Can't Get the Alpha 1 channel right for my P-47

[4H_Ccrashh]

I've been out of combat flight simming for 7 years. I saw these new add-ons for Great Battles and decided to jump back in. I used to make my own skins in Il2 (the old game) so I decided to try it here. 

 

I downloaded the template for the P-47 and made myself a skin. Its not too bad if I do say so myself. I can get the skin to load in the game. My problem is with the "alpha" stuff.  I have followed both of the tutorials in the "Skins and Templates" thread.  I'd like to review here what I did , maybe someone can show me my error. 

 

I completed the skin with Photoshop, saved the template , then opened that up with GIMP. I downloaded the latest this morning. First I'll show you what the plane looks like without the shine. 

 

Next I tried putting a little shine on. I had my layers all in order (in Gimp) and "flattened" the image. 

Then I did the "Add Layer Mask" for the Alpha 1

 

Then exported as a .dds.. 

 

The shiny pics are what it looks like in game. 

 

I'm no expert with gimp and I can not find a tutorial of post that specifically explains how to "reduce the shine"

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

 

If need be I can send the Photoshop template. Maybe I made a mistake in there and gimp is finding it. 

Next I 

[Raptorattacker]

Firstly, why didn't you just save it straight out of Photoshop instead of re-opening it up in GIMP? It CAN be done...

HERE'S a link to the least-impact DDS plugin. There's a lot of fancier ones out there but this one does what it says on the tin without being overly interface-fancy!

These are the settings that you need for the game, the DXT5>ARGB>8 bpp> interpolated alpha.

When you first open a .dds file it will ask you what settings. Just go with the ones it suggests.

#878789 is the HEX value for the Alpha (bare aluminium)

#939598 for the ACTUAL aluminium on your template.

Then, obviously, all the other details like painted parts and markings have to be darker on the Alpha so's they aren't as reflective (which is what's happened on yours, by the look).

The Alpha controls what is reflective/shiny/metallic and what is not basically and, also, anything on the Alpha that is pure Black becomes transparent in the finished product (strange but true I'm afraid!). 

Here's one that I did..

.

 

Here's the Alpha

 

and here's the finished skin, just so's you can see how it's affected

 

Obviously there's personal preference and stuff but this is the basic idea. 

I hope this helps a bit?

 

Cheers

Rap

[4H_Ccrashh]

Thank you. Getting the plug-in now. After reading your post I know what I did.. My template doesn't have the Alpha that looks like yours. I did find it as a separate template in the zip file.. I don't know how to incorporate the alpha from the one template into another. Like I said I'm new to this kind of skinning using DDS files and alpha channels. A little more research is required.  I did come up with a kind of work around.

 

I painted the plane OD green.. OD is flat,, no shine. 

 

Edited November 1, 2020 by Ccrashh

[4H_Ccrashh]

Thank you Raptor. Its been 8 hours of experimentation but I got it.. 

[Rjel]

The Alpha part of the template confused me for the longest time. Raptorattacker's example is exactly what you want your final Alpha layer to look like. It should duplicate whatever is on your skin only in varying shades of gray instead of color. Think of the layered Alpha in the same way you do your template. When the layers are what you want the finished Alpha to look like, save it then merge the layers. Then just copy and paste it into your template under the channels tab. Make sure only the Alpha 1 channel is hi-lighted.

[jollyjack]

On 11/1/2020 at 12:08 PM, Raptorattacker said:

Here's one that I did..

 

.

 

Here's the Alpha

 

 

Is the merging of the finished Photoshop edits into one layer essential?

What i missed here is how do you edit the alpha chanel's darkness grayscale levels on various parts, and then create the alpha channel (pic2) out of pic1 ??

 

Edited November 11, 2020 by jollyjack

[Raptorattacker]

Well, there's an alpha template for a start. You just use that but instead of working with colour you're working with greyscale instead.

When you're finished:

Select the whole image (marquee tool or whatever)

Flatten the layers (ignore warnings about hidden layers etc)

Go to Channels and hit the button at the bottom that looks like a Jap flag to create a (alpha) layer but you don't need to highlight that one, just stay with the top 4, as normal

Hit CTRL + C to copy and then go to your colour template, select channels and then select the Alpha channel. Hit CTRL + V and BINGO!! YOUR Alpha is in place...

NB Remember to UNFLATTEN the Alpha Template after this process otherwise it'll be useless as a template!!!!

[jollyjack]

ADDED i am getting it i will let you know the results !!!  

Flattening and copying to the alpha 1 channel; IT WORKS ! see below, and thanks!

 

Old stuff ....:

 

HI Rap, i did not use the alpha template yet, is that necessary?

 

Selecting OK after flattening i just get a single back ground layer showing the colors alright ....

Pressing the jap-flag gives an empty alpha channel, (second pic) and Unflatten i don't get, see last pic, where pasting gives just an extra layer 1.

 

 

 

 

 

It worked:

 

 

next attempt:

 

Edited November 11, 2020 by jollyjack

[Raptorattacker]

2 hours ago, jollyjack said:

HI Rap, i did not use the alpha template yet, is that necessary?

 

Well, if you want each texture to look as RL as you can then yes...

It really isn't that difficult. I know it sounds like it is but once you've got your head round it, trust me, it isn't and you'll wonder how you managed without pretty soon down the line!

Rap

2 hours ago, jollyjack said:

Selecting OK after flattening i just get a single back ground layer showing the colors alright ....

Yeah. You then just copy and paste, exactly when you've got it as you have. Don't worry that the Alpha layer is just white, when you paste into your colour template it WON'T be, trust me I'm a (skin) doctor!! Of course, I'm talking about the Alpha template, not the Colour template. You take that and paste into the colour template Alpha (of course).

Your second pic should be the Alpha Template, yeah? You then copy it as you've got it in that view. That's spot on. You then go over to your colour template and, with the channel box selected, paste your copy onto the ALPHA channel. The Alpha Template doesn't actually HAVE an Alpha channel, which is why you hit the 'Japp Flag' button you see?

Don't forget to flatten the image in your Alpha Template first. You don't have to flatten the colour template before pasting as the Alpha is the same on every Layer, it applies to the whole document, flattened or not!

Come back to me if you get confused and I'll try and do a step-by-step of it. I know that it may be a wee bit baffling in written format. 

 

Edited November 11, 2020 by Raptorattacker

[jollyjack]

Thanx bro, you certainly helped me out here, pity all those nice skins in the game are almost invisible as buzzing fly-by as a passing house fly:

 

Edited November 11, 2020 by jollyjack

[Raptorattacker]

Ha! Ha! Yeah. It's knowing you've got a good skin on though, that's the key eh?!

[453=Luib_2001]

I'm a GIMP user here, may I know anyone here uses GIMP know how to solve this problem?