EagleSkinner

Did you save as dds texture format? If yes, did you flip the image vertically before saving?

These aren't paints for general consumption, I was just putting ideas down for a real world / real aircraft client...

Look at the specular... I am guessing this is an FSX model.

Look for the dotted lines ("Seats", "Black Box" etc.)

Consider this: check out how the original model looks by day and night. If that one doesn't show your problem, then the answer must inevitably be that your textures are missing something. Whenever I get this kind of problem and I can't understand where I am going wrong, I "dissect" a copy of the original textures and try to find the fact I overlooked. Often this is a time intensive affair, but in the end I end up slapping my own forehead. As I don't fly or paint "tubes" I am afraid I don't know this model.

That is a fun looking paintjob!

Have you tried to google "continental airlines logo"? The select "Images" from the Google left side menu? And of course - if you are really interested, try: "Brands of the World" website: http://www.brandsoftheworld.com/search/logo/continental%20airlines

Ah well, if it is an FS 9 model, then you can forget the specular stuff. FS9 models don't have this feature - even though an FS9 model does work in FSX. So go for the night textures...

Also... does this problem exist on the basic "out of the box" model? Perhaps you might check the _L textures (those are the "night time" textures the ones with _L at the end of the name. Look for "emissive texture" in the SDK

I'm sort of half way certain that the spinner texture is taken off the light grey bit to the right of the pilot's face. Obviously the alpha values are corresponding. Here's another spinner: This one has 60% black as the diffuse colour and 70% black as the alpha value. As you can see - two different planes with shiny spinners. On the Mustang the diffuse uses a lighter grey and on the T6 a darker grey as base colour. That is what I mean, when I say developers set their own values for reflectivity. Painting is a frustrating process all the way... just as you get used to one model, you have to learn a new technique for the next one...

Not knowing what the modeller did is the fun part of the equation Now I am assuming you want chrome spinners? Like I say - the default P51 racer has a very nice looking polished metal finish. Maybe the Beech King Air spinners would help you too? Or the Baron? As for the fuzziness at the tip of the spinner... Have you painted enough area? Take a look at all of these models' diffuse and specular sheets to get a clue. If I do some polished Aluminium soon, I'll post pictures of my progress... in fact... the next paint is a bare metal T6 Texan. My current one is a silver painted and polished version. look: AHHH Found the examples I wanted to show! The best polished metal spinner effect I can offer is this one of P51 "Eleen and Jerry" - a friend of mine owns the real one and I have re-created her for FSX. Here with the default cubic environment: Here are diffuse and alpha to show the levels of grey I used: As you can see - I really do use a darker alpha... At its present stage of progress, this model is still using the default speculars from the Acceleration Mustang.

Ah now... if you like pink planes, then you'll like the RAF photo recconnaissance liveries from the end of WW2 as well...

It's not actually modelling, just creating wireframes textures... here's one I have permission for - just as an example: As you can see - if you now made a texture called "wireframes" for example, and then a new texture folder and entry in the aircraft.cfg in fsx, you could have a wireframe model in FSX to look at

Oh yes, I just found another example of how a spec affects what you see. These images are taken from my current project - Texan T6 "Thumper 12" - and a test texture I used previously. I have only started painting the diffuse textures on "Thumper" so far. The specs are still from a "playaround" paint I was working on to test the paintkit. On the shot below, you can see some stars on the nose cowling of the test paint: On this next shot, you can see the current paint project (Thumper 12) and how the specular (which was simply left in when I created a new texture folder in "sim objects") shows through onto the "Thumper" paint:

I just took a look at the paintkit. Umm... "interesting". Wireframes would help. There is a useful pair of tools called UVmapper and ModelconverterX. I shan't say more (other than Google or FSDeveloper.com) The reason why I say this is that technically speaking, you aren't allowed to fiddle with the copyrighted mdl file without the owners permission. BUT... if you do have permissions, you can use these tools to create your own wireframe textures - and that helps a lot when trying to align bits of texture.

A quick postscript... I should remind all of you reading my previous post - I am no expert on Microsoft and ACES usage of texturing aircraft models and the FSX SDK. I hardly understand some of the words they use, let alone how they interpret their own words. :Monkey: If you really want to understand what I have written, you also really need the SDK on your PC so that you can see the examples that ACES made for us to see. Oh yes - and here's a fun trick: Make your own fresnel ramp - use a rainbow coloured flood fill. Try it on any aircraft model (don't forget to save the original fresnel ramp image). Be prepared for a surprise lesson in a "1960's suspicious substances" new perception of the world...

Real World has kept me busy (too busy) so sorry for the delay in responding... 1. The 'main' texture is called the diffuse texture. The alphas do not inter-mix between diffuse, spec, bump or emissive (that last means the textures with an '_l' in the name - lower case L) So although they don't directly affect each other, there is an indirect effect. The shinier (darker) the diffuse alpha is, then you will see more detail from the cubic environment textures. These cubic environment maps are a totally different thing - they are a "six part" image (imagine the six faces of a cube) that depict the world around the aircraft. It would be possible to have a "live" environment map, but ACES decided not to at the time because of the hardware load, so they made a static image to save processing power. You can find these textures in the FSX/Texture folder - there's a series of them all starting with "GlobalEnv*****.dds" - open one in DXTBmp and you will see. Back to the comment - you can make your own Global Environment maps - the more contrasty, the more pronounced the reflection. Some models come with their own Global Env textures. So depending on the modellers setting in the 3DS Max export (or GMax / FSDS) the diffuse alpha channel mixes the env-map with the diffuse image to give the model its reflectivity. The MS basic envmap is fairly neutral so a dark alpha still doesn't "reflect" too much. If you have the Ikarus Gold Pitts, as an example where the modeller has included his own envmaps, then this new envmap is a high contrasty image so the aircraft looks glossier. So basically for (1) - the diffuse alpha works primarily with the environment map and the developer's settings for reflectivity. 2 The spec's alpha channel on the other hand, does all sorts of wierd and wonderful things that I haven't fully sorted out in my own head yet. You really have to see the SDK and read all about texturing aircraft models, because there are so many different ways that this alpha seems to affect the spec texture. But basically the prime function of the spec alpha is to control the "falloff" values. What the hell is "falloff"? And well you may ask... Well, for one thing, this appears to also take an information feed from the Fresnel Ramp dds texture, so depending on the gradient of this texture, the falloff is either brighter or darker and the spec alpha makes the falloff wider or narrower. How the hell do I describe this? Oh yes - try this. Normally the spec is merely a 180° colour rotaion of the diffuse map texture which has reduced saturation and increased brightness. You won't really spot much effect. BUT if you create a chromalusion effect - mercedes cars sometimes have this paint - for instance the main colour might be metallic blue, but as you change viewing angles, the colour appears to change to green or purple. To do this in a repaint you simply start with a blue diffuse and a strong green specular... So... when you observe the model in sim, you will see the blue diffuse paint and depending where the sunlight is, you will see a green sheen from the specular. Hang on - I have an image somewhere... OK, it is a purple diffuse with a blue specular, but you can see what I mean: Falloff is the ammount you can see of the specular depending upon the angle of the FS "Sun's" position relative to your plane and your viewing angle - so... if you have a darker spec alpha, you will get a wider amount of the spec colour over your diffuse colour. Another fun feature of the specular is that whatever you paint here is only visible from the right lighting angle in sim. Here: The diffuse texture is plain orange. The specular is actually the specular from Patty Wagstaff's paint (the Cirrus logos) - as you roll this particular paint round the sky, the Cirrus logo will come into sight and disappear as the sunlight's angle changes. So to sum up (2) - the spec alpha controls how much of the spec is visible as the "sunlight" falls on the model. This is REALLY great for cool trick paint jobs. Some of my paints have "secret" Eagleskinner hints in the spec... 3. It's the diffuse that defines the final primary colour appearance of the airplane. The Spec controls the reflection's colours. 4. Sorry - I was referring to the diffuse texture. 50% grey on the texture and 50% on the alpha is merely a stating point - it just depends on the modeller's export settings how much grey you need on the texture and how much on the alpha - thus "trial and error". You can, of course, look at chrome bits on the modeller's model textures. Open them in DXTBmp and compare the colour and alpha channels. A great chrome example is the acceleration pack P51D Mustang - there are a couple of really nice chrome / polished aluminium textures - use these as a guide. Have fun!

Try adding a very slight touch of "noise" to the spec alpha and/or reduce the alpha shine on the diffuse texture. I can't promise these will work because much of how a painter can affect the looks depends upon how shine and spec have been set on the model prior to exporting for FSX. Painting is always a touch of trial and error...

Apart from posting the same message three times in quick succession, I think you are in the right place here - I only hope the moderators don't delete the wrong thread and make you lose your answers, so if I were you, I'd delete the other two post haste. Do you have the FSX SDK installed? It is on the "Gold" or "Acceleration" versions of the FSX discs. Now, about the speculars - this is what the FSX SDK has to say about them: There are a lot more words about reflection and chrome effects but these two paragraphs should describe the basic essence: So basically, if the model maker has chosen to set the chrome effect on the 3D model, it is going to stay that way forever - you, the user, can't alter the model surface settings. If he hase defined chrome effect to be a function of alpha channels, then you can text the level of chrome-ness by painting the diffuse texture of the spinner a 50% grey and paint exactly the same area on the alpha channel a 50% grey (very rarely do you need a full black to maximise your reflectivity (in fact, this is normally used to make transparencies transparent... and in FS9 you could make parts of the fuselage (like unwanted bombs) disappear - not in X though) You really need to have the SDK to read. That way xou can also read the long chapters about how textures, cubic environment maps, speculars and alphas all interact. The chapter "FSX Materials" is especially interesting and shows you all the different ways speculars, diffuse and bump texture interact. What makes painting so fraught is the fact that each model maker has a different set of favourite values for how he sets and defines his materials in his 3D software (GMax, 3DS Max, FSDS etc.) Sorry I can't give you a single definitive answer here.

Most users here seem to paint heavy metal. Not me - I am a small aircraft painter... My current project is the Warwick Carter (and co) North American Texan T6. What you see here is really only an "alpha" - there is a long way to go before I have made new panel lines, rivets and screws (although you can see the first changes here) Enjoy - it's only w-i-p, but I just felt like sharing progress.

That's rather pretty... I am working on the Texan T6 at the moment, but if I need an eye-rest I shall look closely at this. Meanwhile maybe you'll like my rendition of the Airbus Flying Club's 180...

Infamy, infamy! They've all got it infamy...

Thank you kind sir! Unusual but it worked.

I'm trying to install the SDK from either the FSX Deluxe disk or the FSX Acceleration disk. I am trying on two different computers and MS Windows takes simply ages to even open the CD to view files. Even opening up the SDK folder takes ages.Same problems on main PC and Toshiba laptop.Paranoia: have MS put out one of their famous Tuesday fixes that prevents users accessing MS FSX disks?Or is it simply that the CDs don't work in Blueray drives?

Ah - I am not the only one that thinks so.