Etihad F1 repaint:What I'm doing wrong?

**Thickfog.italian** · 05-10-2010, 11:50 AM

I'm trying to make an Etihad F1 repaint for the Thomas Ruth A340-600...I Know the tools needed to make this kind of livery but I don't understand why if I use a single color layer, like in this example where I painted all the fuselage with pure black

I don't have any sign of textures issues, while if I use a layer painted with a three color gradient,(required to make the F1 Etihad livery) it is clearly visible the texture "juction" between front and rear fuselage textures...

As you can see I tried to make a gradient with the black in a position that avoid the shade change between black and red in the position of the junction...(a little different from the actual livery) but it is an unuseful trick...

**MarkGilmore** · 05-10-2010, 03:29 PM

Hi
It could be a texture mapping issue , which does not show with your black test paint as both ends of the texture are black , but once you apply a varying colour the problem shows.

Have a read of This Thread ,and hopefully it will shed some light on what may(or may not) be the problem

**Thickfog.italian** · 05-11-2010, 07:41 AM

Thanks very much for your reply Mark...I read the topic, and it lighted me about a couple of things...if there is a glitch in the mdl file, the issue cannot be fixed by the repainter(this could be done by the modeler of the airplane) I'm making several attempts trying "to cheat" the bitmap itself, by applying black painted patches layers on the two sides of the textures(In this way the texture starts and ends with the same color)...it looks like it is partially working...but the black patch unfortunately covers the nose of the plane too...and there are not enough pixel left free(the grid of the nose goes right to the borders of the texture and the Etihad F1 livery unfortunately doesn't have the black nose...I'll try to do the best to have both white nose, and no lines between textures joints(at least make them less visible as possible)
Here some new screenshots of the test repaint using this trick

As you can see the white lines are almost disappeared...but we have now the black nose...I tried to remove the black pixels only on the nose part covered by the black "patch", but in this way I get again white lines between textures

**MarkGilmore** · 05-11-2010, 10:03 AM

Hi

Yes there always seems to be some sort of "Trade off" when this solution is applied unfortunately

I guess you could try to email Thomas and see if he can help ,but I get the feeling that this glitch only really shows with the type of colour you are applying ( great paint by the way)
Most Airbus liveries are a boring Euro White ,or one uniform colour (KLM for example),but sadly for you the varying colours of the F1 paint bring out the worst in the texture mapping.

So I suppose if Thomas cannot help you it is Compromise time .

You might be able to "fiddle " the nose black spot with the alpha layer (long shot).
Hopefully someone will read this thread and have a solution for this particular model , but if it makes you feel any better this model is not the only one afflicted with this problem

Good luck

**Thickfog.italian** · 05-11-2010, 12:36 PM

I spent a couple of time, erasing black pixels of the patch one by one(the grid layer of the paintkit was very helpful), until I found the threshold when white lines re-appears so I obtained a nearly clean nose(just two small dots)..if I'd use the trick that you suggested for the alpha channel i think It would be nearly invisible...anyway at this point I think it can be confused for two small dirt dots...

this is the best I have obtained...so finally I could give a really nice look(the F1 Etihad livery, I think is one of the best paint schemes used by an airliner) to the thomas Ruth A340-600

(Nice models anyway) here's the latest screenshots of the work in progress

Thanks very much for your tips, they were very helpful...without them I would have spent countless hours stucked to make this paint...

**MarkGilmore** · 05-11-2010, 01:01 PM

Hi
Glad you got it fixed
from the screenshots it is very hard to see any black on the nose , so I would say you have done a very good job in dealing with this error.

The paint looks great at the moment , and I am sure once it is finished it will look even better ,and I am sure that it will prove a very popular download as well.
Don't forget to post some screenshots when it is finished, I'd like to see this one in all its F1 glory