IL2 Skins.....

KnightFandragon · #1 10-24-2010, 06:45 PM

WTF is up with IL2 and it actually mattering what color you put on the plane? I was in Corel remaking my Spitfire skin and the game was reading it just fine but then I went into Paint.NET and put some modded flag of mine on it and then went in game and KAPOW the game nolonger saw it.....THen in Corel it changed my color pallete to some other one and I guess Il2 no longer sees the colors that were on it. How do I get Il2 to see my skin regardless of what color is on the F.......king plane....b/c GAWD that is annoying beyond all belief.

IceFire · #2 10-24-2010, 07:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KnightFandragon

WTF is up with IL2 and it actually mattering what color you put on the plane? I was in Corel remaking my Spitfire skin and the game was reading it just fine but then I went into Paint.NET and put some modded flag of mine on it and then went in game and KAPOW the game nolonger saw it.....THen in Corel it changed my color pallete to some other one and I guess Il2 no longer sees the colors that were on it. How do I get Il2 to see my skin regardless of what color is on the F.......king plane....b/c GAWD that is annoying beyond all belief.

It shouldn't be a huge surprise really if you've done any modification to any games in the past. Most or all games use limited color pallets for their textures. I'm not entirely clear on your sequence of events or why you're switching back and forth but I'm going to assume that Paint.Net goes for the full 16 million pallet and Corel asks you what you want. Yes? In any case IL-2 skins must be in 256 color BMP format to work. The game will not recognize anything else.

So after you do whatever you need to do... bring it down to 256 color. Or you can go command line and use the Bright.exe that was originally made by Epic (for converting Unreal skins) to convert to 256 colors. It's the hardest to use but provides the best results. Did a quick search and couldn't find it but it's out there to be downloaded.

Letum · #3 10-24-2010, 07:11 PM

Calm down.
There isn't any need for all the F-ing and blinding. Especially if you want help.

IL2 uses a limited colour pallet for skins.

If you are getting errors, this is almost certainly due to a mistake in the
*.bmp you are trying to use as a skin; not a problem with IL2.

I find the easiest thing to do is to export my skin as a *.gif, limiting the pallet
by necessity of the file format, then importing the *.gif and exporting it back
out as a *.bmp.

Former_Older · #4 10-24-2010, 08:40 PM

Hopefully a simple fix.

Hun Hunter's "Bright" will be what you want, every IL2 skinner has found this 'problem' and the solution is easy and quite effective

Google " bright+hun hunter" and you should find it. You'll want a folder on your desktop with the Bright files in it. Place the bmp in the same folder, run the batch file

bright is nice because it not only knocks down the pallet colors, but it optimizes the pallet as well, resulting in pretty darn good optimum pallets based on individual skins

KnightFandragon · #5 10-24-2010, 08:41 PM

I did not get any errors or anything, I was making my skin in Corel by putting colors on the Spitfire 25LB void.bmp and it was all good, then, not knowing how to add a picture to my plane using Corel I went into Paint.NET to put on the picture then saved it as a .BMP there, loaded it up in Corel, changed it a bit more and then loaded up IL2 and it suddenly didnt see my skin, although it did before I put on the pictures. It didnt ever get me an error message or anything and I had added multiple pics before to the exact same plane before using just regular old paint and it worked fine.

Also, ive not really done any skin editing before I had done my Spitfire skin the first time...this is a remake b/c my other HD crashed and I hadnt backed up anything, sucks for sure.

The BMP Corel saves my skin as is like an OS/2 or something. How do I reopen the color pallet in COrel? It was using the proper one before, then after I put on the pics it switched the pallete to some other one I dont know how to switch it back.

I must be bad with Goole b/c bright + hun hunter or hun hunter or bright just brings up a ton of stuff that doesnt look like a color editor anything...there is something about WoW and the Hun Hunter P47...

WTE_Galway · #6 10-24-2010, 09:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KnightFandragon

I did not get any errors or anything, I was making my skin in Corel by putting colors on the Spitfire 25LB void.bmp and it was all good, then, not knowing how to add a picture to my plane using Corel I went into Paint.NET to put on the picture then saved it as a .BMP there, loaded it up in Corel, changed it a bit more and then loaded up IL2 and it suddenly didnt see my skin, although it did before I put on the pictures. It didnt ever get me an error message or anything and I had added multiple pics before to the exact same plane before using just regular old paint and it worked fine.

Also, ive not really done any skin editing before I had done my Spitfire skin the first time...this is a remake b/c my other HD crashed and I hadnt backed up anything, sucks for sure.

The BMP Corel saves my skin as is like an OS/2 or something. How do I reopen the color pallet in COrel? It was using the proper one before, then after I put on the pics it switched the pallete to some other one I dont know how to switch it back.

I must be bad with Goole b/c bright + hun hunter or hun hunter or bright just brings up a ton of stuff that doesnt look like a color editor anything...there is something about WoW and the Hun Hunter P47...

IL2, like most games, uses an 8 bit 256 color pallet.

Your program has probably converted the file to 24 bit color.

You COULD just save the file back as 8 bit and it might work. Unfortunately just "saving" your bitmap back as 8 bit 256 color will often cause some odd colors to result because the conversion process is very basic.

Which is why most people download and use "Bright" to convert their work back to 8 bit 256 color instead. Bright does a much better job.

Have a look here:

http://www.simmerspaintshop.com/foru...m33-tutorials/

http://www.simmerspaintshop.com/foru...at-general-12/

Former_Older · #7 10-24-2010, 09:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KnightFandragon

I must be bad with Goole b/c bright + hun hunter or hun hunter or bright just brings up a ton of stuff that doesnt look like a color editor anything...there is something about WoW and the Hun Hunter P47...

Try it with "HunHunter" as one word. This was the second result when I tried it. Free download:

http://www.simmerspaintshop.com/foru...ile-bright-35/

Former_Older · #8 10-24-2010, 09:48 PM

And after all this time I'm not on the forums...Galway beats me by a nanosecond again

KnightFandragon · #9 10-28-2010, 06:21 AM

Well here is the result of my Spitfire skin. I put my file in that bright thing, hit the batch file but in game I didnt notice any difference between the regular skin and the one I put in Bright....maybe I did it wrong?

IceFire · #10 10-28-2010, 06:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KnightFandragon

Well here is the result of my Spitfire skin. I put my file in that bright thing, hit the batch file but in game I didnt notice any difference between the regular skin and the one I put in Bright....maybe I did it wrong?

If you look closely you should notice the difference. Looks like your skin came through quite alright!