A Trip Down Memory Lane

Been here long?

Well fancy that! I just browsed through my additions to the library and discovered that I uploaded my first repaint fifteen years ago for FS2004. That was for the Long Island Classics Christen Eagle and I still have more hours and paints on that bird than any other single aircraft - somewhere around fifty to sixty different textures on both the LIC version and the later IRIS one. All in all I created at least five paints for each of the (at least) 120 models I had in my hanger - quite often I exceeded twenty on some of my more favourite planes.

Not all were uploaded as some liveries were subject to copyrights and others just failed to please me. Quite a few even ended up in payware model packs (and also delivered with some some freeware models). In FSX I learned to create almost any kind of paint from recreating the Dupont flip-flop paints (costing $135 per ounce in the real world) through metallics, high gloss and mirror finish to anything you could imagine. Certainly, if it had been done in the real world, I could recreate it for a sim texture. I more or less stopped around four years ago because the challenges were disappearing. This coincided with real life retirement.

Then came msfs 2020, I've commented quite negatively on the way Asobo have thrown logic to the winds and made painting so awkward for your average painter. There are more limitations on repainting now than ever before. There are also more Fluff Ups as to how the new sim accesses different pieces to assemble a new aircraft. Painters following the subject will know that it is not turning out as easy as promised. Sure - simple flood fill techniques and colour swatches exist and there are loads of new "paint jobs" appearing daily. They even look good. But I go further than just tipping a bucket of paint onto a plane (not really an aircraft if you can't give it a custom livery 😁 ) Now we get to fiddle with norm, comp and emis texture sheets and our old "skin" with easy to remember short name is now an albedo hiding in a file structure that is longer than the London Underground central line. MSFS was promised to be easier to create content for. Misnomer?

Ah but such is life - "Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose" - so when you see me posting grompy old fart posts complaining about this that or the other - bear with me, because I haven't stopped learning new tricks yet.

How is everyone else coping with the nitty gritties of  really working under the hood of this new flight sim?