Repainting

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 12:22 am

I have trouble remembering it sometimes also if it's been a while since I was in it......

Open PakBuild. Click on 'PAK' and then on 'UnPack'. Then direct it to the FPK file you want to unpack and click on it. It will then ask you to direct it to where you want it put. When you open the final folder, click on 'OK'.

It's best to make a folder to work in and put any files you want to unpack in there.

I hope that helps.......

Burlington_Northern_3140 · Post by **Burlington_Northern_3140** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 3:09 am

Thank you, I've been using the engines folder which I placed in an old file which I used to use for train simulator files.

Burlington_Northern_3140 · Post by **Burlington_Northern_3140** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 4:22 am

Decided to make a Western Pacific GP40.

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 4:34 am

Looks good. Are you in for doing a few for me when you get the time?

Burlington_Northern_3140 · Post by **Burlington_Northern_3140** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 10:26 pm

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 10:55 pm

Let me know when your schedule is open and I'll see about pics for you. PM me a place to send them also.

Burlington_Northern_3140 · Post by **Burlington_Northern_3140** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 11:36 pm

How do you use decals? As soon as I finnish this up I will start taking requests.

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 11:48 pm

Unless someone can give you a more detailed answer, I'd say take them apart, figure how they work, and don't work, and duplicate it. That's how I figure out a lot of stuff.

I have a bit of time, I'll see what I can come up with......

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 12:14 am

Download and open the BB_BR_GP382 file from Construction Set, Building Blocks Are Us announces Engines Are Us!. In the NIF you will find line 60, santafeblue_decal_2. If you click on that, and look into the Block Details section at the bottom (View, Block Details) you will see three lines, Translation, Rotation and Scale. This controls the placement, positioning and size of the dacal which is lines 70 and 73. Write down the numbers, then start playing with them by changing them by twos or fives and see what you get. Remember, no change is permanent until you save it. If the decal you see is not big enough, you might try getting one fron another spot and changing the name to get what you want.

From a little playing I just did, looking at the side of the Engine, X moves it toward or away from you, Y moves it up or down and Z moves it from the front to the back of the Engine. Rotation you might want to leave alone. Scale changes the size of course, meaning you would have to adjust the placement of it.

See what you can do from there. I have supper to finish and eat........

Burlington_Northern_3140 · Post by **Burlington_Northern_3140** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 12:34 am

The decal, I noticed as I looked to see if I was painting corerectly, is already in the right spot, but after painting sfbillboard_decal to WESTERN PACIFIC in orange and pasting that in the sfbillboard_decal_spec and filling the orange in with black assuming that sfbillboard_decal_spec was to signify were color was translucent, the decal was white were it used to be translucent and the railroad name, the orange words WESTERN PACIFIC that I typed earlier, writen on it. How do I restore the translucence in paint?

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 12:56 am

First and formost, when you are editing any of this stuff, save copies of each step by adding a number into the name....

Upload what you have and I'll play with it and try to give you some data.

What graphics program are you using?

Burlington_Northern_3140 · Post by **Burlington_Northern_3140** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 3:39 am

I am using paint with PNG files. here are the files: the decal that is not working, that I have lost the back up to is: sfbillboard_decal and sfbillboard_decal_spec, a working decal for the number written on the side of the cab: sfbillboardnumber_decal and sfbillboardnumber_decal_spec and my progress on the model: sfbillboard_Gp38_2_diff, all png files. It seems the Niff files are not allowed so i hope you already have the BB_BR_GP38. If not, it is in the Building blocks thread.

Lowell · Post by **Lowell** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 5:06 am

when you import the files and make them png...convert them to PNG 32 or 64 RGBA ... you must import the alpha with the model, or your paint program will fill it in with the fill color, which is in your case white. Likewise when you merge the layers, merge the visable...if you merge flat all...the transparancy is erased and filled in with the fill color or background.

So always edit in PNG...convert the dds files or whatever into the RGBA makesure the A is there for Alpha.

Then your decals will work properly as transparent. I made one transparent, try this one and see if in the Nif file it shows up right. Also you can move the decals around with the x and y settings.

The Western Pacific is going to be a great model...good job.

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 6:09 am

You guys and your PNG files........

First, what you know, I don't, so bare with me.....

If you want to upload files like these to the forum, zip them.

I use GIMP for playing with files like these. It's simple, it's free, and you can work with a lot of different files.

For changing from some types to DDS, or the other way, DDS Converter 2 is good, and free. You can do a web search for both.

As I play with these I'm renaming the sfbillboard to wp5357...simple.

And as to finding the BB_BR_GP38, I'm the dog who's been making the BBs and posting them with TIJERs help so I got copies of them all, plus a load of others I'm working on.

I took the first, opened it in GIMP and told it to 'Alpha' the white. (the white is now clear) I resized it to 512 x 128 and saved it(WP5357_decal.dds). I then replaced the orange with black, renamed it and saved it(WP5357_decal_spec.dds).

Now the number. I think a different number would be good, so I'm doing it as 5357. I'm doing it in orange also. I saved it as WP5357number_decal.dds. I then changed the orange to black and saved it as WP5357number_decal_spec.dds.

Since I don't have an original of your engine, I took the copy of the image and scaled it up to 1024 x 1024.

The number may have to be redone since it looks to thin, but since I saved all the files from the ones you posted, they may come out fine if you redo them.

Burlington_Northern_3140 · Post by **Burlington_Northern_3140** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 10:50 pm

Thank you lowell I will import files and remember to import the transparency with it next time and snoopy55, I will read up on how to use gimp so I can create new transparencies for my repaint. If I can't figure out how to use gimp I will ask.