Leen3131cs

FAQ updated today

Getting a line straight line can be very hard sometimes , as Ron said. Many times a straight line on the texture gives a straight line on the model. Thats an ideal situation. BUT Sometimes we have 3D models with a very strange mapping and these models are initially painted in a 3D-program. Making straight lines on such models can be terryfying. Textures are wrapped around the model like a stretchy sweater. Most airliners do not suffer this phenomena, we can paint the sigars quiet easily.( talking about lines only ) When we are talking about GA its a different story. In general painting GA is far more complicated, than painting the airliners. As Ron is a specialist in GA, he knows (like I do) painting Alabeo models is one of the most complicated catagories. The models are fantastic the texturemapping and distortion is horrible. Most Alabeo models are not for beginners and to complicated for many painters. The paint shown is made by a very talented painter a real master in Photoshop. ( Monoblau) http://www.unionvogelhirsch.de/ He designed and painted the livery on the Alabeo Mooney Ovation. The model on top shows the straight lines Stefan (Monoblau) made on the texture. The lower model shows the same paint with curved lines on the texture giving straight lines on the model. This corrections were made by myself, just to demonstrate "It can be done" in an average paintingprogram. Not saying I am a better painter, just showing , years of experience really help. Photoshop cannot offer us tools to solve these problems, its a question of trial and error , pixel by pixel. FSRepaint might be handy to use for FSX painters, X-Plane painters can use some 3D programs , things still stay complicated. The lower pictures show the incredible mess we have to paint to get an acceptable result and the straight version giving the curved lines on the model. They say GA stands for "General-Aviation" for sim-painters it often stands for "Great-Agony" Sometimes I think . " Are we GA-painters masochists ? " ps. I actually added this issue to the FAQ right away.

I am afraid its a bit more complicated than you think. Drawing a line upside down or not thats not the point, its easy to do. BUT when we want to make a livery really dipicting a real life plane we have to look at and compare with pictures/photos and get a good idea of the situation. Then we have to paint , and see what we paint in a natural position. As most (all) paints have been made initially in PS ( or in a 3D program) in the normal upside-up position and converted to the upside-down DDS files its best painting in the normal position. Let me give you a parabel. Painting a portrait is difficult , now take a look at the girl whoìs posing and make the portrait upside down, even Da Vincy or Rembrand could not perform that whithout extra effort.

Reverse? You mean turn upside down and vice versa? If you have no problem with painting upside down there is no need to to flip the image. Just make sure the image is upside-down in the end (DDS) If you are painting DDS files for X-Plane. Textures must NOT be flipped upside-down.

I opened and saved the file in Paint.Net now I kan open it in PaintshopPr07 I also opened it in Photoshop. Its a very complect and user-unfriendly layerfile , but its a layerfile. Nothing special with that. The problem with making a black livery is the fact all details like platelines and rivets are always in greyscaled textures. Adding a black layer under these details the black will swallow all detail. When you want a black plane with rivets and platelines , layers with lines and rivets should be set negative. Then you have a black plane with white rivets, turning down the opacity of a rivet-layer in white very low , there will be almost black rivets on a black plane. Bump and specular files can enhance the vissibility of black rivets on a black plane, thats for specialists.

PaintShopPro 7 cannot open all the layers of this file. I`ll have a look at it in GIMP

I am downloading the paintkit myself now.

I had a look at the files They look a bit weird to me. Can you send me the layerfiles as the were BEFORE you started working on them and tell me what you want. Do you want to make a black plane? Cheers Leen

Yes always keep the layerfile at hand to continue or redo editing.. I`ll have a look on your files later today Cheers Leen

Just a note. When a psd ( or psp) is opened and edited in GIMP it cannot be saved as a psd (psp) . You can save it as a GIMP format ( XCF) and then export is as a DDS. You`ll have to go back to the gimp file (XCF) to continue editing A DDS never has layers. Life will be much easier for you when you get an old copy of Paint Shop Pro 7 , till these days I work with it , is superb and you might get it for a dollar.

I`ll try to have a look tomorrow. Leen

Do not laod PSD in DXTBmp it does not work When you edited the PSD file and saved it to dds you can load the dds to DXTBmp and add an alpha in a simple way. You also can add an alpha layer to a PNG in GIMP. Edit PSD > save to PNG > add Alpha A PNG with alpha can be converted to DDS in DXTBmp Most easy workflow is adding the alpha with DXTBmp. When you want to make twin-colored normalfiles in a fast way Paint Shop Pro is excellent. ( only needed in simulators with real-metalness-reflection, based on normal ,like X-Plane) Simply switching on and off layers tells you what layer contains wich textures. Its best flipping DDS file while working on the textures. Make sure the DDS files are upside-down when they go in the simulator. ( except in X-Plane, there they stay in their most logic position) Personally , these days I only work in the X-Plane environment ( painters can be more happy with their efforts there ,in my PRIVATE opinion) If you want me to have a look at your files , upload them as a zipped file to Dropbox or something alike and give me the downloadlink. Cheers Leen

First start with familiarising yourself with the paintingprograms you are using. When you know how your paintingprogram works you can see the layers in a glimpse. You can see the alpha in many paintingprograms and always in DXTBmp You can export an alpha with DXTBmp into your paintingprogram and after editing re-load the alpha channel in the texture. Whenever a file has no alpha , you can add this alpha with DXTBmp. All parts of a texture must be selected individually and then they can be edited. My first paint took me a year, I had to discover everything first.

A million is to much ! I am glad I could be of some help. Have a nice weekend. Leen

I think there is a bit of misunderstanding. The internet is full of tutorials about painting with photoshop. There are no tutorials avaiable , teaching you how to work with photoshop and in the meantime make a paint for a flightsim model. What you want is having paino-lessons and end up performing a pianoconcerto by Chopin the same time. , within a few weeks. Learn to use Photoshop in general FIRST. And then start a simple paint.( better said the most simple one you can find) Do not start learning horse-riding on a wild stallion. Ozzieblr wrote; That is the answer to your question and thats all there is to say about.

Whahahaha.............. thats humor. If you like to use Photoshop ,as many painters do, there is nothing wrong with that. The only point I want to make is the fact ,those who want to paint skins can surely do without. Cheers Leen

Please have a look at The Painting FAQ`s Personally I use Paintshop Pro 7 ( bought years ago for ten dollars) DXTBmp its free ConvimX its free Gimp its free too I am used to working with PaintShopPro 7 , in fact Gimp is better. Its absolutey nonsense to invest in Photoshop. If you have plenty of money , be my guest. It does not make you a better painter. Painting at the highest level is possible without any investment. Buying a Steinway does not make you a great pianist.

I just looked on the internet. I assume the problem with NORTWEST is mainly a problem with the character S. The other character are close to fonts we all have and can be easily used with a tiny bit of editing. The S is something special. There are some pictures showing cards and labels on the internet. Their quality is low. What did I do. I took a picture and enlarged in Paintshop to a huge size. Then I selected the S by hand and made a black copy. Then I finetuned the font a bit and now I have a very big S. Downscaled it will do perfectly on a repaint. Herwith some examples ( made in just ten minutes , spending a bit more time quality will profit ) https://www.dropbox.com/s/dde1gyz8fasfrv2/example.zip?dl=0 = link to layer-file

Several types of font have been used for Northwest Orient. Give us a screen showing the plane? I think it should no be such a problem to find what you are looking for.

Terriffic paints jankees ! Can`t wait having this plane available for X-Plane Cheers Leen

Painting for X-Plane is no different from painting for other sims. ( or racing cars , tanks, trains etc.) Painting is painting. Different sims have different file-types. Bump files in FSX etc are named Normals in X-Plane. In FSX a dark alpha gives gloss in X-Plane it reduces gloss. The main difference is in that kinda things. Sometimes its even possible to save files in just another filetype to use e.g. Carenado FSX files in X-Plane. Carenado uses the same textures and models for all simulators. From DXT or DDS to PNG or another type of DDS. FXS DDS files are upside down , X-Plane DDS are not flipped. Small differences but no big deal for a painter.

Please place repaint-requests in The Paint Request Forum.

I am glad my answer is useful. Foget about asking for an extra window at PMDG. I can assure you , they are not going to do that. A change on the outside means a change on the inside too besides that it will need more liveries and so on. Even the default liveries are not all corresponding with the reality on the actual planes. There are many,many varieties of window configurations for the DC6. Many made by Douglas by default and many others by their users. Best wishes to you.

I think you have something in mind wich cannot be done. I do not have the model myself, nevertheless I am quiet sure I am right. The windows are part of the 3D model (wich only can be changed by PMDG themselves) they are actually open spaces (holes) in the body of the 3D model of the plane. Windows drawn at the fuselage texture are not actually shown on the aircraft in sim. These spaces are 3d modelled and get their texture form another texturesheet (where they are actulally transparent as well) Adding your extra window as a transparent window on the fuselage-texturesheet does not work either. Windows shown on the default fuselage-textures ( and paintkits ) for models having real transparent windows are mostly just functional as a giude for the painter to place his lines and texts on the correct position. Nevertheless there is a way to have your window on the plane. That however is quiet complicated ( more likely impossible ) for a beginning painter and will never be a real window in the end. In that case you have to reproduce the window just as a texture and give it accents by editing the bump and specular file file. As the window wil not be enlightened from inside at night , its therefore is advisable to "blind" this window with a curtain or sun-shade to make it realistic at night when other windows are enlightened. This picture shows a DC3-model with an extra "fake" window and panoramic window, wich I added to match reality for this livery. Cheers Leen

ConvlmX does only work after installation of the DLL set provided on the same site.