How-to CS

Status
Not open for further replies.
alexflyguy

alexflyguy

Banned
How-to CS + video demo

Step 1: Pick the aircraft you want to apply your digital crayons to and select it/load it up. Once you have it sitting on the runway waiting to fly, with your mouse go upto the drop-down menu and under "aircraft" you will see an option "save colour scheme as" click that and type an appropriate name relating to the aircraft of choice.

Step 2: Once you have picked a name go back into the aircraft drop-down menu and find the name for your CS under "select colour scheme" Once you choose it there should be alittle grey box with the message "creating DDS" that appears. Now if you are wondering what that means well.... my explaination is it makes the plane CS complete and proper so that its recognized by RF software and there is now a .tga file waiting for you to apply your digital crayons to it how you wish.

Step 3: .tga? whats a .tga?? thats the file you now need to find which is located somewhere on your HD. For XP you need to go into program files-Realflight G3.5 folder- ColourSchemes and in there should be a file named the same as the one you just saved, 3 of them actually. The one you are interested in has the file extension .tga usually at the bottom of the 3.

Step 4: Once you located the .tga file with the correct name you open it up to edit. Now only some software with allow you to open up this kind of file. Adobe will work, Corel PSP, gimp ( which is free ). Those are the 3 main ones that most people like to use. If you have done this correctly you should now have a "template" of the plane you chose to make a CS for.

Step 5: Colour away to hearts content till you are ready to see how everything looks in RF. When you save make sure you choose "save as" Once in the save window you want to find and save over the original tga file. make sure you to select .tga as the file type you want to save with. Also there should be an options button smewhere that you need to find and somewhere in there should be a box that says "compressed" or uncompressed" with a checkbox next to it. You want to make sure it saves as "UNCOMPRESSED" otherwise you will end up with a plane covered in stripes.

Step 6: Once you have saved over the .tga file making sure that it saved the file uncompressed in the colour schemes folder for RealflightG3.5 on your HD ( harddrive ) go back into RF and in the drop down menu under "aircraft" then "select color scheme" pick the name of your CS you just made and if you are pleased with your work, export it and upload it to swaps to share with us all.

Theres nothing more sweet than seeing someone flying with the CS you made on it, unless you are a modeller and the sky is filled with the plane you created.

Pictures will be posted to help understand these steps later today.

Enjoy, have fun and remember no smutt
 
Last edited:
sounds good

Using Gimp, if you "SAVE AS " then "REPLACE" the original CS, the "UNCOMPRESS" will pop up automaticly. Just click the check marked box to deselect them. Now press save and it should be right.
Just a helpful hint. Good job, Alex!!!!!
 
Last edited:
Adding a few steps

Step 2a: after you did step 2 you will see your newly named ".Colorscheme" file and your newly named ".TAG" file and your newly named ".DDS" The .TGA is what you'll be editing. First look at it with a Picture viewing program or open it in your paint program. Look at the size of your new .TGA if it is 512x512 dps in size, Painting on it will be hard at best because it is so small. If it is 512x512 do the next 2b:

Step 2b: Go to the Directory where you Downed loaded the model. The ".G3X" file is really a .ZIP file with a collection of files need for Realflight. Open the ".G3X" with Win Zip or Win Rar. Or you can even tell window that the file is a Archive and open it with window exploere but not recommended. In there you'll see

Modelname . "BSE" - The base model as the designer set it up and made it.
Modelname. "COLORSHMEM" - Data for RF to use in handling the color map
Modelname. "JPG" - Small preview Picture you see on the down load page
Modelname. "KEX" - data for pivots and what not
Modelname. "TAG" - HERE IS THE FILE YOU WANT to Edit for your new paint job
g3x.enc - more stuff for RF

Extract the. Modelname.TGA I just drag the file to my Desktop. Closes the WinRar or WinZip Rename the file you just dragged out to the name you picked in step 1. Now copy that file to your */REALFLIGHT/COLORSCHEME directory . If you renamed it right you'll see a message askig if you what to over right a small file about 100k-200k with a Bigger file any where from 4 MEG to 16 Meg in size. This is the high ress file you'll want to edit Now Go to step 4 and 5 above


tip 1: I open realflight and have the model selected and have the newly name colorscheme selected too. I look at the model in the Aircraft editor and have option to VIEW / SHOWWIRE FRAME truned off. I use this view to scroll and turn around the model to see how the new paint job is looking. I use "ALT" "TAB" between my paint program and the Aircraft editor a lot, saving the painting work as you go. ALT TAB to the editor and use the refresh option to see your changes applies to the model. Do this over and over again. This is a great way to make sure your paint from one side of the model lines up with that paint on the other side of the model. After you finished close the Aircraft Editor and go fly your newly painted Model.

If you get a message asking if you want to save you changed in the Aircraft Editor Pick "NO" Remember you where only using this window to view you model. You might of changed a setting with the flight Physic and get a model that fly funny. SO IF YOU DID NOT MAKE ANY CHANGES IN THE PHYSICS. ( changing a number setting ) PICK NO IF ASKED TO SAVE BEFORE LEAVING.
 
I just found a great font for WW2 aircraft. I have attached it. To install simply extract TTF file into the windows/fonts directory. Then go into Gimp and go to preferences in the file tab. Go to folders--> fonts and add the windows/fonts directory. Any other fonts in the windows directory will be added and universal to other applications as well.
 

Attachments

  • octin_college_free.zip
    47.9 KB · Views: 118
I made a color cheme in the G4 desiner corner so please look at mine please.
also the polished mustang on the swaps.
 
help

i edit the color sceme using gimp save as the original cs i saved in rf3.5 but when i go back to rf3.5 and choose the cs i have just edited its hasn't changed. nothing that i had edited is there what is going on. i've tried like 2 dozen times to get it to work and am running out of hair to pull out. PLEASE ADVISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :confused: :mad:
 
Last edited:
Jimmy Newton said:
Go back and read post #1 throughly. Then follow those steps precisely, all will be revealed.
Click to expand...
I have followed those steps over and over and over again still no luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! does it matter that i am using gimp with windows vista? :p :confused: :mad:
 
ACENH007 said:
I have followed those steps over and over and over again still no luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! does it matter that i am using gimp with windows vista? :p :confused: :mad:
Click to expand...

It makes no difference, other than the location of the colorscheme files being different in G3 versus G4, etc.

If you have had no luck, you are doing something wrong, that you may THINK you did correctly.

Go back and open the .tga file you edited, does it look like the changed files?

Do you have file suffixes ON in Windows? This is a frequent cause for errors as windows defaults to OFF.

If you see a .DSS file ( are your suffixes ON? ) with the same name as the .TGA file, DELETE the .DSS file.

The .DSS file will be recreated automatically by G3/G4 for you. In turn G3/G4 actually uses this file to show you the scheme.
 
CS from Scratch

Now! I understand how to make a cs by your video and instructions.

How about making one from scratch, can you use pics? side view, front, top, bottom etc.

Thanks
 
finally figured it out had to go in and replace the tga file with the new edited file I had just saved works fine now :)
 
How to CS

hey great posting everyone...i am currently using gimp and it works great and very simple. all i would like to do is use the current color schemes the planes come with in rf4 just change their colors. however, when i do make the changes i notice some of the colors are not changed competely. ex: different shadow of color perhaps? how do i make gimp change the entire area for me. perhaps i should post up a screen shot so you can see what i am talking about. let me know if you need it i will post a shot. but like on the pitts python i changed its color and i can see minor bits on the edges especially of the original color. what do i do to correct this?

wolfy
 
Excellent, short and to the point. I've been trying to figure out for a week how to modify CS and with this I was able to do so on my first try. Thank you very much for your efforts!! :eek:
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top