Custom cockpit photo made easy with Paint!

[Wanderfalke]

I found that a custom photo for the cockpit can be easily made using Paint and an online file converter.

 

Step one:

Open your file (.jpg .png or whatever) in Paint and press on canvas. In my case the picture is 118 by150 pixels. That ratio needs to be 1 to 1, so in this case extend the canvas to the right (somehow that needs to be done to the right), till the picture is 150x150 and thus has a ratio of 1 to 1. In case of a photo that is wider, use crop as long as the ratio you'll get is 1 to 1 and note that there will be a bit cut off on the right side (see end result), so you may need to tweak this. Now save the file.

 

Step two:

Now go to www.aconvert.com to convert the file to a .dds. Press browse and open the file and set the target format to DDS and set resize image to "Change with and height". The image size needs to be set to 1024x1024. Now press "convert now" and download the output file.

 

Step three:

Open your game folder and go to "\1C Game Studios\IL-2 Sturmovik Battle of Moscow\data\graphics\Planes\Me262A\Textures" (in case of the 262). Now delete or rename the file called custom_photo. Copy your newly created .dds file into this folder and name it custom_photo.

That's it!

 

 

 

Edited October 3, 2019 by Wanderfalke

[Cpt_Siddy]

The weebs are coming, the weebs are coming

 

Soon we will have cockpits full of strike witches! 

Edited October 3, 2019 by Cpt_Siddy

[41Sqn_Riksen]

4 hours ago, Wanderfalke said:

 

 

Hey ... that is my photo! My precious and beautiful Scharfi and my platonic love  

Edited October 4, 2019 by SCG_Riksen

[spitfirejoe]

WANDERFALKE...…..thanks very much for the perfect Explanation, even me dumb ass can understand now how it´s done. The YouTube Explanation Video was a bit too complicated for me.

Thanks for the help.

[spitfirejoe]

I did put my FIRST converted Cockpit Photo as a ZIPed DDS file for anybody who wants to use it.....you must just rename it " custom_photo " and put it in a German Plane.

The Lady is really important for the second WW. I am curious if you will find out who the Lady was ( I know it of course ).

 

Best regards Joe

b830c-7hnxf.zip

Edited October 4, 2019 by spitfirejoe

[Retnek]

Not that difficult and quite inadequate  ... I very much doubt a Luftwaffe pilot would have chosen her for that purpose ... she definitely was beyond the range of any pilot. I guess choosing that picture meant asking for serious trouble. Anyhow, different times, different conventions - German people often were beyond any convention during that time.

Question for the British: I can't image a RAF-pilot would have dared to place a picture of Princess Elizabeth (HRH Princess Elizabeth) into the cockpit, right?

 

Try this, much better option for Lw-pilots with balls:

 

better-choice.zip

 

Edited October 4, 2019 by JG4_Retnek
added pictures

[spitfirejoe]

Haha, inadequate? Yes, maybe......that photo was not ment in a serious way anyway…..and of course I doubt that any real Luftwaffe Pilot would have chosen her for a cockpit photo.

 

The point is…...I love the new photo option which the Devs gave us, thanks very much for that.

 

EDIT!!!

I made my first few cockpit-photos during a work trip on my laptop......now coming back home from the trip, tried out the pics and found out that the photo is moved to the right and on the left side there is an empty white field......I don´t know what I did wrong there?

Need to try again to get it fixed. Sorry, like this my 2 pictures are not really usable.

Edited October 5, 2019 by spitfirejoe

[MeoW.Scharfi]

I find it funny. 😂 +1

[NETSCAPE]

Seems like using windows and some website to do simple image editing is more a pain in the ass than say, downloading paint dot net software for free... 

[JefCostello]

I tried it but it doesn't work! The picture doesn't appear in the cockpit of my P38. I noticed the original"custom_photo"was in DXT5 and the one I placed in the textures folder of the P38 is in DXT1. Is it the reason?

[Retnek]

paint-dot-net with dds-plugin already in place is doing fine for me:

Luise Rainer

 

right-click the picture, "copy image" (into memory)

 

open paint-dot-net

 

edit -> paste into new image

 

image -> resize -> maintain aspect ratio - the longest dimension = 1024, resolution 300 dpi -> ok

 

image -> canvas size -> by absolute size - width and height 1024 - anchor middle (or whatever is useful if you want to place the picture into a corner good to see in the cockpit)

 

file -> save as -> dds - BC3 - generate mip maps - super sampling (a lot of options seem to be fine here ...)

 

Put her into place!

 

LR_Lw.zip

 

 

 

 

[spitfirejoe]

Try THIS one in an US Air Force plane......just rename it      custom_photo 

 

I hope the download works. Have fun!

custom_photo-USA Propaganda.zip

Edited October 4, 2019 by spitfirejoe

[=MFC=Gunloon]

Too lazy for my own good, I suppose, but I just select a pic with the expectation that the right side will be cropped, then visit the handy converter some helpful soul posted earlier at https://www.aconvert.com/image/jpg-to-dds/ and select the height adjust option which I set to 1024. Then after saving it I only have to replace it in the desired plane's 'textures' folder and rename it as has been noted to ' custom_photo' and it's ready.

 

So far I've only added Audrey Hepburn to my P-51 and Lauren Bacall to my Tempest, but I do like this added touch the devs threw in for us!

Edited October 5, 2019 by =MFC=Gunloon

[MeoW.Scharfi]

[MeoW.Scharfi]

LOOK AT BOTH COCKPIT PHOTOS!

 

Edited October 5, 2019 by MeoW.Scharfi

[spitfirejoe]

I love those cats ind the Cockpit......I have 2 cats haha.

 

NOW I got it how to do, I was struggling with the cropped Picture. I had to crop the Picture in Paint 3D to the Right side in width by exactly the amount of 1,05105105 to get a perfect result for the cockpit!

 

Example……….

if your Picture is 500x666 px   500 in width and 666 in height then you have to calculate height times 1,05105105 to get the amount how much you have to adjust the width.

 

For the 500 x 666 Picture I had to crop the width to 700.....then you have 700x666, this one then gets converted into a DDS format and resized to 1024x1024.

 

Here I post my first result with correct dimensions. Again the Picture where Adolf H gets kicked in his ass by US Air Force.

 

 

custom_photo.zip

[AnEvilPacman]

On 10/4/2019 at 7:45 AM, Cpt_Siddy said:

The weebs are coming, the weebs are coming

 

Soon we will have cockpits full of strike witches! 

 

While flying my K4, I know that my darling Minna will keep the larger Neuroi off me while I finish the mission. 

[Wanderfalke]

I made some Betty Boob stickers for in the American P-51 and P-38 using PNG clip art images and the above mentioned method.

In case you are a cat lady (you know who you are :), there is a cat too!

Don't forget to rename to "custom_photo".

 

For the P-51:p51.zip

Tweaked for theP-38:p38.zip

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 10, 2019 by Wanderfalke

[Krisu]

Wow

On 10/3/2019 at 10:39 PM, SCG_Riksen said:

 

Hey ... that is my photo! My precious and beautiful Scharfi and my platonic love  

 

You can't possibly still be referring to me at this point can you 

[41Sqn_Riksen]

1 hour ago, Krisu said:

Wow

 

You can't possibly still be referring to me at this point can you 

 

Lol .. Only if you buy me dinner first

[Krisu]

16 hours ago, SCG_Riksen said:

 

Lol .. Only if you buy me dinner first

 

Oh my god you savages, I'm not that creepy 

[Wanderfalke]

Hi, have you changed the name of the old picture and named the new one customphoto?

[71st_AH_Mastiff]

I give up I tried DDDS converters, ifran converter, 32 bit always gives me error dll, I use the 64bit ifran it says its working but I get this when I'm in cockpits.

 

 

 

[ElricMel]

Hi! 

 

I'm trying to put some of your pictures on the cockpit replacing the original and changing the name to "custom_photo" and the original picture is still there in the cockpit. Any ideas about what's wrong? Thanks!

[TwoLate]

Not even the game default photo is showing up. Is there a setting I have to check?

[=SFG=capt_nasties]

3 hours ago, 71st_AH_TwoLate said:

Not even the game default photo is showing up. Is there a setting I have to check?

literally came here looking for the same answer.  

[Art-J]

9 hours ago, 71st_AH_TwoLate said:

Not even the game default photo is showing up. Is there a setting I have to check?

 

6 hours ago, =SFG=capt_nasties said:

literally came here looking for the same answer.  

 

It's in the "[Your Plane] Setup" option tab you get on the quick mission briefing page (bottom right). Click it, a new, third tab with a pistol shows up over there (after armament and skin ones), click it, select photo/no photo.

[TwoLate]

6 hours ago, Art-J said:

 

 

It's in the "[Your Plane] Setup" option tab you get on the quick mission briefing page (bottom right). Click it, a new, third tab with a pistol shows up over there (after armament and skin ones), click it, select photo/no photo.

Thanks that was the one place I did not look. I changed no photo for the photo.

[Art-J]

When you create your own custom photos for various planes, just remember that they replace default game files, so they will unfortunately be reverted to stock versions during next patching process. The fact that they all have the same name "custom_photo.dds" doesn't help either. I recommend setting them up as a JSGME/OvGME compatible mod, with a complete folder tree, so that you can enable/disable them all at will.

[cardboard_killer]

On 10/3/2019 at 5:59 PM, Wanderfalke said:

www.aconvert.com

 

My anti-virus software blocks the converted file from download as a virus. Also, Firefox blocks the download page. I can get around this but decided to try to export the image from Gimp using the DDS.exe plugin. That worked. Now I can take Mae West along.

Edited February 19, 2020 by cardboard_killer

[Krisu]

Its real 

Its real 

Its real 

Its real

[XallZall]

Great Thread, I read through followed the instructions, I added Black Swan from Crimson Skies into the game like this 😄

[Elanion]

Excellent tutorial Wanderfalke 😃 !

 

I allow myself if you allow me to show that we can display the engine parameters if we need.

But Audrey Hepburn is not bad too ☺️ ?

Edited April 26, 2020 by NN_Elanion

[DD_Llama_Thumper]

Just to say thank you!

[Patersonski]

Great guide, thanks for doing this.

 

Also thanks to the devs for this feature; lots of fun. Now they just need to steal the music player idea from the other sim's Viggen and Jeff...

[Player_28404]

I did what I did, I deleted the normal custom_photo, moved the photo to the textures file, named it custom_photo, but nothing happened. Can u help me? What did I did wrong?

Edited June 6, 2020 by Player_28404

[Wanderfalke]

On 6/7/2020 at 1:10 AM, Player_28404 said:

I did what I did, I deleted the normal custom_photo, moved the photo to the textures file, named it custom_photo, but nothing happened. Can u help me? What did I did wrong?

 My guess is that you have set "No Photo" to "Photo"  in the plane settings before flight. Its the third tap, the tap right next to where you can choose your paint scheme.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Wander.

[Player_28404]

On 6/9/2020 at 6:02 AM, Wanderfalke said:

 My guess is that you have set "No Photo" to "Photo"  in the plane settings before flight. Its the third tap, the tap right next to where you can choose your paint scheme.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Wander.

I think my problem is that I don't have an app to read the dds

[[Pb]Vapor]

import os
from shutil import copyfile, move

src_dir = "X:/SteamLibrary/steamapps/common/IL-2 Sturmovik Battle of Stalingrad/data/graphics/Planes"


def custom_photo():
    path = os.getcwd()
    tgt_photo = path + "/custom_photo.dds"
    lst_plane_dirs = os.listdir(src_dir)

    for line in lst_plane_dirs:
        plane_path = src_dir + "/" + line + "/Textures/"
        src_photo = plane_path + "custom_photo.dds"
        src_backup = plane_path + "custom_photo_backup.dds"

        # print(src_photo)
        if os.path.exists(src_photo):
            move(src_photo, src_backup)
            
        copyfile(tgt_photo, src_photo)

custom_photo()

Assuming you have python installed on your computer... Real Simple stuff if you want to push a single photo to all planes.  Just update the src_dir with your IL2 Path to the Planes directory, and then place a copy of your custom_photo.dds in the same directory as this script when you run it.  It backs up the original just in case.

 

Once you have everything in place it takes a second to update when updates reset.

Edited June 16, 2020 by [Pb]Vapor

[III./SG77Classen]

I made one of my fiance. I surprised her by having her check it out in VR. She loved it so much she did not mind me playing a few hours more.

She makes my Stuka look pretty!