and do my paint on there, then merge and cut and paste it back to the parts and they should line up great. I started this when I tried to paint the old FS2002 bevares and the Dante Otters.Dan is so right about saving your work in the quality format as DXT textures are lower quality and will become very ugly if you reopen and save again, very quick.Hope that helps.Regards, MichaelKDFWhttp://www.calvirair.com/mcpics/PBTMCa.jpgCalVirAir International VACalVirAir International

Thanks, Michael!Very good idea. I shoulda thought of that...LOL. I did notice that there appears to be some overlapping for the fuse textures when I was messing around. But, that could simply have been me and my lack of understanding. I'll give it a shot!As for keeping a "master" file, Started to do that as soon as started to work...lol...I also work with music on my computer. I learned to always keep a good copy of my work while "messing" with it. I do that for most things...just habit :)Thanks again!Shane.

Yeah, I was right...the two sections of the fuse are near imposible to line up. Simply pasting end-to-end, they overlap. So, while the lettering lines up great in PSP, when viewing in FSRepaint, a whole letter gets wiped out. After looking closer in PSP, it's easy to see by looking at the distance between the windows...anyway, if you have the template for the meridian, you'll see what I mean...LOL...Why the heck did I decide to learn this?????? ;)Oh well...It's all a learning process :)Shane.EDIT: Well, I just looked through the library at the repaints...others managed to do what I'm attempting. So...It can be done. I think I know how, it's just a little "tricky"....ok, I'll shut up now...lol

regarding the subject on layers.Try setting the layer settings of the bitmap to multiply.. then create a new layer and draw a coloured rectangle over it :) . You willl see that the fuselage lines and stuff can be seen from the blue rectangle :)Mipmaps are not at all bad things. What they actually do is to help you render the aircraft texture quicker, at the expense of bluriness, hence its preferred for AI planes. :)