Help creating a new skin with the template

Help! I need some guidance creating a new aircraft skin from a template using Gimp. I have searched the forum but can't find anything addressing my issue.

To date I have learned to take an existing .dds file, modify it in Gimp, export it, and install it back in DCS. So no problem there.

My issue is when I use the official F/A-18 template .psd file. After modifying it in Gimp and installing back in DCS, it does not work. I can select it by name, but it displays as if no changes were made to the file.

After making my changes, I do the following:

Flatten the image

Add an Alpha channel

Export as a .dds file.

Any help or guidance will be sincerely appreciated.

Not to sure about Gimp, but Gimp obviously has a DDS conversion pluggin now. You can also get a free trial for Photoshop that might convince you to get it.

But What I would try is this:

Get DXTBMP : https://dxtbmp.software.informer.com/4.0/ Free download

1. Dont flatten the image just Export the texture you have edited from Gimp to wherever you want as a windows bmp file.

2. Open the texture in DXTBMP and save it as DDS DXT5

This should work, also try saving it to DXT5 on you Gimp DDS pluggin it may support it, I dont know.

Help! I need some guidance creating a new aircraft skin from a template using Gimp. I have searched the forum but can't find anything addressing my issue.

 

To date I have learned to take an existing .dds file, modify it in Gimp, export it, and install it back in DCS. So no problem there.

 

 

My issue is when I use the official F/A-18 template .psd file. After modifying it in Gimp and installing back in DCS, it does not work. I can select it by name, but it displays as if no changes were made to the file.

 

After making my changes, I do the following:

 

Flatten the image

 

Add an Alpha channel

 

Export as a .dds file.

 

Any help or guidance will be sincerely appreciated.

I can'T really help as i have never worked with GIMP, always been in Photoshop, but one thing you can try is, if the problems occurs with the settigns you've made with the DDS, would simply take one of the defaults liveries DDS of the module you wanna create the liveries for, copy it and name it how your own liveries would be name, open that DDS, from your created gimp visual, if it'S available in it, again i do not know that sofware, make a select all merge, or a select all of your flattened visual, paste it in the default DDS you've made, flatten it and save it as it with the default settings it had. Now check it out if it works.

Thank you for the responses. I can’t get to it right now but will try these at the first opportunity.

I use the Gimp .dds plug-in, but instead of flattening the image before exporting I merge visible layers and then export as .dds (DXT5 with mip maps).

No need to merge or flatten layers in Gimp. Just create a Group folder and put all existing layers and groups into that one (maintaining the same order). Then, select that folder before you do your EXPORT AS *.dds and you should be good to go.

Thanks so much for the responses everyone. It turns out my problem was not with Gimp but with the description.lua. After some trial and error comparing mine with description.lua files from other skins, I was able to create a brand new livery from the templates.

Again, thanks for reaching out with your experience.

can you share with us your solution?