How to create a day night texture

[flynby]

I need help in creating a day night texture for use in FSX (Flight Simulator X). This is as far as I can get - lack of knowledge main reason!! In picture 1, I made a 64 x 64 pixel canvas. After putting the border around it, I used the magic wand on the inside and used the Alpha mask. Then I made a duplicate layer as seen in picture 2 and made a light brown tint. Then I used the flatten. But now I need a light to shine thru the window pane for a night effect. How would I do this? Would I use the Effect\Photo\Glow? How would I save the completed image as a _LM image?

Appreciate any and all help. Thank you

[Ego Eram Reputo]

I'm not sure if you want your light source as part of the image or is it provided by the game engine?

I don't believe that there is a way to save the _LM image from Paint.NET.

Scratch that. The _LM file is a .bmp right?

According to this site: http://www.groundmaker.org/onlinehelp/Help/pages/other_textures.htm , you need to save the file as *_LM.bmp which needs to be an 8 bit *.bmp.

Paint.NET has had the ability to save BMP’s at 8-bit color depth since version 3.30. What you need to do is use File > Save As..., Enter the filename and select the BMP extension from the dropdown list in the dialog. Press OK. A configuration dialog should open allowing you to set the number of bits. Easy.

Note: You should first save a copy of the image as a *.pdn. This will preserve the layer structure and the full color palette (saving as 8-bit is going to reduce the number of colors to 256).