posted 11-18- 07:22 AM               

I just recently got into SDOE and I have to say this is a pretty awesome sim. The limited views, the damage modeling on most planes and the overall graphics are pretty darn good.

I dabble some in skins for other sims (gasp!) and I'm trying to do one for a SDOE P-51D from the 4th Fighter Group. However, I have run into a problem as I can't seem to get that Untiff program to do anything, let alone decompress a zlib compressed .tif file. Spin warned me it wasn't very friendly.

The 4th FG's canopy frames (see above) were painted red. I have searched the plane .tif all over and can't find it. Thanks to RAIDER, I was able to locate the new exhaust manifold, which are kinda bronze in color now for me. The area was painted over on the template I was using and I couldn't find it. I'm wondering if this is the case with the canopy frame. If anyone can give me a hand, it would be greatly appreciated.

Sorry for the long post.

Gambler

posted 11-18- 03:42 PM               

Here's how I do it....

First, you'll need to get yourself some tools

Open Plane studio, and Hippies tools. Both can be found through SV's page, which has some excellent tutorials should you wish to go deeper into the world of plane building!

When you have them, open up the P51 model in Open Palne Studio. Select the canopy frame, and make a note of what it is called in the model.

Next run either Extractor or SMD, depending on which version of Hippie's tools you get. This will break down the model into an listing of parts, a reference file, and a whole bunch of LOD's. The HTM file will tell you which LOD you want. Just search for the name you saw in OPS. Next, open the LOD that corresponds with the canopy frame. Open it in notepad or similar.

Check the tutorial 'Anatomy of a LOD' on SV's site, and this will tell you where to find the texture index.

Now you know the texture number, open the refernence file, should have an extension .OL or .ASC and look for the texture index. This is at the start of the file. That will tell you the name of the texture file used to paint the canopy.

It's a long winded process, but easier than it sounds!

Finally, if you find it is taken from the main texture file, you may have hit a snag! It is not unknown for textures to use bits more than once. The canopy may be mapped onto a bit of fuselage or wing. A re-paint may not be possible!

posted 11-18- 05:39 PM               

Thanks for the advice. For some reason, OPS won't work on my system. I seen a previous post by someone that had similiar problems and they thought it might be video card driver related on their system. I have the flashing clouds effect on mine, too. I even tried the OPS 1.21 version (thanks Tailslide) and it does the same thing as the Beta 1.3.

I've got Hippie's tools, the Parasoft tool package and AC3D trial version for eval. I'm going to keep trying to figure this thing out. Or until it drives me crazy.

Thanks for the help!

posted 11-18- 05:59 PM               

You will just have to be very careful to make sure you have the right model part!
You need to look for 'canopyFrame'

looks like it's mapped off part of the fuse though! Most likely, the part of the fuse texture that is where the canopy would sit.