Pilot Skins Help

Hi Guys, i am sure this subject has been done to death, but as a complete novice, could someone kindly provide me with an idiot proof guide to adding pilot skins/helmets to the A-10C or other aircraft. I downloaded Homefries excellent Photoshop template (A-10& F/A 18C), and i can see everything in photoshop, but how do i save the specific flightsuit with patches, i know how to save to .BMP not sure about 24 or 32 bit, DXT or dds convertions. Then finally where and how do i up load into DCS for use, so i can see the pilot from an external view.

I know its a lot to ask, but i would really appreciate your guidance to help with my emersion of this Epic Combat Flight Simulator.

Regards

Raymin

Wow, i am amazed no one has come forward to provide some help under this topic, i can clearly see there is some serious talent across this forum, but obviously knowledge is power and those in the know want to keep it this way.

I have zero knowledge when it comes to adding pilot skins or any other skins for that matter, but i just thought, someone would be willing to point me in the right direction, rather than having to look at the plain pilot (original) skin for the A-10C.

Thanks anyway!!!!!

I would also appreciate help on calling the pilot from the description file... Thanks!

Hi fellas,

I didn't see your post until now. FWIW, you might have had better luck posting in the Liveries/Skinning section rather than drilling down to the A-10C subforum.

Anyway, there are some good tutorials on how to set up your own liveries. Ranger79 put out a good video on the basics of skinning. Additionally, Snoopy put out a very good PDF on how to skin the A-10C. The file no longer appears to be available on these forums, but is still available on the 476th vFG's website (it's a public download). These will touch the basics, like description.lua edits as well as DXT conversions.

One last thing: just so you know, the template I did is for the A-10 and the old (non-flyable) F/A-18. The new hornet pilot does not need patches on the texture itself; rather the unit patches are separate decal files.

I know this is old but I never saw it. In case anyone stumbles over here looking for this maybe the below information can help.

Some of the modules work a little differently but usually you can find a pilot skin and a helmet skin, and sometimes a patch skin. These aren't really templates but just textures, so at least for me, I have to get creative using GIMP to change them because they aren't layered.

Some helmets use one side of the helmet and mirror it, so you can't use words or do anything other than bi-symmetrical designs. Others show both sides so you can get away with different designs.

In some modules the pilot skin also contains the patches. In some you do different patches and the game applies those to the pilot.

The files need to be saved as .dds files just like airplane textures. I save them as 24 bit .bmp files then convert them to .dds with DXTBMP. I'm positive there is a GIMP plugin that can save to .dds but I just haven't gotten it. I suspect 32 bit .bmp files would be fine but I have just never done it that way.

Once you have the .dds files of your pilot and helmet in your texture folder (with your plane textures) you call them up in the .lua files similarly. And again, this can vary from module to module. If you can't find the right lines to add see if you can find someone's custom texture that include a pilot and helmet, download it, and look at their .lua.

For the A-10 it is:

{"pilot_a10_helmet", 0 , "YOURHELMETFILENAME" , false};

{"pilot_a10_body", 0 , "YOURPILOTFILENAME", false};

For P-51 it is:

{"pilot_P51_patch", 0 ,"YOURPATCHFILENAME",false};

{"pilot_p51_body", 0 , "YOURPILOTFILENAME",false};

{"pilot_P51_helmet_A", 0 ,"YOURHELMETFILENAME",False};

For F-15:

{"pilot_F15_patch", 0 ,"YOURPATCHFILENAME",false};

{"pilot_F15_00_helmet", 0 , "YOURHELMETFILENAME", false};

{"pilot_F15_00_body", 0 ,"YOURPILOTFILENAME",false};

For UH1:

{"pilot_UH1_patch", 0 ,"YOURPATCHFILENAME",false};

{"pilot_UH1_helmet", 0 , "YOURHELMETFILENAME", false};

{"pilot_UH1", 0 ,"YOURPILOTFILENAME",false};

Those are all of them I've done. I haven't gotten around to doing a custom helmet and patches for my F-18 pilot yet. Should be similar.

Additionally I did a few different videos on skinning on my YouTube channel. There are some early ones specifically about the A-10 and I did a series later on specifically how to use GIMP, so they may not be quite what you're looking for but may help. Link in my subject line to my channel.

Same goes for the F-86F model, and recently in-cockpit pilot textures have been added to some modules so you have another bunch of stuff to skin :)