Hi There, I am nugget, just started learning how to paint. I've got the tools, PCS3 a book on how to use it and so far I have been doing Ok with getting colour on the .psd files. My problem is getting them to work in FSX. I painted a bmp yellow, because I am still learning, no fancy images just all yellow. From the paint kit I have 3 layers, 1.) fuselage, 2.) paint (which is the colour layer)3.) Details I checked in 'channels' and there already is a alpha channel so I didn't have to fiddle with that. So no problem, I painted it layer 2 yellow and as instructed in the paint kit... "New in the FSX Repaint Kit:Lightmaps have to be generated separately now: When you finished yor own paint work, paste the correspondinglightmap (e.g. "PA31_01_L.bmp") on the top of the layers hierarchy of the PSD file, set the transfer mode toMultiply and save as new lightmap."So I moved / copied the L.bmp into my colour layer and moved it to the top of the layers list. I did a "save as" into a bmp and put it into a test texture folder I copied from an exsisting aircraft. I thought that way I would only see changes I made. Saved the new bmp into the texture directory and started FSX. Looking at my handy work, the texture is Ok up close but when I zoom out, it turns to grey / chrome. I am not sure if this is the alpha channel being too grey? ie reflecive? What I am I doing wrong? I have the screen shots in case it would help? Thanks in advance.Butch

Hi Butch :)What format are you saving the bmps in?

Hi Morgan, Its all good now...I actually downloaded your painting guide, printed it out and have followed it step-by-step. Well not exactly step by step which is probably why I ran into so much trouble. What confused me was, I thought you did not need to convert the bmp's to DXT3 extended bmp, ie you could use it raw from PCS3 just saved to bmp. What also messed me up was the original paint kit already had an alpha channel so I thought I didn't need to add one. Opss...I am ok now, my test paint turned up on aircraft Ok so now I can use your guide to add details to the base paint. I guess the biggest challenge now is finding great schemes and getting them on the plane. I am surprised that there aren't any paints for the Cheyenne given its such a nice plane. hint hint... :)Baby steps! Thanks and love your paint guide. Butch