so i have been playing FSX for a long time now, and have always tried to do some repaints. I love working with photoshop so i figured it'd be fun. not at all, for years i have been trying to do repaints and they never work haha. i finally decided im going to seek help and see what the hell im doing wrong. i feel like its such a noob thing that im missing. i have followed tutorials and everything nothing works. lets start with my carenado c340II which has all bmp texture files. i put the file into dxtbmp back up the alpha, then "send to editor" do few lil things in photoshop save again as bmp. overwrite old with new file make sure alpha is still there (i usually reload backup all the time anyway) and the file will come up grey shiny. it says in faq that the alpha is to bright but doesnt say where in dxtbmp to edit it. say with the new carenado malibu mirage its dds files. those will just show random parts of the image its very odd. i save the dds as dds5. someone please help, ive spent a lot of money on add on planes and would love to do some cool repaints, at this point ill paypal someone $20 if they sit with me on skype and let me know where the hell im going wrong (payment upon working repaints)

DXTBmp is not an image editor, you can't really "edit the Alpha" with that program.

 

You have to send the Alpha to Photoshop and edit it there.

 

Before you do anything with DXTBmp back up the image you are editing. This is all the backup you need, though you would get better results working with a paint kit as opposed to editing an existing image that has already been compressed.

 

As you work with the images in PS, save the .psd files and work from those. You can keep the .psd files for backup.

 

The workflow through DXTBmp is pretty simple.

 

1) open the image you want to edit

 

2) send the image to PS

 

3) make your changes in PS. The diffuse(RGB) will be norm.bmp and the Alpha will be trans.bmp.

 

4) save your changes to norm.bmp and/or trans.bmp in PS

 

5) in DXTBmp, refresh image, then save it in your desired format.

 

If you are working on .DDS textures you should get the nVidia plugin for PS. You will then not need DXTBmp as you will be able to open the .DDS textures directly in PS.

 

Google "DDS Nvidia Photoshop plugin" to find it.

 

regards,

Joe

3) make your changes in PS. The diffuse(RGB) will be norm.bmp and the Alpha will be trans.bmp.

 

im not sure what you mean by this. i dont mess with the alpha file. should i be? ill definately look into the nvidia plug in.

 

UPDATE ive gotten it to now the parts dont show correctly on the plane. so the tail is my ailerons and the elevator is the ailerons. my changes are showing but it seems like its all confused on what goes where.

 

UPDATE 2 i got the dds plugin, but im still getting the same issue with the parts not showing up correctly, again changes are there but the parts are scrambled. am i saving it as the wrong file format? i use the dxt5. save to desktop then copy and over write file in simobjects\airplanes

sounds like you texture needs to be flipped...

 

There's a checkbox when you're saving throught the plugin to automatically flip the texture, make sure it's checked (or rotate your canvas 180 if you're working on a nupside-down texture sheet!).

i dont flip the textures during editing but ok ill double check that

sounds like you texture needs to be flipped...

 

There's a checkbox when you're saving throught the plugin to automatically flip the texture, make sure it's checked (or rotate your canvas 180 if you're working on a nupside-down texture sheet!).

 

YOUR THE MAN!!!!!!!!!! whether i flip it or not i didnt know it needed to be saved flipped THANKS SO MUCH NOW I HOPE THAT WAS THE ISSUE WITH ALL OF THEM!!!! OMG IM SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW!!!!!!

 

 

(or rotate your canvas 180 if you're working on a nupside-down texture sheet!).

Rotating your canvas 180 is not the same as flipping vertically.

 

Best to stick with flipping or you could end up with a mess.

 

When you flip, top becomes bottom, left stays on the left.

 

When you rotate 180, top becomes bottom, left becomes right.

 

regards,

Joe

Aye, true that.... Must be working too hard!