Creating custom liveries

[titansteel11 0]

Hi,Just wondering how difficult it is to create custom liveries for pmdg aircraft? I have never created any before and would just like to know how much prior knowledge/reading it takes to be able to start creating them.Thanks,Alex Steel

[Tabs 2,790]

Alex,You basically need to be familiar with a graphics design/editing program such as Adobe Photoshop. It's far too involved to tell you how to use it in a forum post (I don't even know myself, I'm not a repaint guy) but I know there's lots of tutorials if you search around elsewhere on Avsim and on Google.

[titansteel11 0]

Okay cheers, I guess it's something I'll just have to look into and hopefully I will end up with a good looking repaint for my new NGX :smile:Alex Steel

[XPX64man 130]

I've never created any either, but I plan on trying my hand on the NGX.I know that you need an image editor like Photoshop or some of the less expensive ones. I don't know what is going to be involved in converting the finished .jpg or .bmp files to work within the new load manager, but I'm thinking that the paint kit will have a tool to convert them to the proper format.I have Photoshop CS5 and Illustrator CS5, so I believe those are the main software programs needed. Then I have some sign programs that are great for setting up letters and logos which can also be imported into Photoshop.I'm looking forward to trying it out.There are a lot of tutorials floating around that show the basics of making paints.Bob

[AAfan 49]

To try repainting out, you will need to download gimp (free) and just play with it for awhile and then you will get a feel for what it can do and then you try a paintkit, make sure to use the layers correct, chop up the base texture accordingly, and then save as the correct format and place in the aircraft folder, it sounds easy, but its not :( Just try it out and you might find you like it like I do!

[XPX64man 130]

To try repainting out, you will need to download gimp (free) and just play with it for awhile and then you will get a feel for what it can do and then you try a paintkit, make sure to use the layers correct, chop up the base texture accordingly, and then save as the correct format and place in the aircraft folder, it sounds easy, but its not :( Just try it out and you might find you like it like I do!

I see that Gimp is a free replacement to Photoshop. What is involved in converting the finished files to a format that can be used by the Livery Manager?

[AAfan 49]

My guess would be you would put all the files into a folder with some kind of doc that tells that paint what to do in the repaint manager and you then save as a .pmdg file and should work, remember this is just a guess!

[JD396 38]

I used to dink around repainting freeware FS9 aircraft on Photoshop. It's as difficult as you want it to be. For source material, there's sites around where you can find SVGs of airline logos, and hi res photos at airliners.net. If you have a good graphics editor, with a bit of practice with layers and such and a decent paintkit you can probably make passable liveries. It's just a matter of how good you want them to look. I decided that everything I tried looked like crap and never posted anything anywhere.. The only passable ones I ever made were an NW Airlink livery for some freeware Dash 8 a Mongolian Airlines (why? I don't know) POSKY 737. That one actually wasnt too bad I accidentally merged the layers and saved it with some stuff to finish but it still didn't look too awful.

I see that Gimp is a free replacement to Photoshop. What is involved in converting the finished files to a format that can be used by the Livery Manager?

DXTBmp is a free tool that can convert the textures into something you can edit and back again.

[Sawydz 4]

Alex, try this: PMDG Livery Paint Tutorial for FSX & FS9 by Dan Prunier, he's great painter and he writes great tutorials

[AAfan 49]

Dtx bmp limits textures to 2048 by 2048 which will loose some quality on the NGX which I believe has 4096 textures, best way to do it is save right to a dtx5 which saves quality and has the performance of a 1024 texture

[titansteel11 0]

Alex, try this: PMDG Livery Paint Tutorial for FSX & FS9 by Dan Prunier, he's great painter and he writes great tutorials

Cheers, that looks like a real good tutorial on how to start! Looks like it's gonna take a lot of time though! Better get down to it if I'm going to have it ready for release!!Alex Steel

[AAfan 49]

You will have fun once you figure it out!

[WTE_Pharoah 7]

yeah mate...you need to start on something that isn't too difficult...like...ummm...*cough* Air Pacific *cough* :(

[marijn747berg 1]

yeah mate...you need to start on something that isn't too difficult...like...ummm...*cough* Air Pacific *cough*

Well, the one without the panorama picture picture on the side is actually quite a good starting point:p

[Efussander 0]

To try repainting out, you will need to download gimp (free) and just play with it for awhile and then you will get a feel for what it can do and then you try a paintkit, make sure to use the layers correct, chop up the base texture accordingly, and then save as the correct format and place in the aircraft folder, it sounds easy, but its not :( Just try it out and you might find you like it like I do!

I see that Gimp is a free replacement to Photoshop. What is involved in converting the finished files to a format that can be used by the Livery Manager?

For those using Gimp, I HIGHLY recommend Paint.NET. It is free, and IMO so much better than gimp. The features are about the same, but the UI is so much nicer, cleaner, and easier to use. It lets you have full layer, transparency, etc capabilities. Give it a shot!Here's the website where you can read up on the features and learn how to use it: http://www.getpaint.net/Here's the DL link: http://www.getpaint.net/download.html