Hey

What do you use to paint aircraft?
I don't have a clue, i tried paint but that was too hard. And everything i find on simviation is too complicated and needs paint experience.

cheers
forfun

If you find MS Paint to hard, there's no sense trying any other free program.

The simplest - (open texture, create repaint variant) - would then be Abacus' FS Repaint.

When you say you found paint too hard, do you mean hard to use, or hard to achieve the desired results?

I use DXT BMP and Photoshop.

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I'll take your word on that. I prefer not to use it at all.

I think the whole point is that whichever graphics editor(s) you choose, it's important to have some idea of the basic features & functions and know how to use the program before attempting to repaint textures. A little artistic talent wouldn't go amiss either. I know the basics & can teach people how it's done but I will never make a decent repainter if I live for another 50 years - which is highly doubtful.

It's also important to be familiar with the standard image file formats & special FS texture formats. There's plenty of repainting tutes posted here at SimV & other popular FS sites. Whichever sim you intend your repaints for (except perhaps FS98/CFS1) DXTBmp is essential for converting the textures from & to the appropriate format.

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I'm not sure Martin Wright gets the credit he deserves for creating all his wonderful free utilities. For example; whatever would we do without DXTBmp?

I can claim a tiny contribution to the development of DXTBmp. When CFS2 was first released someone mailed me asking how to open the new texture format. I had no idea so naturally mailed MW & asked him. He didn't have CFS2 at the time so asked me to send him a couple of sample textures. Within a couple of hours he sent me a lttle DOS application to try. He even took the trouble to explain how to use it as I was useless with DOS at the time. (I'm not much better now but I know enough to be dangerous. ) It naturally worked fine & after a few tweaks it became the first version of DXTBmp.

I'm sure someone else would have asked him anyway but I'm very proud of that. 8)

PS. I almost forgot. Thanks Martin.

Hey ppl

When i said i found paint to hard, i meant it was too hard to acces the features that i thought i needed.

After posting this topic yesterday, i found that i have Adobe Imageready, i started using it and i found that i prefer it to photoshop.

What do you guys think of Imageready?, Is there any cons that make it unsuitable for repainting?

cheers again
forfun

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At the risk of sounding like a commercial, Abacus' FS Repaint allows you to open a create a repaint variant (modifies the aircraft.cfg file for you) copying the "parent" textures to the new variant folder (unless, of course, you want to change the existing textures) and edit (paint) the new textures, inlcuding the alpha channels, etc. without having to use one program for image conversion, one program for editing, another conversion to/from alpha channel, etc.

In addition, by using the default editor, you get to see your changes - as you make them.

Granted, there many who prefer to do the conversion and use "high end" graphics programs, but FS Repaint allows you to export the texture to your graphics program and bring it back so you can see the changes to your iamges on the model, without starting up or running FS2004 in the background.