Thanks.. I hope it makes your life a little easier heh
I am no expert skinner ..yet
But I can offer you two little tips, for if you find a template for the kind of plane you want to skin, or if you lose patience and create one yourself..
You will find that you can use the rivet layer, and panel layer for more than just what they are..
For instance.. If you've got the rivet layer, you can copy and paste it as a new layer and then reverse the colours so that you now have a layer of black rivets, and a layer of white rivets.. Now, depending on the skin colour, you can then offset the white rivets, by one pixel's distance and then mess with the transparency of both of those layers and get the desired look for the rivet. (See the pic below - I placed the white rivets on the top to look as if light was catching them from above.) This also helps when the skin's colours change from light to dark.. You'll still have one layer (black rivets) or the other (white rivets) showing..
Another thing I am trying to master is adding a 3D feel to both, the panel lines and the ribs of the airframe.
I did the same as above with the panels, but created two white panel line layers and placed them on both sides of the black panel lines and adjusted transparency. (not easy to see in the pic, but it IS visible)
For the airframe, I created an extra "panel line" layer and blurred the hell out of it, and then adjusted transparency.
I find it hard to put into words, what I've found to work to a degree, but hope that you can at least understand half of it
As long as you understand what a layer is, and what transparency is.. you should be able to get it.
I use Paintshop Pro 9, but it's pretty much the same "language" we're speaking.
I'd very much like to hear of people's tips for Photoshop aswell.
