Hey guys,

For this post, I thought I'd try to graphically answer how painters (who've been doing it for a while) seem to paint so fast and accurately.

DISCLAIMER:

For all the other painters out there, the methods I'll demonstrate are how I paint, and while I know there are always different (and probably better) ways to do some things...these methods are how I stumble through a paint. While I'll gladly take all suggestions to do it faster while maintaining the fidelity I require of my paints, this is just a look into the painting world for those who've never painted, but wondered how its done.

 

So, most of my paints start when get a request to paint something. For this example, I get a request from a German simmer to paint Augsburg Airways.

1st thing I do is evaluate the paint, determine how easy (or difficult) it will be, then decide if and when I'll paint it.

This one was a no-brainer, as its very similar to the Lufthansa I painted, and the way I layer my paints, its really simple to paint as I'll show you in the screenshots below.

 

Here is my 195 master with the Lufty paint displayed.

Let me describe what you're seeing and what I'm doing here...

Right now, I have not done anything except add 2 pics I'll use to align the Augsburg text on the fuse. In addition, I've already created the Augsburg text and turned off their layers as you'll see in the layers section highlighted with the red box.

The layers "Raster 8" and "Raster 9" are the 2 pics I copied in to help me with alignment of the Augsburg text in the next step.

 

 

Layers are the holy grail of painting guys! Once you understand how layers work (its not really hard, just need to play with them to get it), you will have infinite control over your paints, and gain speed and quality at an exponential rate!

 

Here below you can see that all I did to paint both sides of Lufthansa was create a layer for a part (like the star alliance logo, luft logo, etc), then when I had it done, I’d duplicate and flip it, and I’d have it for the other side. But if you really want to get technical, this particular texture map needs the opposite side’s layers rotated, not flipped (there is a big difference, hehe).

 

 

So here, all I did was turn off all the layers for Lufthansa, and turn on the layers for Augsburg (You click the little eye icon next to the layer to turn it off or on)

And there you have it! I've maintained my Lufthansa paint, and created an Augsburg paint with just a few clicks and very little painting.

 

Here she is in the sim (viewing her with a paint tool within FSX that was one of the best purchases I've made to help speed up painting, LoL). The registration was done the same way (on a different texture map...this model has 3 for the main fuse). The tail was the only thing that took a little time, only because of the funky alignment issue it has. :Doh:

 

If you guys want to see more of how I do it let me know and I'll do a few more, maybe show you how to transfer the master texture to the texture maps (that's always fun).

I don't want you lead you guys to think that its "easy" to paint...but the term "easy" is VERY relative....easy for me because I've been doing it for years! Just like we describe to all our friends how "easy" it is to fly a 747, they'd disagree...again..all relative. :lol:

 

BTW, I'll release this one soon with the other 195s, I'm sending it to the requestor 1st so he can fly it around before I upload it. I'll tell you that one of the most time-consuming parts of painting is the packaging/uploading.

 

Regards,

Steve Dra

I remember finishing 20 various paints (the entire fleet, including every different sticker/scheme etc) of the A310 THY fleet within 6 hours ^_^

Interesting stuff.

 

nebojsa

Very interesting, thanks for sharing! Would you mind giving us the name of the program you use to display the plane in FSX without loading it (and does it also work in FS9)?

I agree that painting is not very difficult. What bothers me are the really bad paint-kits for some of the aircraft. Wilco comes to mind...but also the section below the APU on the iFly can drive you insane.

I remember finishing 20 various paints (the entire fleet, including every different sticker/scheme etc) of the A310 THY fleet within 6 hours ^_^

 

Awesome Darth! A lot of times when I'm just doing a simple reg change and the rest of the plane is pretty much the same I'll just paint it on the texture map itself vs doing it on the master then copy the master to the texture map. Cheating? Yep...but saves a lot of time. :LMAO:

 

Here is an idea I had long ago that would make it so much easier to paint different registrations on the same airline very quickly....if the modelers could create a map with just the parts that would commonly change in a reg switch (The tail, nose gear doors, the rear of the fuse, the lower left wing, anywhere on the plane were the reg would typically go)...then you would only have to paint on one texture!

On this EMB model, you have to touch 3 textures (the Tail_T.dds, 190_Fus_1_T.dds and 190_Fus_3_T.dds) to do a simple reg change...and also hit the wing textures if the airline paints the reg on them (most European airlines do).

 

 

Would you mind giving us the name of the program you use to display the plane in FSX without loading it

 

Hey Max,

Its called Repaint Wizard and its works in both FS9 and FSX. :)

Totally agree about the bad paintkits. I usually wind up doing my own paintkit, the only thing I really need from the modeler is where he/she put some of the obscure parts on the maps. Nothing is more time consuming than trying to find a tiny part to paint that has no reference to it on the map anywhere! :Silly:

Well...I take that back...trying to figure out a compound curve the modeler made when joining 2 parts of the fuse. THAT....is the biggest time consumer! (And currently is what is keeping the EMB liveries with paint on the bottom in the paintshop) :sorry:

 

When I was creating paintkits for release to the public, I always made sure I did all I could to explain the details and make reference marks to expedite alignment from the master to the texture map.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v144/Steve_Dra/Paintkit-explain.jpg

 

Regards,

Steve Dra

Very informative post Steve.

Thanks!!

 

At this stage I would gladly pay anybody to teach me how to do a decent repaint :Praying: