[Help] Skinning Photoshop - Alpha Channel

[VH-Rock]

Hi folks,

 

I've been skinning for several years in the original IL-2 and more recently in DCS. A few friends and I have recently started flying the Great Battles collection and I'd like to make a few skins for us to use in our campaign.

 

I've made my dif texture using the P-51D template that's available in this forum. I've then duplicated my markings into the alpha channel template and applied a grey overlay. 

 

I've then flattened that image and copied this back to the Alpha Channel in my main dif templated and saved as a .dds file in the dxt5 format.

 

For whatever reason, my texture is appearing completely matte in game - I don't think IL-2 is recognising my alpha channel at all. I've tried flattening the dif texture first and then copying my alpha channel in but I am seeing the sams result.

 

I've spent the day searching the forum and I've read the guides that are currently available, but  most of them appear to be for Gimp. Does anybody have any idea where I am going wrong or have a step by step guide for skinning in Photoshop for IL-2?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Rob.

[Skywarp]

 

I learned how to work with Alpha Channel through this topic.

 

Of course, I use Gimp, but think Photoshop work the same way.

Edited April 22, 2020 by Skywarp

[VH-Rock]

Thank you - A guy in the new skinners Discord helped me get it working. It turns out I was doing everything correctly, but the new NVidia .dds tools don't save the textures in a format that IL-2 likes. He managed to find a link to the old tools for me and now it works perfectly. 

 

Thanks for your reply! ?

Edited April 21, 2020 by VH-Rock