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Evil Knedl

My first try painting and it is a dead end, advice needed

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Hello everyone!

I thought to create me a fictional livery for a pmdg 777-200. As i have some experiences in handling photoshop i gave it a go, but soon got stucked when DXTBmp simply wouldn't want to save the TGA as .dds texture. No messaage/warrning/error, nothing moved so i dumped the program.

I run a 64 bit win 7 and the livery would be for FS:SE

 

If someone experienced same problems with DTX and has a working solution to it, that would be fantastic to hear.

 

I have TGAs ready and if there is a good soul outthere that would be so kind to recheck and convert them to .dds for me that would be a blast and i would really appreciate it!

 

Thanks

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Hi...

 

Look for "ConvImX" it easily converts between all the file formats used in FS and it can do large batches of files... It's free and created by the same guy who made some of the other image converters for FS...

 

Regards,

Scott


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I use the nvidia plug in for PS to convert to DDS format without having to create intermediate TGA files.

Here's the link to the site.

 

https://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-texture-tools-adobe-photoshop

 

After this is installed, simply "save as" to the DDS format.

 

[you have to flatten the file before saving]

Edited by RichieFly

Richard Chafey

 

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+1 - The NVidia plugin is absolutely the way to go. Neat and clean and excellent DTX compression algorithm.


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Guest JustanotherPilot

With my repaints I use the Imagetool that comes with the FSX and Prepar3D SDK, with the 777 you do your paint with Photoshop, flatten then import directly with Imagetool -->Format DXT5 -->Save as DDS. I used to save as ExBmp then import with Imagetool but now I just use the Photoshop files, saves a lot of time

steve

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Hi...

 

Look for "ConvImX" it easily converts between all the file formats used in FS and it can do large batches of files... It's free and created by the same guy who made some of the other image converters for FS...

 

Regards,

Scott

Thank you Scott that program solved my problems! :smile: :smile: :smile:

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+1 on the nVidia plugin.

 

 

 


you have to flatten the file before saving

 

No you don't.

 

Do a Save As... and there is no need to  flatten layers.

 

Having personally made the mistake of saving as a .PSD after flattening I will never again flatten my images, never.

 

Simply can't go thru the recovery time again, caused by banging my head on a hard surface after losing all of my layers.

 

regards,

Joe


The best gift you can give your children is your time.

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+1 on not needing to flatten when using the Nvidia plugin

 

Also there's a check box in the Nvidia dialog to flip the image for you when saving to DDS. That saves the trouble of needing to flip the image in PS.


Barry Friedman

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Many versions of PS won't by default handle DDS files correctly for repainting unless you add a plug in, even though they are usually what is needed to actualy do a decent repaint since most paint kits are PSD files. So, if you can't save it from PS and or can't be arsed setting PS up to do so, you can either save out a bog standard jpeg or similar from PS after you've done your paint job, then open that jpeg up in DTXBmp (search google for it, it's free) and that will save in all formats FS uses (DDS, DXT etc), or, you can download Paint.net (also free), which can handle DDS files and save in suitable formats, and is basically a freebie version of Photoshop, so it can also open PSD file paint kits with all the layers.


Alan Bradbury

Check out my youtube flight sim videos: Here

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Saving as a JPG is not recommended as this is a lossy compressed format, so using it as an exchange format degrades the quality of your hard repaint work. If you need a file exchange medium, use TGA (TARGA) as it is a lossless format.

  • Upvote 1

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That is true, however it depends on what settings you choose when saving a JPEG, generally speaking JPEG is indeed lossy if you leave the standard settings selected when saving, albeit 10:1 which is barely perceptible unless you do a lot of repeated saves, there is however a lossless coding mode built into in the JPEG format which you can choose when saving.


Alan Bradbury

Check out my youtube flight sim videos: Here

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..or just use TGA :smile:


13900K@5.8GHz - ROG Strix Z790-E - 2X16Gb G.Skill Trident DDR5 6400 CL32 - MSI RTX 4090 Suprim X - WD SN850X 2 TB M.2 - XPG S70 Blade 2 TB M.2 - MSI A1000G PCIE5 1000 W 80+ Gold PSU - Liam Li 011 Dynamic Razer case - 58" Panasonic TC-58AX800U 4K - Pico 4 VR  HMD - WinWing HOTAS Orion2 MAX - ProFlight Pedals - TrackIR 5 - W11 Pro (Passmark:12574, CPU:63110-Single:4785, GPU:50688)

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Yup :-)


Alan Bradbury

Check out my youtube flight sim videos: Here

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Nobody mentioned it here, personally  I use PNG instead of TGA, as I am mainly painting for X-Plane, PNG is the default file-type for aircraft textures in X-Plane. ( DDS works in X-Plane too) 
DXTbmp`s conversion works extremely well with PNG.


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