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Nose
Art/Regiment Art Tutorial for IL2
by Yuri
Let’s start by
reading what Oleg has to say about it in the IL_2 README:
“Individual paint
scheme of aircraft and squadron insignia
When playing IL-2
online, you can use your own paint schemes for all the aircraft you use.
These paint schemes will be observed by all the other players who are also
online. Individual paint schemes are created using void.bmp files
that are placed in the directories corresponding to each aircraft.
For example, in the PaintSchemes/skins/Yak-3 directory, load the void.bmp
file into the image editor and paint it as you like. You can assign
the completed BMP file with the name of your choice. Save it in
Windows BITMAP 256 colors format. Copy the completed BMP file into
the directory corresponding to your chosen aircraft.
If you want to create a
NEW insignia for the squadron you are going to play for, follow the
instructions below:
- Paint the 64x64
pixel squadron’s insignia using any image editor.
- Save it in Windows
BITMAP 256 colors format.
- Copy the completed
file in the PaintSchemes\Regiments directory. You can use the
filename of your choice, for example, the name of your squadron.
- Using the Windows
Notepad, create a text file without the .TXT extension, with a name
corresponding to that of you file (squadron). You can also copy
the filename from those included in the list of existing files.
Specify the country and the name of the squadron in the file. By
way of example, open one of these files from our list to have a look
at all the necessary information and to avoid mistakes:
Country = DE (country,
standard double-letter international abbreviation)
Id = ZZ (identification
– using 2 letters – only used for German and British bombers)
gruppeNumber = 1 (a
group number. Only used for German aircraft)
short = JG 101
(Short/abbreviated name of the squadron)
info = Jagdgeschwader
101 (full name of the squadron)
From the mission
briefing multiplayer menu, select ARMING and choose your new paint scheme
and squadron insignia before you take off. After that, you will fly
with the new paint scheme on your plane; if other player have their SKIN
DOWNLOAD option set to ON, they will be able to enjoy observing your
aircraft’s new paint scheme.”
Well, that’s a good
start…first however you need a GRAPHICS program a little better than MS
Paint (IMHO). I use Paint Shop Pro 7 (PSP7) by Jasc:
http://www.jasc.com/products/psp/
Adobe Photo Shop is
also first rate, but rather expensive:
http://www.adobe.com/store/products/master.jhtml;jsessionid=C1MPRU0N5555TQFI0ILBT5OAVDJBIIV1?id=catPhotoshop
The Gymp is FREE, and
I‘ve heard good things about it:
http://www.gimp.org/
You want a program that
can do transparencies, cropping, inversion, color replacing, etc.
Irfanview is a great
free program for VIEWING and saving images in different formats, but I
don’t recommend it for IL-2 graphics work personally…
http://www.irfanview.com/
*As
I said the DEFAULT size of the images stored in the REGIMENTS folder of
IL2 is a 64x64 pixel square. I have noticed that Fritze’s “the
Girls” (N.B. for MATURE audiences) http://skullz.members.easyspace.com/thegirls.htm
uses 128x128 pixel
sized images. They seem to show up OK in IL2, however, when I
INITIALLY tried doing my own 128x128 pixel designs, I could not SEE them
in the game, so I stuck with 64x64 pixel images. Also IL2 uses ONLY
images that are in the Windows *.BMP format and the images MUST be 8-bit
and 256-color palettes (more on this later…). CORRECTION: I
guess I originally must have saved my 128x128 pixel files in a wrong
format by mistake because when I tried them again THEY
WORKED!...so.....you may ALSO use a 128x128 pixel format (as Fritze did!)
128x128 allows for a little bit more clarity of detail...so I will be
revising slowly all my 64x64 pixel arts!
Starting out…
First you need to FIND
some nose art that you want to use…you can start with almost anything
that tickles your fancy that you think would look cool on a plane
We will do one
together…I am going to improve on my “Red, Hot and Russian” nose art
that I “borrowed” J from another great aviation site. Let’s
load it up into PSP7… (Fig. 1)
Fig. 1
This
image is 300x257 pixels and is in the *.JPG format.
What we wish to do is
to end up with a 64x64 pixel image that will allow us to “paste” the
girl and the lettering onto our plane, but leave out the background stuff
(the rivets, background color, etc.). We will make the background
TRANSPARENT. There are a number of ways one could achieve this.
For me the simplest way is to PAINT everything EXCEPT the lettering and
the girl with a color that will be a transparent color when working with
the 256 color palette that IL2 uses. In my practical
experience I have found that a light blue/off white with a RGB value of
206:214:206 works just great. ALWAYS start with a 16 million/24-bit
color image (TRUE COLOR) if possible…this represents ALL the colors the
human eye can distinguish and allows you to do all sorts of manipulations
BEFORE you save your FINAL image as an 8-bit, 256-color image that IL2
actually uses in the game. The 24, 16, 8-bit stuff refers to the
NUMBER of BITS that describes EACH pixel in a graphic computer image.
You will occasionally see references to 32-bit color. This generally
means there are transparencies, masks and other layers involved that allow
for various SPECIAL EFFECTS (alpha channel: A grey scale channel for
storing selections and masks that can be reloaded into an image....
we will not deal with this further in this tutorial…)
"**NOTE: The BMP
must be saved as true-color (24-bit), otherwise the resulting TGA will not
have transparent areas. The color to be used as transparency mask is taken
by sampling the lower-left pixel of the BMP." That quote
is from the README of Andrew's IL2MAT
. The transparency is based on the lower-left PIXEL of the BMP file
(IL2 converts these BMPs into TGA files for use in the game...more on this
in my other tutorial on using
custom regiments in COOPS). So you may use a different color
than 206:214:206, just realize that whatever color you use for the LOWER
LEFT PIXEL in your BMP will be the TRANSPARENT mask color that IL2 uses to
display the TGA version of your graphic in the game. Now back to
work...
It also helps a lot to
become familiar with the functions of your various “tools” that come
standard with the paint program you are using. Here is a link for a
great BASIC tutorial for PSP: http://www.graphicsbypati.com/psptutorials/newuser/newuser.htm
Make sure you have your
REDO option set to ON in your general program preferences so that you
reverse any mistakes you make. To first set a color you need
the DROPPER tool to “suck up” a color from a graphic or from a color
palette that you are working with.
To select a color using
the Dropper:
1.
Move the Dropper over the color you want to select.
2.
Click to select an active color:
Left-click to select the foreground/stroke solid color.
Right-click to select the background/fill solid color
For example, the COLOR
REPLACER is extremely useful for replacing one color with another.
To replace a color:
1.
Activate the Color Replacer by clicking its button on the Tool palette or
in the Tool Selection menu of the Tool Options palette.
2.
Select the color you are replacing as the foreground/stroke or
background/fill color.
3.
Select the color you are substituting as the other active solid color.
4.
To add a texture, select one as the active foreground/stroke texture.
5.
Use the Tool Options palette tab 1 to configure the brush tip.
6.
Click tab 2 to bring it to the front.
7.
Set a Tolerance value (The Tolerance setting, which is available for the
Flood Fill and Color Replacer tools, determines how closely the colors of
the image must match the old color in order to be replaced. As you
increase the tolerance, more colors are replaced) to determine how closely
the colors of the image must match the old color in order to be replaced.
As you increase the tolerance, more colors are replaced.
8.
Paint to replace the color in the following way:
If the new color is the foreground/stroke style, press the left mouse
button while you paint or double-click with the left button.
If the new color is the background/fill style, press the right mouse
button or double-click with it.
I often use a ROUND,
TOLERANCE of 20, STEP 25, DENSITY 100%, but vary the size of the tool for
small areas from 2-10, and from 20-50 to replace larger areas. I do
most of my fine work with the paint brush tool set to SQUARE, SIZE 1,
HARDNESS 0, 100% OPACITY, STEP 25 and 100% DENSITY. This allows you
to PAINT just ONE pixel at a time!
The Paint Shop Pro
Users Group http://www.pspug.org/
has tons of links and info on the use of the various aspects of this great
graphic program (worth checking out and practicing before you start with
the “serious stuff”)
So let’s get at it…
 Fig.
2
Here
we begin painting the borders of the image (Fig. 2) with the light blue
RGB (206:214:206). Remember we are working with a 16 million color,
24-bit/pixel image…later we will reduce the size of the image and the
palette.
 Fig.
3
Now
we get into the areas of the image (Fig. 3) where the COLOR REPLACER gets
helpful…we can slowly replace the areas around the letters and the girl
with our light blue, replacing the darker blue and white areas…if we
make any mistakes we can REDO using the EDIT Menu on our main menu bar.
Fig. 4
We
have safely replaced MOST of the background of our image (Fig. 4), but as
we get CLOSE to the letters and the girl, we would like to use the ZOOM in
under the VIEW MENU to use smaller COLOR REPLACER sizes (2-10) and then
actually painting the pixels carefully around the letters and the girl
using a paintbrush size 1-2. Meanwhile we are going to want the
LETTERS to REALLY standout on the fuselage of our plane once we paste the
nose art on, SO we will use the COLOR REPLACER (size 2-5) and regular
paintbrush (size 1) to intensify the RED lettering in “red hot” and
the BLACK lettering in “and Russian” (Fig. 5). See
below…
Fig. 5
OK..Finally
we are finished working with our 300x257 pixel 24-bit, 16 million color
JPG image and are ready to do some downsizing…
 Fig.
6
Notice
how I made the RED HOT standout in red (Fig. 6) and the AND RUSSIAN in
black…now if we did everything correctly ANYTHING light blue in the
background will be TRANSPARENT when we go to a *.BMP 256 color image to
use in IL2.
First
we will RESIZE…under the IMAGE MENU, we click on Resize and notice
several checkboxes. Usually if we start with a perfectly SQUARE
image (in this case 300x300 pixel), we can leave the “Resize all
Layers” and “Maintain aspect ratio of: " boxes BOTH checked.
In this example as we have a 300x257 image size we need to UNCHECK the
“Maintain aspect ratio of: " box. This will allow us to
resize as closely to a square as possible with minimal distortion.
The resize type should remain at: “smart size”. So we uncheck
the “Maintain aspect ratio of: " box and under PIXEL SIZE type in
64 width and 64 height (Fig. 7). We click on OK and produce this:
 Fig.
7
Now
we need to go to the COLORS MENU and go to “decrease color depth”.
Click here and we see various color selection choices.
We want to select 256 color, 8-bit. We need to do this because IL2
graphics recognize this format. Finally, we should save our image as
a WINDOWS (or OS/2) BMP file. Do this now…
We’re
almost finished!
J
In
order for us to see the image in IL2 we have to create a text file that
will go into the REGIMENTS folder that has the same name as our new
graphic. In this case we are calling our graphic, “newredhot”,
so our file must also be named “newredhot”. Remember Oleg’s
notes from the README file above? Let’s look at the contents of
one of these files:
When
you use NOTEPAD to open one, you will see this:
country
= NN
id
= ZZ
gruppeNumber
= 1
short
= newredhot
info
= newredhot
If
you use a NN country code you may use the REGIMENT graphic with “NO
COUNTRY” in Multiplay, if you use DE it will be selectable for German
planes and if you use RU, for Russian planes. If you are interested
in other countries such as Hungary, Romanian, etc. all you need to do is
change the country code to the 2 letter international standard and it will
work. If you want to use your graphics with more than one country,
you will need unique names and unique text files for EACH country.
For example, to use the newredhot as a Russian graphic I would suggest
calling it “newredhotru” and the text file
“newredhotru”…likewise for a German graphic, “newredhotde” and
text file “newredhotde”. The graphic BMP and text files for
these are IDENTICAL except for renaming the BMP differently and editing
the text files as follows:
country
= RU
id
= ZZ
gruppeNumber
= 1
short
= newredhotru
info
= newredhotru
country
= DE
id
= ZZ
gruppeNumber
= 1
short
= newredhotde
info
= newredhotde
ID
numbers, gruppeNumbers can be changed as you see fit as per the README
notes..
One
last caveat, after editing the text files found in the REGIMENTS folder
you should NOT save them as a .TXT file…rather select one to edit from
the REGIMENTS folder and open it up…I often copy these to a separate
folder on my hard drive, so I can work with them safely without screwing
up my REGIMENTS folder. So after editing a sample file (I’m going
to include one for you) make your changes (in this case, ”newredhot”)
in Notepad….BUT use the "SAVE" command ONLY , not the
"SAVE AS" command …AFTER you do this simply Right click and
RENAME the file as “newredhot”, etc. If you "SAVE AS"
a TXT file IL2 will NOT recognize it!
*
One other thing (discovered by Cage28)...you should NOT leave a SPACE when
naming your graphic! For example, "new_redhot" works fine,
but not
"new
redhot"! If you leave a SPACE, you won't see your graphic on
the ARMING screen despite having your text file present.
Ok..Now
we can go into the game and see how our new graphic looks….drum
roll…moment of truth…
Go
to MULTIPLAY….setup a server…setup a DOGFIGHT…load up a DOGFIGHT
terrain and SELECT a HOME BASE…now go to your ARMING screen…pick a
plane to fly…in this case we are picking NO COUNTRY and want to look at
“newredhot” (not “newredhotde” or “newredhotru”…hehe)
Click
on Regiments….look at the plane…you should see your "Red, Hot and
Russian" babe…then APPLY the skin and you should see something like
this:
SUCCESS!!!
Also...
There
are some planes that do NOT show regiment
art/nose art as RU planes…but only as NO COUNTRY planes.
These are the Russian La5-FN, Russian MiG-3, 1940,
Russian MiG-3ud, the P11c and any of the IL2s (I think the P11c and IL2s
NEVER show nose or regiment art even when NO COUNTRY designated).
You may still apply custom nose arts/regiment arts to the above planes for
MULTIPLAY, but they must be PASTED in using PSP7 SEPARATELY. They
are not AUTOMATICALLY applied from the REGIMENTS folders and SELECTABLE
from the ARMING screen in MULTIPLAY as in the case of the other planes!
Enjoy
and please improve on any of my tips…I have included a sample 24-bit JPG
and 256color, 8-bit BMP and sample text file for download…
Right
Click and "save target as" to download...
Original
24-bit, 16 million color JPG
Final
8-bit, 256 color BMP
Sample
text description for the REGIMENTS folder
S!
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