Howdy!

I've been skinning in IL2 and IL2 FB since the former came out. I consider myself fairly competent in skinning.  Recently I've made the jump over to FS2004.

I've just looked through this forum and many of the typical issues a new FS painter has have been solved. MIPS, Alpha layers...ect ect. Really good info on this forum!!!!

Anyways I was wondering if certain resources that we have in the IL2FB community are available in this one. Mainly I'm looking for PSP templates for certain aircraft so I can create my own skins/repaints. I understand that this seems like a rather lazy request, but its a very helpful thing to have.

By the way...skinning in the FS series is soo much harder and complicated than in IL2!!!!!!!! In IL2, you only have one bmp to create that contains the entire aircraft and all its parts plus there no alpha channels to mess with.  Somehow reflection is already programed into the game.  SO...lots of credit to you guys for going through what you have to to make repaints!


Well thats all for now! Hope to make some good paints!

It's not that no one shares templates, but remember, the templates that are out there already - whether as paint kits or whatever, are for specific models.

You can have three Lear Jet 45s, for example, built by different people and using different programs, and their textures are NOT interchangeable.

In programs like IL-2, the company makes the model, and the ONE template can be used for it.

Here.... well, let's say that the default texture mappings are not necessarily the best (try putting text of the vertical fin - it gets mirrored)

Paint kits are really tough to find sometimes, depending on the model you're looking for. 

A good trick that I learned (I think from Hagar or Felix, can't remember--sorry guys) is to create a new layer in your paint program and then basically trace the areas you want to paint over to essentially paint over the existing texture....not as confusing as it sounds.