Hey guys, and gal.I actually started the idea of a video series of my paint tutorial a few months ago. The idea is ok, but the timing is sort of bad. That said, this video is what I call "Video 0", meaning the 1st in the series but really like zero week in a military school like Ranger or Pathfinder etc. Zero week, day, video, means that it's more of an intro to get some of the normal crap said once, never to need to be repeated. Well, that isn't going to be the case exactly here but it still serves roughly the same purpose. This :Zero" video isn't really anything to do with the paint we'll be doing. Like my written tutorial, I want to be sure someone just downloading a trial of PS or someone that owns it, but never used it, can follow along. If you're impatient and are fairly capable behind the brush then don't watch. I will be doing the entire series insanely thorough. That may bother some and I really don't care. I will be covering everything from start to finish and then some, including how to even do your own bump mapping and everything needed to understand what it is, how it works, etc. I cannot (will not) explain these things like most people in tutorials do that seem to want to impress people at how fast they can twirl their paint brush. It will cover some very cool tips for the highest level of painter and still be simple to follow for the day 0 freshman.As you'll see, I was still tweaking the settings and I had a timing issue or footage interpretation issue that you'll see with my mouse flashing like crazy and some screen flickering. So seriously, if you have epilepsy, you may want to leave it windowed. Serious, it's that bad. I may redo this later but rather move my time forward and get the actual series going.Here are some details about what the tutorial will cover. I'm always open to suggestion, but before you do suggest anything please know that this is already under way. Also note that the sound issues in this now 2+ month old video have now been fixed as has the annoying flickering.

• The videos are all 1920x1080p. I really can't see doing it in anything else since I hate Photoshop tutorials where I can't read and see what the person is doing to what tool and where.
• Unlike you'll hear me say in this video, the paint tutorial will be on the NGX using what I see as being the more difficult paint to do.
  • This is so I can cover things that other kits may not need further explanation. Like my original tutorial, it doesn't matter and any kit can be used. This tutorial will be like it and be covering just as much about painting techniques, tips and tricks as it will be focusing on the paint itself
  • I also plan a video on how to take your completed paint and quickly and easily convert it from the 900, to the 8, 7 or 600 with as little effort as can be.

  [*]I will be keeping these videos below 10 minutes each for many reasons. Buffering, your time (and mine), attention span, and better to separate different elements to better later categorize on my forum.

  • Some may go slightly above 10, but not by much, At least that's my current agenda and goal.

  [*]This tutorial we will be working on a "Fictional" paint. Fictional (not real) paints are MUCH more fun and can be MUCH more difficult than a non-fictional paint.

  • They also will allow me to teach you some very cool tricks in both making better paints and also saving major amounts of time.
  • The written tutorial took many months in writing and will stand it's time for many more years. It covers some very useful and unique steps for people wanting to do exact replication paints for the "Non-Fictional" paints (down to the last rivet). If that is your pleasure, then I would say do both. Don't wait on the video segments, start reading. Most of what will be different for you is in the 1st 2 sections anyway (hmmm, planned?).

  [*]This has been public knowledge for many at my forum since September. I still have the doors locked to registered members only. Please do not whine to me about that "sucking". I give countless hours of my time for people in creating tutorials there from IFR flying to FLASH video creation. I do thousands of dollars of free work for developers and you all get this for free, so my heart does not go out to you because "bummer, I need to register", sorry. Run your own forum, pay the bills and ask nothing of anyone else other than their understanding that one rule and maybe you'll see me in a better light? I have tried to open the doors but simply have way too much to lose to would be hackers, spammers, etc. I created this all for you anyway, so maybe you should come enjoy it? (That includes devs, you are simmers too, are you not?). Lastly, I am unemployed and still have a lot of things to make smaller in size, like my FLASH signatures. My Vatsim one was nearly 6mb and my Radar Contact one was 4. I have them for many developers and their supporters but to open the doors means I need to seriously make changes and rather not kill it for those that can type in their user name and password. Hope you can understand that. Maybe down the road and I can afford a better bandwidth package (I hope).

  • I did have a couple painters that were going to beta video's for me before I released them. This is more important now than it was originally. These people were going to see the videos months ahead of time before this was even announced. Well, times change and will be sort of fitting this in to an already chaotic schedule, thus the need and appreciation for beta viewers. New segments will be first available on my forum only before I lift the youtube privacy. I do not care about "Thumbs up", "Subs" and all that crap, I care about teaching people correctly and providing the most accurate information as I can, and thats all. So you have two options. Watch the page where this video sits for a new segment to be available. ~OR~ Come help the others that will be beta testing it (I only have experienced painters so new people are very needed), The written one was actually under review by only one other than me for over a month before it's release (or I should say, before I pressed "Submit" ;) )

Anywho, that's all I can think of at the moment. Sorry to those that I have been late to reply to on the paint questions and all. I have had back to back projects for past and upcoming events on my forum that just eat up all my time. My hopes are to have all the hours of videos (or hour, we'll see) finished, beta'd and open to everyone before Christmas. I have a day or two editing and 3 of the segments will be finished.Excuse the hamminess. I have said it before and will say it again, I'm retarded ;)

PS. I recently added a new theme just for my various video forums. I spent months hacking it (not stole, hacked as in months of php/html edits to get the way I wanted) just for video viewing. It's a very dark theme that we find much easier on the eyes when viewing videos. You know the deal, grab the popcorn, the drinks (the "lady friend"), and shut the lights off to sit down to a good flik.Please follow along with this "ATTACHMENT", steak.psd.

Nice one! You made it seem accessible to people like me But let me ask you right away, why don't you own the NGX yet??

Hi Dan,Just this week I started reading your tutorial and yesterday I made a crude first version of a repaint of the NGX. Lots of details went not the way I planned, but at least I have something in the hangar now that at least starts to look like what I had in mind.Never used Photoshop before, never made a repaint.So if you are looking for a newbie beta tester I would like to apply. I too am unemployed but have a 30 years experience as software developper.Please let me know if you'd like me to join. Yesterday I already joined Dantrix.Net ...Kind regards,Herman.

Great job, Herman! Glad to hear people can still get by with good ole reading That's not bad at all. Less than a week? Took me longer just to proof read it.Sure thing on Beta'ing. There's nothing to it really other than watch it and let me know what leaves you feeling short. What might not I explain and what could I explain better. The first video I was hoping to have done tomorrow. Still might but have to go out tonight unexpectedly to play some billiards and let a friend by me drinks (the things we suffer through). If not tomorrow it will be ready for the next day. Just post as they come out and after you have a chance to view them and that'd be super! I've already gotten some questions that make me think another pre-video might be in order also. Nothing major, just some advanced looks at some shortcuts and terms. That way the rest of the videos can be more evenly paced rather than waiting to fully explain one term every time.Oh and welcome to the forum.@ Boaz,Yeah, I have the NGX. The tutorial is going to cover it. You must have missed what I typed about me making that video back in September. I didn't get it until a week or two ago.

Hey Dan,you got my interest in a thread a few days ago, and I followed a link through to your site. I tried to register for the forums there, but so far I never got an activation e-mail. I tried again yesterday with another user name and e-mail address, but didn't get an activation mail for that either. Any chance you can let me in? The user names were Holy Cheese and la-180.ThanksJack

All set, Jack. I activate your 1st choice of Holy Cheese, but let me know if you prefer the other. We also have just "Jack" available if you want to shoot for 3 . That email address is an odd one and doesn't look legit but php can just be dumb also. Most of the time it's email spam filters blocking the activation emails and having a .Net address only further complicates that issue.While we're on this subject, I don't collect personal info or any of that junk so people are free to use whatever they want. Just 'pm/email/post' me let me know the log in you signed up with. I have 500+ inactive members but due to spammage don't activate until someone asks, but it's never a bother. The only problem is down the road if people want to subscribe to a topic or get email notifications for pm's or whatever, they won't obviously get an email. Doesn't matter to me as long as I know who to activate.

Many thanks Dan. Looking forward to trying my hand at some painting, always wanted to, but all the tutorials I ever found always assumed that you know the basics - reading your tutorial gives me heart that you know how to teach dummies like me!The e-mail address comes from a group I belong to, there were originally six of us who decided to embark on a Around the World tour in FSX, the idea being to visit every country and put up a listing of the local beers :) - thus the ATW Sixpack!Will activate my account when I get home in about an hour and start learning.CheersJack

Just to update this. I've added 3 more videos to this tutorial series. To remind peops, you can find the links in the video description on top for now (Next & Previous). The new videos are

,

&

.9 is also done but not yet available. I may redo it since editing out my fire alarm that was going off in the background through several minutes of the recording is a pain :Waiting:This video is very detailed and rather salvage what I have though since it's 20 minutes of some of my best tips on the most complex PS tool there is.Sorry it took so long getting back to these for those waiting, but real life projects got priority. I'll try to get 9 fixed and uploaded tonight (The Pen tool and creating a Shapes Library for your logos). The rest will resume on Monday.@ Jack, sorry bro, thought I replied to you. Maybe I did but on our forum? In any case, you're welcome and hope these videos are as easy to follow as the written. They too are being done for the total beginner, but using some of the more powerful features of Photoshop to make someone go from total newb to advanced all in one shot ;)

:LMAO:Ok, first, great intro. Second, I love the Bill Nye parody song!!!! Made me LOL so hard!!!Anyway, great tutorial. I will redownload Paint.NET and see if it works with that.

Thanks Diego, Luckily I have no money for Mr.Nye to bother suing me over :( Good luck with Paint.net, although I'm not sure if that will have the ability to use the ddf tools and plugins. If not, another "option" would be the open source freeware, GIMP. In either case, you should still be able to follow along but may have to use other methods for later converting your images to DDS files, such as DXTBmp andor Imagetool. Those are mentioned and linked in the beginning of my written tut.*Also note that all the other videos don't have the codec issue I had with the first one, and how it was so jittery.

Thanks Diego,Luckily I have no money for Mr.Nye to bother suing me over :wink:Good luck with Paint.net, although I'm not sure if that will have the ability to use the ddf tools and plugins. If not, another "option" would be the open source freeware, GIMP. In either case, you should still be able to follow along but may have to use other methods for later converting your images to DDS files, such as DXTBmp andor Imagetool. Those are mentioned and linked in the beginning of my written tut.*Also note that all the other videos don't have the codec issue I had with the first one, and how it was so jittery.

Don't you have FRAPS?Hehe, Bill Nye was funny.

Just wanted to update this, it's been a while but as a lot of you know, I've been hard at work on them. There are now 21 completed videos (20 + video 0). Each one covers techniques in doing paints and also focuses on individual tools and going from newb, to advanced painter in just a few steps. I've been working on these since December so looking forward to finishing them but not at the risk of coming up short and leaving you with questions. The techniques covered range from blending modes, basic and advanced pen tool operation, creating brushes, dirt, more dirt, and then more dirt as well as various ways to create it and weathering techiniques, also there are tons of various tips and tricks along the way. I put thousands of dollars of training into these videos, hopefully in a much easier way for new painters (or new to Photoshop in general) than the way I had to learn.The plan is to wrap up the last of these which I suspect is about 5 or so, take a nice break, and then once refreshed do the specialty videos for things like advanced speculars, bump maps, etc. As mentioned, once complete, I'll be redoing video# 0 and post an index of sorts, but each still needs to be watched, no matter what level painter you might be to get the most out of them.The links to next and previous videos still remain in each videos description.

Just wanted to update this, it's been a while but as a lot of you know, I've been hard at work on them. There are now 21 completed videos (20 + video 0). Each one covers techniques in doing paints and also focuses on individual tools and going from newb, to advanced painter in just a few steps. I've been working on these since December so looking forward to finishing them but not at the risk of coming up short and leaving you with questions. The techniques covered range from blending modes, basic and advanced pen tool operation, creating brushes, dirt, more dirt, and then more dirt as well as various ways to create it and weathering techiniques, also there are tons of various tips and tricks along the way. I put thousands of dollars of training into these videos, hopefully in a much easier way for new painters (or new to Photoshop in general) than the way I had to learn.The plan is to wrap up the last of these which I suspect is about 5 or so, take a nice break, and then once refreshed do the specialty videos for things like advanced speculars, bump maps, etc. As mentioned, once complete, I'll be redoing video# 0 and post an index of sorts, but each still needs to be watched, no matter what level painter you might be to get the most out of them.The links to next and previous videos still remain in each videos description.

Dan,The results of your efforts can be seen daily in the magnificent liveries available for download on AVSIM. Becoming a good livery painter is getting closer to the top of my bucket list, and I look forward to diving into your videos in earnest.Dennis