23 minutes ago, CaptainNick said:

Did my first flight in it. I expected it to word not allowed all over the Carenado one, and the Carenado one held up surprisingly well. I give the nod to the Nado in exterior texturing and the AP implementation. I find the JF to zig zag when coupled in omni/nav modes. I will say I enjoy hand flying the JF one more, first plane in MSFS that to me at least, felt like a forward slip was closer to reality.

You should remember that this is a vintage autopilot. a very veeeery rudimentary one!

2 hours ago, riverreveal said:

Sorry to ask a dumb question but where and how do I use the 'no scratches' windshield texture? 

 

From the documentation:

Quote

This simulation of the Arrow III is an exact likeness of the real-life G-BGKU, including the significant wear and

tear to the cockpit resulting from decades of use as a training aircraft. For those who would prefer a less worn
cockpit, we have included a set of alternative textures. The two texture sets can be found in the ‘\justflightaircraft-
pa28-arrow-iii\Cockpit\’ folder and replace the files found in ‘\justflight-aircraft-pa28-arrow-iii\SimObjects\
Airplanes\JF_PA28_Arrow\TEXTURE.VC’ folder.

You can switch just the windshield textures or most of the cockpit texture which is what I did. I understand this being modeled after a club plane that's worn in well, but in the sim it is "my" plane and I wanted it to look a little more like it (though the floor still needs a good vacuuming). I made a video yesterday of the alternate textures.

 

Edited March 11, 20215 yr by Phantoms
fixed quoting the wrong person

2 hours ago, JustFlightScott said:

It's some of the criticism that borders on slander that bewilders.  People coming up with comments that they state as facts and they very rarely are.  I do wonder why people do it and is there an ulterior motive at play here. 

With all that's gone on in the last year, many people are on edge and naturally angry. I find myself occasionally in a really nasty mood (though I don't myself being that way). Just ignore it and chalk it up to one of the side effects of what everybody has and are still going through.

2 hours ago, Will Fly For Cheese said:

If you could clarify what you mean by originals as a base - that would be great. And in what Sim Versions we're talking about here.

I'll take a guess at what they mean by that. You might know some of this stuff, so if this seems a bit simple, it's not meant to be, I just thought it might clear things up a bit...

The PA-28 has been a staple of Just Flight development for years. It has appeared in their numerous Flying Club compilations for FS2004, FSX and P3D, and was available individually too, in various guises of fixed and retractable gear variants, and they've also made it for Flight Sim World, AeroFly and XPlane. This means they have a ton of resource material on the thing.

Obviously when you make something for that many sims over the space of about sixteen years or so, the research on the real aeroplanes remains a usable resource since that doesn't change, as do any three-view blueprints/schematics of the real thing you use in the background of your 3D program as a template for creating the parts in that 3D program, which you basically draw on top of to get the shapes. But your 3D model files which you create from various boxes, cylinders, spheres etc, can sometimes be useful too, and in some cases, they might even be reusable for your new model, with no need to redo them.

Let's take a really simple example and say there's a battery in your 3D model's engine compartment which is a perfectly rectangular box. There are eight vector points joined up with lines which make that box (one at each corner), and that would be true whether it was output at 4K resolution or as a low resolution 400 pixel square image, since a simple box always has eight corners whether it is four inches long or four miles long. So there would be absolutely no point or benefit in adding more vector points to that object for a much higher resolution model, because that part is made up of completely straight lines and higher resolution therefore has no bearing on what it will look like, it's the texture which is mapped onto it at a better resolution which would potentially improve its appearance.

What this means is that if you keep the original 3D files for your FS2004 PA-28, you have some options; clearly the amount of polygons and vector points which join up with lines to make those polygons you could get away with in FS2004, is less than you could get away with than in the 64 Bit P3D or whatever, so depending on what you originally drew in your 3D program, you might either choose to output something of very high fidelity with less or more polygons depending on the end use, or more likely you might use a simpler shape of your old model, then either add some additional vector points to it to make the curves more curvaceous, or simply use it as a parts guide to draw a more complex shape over the top of it and then delete the less complex shape.

That's one example of where you might use an older resource file to make a new native MSFS model, or some bits of it, or simply use it as a bit of a guide. That's one of the reasons why we saw tons of airports being knocked out for MSFS within days of its release. These are essentially just a collection of boxes with textures mapped onto them, so if you up the resolution of the textures, bingo, there's your high res airport model.

Notwithstanding that bull***t you see in shows such as CSI Narnia, where some detective looking at a grainy security camera still image says: 'can you enhance that for me?' whereupon some techie nerd presses a button on their computer, which makes a high tech 'zooming noise' and magically makes an image which originally looked like it was photographed from space with a potato, suddenly be so high res that you can read the registration plate of a car which was six miles away and made up from four pixels, you will I daresay be familiar with Adobe Photoshop and some other image editing programs and how they work.

So you will be aware that the amount of pixels an image has (resolution), defines its ability to be better or worse quality. This would mean older textures for older models using that pixel-based method of production might be no use in a higher-fidelity product. But often the artwork for textures in sims and games is not created in a pixel-based program such as Adobe Photoshop, it's created in Adobe Illustrator instead. Illustrator doesn't normally use pixels for image generation (it can if you want it to), it uses vectors. So to get a lovely smooth curve in Illustrator, rather than painting pixel colours in a curved shape as you might typically do in Photoshop (not that you should, Photoshop has vector tools as well), you can define one vector point at a specific coordinate on your page in an Illustrator image file, then you define a second one using a bezier curve pen tool. Doing this tells Illustrator to set off drawing a line in a specific direction from one of the points at a specific rate of curvature, until it meets up with the other point and it then colours the line. This is why it is called a vector graphic program.

(If you want to see how vector points can be used with a pen in an Adobe program, here's a tutorial vid I made some years ago for some of my students which shows them how to create a mask in a movie editing program using vector points.)

So with vectors, you can scale a vector-based line up or down, to the size of a postage stamp, or the size of a football field. It doesn't matter, it will always be at the maximum resolution which the equipment you are displaying it on is capable of producing. Having done that, you can output your image to a JPEG, DDS, BMP or whatever, at any resolution you like for use as the final texture you project onto your model's polygons. 

This means that if you had created your original textures for your PA-28 for FS2004 in a vector program such as Illustrator, with them being output at 1024 pixel resolution for use in that sim, you could use the same file to output your textures at 10,240 pixel resolution for some future sim too, and they'd always be the best quality they could be.

Thus it makes no sense to reinvent the wheel and do some things twice if you already have usable resources, and that's what they mean about having some stuff as a base. It's not the same as porting something over, where you just get the old product and output its original files of lesser fidelity and with textures at cack resolutions into the format the new sim uses. That's what's happening when we use that MSFS legacy importer to put old FSX and P3D models into MSFS.

Beyond this. You might recall that Just Flight was literally the first payware developer to get a product for a flight sim out and on sale which used PBR (physics based rendering). That was their PA-28R Arrow III for Flight Sim World way back in September of 2017. So even if they were using old image files as the basis for their MSFS PA-28, those image files would almost certainly have been the ones which were already PBR, developed for that thing nearly five years ago. This of course also means that Just Flight has been creating PBR-textured payware add-on aeroplanes, for literally longer than any other mainstream flight sim add-on developer.

Edited March 11, 20215 yr by Chock

Somewhere over the caribbean sea, on my way from Quito to Puerto Plata with a stop in Barranquilla, Colombia. 15 hours so far on the plane

2 hours ago, JustFlightScott said:

I'll give you information but pointless replying in full again.  Scroll back up to my reply about 2 hours ago about the allegations about this being a port and the dodgy textures.  Both vehemently denied and I really shouldn't need to be going here again. 🙂

It's not a port there's not an asset used here from any of the original versions, it's all brand new we had the originals as a base that's it.  And in our opinion and that of many others the textures are a zillion times better than default aircraft, check those pics out I have posted, the textures are spanking top quality.

It's all rather bizarre this but I do hope that helps.

I have read most all of the pros and cons posted about this aircraft.  I have been pushed over the brink and that is by your constant support and explanations.  I'm buying it.  😊  Thank you.

Bill

21 minutes ago, Chock said:

I'll take a guess at what they mean by that.

Thanks Chock.

Just now, Will Fly For Cheese said:

Thanks Chock.

No worries. Keep in mind all of that was just a guess at what they meant, but it is something I've taught people for years professionally, so I know it would be the smartest and quickest way to go about stuff. If they aren't doing all that stuff, I'm available for training courses on how to use all that stuff properly, at ridiculously exorbitant rates! 🤣

Anyone have any suggestions of something to use in Simbrief for this since there's nothing remotely similar looking for an airframe to start with?  I thought about trying to modify the weights on the C172 but figured that wasn't going to be any better than just guessing on the fuel in the first place.

Decent video here on good old YT.  There are tons of videos appearing of course, this is one I was just taking a look at this evening.
 

 

Love this aircraft in VR.  I'm using the HP G2, and absolutely don't get the texture argument.  Everything is readable (I run 70 in OpenXR, and 100 in sim) and is by far the most immersive aircraft to date.  Love the old avionics,  fly with a friend who has an Arrow II, and this represents it very well, right down to the two-latch door.  I know this from missing the top latch on a flight last year.  It was a noisy experience.  Almost did the same last night in the JF bird, but glanced up and noticed it  prior to taking the runway.  Love the sounds as well.   This, the TBM, WT C4J, and FBW A320, along with the upcoming CRJ makes for a really fun hangar.  I did notice in VR that the user-defined registration disappears when viewed from about 40 degrees L or R of the nose, but does not happen in non-VR mode.  I put in a ticket for it.  Landed with a bit of crosswind at KBDL (one of my favorite addon airports) and the rudder takes a bit of getting used to, but was manageable.  In VR, it is a great experience.... still don't know how anyone flies on 2D monitors anymore, having to zoom in and pan around to see references, or to hit a switch behind the yoke,....   Oh well, another topic,  but love this plane!

1 minute ago, bszuch said:

till don't know how anyone flies on 2D monitors anymore, having to zoom in and pan around to see references, or to hit a switch behind the yoke,....

Money my friend.... Money money... 😆🤦‍♂️

9 minutes ago, flyinion said:

Anyone have any suggestions of something to use in Simbrief for this since there's nothing remotely similar looking for an airframe to start with?  I thought about trying to modify the weights on the C172 but figured that wasn't going to be any better than just guessing on the fuel in the first place.

I just use the C 172, and have for years with all my GA aircraft. 

Just now, xender said:

Money my friend.... Money money... 😆🤦‍♂️

VR makes me dizzy, and can't wait to take the headset or whatever you call it, off. 

2 minutes ago, bszuch said:

still don't know how anyone flies on 2D monitors anymore

Sit down at your computer with a nice cup to tea or coffee on the table next to you, then ask that question again. After you've cleaned the spill up of course. 🤣