Repainting Glider Skins with paint.net

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congo
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Joined: Wed Aug 24, 2011 10:21 am
Location: Queensland, Australia

Repainting Glider Skins with paint.net

Post by congo » Tue Mar 31, 2020 6:37 am

Hi All,

I just had a PM in Condor Club asking about glider skin repainting, I wrote the following to him.
However, I am completely self taught and no expert on the subject (my disclaimer) so I invite comment
on the following tutorial.

I use paint.net for my repaints. One good feature of it is that when you copy and paste selections from another skin, or a backup of the same skin, it places the copied selection in precisely the same position onto the new skin you are working on. Accurate placement is important to line up features on your skin artwork, otherwise things don't look right. This saves time. If the pasted selection does not snap to the correct position on your skin, zoom out to full view and retry it.

Paint.net is easy to use once you get the hang of it.
Beware bogus download sites for paint.net.
Use this link.... https://www.getpaint.net/download.html

There is some prep work to do before you begin.
Become proficient in the basics of paint.net.
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Common tools used in paint.net:

Text tool (It's nice to leave info notes on your skins, for various reasons)
samp.jpg
magic wand select
square select
lasso select
Brush width
Hardness (Very important! I use the minimum possible most times, but that varies with what you are doing)
Flood fill
square filled shape tool
paint brush
Line tool
color picker
Advanced pallette tools
MENU's .... Image/flip, .... Edit/ invert selection, Adjustments... Hue/Saturation, brightness/contrast

Crt-Z Undo (back a step in history) , Crtl-Y Redo (forward a step in history)
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Filetypes and workflow:

Condor2's default glider skin format is .dds images at 2048 x 2048 pixel resolution.

I work in .bmp format and save my original artwork in .bmp format, but other high quality formats are fine.
paint.net's default format is .pdn

Condor2 only reads skin files from the Skins folder. Condor2 appears to be able to render multiple image formats including .tif, .dds, .bmp, .jpg, etc., but it DOES NOT render .pdn images!

If you continuously save out in Condor's .dds format while you are working on the skin, the image degrades each time you save it until it looks horrible.

Be careful not to re-load your project from the Skins folder in .dds format. Always work from your high quality saved .bmp / .pdn files.
Save your progress in high quality format, then save to .dds for a quick in game test, or for your final skin.

Be organized, create a "my-skins" folder within each plane's "Skins" folder, and create your skins from that folder, where you keep your high quality artwork, only saving the .dds skins into the Skins folder for testing or final production.

Save your work frequently, you don't want to lose hours of work!
Save multiple versions as you work, "myskin-1.bmp", "myskin-2.bmp", "myskin-3.bmp", "myskin-4.bmp",

Resize all original artwork from 2048x2048 to 4096x4096 (4k) resolution before you start painting!
This ensures your final skins will be of high quality, editing in 4k allows a much higher degree of accuracy and the final skins look a lot better and sharper.

2k .dds skins are about 2mb in size, 4k are about 20mb !
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Create your plane's custom skin mask and working template:

Creating a mask allows you to mark the boundaries of the glider parts on the skin.
Create a "Mask.bmp" file for each skin you work on, (remember to work in 4k - 4096x4096 pixel resolution).

Resize the skin templates available on Condor's download page to 4k, then select the background with the magic wand tool at 5-10% hardness power, (there is a slider that defaults to 50% in paint.net, you need to pay particular attention to that slider at all times, as it adjusts the hardness levels of your selections and tool capabilities - use it to great advantage).
Next, flood fill the selected background area of the template with a nuetral pastel colour that you are unlikely to use, avoid pure grey because some glider parts are grey.
Use magic wand tool to select the coloured background.
Copy the selected background with Ctrl-C, then open a NEW file form the file menu, it should open a white page at 4k res.
Paste (Ctrl-V or menu ) the coloured background onto the new page and that gives you your skin mask for that plane.
Save the mask in .bmp or your preferred HD format that you will be working in.

Now, Load a default Condor skin and convert it to 4096x4096 resolution.
(Many files can be open at the same time, and you can easily switch between them in paint.net.)
Click the icon at the top for your saved mask file that should still be open for that plane and then select the background with the magic wand tool, copy it to the resized condor default skin, this will mask all the background and reveal the glider's visible parts.
Now save that as your "My-Cirrus_Template.bmp" or similar, and that becomes the base skin for working on that particular plane.
You could, of course, just start painting directly onto a copy of the mask, then copy parts of the default skin like landing gear etc. from the condor default skins.

Here is the new template with the background mask showing in lavender colour...
Please note the grey lower airbrake that is barely visible, and other grey parts, this is why I don't use a grey mask, some parts would get lost in the background colour!
Background colour choice can affect colour perception by your brain while working on the skin, and the finished skin may not be the colour you thought it was when complete, so choose carefully depending on what colour paint you are using.
samp3.jpg
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My thoughts on uploading online skins........
(This is meant to be informative and helpful, and not to offend, do as you wish of course)

Please don't upload to Condor Club another default white glider with a different colour wing tip stripe or a small banana detail under the cockpit perspex, really, nobody cares or wants to fill their hard drive with your endless mundane skins that all look the same when flying online. If it's a minor detail just for you, Great! Just keep it in your folder where it belongs, thanks in advance!

Personally, I have uploaded 2 white gliders, both are repaint templates for notoriously difficult skins, having errors that I fixed as best I could.
I am a prolific poster of online skins on Condor Club, I make no apologies for that, as my skins are original artwork and filled a void where it existed, and I encourage all glider painters to think carefully about their skin projects, have a vision of your work before you begin, and come up with something different that might have mass appeal and/or stand out against the background of white fiber glass so common in online servers.

Real life gliders are white to protect from sunlight, there is no sun in Condor !
crasheb29.jpg
Important:
If your repaint is intended for online use, the filename must always remain the same, or it will not be visible to everyone online.
Condor renders from the filenames it sees in the Skins folders for the various planes, if the online filename does not match what is contained in a player's Skins folder, the glider or towplane renders as the Default skin for that aircraft. The default skin is not found in the Skins folders, but in that particular plane's folder. Check your Antares18S folder for example, the default skin is found there, named "Antares18S.dds".

I always write the unique skin's name onto the skin itself with the text tool, (my-special-cirrus.dds) and NEVER change it! Take particular care to always upload skins to condor club with unique filenames that never change. You can edit the skins, but not the filenames!

Once a player has downloaded your repaint, he will have that version. If you edit, improve or change it later, the players will not see the changes unless they re-download the skin, so most players will simply see old versions of your repaints. Take care to complete your repaints and be sure to complete all changes before uploading online.
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Now you can get creative!

Remember that skins are a 2D layer over a 3D model, distortion of the skin occurs over the curved 3D model.
Any painted features will be severely distorted as they "wrap" around the glider when rendered in Condor.
Left and right halves of parts must be carefully aligned both vertically and horizontally on your skins.
Modelling errors by the glider's developer/s will become apparent with painted part placements mis-aligned,
you need to compensate carefully by trial and error, or accept the error. Some errors cannot be fixed.

Flipping selections (like a fuselage reversal from left to right) can be tricky in Paint.net, here is how I do it.....
Copy a fuselage side (for example) using lasso select, then Ctrl-C.....
next, open a new file, (it will open at the correct resolution after you did Ctrl-C),
then, paste (Ctrl-V) the fuselage side into the new file, flip it, then edit the background so it's all one colour,
then select the background, invert selection, and copy the flipped fuselage back into your skin project file.
You will need to align it manually by trial and error, testing it in condor between edits, this can be slow and frustrating but you must do it to correctly mirror left/right or top/bottom parts, scanning the skin in 3D for errors in your work, then correcting them.
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*Notes on .dds format skins.

Chris Wedgewood from Condor says to use .dds DXT1 format, but this seems odd to me,
as there is no Alpha channel present in DXT1.

I use the following .dds save settings for the test skins or final skins:
(I am no expert, this is what I have been using though...)

DXT5
Iterative fit
Perceptual
(Weight color by alpha is optional, I'm not sure about it's use.)
Generate mipmaps

For Cockpit textures, (usually the cockpit.dds file in the particular plane's folder), I save them in DXT1 format, because you will get transparency issues if you use DXT5 with the alpha channel.

Caution: whatever .dds settings you used last will be pre-loaded next time you use paint.net !

Final skins will work at 4k resolution (4096x4096) but the default size for Condor2 is 2048x2048, so I am not sure what the Condor Devs think about people using 4k skins online, is it a bad thing to do ?
In any case, you can finally convert your skin from 4096x4096 back to 2048x2048 pixels for the final .dds save.
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I hope this helps :)
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