Reskinning problem

[bh762]

I'm attempting to do a repaint of the Britkits F9, following the tutorial by Mdurdan. I use RSBintool to export the dds; then dxtbmp to send it to the editor (using GIMP). After editing the texture I save it using the "overwrite bmp" function, then reload it into dxtbmp. So far so good, but here's where the fun begins. After saving the dds (I've tried DXT1, DXT3, DXT5 etc.) I import it back into RSBintool. At this point the colours are all screwed up; red is blue, yellow is green, and so on. Below are a couple of pics showing the before and after.

original texture:


after being imported back into RSBintool:


Just wondering if anyone could shed some light on what might be happening here.

[buzz456]

Did you save the alpha when you loaded the texture into DXTBmp originally? I usually start out by exporting the alpha and then when you save your changed bmp back to DXTBmp import the alpha back and save it as DXT3 (You must use the same as the original. That's what I think it is from memory). I think it should be OK. If that works I'll tell you a little more about the alpha business.

[bh762]

Thanks for the reply buzz, I gave that a try. The alpha texture for this skin is just a grey square. I tried sending it to the editor and reloading it after the main skin, and also exporting it, then importing after reloading the main skin. Still have the same problem. In one instance the colour change only occurred after saving with dxtbmp. I deleted those files and repeated the whole process over. This time the colour change occurred when reloading the texture back into dxtbmp from gimp. So at this point I'm not sure if it's something I'm doing wrong in gimp or dxtbmp. The strange thing is I was able to play around with the skin for the RSC f40 a few days ago, using the same process and tools, and didn't run into this issue. I'm going to try using paint.net tonight when I get home and see what happens.

[buzz456]

I use that a lot and really like it. Try making the alpha way darker, about 85% black and see what happens.

[bh762]

Ran the skin through paint.net and everything seems to working fine, so it must have been a problem with gimp when saving the bmp. So now I'm doing the editing in gimp and using paint.net for the conversion. It's an extra step but at least it works. Now only if I had a proper template for this thing:

[bh762]

I don't think there's anything wrong with your tutorial, thanks for putting it together. The problem I'm having has something to do with gimp, but for now I'll just use paint.net as a work around. The repaint seems to be coming along okay, just need to get the stuff on the nose sorted out. I dug around and found a bumpmap and another file that I tried to use as a template but they dont seem to line up properly, so I guess it's gonna be trial and error.