Resources for RoF Skinners (2024)

THIS INFO HAS BEEN COPIED/PASTED FROM THE OLD ROF FORUMS. It's from several years ago (and many of the embedded links in the old post were broken, so I've only brought over as much as I could make sense of - I also omitted the last part that was all about submitting the skins for approval, since there's zero chance that's happening any more), and I'm not sure if it's still completely current/accurate - if anybody knows otherwise, please PM me and I'll be happy to fix/update this information.

Originally posted byJ2_Wallenberg:

…OMG LOLZ!!!!111111 HOW DO I DO TEH SKINZ??

I dedicate this tutorial to Luftwaffles, Rennsemmel and J2_vonRauter, who asked me for help on this topic and are all usingGIMP2.6, as I am, and to all the others, who in future may want to make their own skins with freeware tools only. And to Josh Echo, who gave me lessons on dogfighting and allowed me to use the skin I promised to do for him here in this guide.I also dedicate this to Panthercules, who does an awesome job on nursing our broken skins and helping us out to get them committed.
-=DictaGIMP=-

Open fire only at close range, and then only when the opponent is squarely in your sights.
What does that mean? We should not shoot early, nor should we start skinning without the necessary tools. We should have an idea of what we want to do.

We need:

GIMP 2.6 (I guess older versions may do too)
Winzip or WinRAR, any program to open and create .ZIP archives
DXTBmp, a tool to convert ourGIMP-made skin to a .dds - a Rise of Flight skin - file.
A skin templatefor the aircraft we're skinning for. This template is a .psd (an Adobe Photoshop) file.GIMPcan manipulate these as well. For this tutorial I've chosen the Albatros D.Va.

When over the enemy's lines, always remember your own line of retreat.
Boelcke wants to remind us that we need to set these tools up properly before we go right into it.

First thing is, start DXTBmp and select "Prefs->Select Editor" to show the program the path toGIMP.

Know your tools! There's a viewer for aircraft skins in the RoF directory:

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This is what the user viewer looks like:

I don't use this viewer much if I don't do something completely new; I use a quick mission set up without enemies or ground objects, for as soon as I like my new skin as it looks in the hangar, I can quickly jump to flight for the screenshots and to check if my skin isn't too bright. I let it stay in the hangar and switch over to myGIMPdesktop.

Here is a view of the hangar; always when I change something on the skin, I select another skin in the list and re-select mine so that it reloads.

You should always try to keep your eye on your opponent, and never let yourself be deceived by ruses.
Boelcke's hidden meaning here is quite clear. We do not want to see dull (say: matte) skins with broken alpha layers in the polls. No, we're smart here: we copy the alpha layer of a working in-game skin for later use. We open a skin in DXTBmp, select "Alpha->Send Alpha to editor", and save this layer viaGIMPas .bmp file. In this example it's AD5_alpha.bmp.

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Always continue with an attack you have begun.
Now that we've set everything up for our strike, why retreat? The fun is only ahead of us. We open the downloaded Photoshop template for our aircraft.

ATTENTION:
The screenshot above shows a "DRAW HERE" layer. While it is not mandatory to only use this one, you might want to consider that all the layers who are in front of this one are quite important for your skin to still look realistic with all the details like rivet lines, shadows, panels and small other details.
As well,we consider here already using not too bright colours.Instead of white, we use light grey for example. A good hint here is to use the white of the roundels (Entente) or of the framing of the iron crosses (Central) or any other "white" already contained in the template. All colours that we use we will try to match to this brightness. Even then, when you read on, we will still have to adjust the overall brightness, but that will be covered in the later tutorial.

In principle, it is better to attack in groups of four or six. Avoid two aircraft attacking the same opponent.
After we've wreaked havoc on our paint scheme (say: we're finished with our paintwork and editing), Boelcke wants us to merge all the layers of the template into one, to make it ready for saving as a .bmp. We select "Image->Merge Visible" and tick "delete invisible layers".
Then we switch from "layers" to "channels" and delete the alpha channel of the template.
There's a .dds plugin forGIMPthat would allow you to directly save your texture including the alpha channel as skin file (say: .dds file), but it gives only bad results often with strange colours and dull look, the gloss of the skin gets lost. I don't use this plugin for the obvious reasons.

Try to secure the upper hand before attacking. If possible, keep the sun behind you.
Boelcke wants to remind us here that we do not want to get blinded by a skin quickly submitted to the polls without thinking of its brightness and how it will look in-game, standing out as a lighthouse for miles, and leave us wondering how the enemies see us from so far. What he and not he alone suggests, is that we tone down the skin.Don't be shy, tone it down hard. The .bmp file should look unrealistically dark in the editor, to look good in-game.

Now I save my file as AD5_JoshEcho.bmp.

We open AD5_JoshEcho.bmp in DXTBmp. Then we import our alpha layer we saved a few steps ago, our AD5_alpha.bmp by selecting "Alpha->Import alpha" in the menu.

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We select "Save As->DDS Texture". In the dialog, we choose AD5_JoshEcho.dds as file name and "DDS DXT5" as option. We save the .dds either directly in the respective directory (<your RoF folder>\data\graphics\skins\AlbatrosD5\AD5_JoshEcho.dds) or in a working folder (and then copy it to the aforementioned folder).

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We go back to RoF, select any other skin and reselect ours. If you've loaded the quick mission before copying your first AD5_JoshEcho.dds into the RoF skins folder, you may have to go to the game map and back to the hangar for the game to reload the list of skin files.
If you're satisfied with how your skin looks, you can give it a first try in-game. Hit start. This is the moment of truth.If the skin is too bright now, go back to adjusting the brightness ingimpand repeat all the steps from there on. You of course have to restart the mission and deselect/reselect your skin in the hangar to force the game to reload it.

Edited by TG-55Panthercules

Resources for RoF Skinners (2024)
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