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4 <title>Quix0r's FlightGear Webpage - Tutorial: How to get paths for livery drawing in GIMP</title>
9 <center><big><big><strong>Tutorial: How to get paths for livery drawing in GIMP</strong></big></big></center>
12 <strong>Problem:</strong>
16 Most airplane constructors (for FlightGear, not the real ones!) provide a
17 so-called "paint kit" which provides the designer an already
18 effective way to draw his/her livery (in GIMP, of course). So if you want to
19 draw a livery for your favorite (real or fantasy) airplane, you still
20 encounter these ugly looking white stripes on the borders. They are being
21 added by GIMP in the process of removing the alpha channel from the image
22 (maybe Skyop asked you to do so? ;-) ). Now you need to get rid of them,
23 because they make your model (this also applies on building, towers, hangars
24 and all other "ground-level" constructions with textures) look
25 unprofessional and not good.
29 <strong>Steps to do:</strong>
33 I take skyop's CRJ1000 paintkit from git as an example. It is called
34 <strong>CRJ1000-paintkit.xcf</strong>. I do this tutorial slowy, so for
35 experienced GTK/GIMP/Linux/Computer-in-general users it might be a bit
36 boring. Just head on faster if you feel you already know that step.
40 First, startup GIMP. On my desktop it looks like in the picture below.<br />
41 <a href="tutorials/img/livery-paths/001.png" target="_blank"><img
42 src="tutorials/img/livery-paths/001-thumb.png" alt="GIMP has fully started"
43 width="320" height="256" title="GIMP has fully started"></a><br />
44 <em>Image #1: GIMP has fully started up on a FVWM-Crystal desktop</em>
48 Load the paint kit (it must be provided or else ask the airplane constructor
49 kindly to provide one for GIMP) into GIMP. Again where you saved that file,
50 I leave that completely up to you. :-) So look for it (btw.: noticed the
51 file selection boxes have a "bookmarking" feature called
52 "Places"? Just in case you want to shortcut a lot clicks into one
54 <a href="tutorials/img/livery-paths/002.png" target="_blank"><img
55 src="tutorials/img/livery-paths/002-thumb.png" width="320" height="256"
56 alt="GTK selection box with the paint kit file already marked"
57 title="GTK selection box with the paint kit file already marked"></a><br />
58 <em>Image #2: GTK selection box with the paint kit file already marked</em>
62 If you have done so, the image got loaded into your computer's RAM and
63 displayed as similar below (maybe you have a different solution so GIMP will
64 change the zoom factor to match the image into your screen so it may
65 <strong>NOT</strong> look exacly the same).<br />
66 <a href="tutorials/img/livery-paths/003.png" target="_blank"><img
67 src="tutorials/img/livery-paths/003-thumb.png" width="320" height="256"
68 alt="GIMP has loaded the CRJ1000-paintkit.xcf file and displayed it"
69 title="GIMP has loaded the CRJ1000-paintkit.xcf file and displayed it"></a><br />
70 <em>Image #3: GIMP has loaded the CRJ1000-paintkit.xcf file and displayed it</em>
74 Now make the layer called <strong>[DEL] UV map</strong> active by simply
75 clicking on it and click the little magic wand in the toolbox. Need a
76 screenshot? Just one more step please: Click in the large white area of
77 that image (maybe between the two fuselage halves?). The result of these
78 three steps is shown below.<br />
79 <a href="tutorials/img/livery-paths/004.png" target="_blank"><img
80 src="tutorials/img/livery-paths/004-thumb.png" width="320" height="256"
81 alt="Magically selected parts of the airplane"
82 title="Magically selected parts of the airplane"></a><br />
83 <em>Image #4: Magically selected parts of the airplane</em>
87 Next choose <strong><u>S</u>elect</strong> from the image window's menu
88 and click <strong><u>I</u>nvert/</strong> or hit CTRL+I. The (animated)
89 selection will now change slightly so I go to next step. Choose
90 <strong><u>S</u>elect</strong> again, but now <strong>S<u>h</u>rink</strong>.
91 You should get a similar box as show below. The invertion step is very
92 import so don't leave it out. If you miss it you will get a wrong path
93 as the final result.<br />
94 <a href="tutorials/img/livery-paths/005.png" target="_blank"><img
95 src="tutorials/img/livery-paths/005-thumb.png" width="320" height="256"
96 alt="Open Shrink Selection box and inverted selection"
97 title="Open Shrink Selection box and inverted selection"></a><br />
98 <em>Image #5: Open Shrink Selection box and inverted selection</em>
102 Now enter 3 to 5 or more as selection shrink value (you have find that out
103 for yourself because it depends on the image and alpha channel) and hit the
104 <strong>OK</strong> button. The selection is now shrinked and may look like
105 mine below. I choosed 3 as shrink value.<br />
106 <a href="tutorials/img/livery-paths/006.png" target="_blank"><img
107 src="tutorials/img/livery-paths/006-thumb.png" width="320" height="256"
108 alt="Shrinked selection with 3 as value"
109 title="Shrinked selection with 3 as value"></a><br />
110 <em>Image #6: Shrinked selection with 3 as value</em>
114 Now you <strong>could</strong> start drawing your livery into the layer by
115 adding a new transparent layer, <strong>but</strong> you should save your
116 selection (path! hint, hint!) for later usage (on the same paint kit, of
117 course). To do so, choose <strong><u>S</u>elect</strong> again and hit
118 <strong>To <u>P</u>ath</strong> (here it was the last entry in the menu).
119 GIMP now starts to convert the selection into a path, but after it is done,
120 nothing seems to happen to your image, right? Wrong! You added a path to
121 your image. To make that visible, just bring up the path dialog (which can
122 be accessed through <strong><u>W</u>indows</strong>,
123 <strong><u>D</u>ockable Dialogs</strong>. If you want to shortcut that, hit
124 the last menu entry <strong>Layers, Channels, Paths, Undo</strong> which
125 gives you a similar window like the one in lower right corner of my
126 screenshots. Now just hit that 3rd item in that window and you get a similar
127 view like following screenshot.<br />
128 <a href="tutorials/img/livery-paths/007.png" target="_blank"><img
129 src="tutorials/img/livery-paths/007-thumb.png" width="320" height="256"
130 alt="Paths dialog box selected with the previously generated path"
131 title="Paths dialog box selected with the previously generated path"></a><br />
132 <em>Image #7: Paths dialog box selected with the previously generated path</em>
136 Now you may wish to rename it and export it on your hard drive. To do the
137 first step, double-click the current name <em>Selection</em> and type what
138 ever you want to call it. You may want to choose <em>All airplane parts</em>
139 or something descriptive. After that, right click the path and hit
140 <strong>E<u>x</u>port Path ...</strong> (that one with the little disk).
141 Select the desired folder where you want to store it (preferable near the
142 <strong>CRJ1000-paintkit.xcf</strong> file) and e.g. name it
143 <strong>CRJ1000-paintkit-paths.svg</strong> so you can easily look it up for
144 later purposes. I leave this step out, screenshotting it, you will get a
145 similar selection box as above.
149 Now you can start drawing liveries for your favorite airplane and reuse (or
150 first create) your exported paths for easy drawing! If you have imported
151 your path, you need to convert it into a selection and keep it invisible.
152 I think you already know, where to do that or didn't you take a longer
153 look on the path's context menu, do you? :-)
157 <strong>Thank you for participating my tutorial!</strong> If you have
158 feedback to tell me, contact me at my email address, ICQ, Jabber or in IRC
163 <strong>By the way:</strong> I used a converted, as path exported selection
164 to blacken my personal things on my screenshots. The path <a rel="external"
165 href="pub/screenshot-anonymizer-fvwm-crystal_1280x1024.svg"
166 target="_blank">can be found here</a>.
170 <strong>Used software:</strong>
172 <li><a href="http://www.gimp.org" rel="external" target="_blank">GIMP</a> 2.6.11 - GNU Image Manipulation Program</li>
173 <li><a href="http://gna.org/projects/fvwm-crystal/" rel="external" target="_blank">FVWM-Crystal</a> 3.0.5 - A small, fast and robust desktop for Linux (default with ACPI)</li>
174 <li><a href="http://www.debian.org" rel="external" target="_blank">Debian</a> <a href="http://www.gnu.org" rel="external" target="_blank">GNU</a>/Linux Unstable AMD64</li>
175 <li><a href="http://www.flightgear.org" rel="external" target="_blank">FlighGear Flight Simulation</a> Latest GIT - Fly free!</li>
176 <li><a href="http://www.midnight-commander.org/" rel="external" target="_blank">GNU Midnight Commander</a> - My favorite editor</li>
177 <li><a href="http://moc.daper.net/" rel="external" target="_blank">Music On Console Player</a> - Background music :-)</li>
182 PS: My manually mirrored download archive for FlightGear can be found
183 <a href="pub/" target="_blank">here</a>. So take a look around. :)
188 Created: <strong>2011-06-11</strong> |
189 Last update: <strong>2011-06-11</strong> |
190 Author: <a href="mailto:roland_NOSPAM_@_REMOVE_THIS_mxchange_AND_THIS_.org">Roland Häder</a><br />
191 <a href="flights.html">My flights</a> |
192 <a href="fgcom.html">FGCOM</a> |
193 <a href="fgdata-bundle.html">fgdata.bundle</a> |
194 <a href="rsync.html">How to rsync a scenery</a> |
195 <a href="links.html">Links collection</a> |
196 <a href="imprint.html">Imprint (needed in Germany)</a> |
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