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Panel window black after edit.(fs2004)

C

CoreyJJ

Messages
10
Hello everyone,

Not sure wether this question belongs into graphics or gauge design.
I wanted to edit a panel background image to better fit a new VSI gauge
which I inserted into the panel.
I opened the background bitmap with Paint.net, then edited the
area around my Vertical speed indicator gauge and then saved
the image again as a 8bit bmp.
Now when I load the plane into fs, the panel appears, the edit itself
around the VSI looks exactly the way I want it to look , but suddenly
all the panel windshield windows are black and you can no longer see outside.

Why is that?I never changed anything besides the area around the vsi gauge?
I did not touch anything around the windows nor did I change any color.
The next question,how do I make them transparent again?
I know that they need to be pure black to make them appear transparent in FS, but they already seem to be pure black in Paint.net and if I try to fill them again with black color, not only the window area is filled ,but parts of the main panel too.
Is there any easy way to fix this?
Thank you very much in advance,

John
 
Hi,

They must be color 0,0,0 to be transparent.

Hope this helps,
 
Hi Tom & Bill,

thanks for your fast replies.
@Tom: Ok,i knew they needed to be true black (0,0,0) to appear
transparent, but do you know by chance how I can check the actual
color with PAINT.net or do you use a different paint programm?(they look all black,just like they did when I first edited the BMP file)

The next thing is,I didn't change anything about the windshield windows
when I edited the background bitmap.So why are they no longer transparent?

@Bill
you sure about the 24bit?The bmps of the panel folder all were 8bit
by default and each has a size of roughly 750kb.
I tried saving the main forward bitmap (the one I edited) in 24 bit bmp , which blew its size up to 2,5mb.

..I'm new to this panel design stuff,so please be patient with me.

Best regards,

John
 
I don't use Paint, so don't know if it has an RGB color-picker display.

In Photoshop, just hovering the mouse over any color sample will display the RGB values in the toolbar.

When you save an image as 8bit, the colors are dithered and what was 0,0,0 might just get dithered into 1,1,1 for example. When saving as 24bit, no color dithering is done.
 
I've done both 8 bit and 24 bit panels. You just have to make sure that the conversion does NOT use dithering, and that you end up with windows that are 0,0,0. These days for FS9 I usually leave them 24 bit, since frame rates and video load are not that critical.

I don't know Paint.net, sorry, but in PSP you choose the "Dropper Tool", which picks a foreground or background color from the image itself. Holding that tool over any area will give its RGB number. I notice that Paint.net also has a dropper tool - perhaps it works the same way. This reference says it's the Color Picker:

http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/paintnet/a/tools-palette.htm

This reference (you should be using something like this to learn the program) says that if you click the More> button next to the color wheel you will get an RGB readout in the upper right.

http://www.tlc.housing.wisc.edu/docs/quicktip_paint_net.pdf

Hope this helps,
 
Last edited:
Hi Tom & Bill,

thanks for your patience and help with this.
Bill I think you were right, somehow the black 0,0,0 color from the windows
got dithered when I saved the bmp in 8 bit.I tried again after reading
your post to save in 24 bit and now the windows remained transparent
after my edit!it worked ! thank you very much.

Tom thank you for your advice too.I spent some more time reading about
Paint. net and the function you mentioned too.I slowly getting to better
grips with this.You're right,saving images as 24bit doesnt seem to have
a noticable big impact on frames.
One last question Tom, is "dithering" a function, that can be selected on / off
or is it more like name for a unwanted effect that happens with some paint-programms?I understand from searching the www that it is originally meant to smoothing transitions between different colors .

Thank you both very much!

Best regards,

John
 
In the program I use (Paint Shop Pro) when I reduce the number of colors it gives me a choice of algorithm to use, and the method (Error Diffusion or Dithering). If yours does not give you this choice (it might also be in the Preferences) then you should avoid reducing to 8 bit images.

Hope this helps,
 
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