Neen help with tone gradations using GIMP

[Hurricane91]

Please help. I am having trouble getting decent gradations with GIMP. I am painting some VC panels for FS9 in 1024x1024. GIMP can do some gradations, but when loaded in the sim, they look smudgy or layered. Is there a way to do this, or am I expecting too much from the program?

I would appreciate any help or direction to a tutorial etc.
Thank you.

John

[RobH]

John,

I have no real knowledge of Gimp, sorry. Is this something that can help? http://www.tankedup-imaging.com/gradient.html If not, hopefully someone with experience in Gimp will come along shortly and help.

[Hurricane91]

Hi Rob,
Thank you for responding and for the link. I was able to use those instructions and get a good gradation effect in GIMP. I saved the bmps to a folder for back-up and they look fine in the Windows viewer, but when I export the image to FS9 the texture changes when viewed in the sim.

Thanks again for your help.

Best regards,
John.

[RobH]

What are using to save your image into FS9?

[Hurricane91]

Normaly I use DXTBmp, but now that you mention it, I have been by-passing the utility and saving either to a folder or directly to the aircrafts panel folder. I will try going through DXTBmp and see if it makes a difference. Thanks again Rob.

John

[Hurricane91]

Here is a screen shot of the right panel. I used a straight gradation for a test. It was saved from GIMP as a Windows bmp to a folder in My Pictures. From there it was picked up by DXTBmp as a 24bit 1024x1024 image. The 24 bit image was how the panel bmps were originally.

56043

[RobH]

Check and see if Gimp will let you save it as a 32 bit. Regardless if it won't, try saving it as a 32 bit with DXTbmp, and also make sure on the right side in the Mip Maps box, uncheck "include when saving". I could be wrong, but I think the 24 bit part may be your problem.

[Hurricane91]

I tried that too Rob, no luck. I do appreciate your help. You gave me some good leads with that link.

Best regards,
John

[RobH]

Well, it's never easy, is it? LOL!

You might try a gaussian blur to it. Make sure you are able to undo the blur, just in case that doesn't work. Other than that, I am out of ideas. Sorry.