repainting 99af textures

[Guest robystar]

Hi all,A friend of mine is doing a scenery on Antartica. But I guess, to make it a little bit more lively down there, he will need some AI vehicles. The only vehicle I found on tracks is a M113 personnel carrier (usvtracks.zip, can't remember where I found it)that could be repainted white, painting in some windows and there you go, you could have a kind of snow mobile.Unfortunately, the textures are still the old .0af, .1af, etc.and my problem is that I do not know how to repaint them without the textures becoming misplaced on the model (changing extensions to .bmp, repainting, and changing back to .xaf and you get the textures all mixed up). I tried BMP2000, dtx.bmp and some paint programs most of which do not recognize these extensions. I read the bmp2000 instructions on how to repaint the textures but somehow it does not work as no picture shows up if you follow the instructions.So how do I go about or is there anyone that has a clue where to find a vehicle on tracks?Roby

[Guest chris.eve]

I've played this game ... it does work, but I've done it slightly differently to your quoted sequence. Rather than "changing the xaf extension to bmp" I've opened the xaf file in a suitable viewer and saved as bmp. These files can then be edited as usual, and when renamed to xaf work OK (they don't need to be re-saved as xaf, just renamed). I've adapted several old-style models for FS9 scenery in this manner.

[tgibson 11]

Hi,PSP will open them if you define the extensions as type RAW, and then use 256 x 256, RGB order. You get a gray scale, and then have to apply the FS98 color palette (do not change color numbers). I think that's probably available somewhere.This isn't required if you want to start from scratch, of course. The key thing to remember about this is that the BMP file needs to be flipped (I forgot what direction) for it to display properly. I've done it a lot in the past.Hope this helps,--Tom GibsonCal Classic Propliner Page: http://www.calclassic.comFreeflight Design Shop: http://www.freeflightdesign.comDrop by! ___x_x_(")_x_x___

[Guest robystar]

Hi,And thanks to the both of you.DTXBMP and BMP2000 can read those 99af files. Thing is that when you save them as bmp the textures get mixed up even though I flipped them, mirrored them, turned them 90, 180 or 270 degrees.As you state it is possible, I guess I will just go on experimenting until I finally get it right. I do not know either which way they have to be flipped and when to flip them 'cause by changing the extension from .xaf to .bmp and back will probably cause a flip again.Wish there were some more vehicles available.Roby

[MD83 1]

Hi :)Click on this link: http://www.mnwright.btinternet.co.uk/programs/convr8.htmI've used this program several times and it works nicely ;)

[Guest robystar]

Hi,Perfect! Thanks a bunch.Roby

[Guest robystar]

Hi,Convertr8 does not work after all. If you convert say a .0af file into a bmp file and convert it back, you end up with a 0 kb file. Of course r8 is not .xaf.Roby

[tgibson 11]

Those textures are indeed in R8 format (that stands for 8 bit RAW format). But ConvR8 doesn't work for me either - I never get a large image on the right to save or edit.--Tom GibsonCal Classic Propliner Page: http://www.calclassic.comFreeflight Design Shop: http://www.freeflightdesign.comDrop by! ___x_x_(")_x_x___

[Guest chris.eve]

You might care to try the utility here http://www.it.uc.pt/~luis/files/texbmp.html ... works for me.Just got to remember that occaisionally someone may have got to the textures before you and re-edited/re-named them. Also that there are some purported bmp files used as textures that have been hacked to include transparency. That is to say, you may have a file presented as an r8 or xaf that is actually a hacked bmp. These can be a nightmare to open and re-save accurately.

[tgibson 11]

Hi,Yep, that one works fine, thanks.--Tom GibsonCal Classic Propliner Page: http://www.calclassic.comFreeflight Design Shop: http://www.freeflightdesign.comDrop by! ___x_x_(")_x_x___

[MD83 1]

:-hmmmI've just tested Convr8, and it works fine! I opened an image, edited it, and the result is seen below:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/189862.jpgI hope you find a solution :)

[Guest robystar]

Hi everybody,Thanks for all the help.I managed to get it finally done in the following way:I opened the .0af and .1af files with DTXBMP, saved the image as a 256x256 24- bit bmpm sent it to the editor (in my case MSpaint was sufficient), did the repaint, saved it, reloaded the image in DTXBMP, applied the alpha channel for transaparency, and saved it as an extended bitmap but with the extension .0af and .1af.The difficult part was to find out what way you had to flip and turn the image (upside down and then 90