Just now, ryanbatc said:

I have no issues paying for liveries.  I've also downloaded thousands throughout the years (and made a few myself!)  I've been both a user and contributor to this hobby for nearly three decades.

I personally recognize Ryan as a Master.  A prolific Master! Contributions in several areas of flight simulation.  In addition to his liveries I am highly appreciative of his continuous and periodic efforts in other key areas.  Many present here over the years will understand that comment!

I have painted a few liveries in my day, and I only do it to support the community and for the personal satisfaction of creating something simmers enjoyed.  Painting is a hobby in itself when you've caught the painting bug, and I've retired once, then came back once I figured out how to paint in MSFS.

I've gotten a few tips over the years that I never solicited, but always appreciated when someone thought my efforts were worth a small tip.  The biggest enjoyment in painting for me is to see someone enjoying my paints and posting screenshots of them.

 

9 hours ago, Mgard78 said:

unless you have a money tree of course., then knock yourself out..

I pay a few bucks for some liveries and this amounts to me having a "money tree"? Are you serious?

7 hours ago, ryanbatc said:

At any rate - per the topic title - I did recently purchase a pack of CJ4 paints in MSFS.  They look really similar to some popular freeware ones but there were 2 or 3 other designs I liked.  5 bucks can barely even buy you a MCD's meal nowadays.

Here's one (in a pack of 7 I think) thought I purchased:

ovhdbos by Ryan Butterworth, on Flickr

Do you have a link to these liveries? I'll buy those too, because I have a money tree that needs shakin'.😄

4 hours ago, steve310002 said:

There is also a very human side of life in sharing a passion, and critically, enjoying that passion for a hobby with a community of like minded people that goes beyond dollar signs and capitalism. That is also a huge part of fullfilment that many people enjoy.....giving to others.

Again, I'm giving a guy a few bucks, a guy whose freeware stuff I've enjoyed, to show my appreciation, and now it's all about "dollar signs and capitalism". Lol. 

52 minutes ago, Ricardo41 said:

Again, I'm giving a guy a few bucks, a guy whose freeware stuff I've enjoyed, to show my appreciation, and now it's all about "dollar signs and capitalism". Lol. 

Well, my impression from what you wrote was suggesting that these things have no reason to be free. I'm not sure why you would advocate for taking away one of the greatest things about the flight sim hobby. I'm all for donation giving, just not for charging for everything left, right, and center. And yes, that would be a rather capitalistic perspective as it's a suggestion of generating capital from that which is free. Also, the donation approach is highly inclusive as not everyone is from a wealthy nation, and I'm sure this offers huge enjoyment to people who would otherwise not afford it.

Anyway, I'm not sure if you are having a freeware existential crisis this weekend, but each to their own.😆

 

Also, there is not a single freeware livery for XBox users. Unless somebody deploys paid liveries to the marketplace, they are empty handed.

18 hours ago, styckx said:

Each little edit you make requires loading the sim, loading a flight, and checking your work. It's excruciating. Text not aligned between textures? Pinstripe not aligned? Some paint is overlapping a part of the texture you were't expecting it too? Color just not right? Alpha channel needs adjusting?  Close sim, open Photoshop and try again. 

Today you open Blender and paint on the 3D model. Blender offers text alignment, pinstripe alignment and paint overlapping for free.

Too old to learn blender and the MSFS community is too toxic to do work for anyway.  But there are plenty of other people around doing MSFS work so it is not like anyone would miss my efforts anyway 😄

28 minutes ago, mrueedi said:

Also, there is not a single freeware livery for XBox users. Unless somebody deploys paid liveries to the marketplace, they are empty handed.

Today you open Blender and paint on the 3D model. Blender offers text alignment, pinstripe alignment and paint overlapping for free.

There are tons of paid liveries in the marketplace. Like too many I think already.

I use Blender and Photoshop, but it's often easier to just keep the initial workflow and painting in Photoshop and make the final end texture adjustments in blender, which I just use the UV mapping and never the painting. The painting tools and texturing in Blender are not great to be frank, that's why people have gone to third party tools for painting and texturing, like Armor Paint, Substance Painter, Quixel, Zbrush, Mari, etc...

With all the software out there, there is almost an unlimited number of workflows though, so I doubt my workflow is the most efficient by any means, it just happens to be what I'm used to. The worst part about Blender though by far is the NLA Editor (not used in painting, just saying). That thing is an abomination, and that's an understatement.

There is a lot of satisfaction in doing things and giving them away free, but at some point time is short too...

Edited October 23, 20223 yr by Alpine Scenery

1 hour ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

Too old to learn blender and the MSFS community is too toxic to do work for anyway

I did not have a single toxic exchange with any user of my addons (11k downloads just at flightsim.to). I would say, they are all nice people!

1 hour ago, Alpine Scenery said:

I use Blender and Photoshop, but it's often easier to just keep the initial workflow and painting in Photoshop and make the final end texture adjustments in blender, which I just use the UV mapping and never the painting. The painting tools and texturing in Blender are not great to be frank, that's why people have gone to third party tools for painting and texturing, like Armor Paint, Substance Painter, Quixel, Zbrush, Mari, etc...

With all the software out there, there is almost an unlimited number of workflows though, so I doubt my workflow is the most efficient by any means, it just happens to be what I'm used to. The worst part about Blender though by far is the NLA Editor (not used in painting, just saying). That thing is an abomination, and that's an understatement.

Sure, Blender has a steep learning curve, but the capabilities are unlimited and the countless youtube tutorials provide quick help. For new liveries of existing models, the UV mapper should not be required, only the painting feature. In the beginning I also tried to do a livery in the traditional way, but this was so tedious and inefficient that I could have acquired the necessary Blender skills from scratch in the same time. Blender makes painting liveries like these a quick and efficient task imho.

I did spend several days in the NLA Editor without much progress indeed, but recently I learnt a lot from @mamu82 's excellent youtube tutorials. I higly recommend them. After watching his tutorial which applied to my use case right the next attempt worked on my side.

My prefered workflow is creating the 3D model in Fusion 360 (like I did with the paddle steamers for Hendriks @KL791 Global AI ship package, Fusion is a great CAD tool for parametric design, which allows to fork a design after any workstep also from the past; getting the variations for the four steamers was easy that way) and then texture them in Blender. For that I even made use of the possibilities to automate some work steps using Python scripting.

Edited October 23, 20223 yr by mrueedi

It depends on the image, sometimes things have to be re-mapped because of conflicting changes to the texture. I know how to use Blender, but I don't like the UI that much, even after years of using it. It's ok, I got used to it. I have used it for painting before, it's ok I guess, but I don't think it's any faster, depends on the way the texture was mapped though I guess. It could go either way I suppose. The NLA editor works usually, but just the fact something works doesn't mean it isn't poorly designed. It violates every UI principle in existence.

 

Edited October 23, 20223 yr by Alpine Scenery

On 10/23/2022 at 2:23 AM, Ricardo41 said:

I pay a few bucks for some liveries and this amounts to me having a "money tree"? Are you serious?

 

Wow.. reading comprehension is not your strong suite, huh...?