Hey guys,
 
Thought I would share some paths I have learned from doing textures that I am presently doing on my Bu-181 project.
 
As you know, when you begin mapping a plane, you use area's of your bitmaps for mapping to your plane.  A neat and simple way to do this is to actually take snap shots of parts in Gmax and paste them into your bitmap PSD files (or what ever files you use for layers) to create your 'base layer'.  
 
For those not used to working in Layers, every time you paste a object into a PSD file, it becomes a new layer.  You can then merge the visible layers (deselect the ones you dont want merged), and  'Merge Visible' to make pasted in 'parts' layers into one single base layer.
 
For cleanliness, I use magic wand on the surrounding area of a part and delete it and then copy/paste the part into the layer composites, adjust the size to fit an area of the bitmap, then merge the base layer parts to one layer.  I can add more later, and I always (always) name the layers, even if the layer is temporary or about to be merged.  (A phone call can detract your valuable place in your texture creation, so be careful and take precautions).
 
In this PSD file that is slowly coming together, you see the flap inner surface (split flap) and the flap cavity, which looks like wood, (sort of a tan color).  I did the textured wood by giving it a rough Noise setting, then used Blur/Motion and tuned it to look like a sort of Spruce Plywood grain, then tuned the shade of it with Brightness/Contrast.
 
When you paste a part in, you can hold down Control key and click on the layer Icon and the area outline is selected.  Then you can 'create a new layer' and use paint bucket to fill the outline zone selection, such as with the flaps cavity, and fill with beige.  I can then save valuable time by using special effects (at far right in Adobe Photoshop, by double clicking the layer and selecting Inner Shadow, tuning it to fit the environment.
 
I then created the small ribbing of the flaps inner surface by making a rectangular selection, then copy/paste to a new layer, then copy/pasting by holding down Control/Alt, and moving out copies of the ribs, and then Control/T to rotate and stretch ribs to fit area's, keeping all ribs in one layer.  I then select Special Effects again and click Drop Shadow/zero distance, large spread, opacity, etc.  I can also add Filter/Noise and play around with textures of the area.  You can add some cool texture effects also by using Blur to a Noise to make a sort of 'blotchiness' which is present in worn paint schemes and metals.
 
For the Ailerons cavity in the top area, I did basically the same thing by pasting the part in without outside edges, using Free Transform to angle/scale into a slot area in PSD file, then selecting outer surface again, then make a new layer on top, fill the zone, then texture, shade, etc.  But for the small lightening holes, I made a new top layer, then made a single black dot that was large, used Free Transform to shrink it down, then held down Control, dragged to region, then outlined it, and used Control/Alt to copy/paste a copy out of it and moved it to the side, repeat for all, adjust sizes of the others as they go to the taller zones, keeping all on one layer.  Then I used Special Effects/Bevel and Emboss/Up mode and adjusted to suit the view to give the holes edges and a 3D effect.
 
As for the Mud layer, that was actually done off of a Metal texture I found on the web.  I can turn off that layer to create a 'pure' and clean paint scheme and save the texture(s) as a new texture set.  I can also likewise change the bottom base color layer (just above teh base parts layer) and by using paint bucket, fill the new top and bottom sufaces with a new set of colors.  Note, it is best to copy/paste a base texture platform set to a new folder and change that set, so you have backups that arent changed in case you make a mistake.  Thus you could have a black and red set, a green cammo set, a blue naval set, then copy/paste base textures to each set, then change the base colors/stripes/N-numbers, and you instantly have 4 or 5 textures.
 
Using the Special Effects and copy/paste really speeds things up in mapping parts.  You litterally take a snap shot of a part in Gmax, go to Photoshop, hit Control/N for new texture, COntrol/V to paste the screenshot of the part, then delete outer edges of part with magic wand and Delete, then copy/paste into PSD layered file, then texture zone, merge where needed, and dont merge if not needed, and bounce back to Gmax, refresh texture (for new updates you just did) and map the part and Voila.  Takes tons of time out of mapping.
 

 
 

 
List of layers with effects;
 
*  Panel Lines;  Drop Shadow, zero distance, large spread, large, opacity minimum
*  Walk Surface; Noise, Selection/Modify/Expand/4 pixels, white fill
*  Lightning holes;  Black dots copy/pasted, Bevel and Imboss, Up, tune to suit
*  Wood texture; Noise, Blur/Motion Blur, horizontal, tune to suit
*  Cross layer; all on one layer, layer strategically placed under weathering and panel lines, etc.
*  Shading (dark zones), Highlights (white highlights on rounded areas, etc), and chips and dings, etc, all on their own layers, tuned in opacity and darkness levels per colors used

Very nice, Bill.  Or, at the very least, take a screen shot with the Edges Highlighted...

Felix,  
 
Extremely true.  Little indentations can be extremely well modelled with pure realism using only the basic special effects in Paintshop or Photoshop.
 
Fr. Bill,  
 
I actually dont screenshot parts when they have the selection square as the little white lines are captured with Magic Wand and retained and foul up selections later or need to be deleted.  If you screenshot it with mesh visible you can align its own lines over the mesh of the object in Gmax, then when you do the Color Base Layer, you simply select the edge area, then Select/Modify/Expand, and go a couple or so pixels outward to cover your edges (since you precisely went to the very edge with the mesh) and that way you dont have edges of odd colors.
 
I know you know this Fr. Bill as I was drueling over your jet's basic meshes just a few months ago when you posted them and it took me a while to figure out how you did it, lol.  I would say mapping done really well saves you tons of time in the future, AND if you devise some ingenious little ways of doing them, you can do them in fairly fast time after you realise how it is all done.
 
Also, by mapping off of a 'visible mesh' part, you dont have to 'seek and find' the opening lines, as I stated earlier.  (I didnt know I had originally mapped the wings without the mesh visible.  Dumb).
 
 
One last awesome bit of texturing that I learned from the fantastically textured Saad Safir is the use of shadows on parts.  For instance, if you have a small handle sticking out of the fuselage, add a little shadow around it where it meets the fuselage.  Same with a knob hovering over a panel area.  put a bit of shade under the knob.  It adds some incredible realism.
 

I could never 'mesh' with LithUnWrap.  You remember, I really tried hard to learn it, but it seemed to have an upper hand on texture placements.  I like the 'hands on' placement of things, though sometimes its a bit odd, lolol..  (Giant textures for small wing tabs is a bit odd, lol).  The most amazing bit of stacking and twisting of textures is in some of the stock FS bitmaps, like for the Robinson helo, or the Cessna 172, or DC3.  My gosh...    The down side on that sort of tight compression of bimap space is no one can repaint them.  Well, almost no one.

Ahhhhhhhhhh....   Man, that gives me an idea....
 
I have actually used the screenshot of a part alot though in Gmax as it is shaded by the lighting of the design engine so it gives me a reference for shading when creating a texture for the part.
 
BTW, I had seen a tutorial once on how you map things in Lightwave and they had a Boeing 737-400 (I believe) that they were mapping and their planar map was a 3D mesh that you could visually rotate.  Imagine that...  To be able to handle and manipulate a map mesh in 3D.  That just amazes me.  They shows how they had to wrap it a certain way with the vertice points at the tail about the elevator as it didnt read the part right when the planar mesh was generated.  
 
You think how far we have come in ten years or twenty years..    How far will things go and how amazing will 3D tooling become in another 10 years....
 
 
 
Bill