Hi its my first post here, and im a new skinner... i've got a problem that has been sure asked before...
In the void IXC (of IL2 FB) its all white and i dont know where does the wing start and where does it end! what can i do to get the perfect borders?
There are many templates (I got one at the 1.JaVA site) they sometimes have the not used areas blanked out.
I simply draw over the edge to be sure. If you paint as far as the panellines go, then you are sure you are doing OK.
But another advise:
The XI series Spitfires aren't quite the easiest for skinning. I suggest you use the VIII to start with.
The IX series has bad wrapping around the fuselage, what makes making markings pretty hard. That is why so little people make skins for it.
No. all you can do is testing. Adlabs panelfinder on the tools page might help.
It is a 'skin' you put in the folder of the aircraft you want to find things out about. By watching the colour and numbers, it identifies which part of a bmp goes where on the aircraft.
You can also look at skins from other people. If they allready invented things, why search for it yourself. If you need to find where to draw the yellow leading edge, load another skin into your template and follow it's shape drawing it.
Starting skinning is looking a lot at the work of other people.
And skinning is a matter of a lot trying and testing. You'll have to do it to get the hang of it.
When you've made a couple of skins you get some feeling for figuring out where edges are and how to make patterns fit.
I allways start drawing hard edged patterns. When the camouflage patterns fit quite good I start adding sprayed edges.
There simply is no program that can find out how a 3D model in FB is mapped.
You can attach the screenshot (jpg file preferrably) to post in this forum. Or you can upload your pictures to image hosting sites such as www.photobucket.com and use the [IMG]your image link[/IMG] tab in your thread.