Paint Kit Conundrum

[falcon409]

I have PM'd Willy and he's looking into it, but he's as mystified as I am about this.

I decided to do a livery for the D18 Amphib. Loaded up Willy's paint kit from several years ago (one I had used in the past with excellent results), started with the fuselage, slapped some paint on it and used the NVidia DDS Plugin for Paint Shop Pro to convert to DDS (DXT5). To save on unnecessary critiques about why a certain process is done in such a way. . .I am not a novice at doing liveries, been doing it a long time and it works perfectly for me, thank you.

The problem is that for some reason, when the conversion is complete, I have a solid black texture. I have run other liveries I've done through the process today and every one is fine. . .just not using this livery with this paint kit. I would also add that two years ago I used this same paint kit and produced several liveries for the D18. . .no problems. . .just not today.

Program used: Corel Paint Shop Pro 2018
NVidia DDS Format Plugin_V8.55.0109.1800
Settings on Plugin menu: DXT5 ARGB 8bpp | interpolated alpha
2D Texture
No Mips
Save Flipped Vertically

Anyone ever have this problem or have any useful suggestions please chime in. Thanks

[pilto von pilto]

3 things I've come across and are in my tips and tricks.txt file :

1. The plugin itself may have been updated. Eg the version number. I know this is FSX but the DDS plugins have all been updated for the PBR "goodness" of P3d. To the point that we've got 2 separate settings for FSX dds and P3d dds. I noticed that on a friends computer who is still using adobe products that his DDS plugin was a little different.

2. As above have you tried the " save as TGA/PSD/BMP then open in imagetool from the SDK and make the DDS " way ? I know it's longer but it might help with the logic regarding where the issue is. EG plugin or corrupt PSP/PSD.

3. You're specifying an alpha have you got one? And one gotcha that I have in my tips and tricks.txt is even if you arent using an alpha but are using ARGB then put a single white pixel in an out of the way place which forces imagetool ( and possibly the plugin ) to make it an alpha anyway.

Other than those ideas I have nothing else. The black texture has occurred to me before, it was number 3 that fixed it. ( I also use the send to method to imagetool for the last 10 years as moved away from programmes that have DDS plugins so not sure how much this would be helpful ) .

[falcon409]

Well, when all else fails. . .start over. ..kinda. I got it to work, but here's what it took.

I opened a new workspace, 2048x2048, then loaded the livery in the current PSP format in Willy's PK. With them both open side by side I copied and pasted the layers I needed from Willy's over to my new PK. Once I had everything correctly layered I saved as DDS, the conversion worked perfectly and no more solid black. Something askew in Willy's PK. . .don't know what, don't know how, but I have a good base to work from now.

[Willy]

I'm glad you got it sorted. Like you said, different painters, different processes. I still use DXT/Bmp to convert bitmaps to .dds files. I can do it with paint.net but I just like Martin Wright's old program and it works for me.

[FlyingsCool]

Well, when all else fails. . .start over. ..kinda. I got it to work, but here's what it took.

I opened a new workspace, 2048x2048, then loaded the livery in the current PSP format in Willy's PK. With them both open side by side I copied and pasted the layers I needed from Willy's over to my new PK. Once I had everything correctly layered I saved as DDS, the conversion worked perfectly and no more solid black. Something askew in Willy's PK. . .don't know what, don't know how, but I have a good base to work from now.

My bet is it had something to do with what Pilto said about the alpha channel.

Either that, or, even with DXT/BMP process that I use, every so often it gets a little screwed up and I have to reprocess it.

Glad you got it working to your satisfaction.

[falcon409]

I'm glad you got it sorted. Like you said, different painters, different processes. I still use DXT/Bmp to convert bitmaps to .dds files. I can do it with paint.net but I just like Martin Wright's old program and it works for me.

Willy, I have had that paint kit for a long time and it worked when I used it back then. My guess, after all the hassle, is that several things played into the problem. One is that years ago I was using Paint Shop Pro 8, I used a plugin for the DDS conversion and that paint kit was fine. I never used it again until a few days ago but now I'm using Corel Paint Shop Pro 2018. . .I think that's part of the cause. The other is that since most paint kits are geared to Photoshop users, Paint Shop Pro users go through a "dumbing down" process when loading a PSD file, in that some functions from Photoshop are ignored or "stripped, in a way, in order to use the layers and that's a fact. . .I've gotten messages before saying that some functions will be ignored. I can't help but think that during that process of picking and choosing what it will use and what it won't that sometimes things get screwed up.

Whatever the cause, I'm not a serious enough painter to concern myself with delving into it any further. I found a work-around and I can press on with the livery I was trying to do a few days ago.

Thanks for everyones suggestions.