chompy+layer+tut+1



By John “Chompy” Masters. Part 1 – How it works.
 * How to use Layers while skinning.**

This tutorial is designed to show you how to use layers while making skins for European Air War ™. I am a Paint Shop Pro 7 ™ user, so I have made this tutorial using descriptions specifically for PSP7, but the general concept can be used for any decent graphics program such as Photoshop etc., and could also be used to make skins for other simulations and applications, with a few adaptations. The settings mentioned are guides only. Feel free to alter them as you see fit. I am only a mug skinner, but I saw a need for this tutorial in the EAW community, so you have it as it is – warts and all. There are bound to be mistakes oversights, and better methods, but this is how I currently see it, and it appears to work!

Introduction. I began using a demo version of PSP7, and only used the basic painting tools and the EAW palettes to make my first skins. I hadn’t bothered to get to know all the great features of PSP because what I knew seemed to work, but all antialiasing and such FX had to be done by hand with a paint brush, so it was very slow! Some years later I discovered Mosi’s skinning tutorials, which were a huge boon to my skinning techniques (I have endeavoured to make this tutorial along the same lines as Mosi’s, which I thought were excellent – S! Mosi!! ). Using 24 bit colour, airbrushes, retouching tools and the like made for a higher quality job, with a lot less time

Despite this it was still necessary to start from scratch to make every skin, because it was all on the same layer. The best that could be done was to copy and paste bits from other skins hoping that you could make them blend in with your new effort. The worst part was getting the adjustments right. If you had the wrong colour on one part of a skin and made changes, it affected many other parts of the skin, and making changes to correct problems was often put in the “too hard” basket. If only there was a way to isolate every part of the skin, so that you could make changes without affecting everything else, it would be a HUGE timesaver. And if you could use the work you had done on other skins, well, that would be just too much to ask for!

As it turns out, it’s not asking for too much. It can easily be done, and I wish to hell I’d known it years ago when I first started skinning! I’ve only discovered how to use layers in the last few days, but I’m so impressed with the possibilities I thought I’d better write a quick tutorial for any others that are still skinning without them. Trust me – it is the only way to skin, and once you try it you will be converted. It is no harder than making a single layer skin, but the flexibility, re-usability, and ease of alteration make it the best way to make any skin. Hopefully after reading this tutorial, you will be as enthused as I am.

I have divided the tutorial into two parts. The first is a demonstration of a few things that can be done with a completed layered template, and the second part describes how to go about making such a template.

What are Layers? If you haven’t been using layers, you have so far only utilized one layer – the background. As well as the background, we can create individual layers which sit on top of each other, completely independent of all other layers. Each one of these layers can be edited separate to the others, and can be switched on or off as desired. You can have 3 different types of layers, which allow complete flexibility and adjustability within your image. PSP7 supports up to 100 layers per image, although this may be further limited by your PC’s memory size.

What you will need. Paint Shop Pro 7 ™ or any quality graphics program. Download the PSP 7 trial version from http://www.oldversion.com/download_Paint_Shop_Pro_7.0.html The demonstration files Pp47dLEX.pcx and Pp47dLEXtemplate.psp included in this zipfile

Demonstration. First, I’d like to show you a file that I made to demonstrate the possibilities that using layers can give you. It took a couple hours to make this demo skin (and it’s still pretty rough), but it would have me a taken a lot longer to create just one skin like this, and every subsequent one would have required a similar effort. With the template made, I can now make a pretty good looking wing skin in a matter of minutes!

You will need PSP to do this (If you have Photoshop™ use the .psd version of this file.). Open the Pp47dLEXtemplate.psp file by double clicking it. First make sure that you have the necessary PSP features enabled. Click View>Toolbars, and ensure that you have ticks next to the Standard Toolbar, Tool Palette, Colour Palette, Status Bar, Tool Options Palette and Layer Palette, as well as the Automatic Rollups box, then click OK.

What you are looking at is the blank PCX for the left wing of a Hires P-47 D. This was my starting point – pretty un-impressive huh? Well, that’s just one of 14 layers, and the rest are currently switched off. Let’s start switching a few of them on. Place the cursor over the Layers Palette header, and the rest of it will roll down. Now you see all of the layers that have been used. From top to bottom they are : -

Scuffs and chips Lighter Shading Lighter Shading Darker Light Panel lines Dark Panel lines Invasion Blk Brightness/contrast Invasion Black Invasion Wht Brightness/contrast Invasion White Star + bar Brightness/contrast Star + bar Desert wing Camo wing Metal wing Green wing Background.

Switching layers on and off To enable the individual layers, open the Layers Palette, and to the right of the layer name, you will see a pair of glasses with a red cross through them, which indicates that the particular layer is hidden. Start at the Green wing layer and click the symbol - the cross will be removedand the layer becomes visible. You will see a plain boring green wing, painted in one colour. Click the glasses symbol to switch the layer off again. Now make the Metal wing layer visible. Again, it’s pretty dull! The Camo wing and Desert wing layers are very similar. These layers contain the basics for our paintjob, but no detail. The detail is added in the above layers, so that it can be adjusted independently of the base paintjob.

Note the different icons to the left of the layer names. There are 3 layer types used in PSP7. Theindicates a RASTER layer, which contains information on every pixel that is used. These layers are the ones we have always used for painting, and we manipulate them by using the painting tools. Theicon indicates an ADJUSTMENT Layer. This is a kind of Raster layer, but it contains information for making adjustments to the picture. Basically, you paint all the areas you want adjusted, and select the type of adjustment you need. There is a third kind of layer – a VECTOR LayerThis layer contains information that has been created by using Vector based tools, such as the Text, Lines, and Preset shapes functions. Vector layers cannot contain pixel based information like Raster layers. While I haven’t used Vector layers in the example, they can be used.

Play around with the different layers to access the different combinations of wings that are possible. As you switch the various layers on and off, you may notice that the Adjustment layers don’t show anything if you have nothing underneath them selected. This is because they make Adjustments to the layers below, and if there is nothing switched on below, there is nothing for them to adjust. Note that the Layers are stacked in a particular order, so that all the FX show as they should, e.g. the panel lines show over top of the main paintjob, but underneath the wing shading. We can change the stacking order if necessary by using the drag and drop technique in the Layer Palette toolbox.

Here are some views of the different wings possible on this template.

Changing the blend of the layers Not only can we turn the layers on and off, but we can also alter their degree of opacity (or how much they show), and for Adjustment Layers we can alter the level of adjustment. This allows us to have maximum control over the end effect. If the dark panel lines are a bit too light/dark, just tone them down/up a bit by dragging their corresponding slider in the Layers palette to the left or right. If you can’t get enough effect in any of the adjustment layers, double click the layer name, and you can alter the master value and type of the adjustment, or you may want to repaint the layer again.

Once you have your balance right, you make sure you have the background switched on, and load up the palette you intend to use, to see what it will look like (But DON’T DO IT YET!). If it needs further adjustment, you can do it all simply and easily on an individual layer basis, without having to make dozens of chain reaction alterations, with each one affecting something else. I shake my head in disbelief when I think of all the “single layer” skinning adjustments I did, chasing my own tail, when I could have used this method to get superior results, and had many more subsequent skins with very little extra effort!

A Quick Exercise. OK, let’s use the template to show how easy it is to make your own custom paintjob. First we need to get the palette that will be used in the final product. Open the Pp47dLEX.pcx file, then from the main toolbar, click Colours>Save Palette, and save it as P47D.pal. Leave this image open – we will use it in a minute.

Open up the Pp47dLEXtemplate.psp, and click off all the layers except Metal wing, and make sure the Metal wing layer is the active layer by clicking on it’s name. Use the Magic wand selector tool, go to the Tool Options toolbar, and set Match mode to RGB, Tolerance : 0, Feather : 0, and uncheck the Sample Merged box. Now click the area of the metal wing, to select the precise area we wish to work with. Now go to the main toolbar and click Layers>New Raster Layer. A box will come up where you can change the name, so type in “Mottled wing”, and leave the other settings as they are. Now switch off the Metal wing, and switch on the Background layer so that you can see the basic outline and put the paint where you want it. Make sure that the Mottled wing is the active layer – it will be indicated on top of the window of the image. If not, click Mottled wing in the Layers toolbar.

Start by using a base green that is a bit lighter than the one that was used in the Green wing layer. Activate the Pp47dLEX.pcx that we opened earlier and using the dropper

select a green from there – RGB 93, 106, 51 from the bottom row will do fine. Switch to our template by clicking on it’s top toolbar, use the Flood fill tool and set the tool options to Blend mode Normal, Match mode RGB, Tolerance 100, Opacity 100, and fill the area. Now use the dropper from the PCX image to select a darker green that you wish to use – try RGB 67, 72, 44. Go back to the template and use the Airbrush tooland set it to Shape – Round, Size 10, Hardness 100, Opacity 25, Step 20 Density 100, and paint some mottled looking spots on the green wing. You may end up with something like the picture on the left. Pretty dull at the moment, but now activate all the layers you want, and adjust the levels until you get the balance looking right, and it might look like the under picture



Happy? Well, it’s not bad for a couple minutes work! Save the file now by using the option or File>Save or Save as. Make sure the background layer is on, click Colours>Load Palette, and load up the p47d palette you saved earlier, to see how it that looks. If you need to make changes, click the Back buttonuntil you are back in 24 bit colour again, make any changes you need to, then save the file and load the palette again. Once you have it looking right use the File>Save As function to save it as Pp47dLEXmottle.PCX, and you’re ready to picpac and try it out in game.

IMPORTANT - Be warned that all the layers will be merged when you apply the 256 colour palette, and you will lose all your layers when doing so. It is a disaster if you save your lovely template into one layer and lose all the hard work you have done, so be very careful about what you are saving, make backup copies, and always use File>Save As when you are saving your final image to a PCX file.

Of course the HR P-47 hasn’t been released yet, so you can’t try it out in game, but you can make your own template for your favourite skin using the same method I have used to create this template. The next part of this tutorial will explain how to do this. But before that, why not try using the above guidelines to make a “Night-fighter” wing? Good luck!