I want to create a paint for my A2A that is green with a gold metallic flake in it. (Gold glitter in green paint). How do I do this using photoshop. I know how to us the alpha channels for shine and dullness and spec sheets for color reflection

I want to create a paint for my A2A that is green with a gold metallic flake in it. (Gold glitter in green paint). How do I do this using photoshop. I know how to us the alpha channels for shine and dullness and spec sheets for color reflection

 

Not seeing any tutorials on this but you can do a poor mans version in which you add noise to your main color layer - or if you have the Carenado CJ2 that looks about the best you can use for reference to see how they are doing it 

Thank you

I would use a noise transparent filter with overlay gradient in a few shades of gold. Decrease the transparency to taste.

LOL now how do I do that.  I am very new to photoshop..like a little over a week into it.  Thank you for your reply

The secret of metallic paints lies in the fact millions of metal reflective particles are present in a varnish-like colored layer.
They are not lying flat in the paint , they all have different positions and reflect the sunlight under different angles, wich makes the glitters "glitter".

To have real glittering enamel on a aircraft, we need dynamic  mirroring on all those millions of particles.
Dynamic mirroring is not something a painter can paint.

 

You might experiment a bit with colors.
The best way to achieve something wich comes close , is to make a nomal-file with some noise (extreme low level)  and a specular layer wich identical noise.

As I said real reflective particles in the paint......................................I think we will end op with 2FPS.
I have never seen it in a flightsim.

 

A little experiment:
Cut a piece of a picture showing a fancy sports-car in brilliant metallic paint

Paste this piece of metallinc surface on your aicraft.

As long as the aircraft is static and the viewer is static too, it might look nice  ( MIND ,you need an extreme high resolution for the plane, to make it show a bit realistic )
The moment things get moving.................it looks awfull.
 

The secret of metallic paints lies in the fact millions of metal reflective particles are present in a varnish-like colored layer.

They are not lying flat in the paint , they all have different positions and reflect the sunlight under different angles, wich makes the glitters "glitter".

 

To have real glittering enamel on a aircraft, we need dynamic  mirroring on all those millions of particles.

Dynamic mirroring is not something a painter can paint.

 

You might experiment a bit with colors.

The best way to achieve something wich comes close , is to make a nomal-file with some noise (extreme low level)  and a specular layer wich identical noise.

 

As I said real reflective particles in the paint......................................I think we will end op with 2FPS.

I have never seen it in a flightsim.

 

A little experiment:

Cut a piece of a picture showing a fancy sports-car in brilliant metallic paint

Paste this piece of metallinc surface on your aicraft.

As long as the aircraft is static and the viewer is static too, it might look nice  ( MIND ,you need an extreme high resolution for the plane, to make it show a bit realistic )

The moment things get moving.................it looks awfull.

 

 

Thanks for your help!  Ill mess around and try and get creative

Paint the green on the diffuse texture.

 

Paint the gold on the specular texture. Add some noise to this so it is not just a flat color.

 

The magic happens in the spec Alpha channel, which is gray scale.

 

Again, you will want to add some noise to the Alpha where you have the gold.

 

Unfortunately the result will be based on the material settings that the developer used. What looks good on one model stinks on another.

 

Sometimes you will find what looks good on one part of a plane doesn't look so hot on another part of the same plane.

 

Paint and test, rinse and repeat.

 

You will have to test in the sim, programs like FSRepaint and MCX will not give you an accurate representation.

 

Test in the sim at Noon, on a cloudless day. Slew up to a 1000 feet and spin the plane around, checking from different angles to the sun.

 

Also, look at this post by Chris Brisland- http://www.avsim.com/topic/358139-texture/

 

regards,

Joe

Here is one I did, if I remember correctly I added noise to the spec.

Great job Paul - looks real  :wink:

Thanks Richard. When in motion it looks much better.

Really awsome effect, my compliments.

This makes clear, for now the secret lies in "noise" in different layes/files.

 

The same time we see.... we need more pixels to get to the ultimate effect.
I made this effect once on 8K  , not in FSX, I made this for an experimental version of FLYII ( FLY-Legacy ) , was worse than your achievent, but had a huge potential..

For now I think think is ....................5 stars at least.

 

Chapeaux !!!

Here is one I did, if I remember correctly I added noise to the spec.

That is really amazing. Excellent job. Thanks everyone.

This shows the two colors Green and Gold with Noise added on a 2d visual effect

 

 

 

I then took one of my paints and cut out a section and added some metal flake so you can see there are many options.

In this photo I exaggerated it a bit for viewing but you would use a lessor amount of noise so that it's visible at only a certain distance away. If you make the noise too large then the paint will look like someone came along and tossed paint stripper on it. 

 

You want around 3% of noise for starters and you want monochrome, not color in the noise settings. Also you want to use a  Gaussian effect which is all available for you after selecting the noise filter option. Also make sure the small preview window is 100% so that you can see the actual results as you work with the noise filter.

 

 

This shows the two colors Green and Gold with Noise added on a 2d visual effect

 

 

 

 

I then took one of my paints and cut out a section and added some metal flake so you can see there are many options.

In this photo I exaggerated it a bit for viewing but you would use a lessor amount of noise so that it's visible at only a certain distance away. If you make the noise too large then the paint will look like someone came along and tossed paint stripper on it. 

 

You want around 3% of noise for starters and you want monochrome, not color in the noise settings. Also you want to use a  Gaussian effect which is all available for you after selecting the noise filter option. Also make sure the small preview window is 100% so that you can see the actual results as you work with the noise filter.

 

 

 

Sweet - very cool have to play around with this  :wink: