Loading takes years with FSRepaint?

[Darth Mop 6]

Hi,maybe some of you know me or have seen my paints (currently 303 paints + 49 freely available eps/psd logo works)I always looked forward to get my hands on your magnificent NGX planning somewhat around 100 paints (love to paint entire fleets including all ever worn color schemes instead of a single one for an airline), I'm sure I will paint all fleets I've planned but with my first repaint for the NGX (Southwest SI One "Bar Refaeli") I had to notice that you guys cut the fuse AND winglets into several parts, now don't get me wrong, you have done an excellent job with the 737, but with the fuse being cut into 7 and the winglets into 2 pieces we need a viewer to load the aircraft and check if lines etc are aligned correctly, nothing big about it, I had that problem with many addons before too, however the only aircraft viewer that actually works with FSX is currently FSRepaint by Abacus - guys, it took me 3(!) minutes for the aircraft to load everytime I clicked on the reload button. I could have easily finished the paint within 2-3 hours, but with the fuse being cut into pieces it took me more than 6 hours!I know my thread won't change anything, but why did you cut the fuse into several parts, especially the fuse in the paintkit being cut into 3 pieces creates some serious work, I have no clue how we can size titles or especially pictures of special color schemes since I need the fuse to be one part in the paintkit so I can guess the required size and placement of a decal.The 737 is such a magnificent aircraft and you (sorry but that's the truth) ruined the paintkit, creating lot's of extra work for us and causing FSRepaint to load in 3 minutes. I know Aircraft Container Manager (ACM) could have done it better to load it but its development has stopped long time ago and we have to do with FSRepaint since we don't have an option.Just a little heads up from me Greets from frosty Germany,Johnny

[Richard Sennett 2,499]

FSRepaint is nice idea but not optimized for textures of this resolution, I gave that a go forget it lol takes forever even without it it takes quite a bit to load textures my rig is no slouch, took me 20 hours to my last United 737-700 repaint, the kit is really tough to work with agreed should have taken me a third of the time but loading up fsx to find textures do not align properly over and over is a real pain wish the belly rear stripes could have been setup as a straight on view but not in this kit you have to use weird huge arcs and its not perfect oh well I know your pain, little more ease of painting in this kit would have been great, can't have everything I guess.Regards

[Turbine777 13]

I don't think the question is in the "Free" paint kit here. It's more like lack of knowledge maybe in how textures are wrapped on the model perhaps. I'll go out on a limb here and say that most developers use 3DS Max. Say I model an aircraft, I then have 3DS create my texture map. This is where textures are spread as they are, not in paint "Kit" design. After all that is done, then Jason B (or whoever) creates layer, after layer, after layer, in creating a kit to go with the 3D model. So in short, to change the paint kit for you would mean almost start from scratch and every old repaint would no longer work because you just changed its entire mapping. To say they "Ruined" something that they gave you for free is quite arrogant and ignorant. I would think that after 303+ paints you would know by know that every kit is different and you do what you need to, to adjust and learn it's particulars. You know, like the actual developers also have to do. They don't decide this. Wow. I can't believe someone with so much experience even wastes their time with paint reviewers. So basically you're asking (and probably not realizing it) that they redesign the the exterior model and paint kit from scratch, for an old app like FSRepaint, something I don't even like wasting my time to type, let alone use.Just a little heads up from me

[Darth Mop 6]

ya but how do you expect a repainter to align lines for example? you can't just draw a line and expect it to me aligned on the ngx?

[Turbine777 13]

I make guides. Some kits are much simpler than others, but I just made the 1st paint kit for the RealAir Duke. Now if you want to talk about texture pull, vortice pull or what not, then painting that can be purely brutal. I used guides to test in FSX. I'll use color guides (just random paint here and there) to get my basic location, then I'll switch to text guides to really find the area that I need. Here's a post a made recently on my forum and intend to give much better examples in a video series I'm working on. Now, I don't think someone with your experience needs a tutorial of course, but it's more than that and I hope to show some tricks that may even help some developers. I've learned a lot over the years and the series is also to hopefully get people to answer some of the many questions I still have (like in speculars). Anywho, here's the post.PMDG's kits allow for much better paints because they have so many layers, but some things are just the way they are because of wrapping and vortice pull. I marked the general area in the yellow box and link a screenshot how to make a guide but you are the one that will have to make the guide and find this area (PMDG gave up obviously or their paints would be like we expect). To understand what I mean about Vortix pull you'd have to try and paint the sides on the MD-11, or 74x. As you get close to certain areas the texture is being wrapped and stretched to fit. This means that 1 pixel can often be stretched as far as 1' on the surface. The NGX has less of this pull than I've seen in any other kit so again, my first response has what you need. When you are looking for one of these areas you NEED to make your own guides, plain and simple.

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In doing the Duke, there was insane amounts of guess work and vortice pull. It's why it took me so many months doing the first paint for it. This was the most difficult paint I've done since my first over 10 years ago. The things I was trying to do were very particular also but it's absolutely no different than what you're asking here. Look:The dukes textures were quite blank. Even the developer of the Duke chose to make all his paints all one color (lame). I couldn't look at any one texture for much help so had to explore and keep saving and testing file after file. Some, several HUNDRED times. Here I actually am about 1 month in and found the area I wanted so now fine tuning with my text guides. I will save this as a dds and fly it, taking more screenshots then back to work you go!Another shot from another view. Do you see yet how making these guides can help you find the areas you are looking for?To make matters even worse, there is no ONE texture in the Duke that you ever seem to be looking for. My intricate lines and rivets plan hits another snag because the bottom of my crest work is on a totally different texture. Once again, I find that texture, fill it with many different color areas to find the section to concentrate more on, in other words I filled the texture all green, then made red areas, blue etc. Once I found the area my little corners were in, THEN I started again with more precise text guides.Here you can see as the texture is wrapping around the engine and onto the wing, the pull starts to get thick. My font was a size 8! Looks more like 88 to me.This one is showing you the green area. I could not find which of "23" textures had the exhaust ports for the cowls. I filled each with a different color, saved them, and took some in sim shots. Then of course I saw the green and was able to narrow it down and ready for the next step. It also shows my wing dirt on the bottom. It took me a week to match it with the above and all the surrounding areas since those too were on their own texture.So in a nut shell, some models are just much more difficult than others. There area a few issues that I have with the NGX, but not in the kit, just how the front pulls the rivets up. To fix it, I spent 2 whole days redrawing every single line and rivet (Just now finishing up actually). I see exactly why they left it as is, but then again, anyone can improve on someone elses hard work. It's like passing the torch to the next runner. Only so much one person can take something before having to cut.

[Richard Sennett 2,499]

Yes true Dan its not the kit its the unwrap of the model, thats where it all starts, I am a 3d modeler in my day job so the unwrapping of an aircraft model is a real pain in the arse for sure. Great work and post Pal, wow nice idea.

[Turbine777 13]

It always is, isn't it? The NGX has less pull than any other PMDG paint I ever painted, and I've painted all of their FSX models. Each kit seems to be a major improvement over the last. You want to see wrapping difficulties? Try geting fancy on the MD11, or like I said above, try getting particular on the engines.

[Darth Mop 6]

Turbine777 I'm using the same trick but a cut fuse always creates more work, wouldn't be that hard if FSRepaint would load the 737 as fast as the other planes :(