thrakete

N2056, I agree. My retraction/apology was to you, not the kibitzer/lecturer who was not involved, offered no useful information, but felt he had to chime in.Thanks for your input, which was the only useful post in the string.Now can we please close this out and let the forum get back to technical subjects.I won't be monitoring the string anymore, so this one should finish it.Thrakete

MMMM-You are probably right. Even after years on the internet, I sometimes over-react to perceived gratuitous insults, and obviously the overall intentions were good.I apologize for my grouchiness, and thank the poster for his minute.Actually, this was not the only "hand that fed me". I already had the information on that site and another from two other Forums, since I tend to post in more than one place when I look for information.I guess that's a pretty fair indication that I should have found it myself without posting also, so will be more careful in the future.Regards to all, Thrakete

O.K. guys--Thanks for the replies and help.And for the one person who felt compelled to state that it "took all of one minute" for him to find the support site, congratulations on your skill, superior intelligence, etc. I am sure that's what you were waiting for.Regards,Rumpel

I have had the payware FSX Quest Kodiak Turbprop for several months. I like the product and use it often. However there is one item that has bugged me from the start and has persisted through at least 3 updates. Otherwise everything seems to be very well designed and precise.The Torque gauge needle on the Garmin Display reads only about half scale at the maximum allowable torque as indicated on the digital readout (gauge has both). This makes the analog gauge green and yellow areas pretty much useless in determining the upper torque limits in various phases of flight. (I am assuming the digital readout is intended to be used, as the analog portion has no number indications on it, just the green and yellow areas. Also, performance seems to be correct at the digital settings.)Has anyone heard of a solution to this? Their site does not seem to have a technical support forum.Thanks and Regards,Thrakete

That Corsair you show had a prop. A Biiiiiig One. That's why the bent the wings.Tom Hill

Hi again Mark,If you have been following the string, you are up to date on the side issue by now, so I won't discuss it again.I'll definitely take a good look at that link and see how it would fit in with PSP use. I don't know whether you are using FSX/Vista or not, but using DDS files is a radical change from previous paints. After the long absence, I have not found my way around the new texture system yet, and find it somewhat overwhelming. It is often completely different between the default airplanes and some of the add-ons, and my short term ability to retain information has not improved over the years to say the least. :( I haven't given up yet, just looking at the new complications as I encounter them.Briefly, on the Launch team Work:I became a part of the Thor Mid Range Ballistic missile devlopment launch team (Cape Canaveral, no one had eve heard of NASA or Cape Kennedy at the time) in mid 1958 during th "Cold War". After that I worked the Atlas ICBM as a launch team member for 5 years, finally moving into the development of the original Centaur, which was the world's first Hydrogen Fueled Launch Vehicle. Unfortunately the company I worked for had a policy, though unpublished, that if you refused a promotion to management you were considered stagnant in your job and expendable, so I accepted a move into management and away from the hardware. After a year or so of this, I decided I was not ready to move out of the purely technical phase of the industry, so accepted a job with a Federally Funded Non-Profit Corporation with whom I stayed for the next 30 years or so until retirement. There was a 9 year interlude during this time when I worked on the Air Force Space Shuttle Evaluation Team, but most of the rest of the time was on programs that I cannot discuss. This is in spite of the fact that nearly all the information was released to the press years ago. The work was exciting and I enjoyed almost all of it, so i consider myself lucky to have been in the right place at the right time. I can tell you that I worked with a British crew for part of that time.I will stay in touch re my decision, and thanks for your interest and help,Regards,Thrakete

Leen, Thanks for your reply, and especially the frank answer on the capabilities and limitations of FSPaint. I think you answered all my questions. My apologies for the incorrect spelling of your name in the other post. Several years ago I worked (via the internet) with another Netherlands native named Kees Van Til, who was a KLM pilot, on the development of a more realistic flight dynamics set for the then-current default Flight Sim B737. I think that was for FS2002, so it was a while back. I have since lost touch with him.I have no idea what "slating" means either, so obviously the whole misunderstanding was a native language thing. However, just as a tip; I don't believe that "Burning Down" will be interpreted as you intended in most of the United States, and I have been here for a long time and lived on both coasts. However, since I speak only one language, I can't complain about a slang misunderstanding in communication with someone who is multilingual.As far as any further pursuit of the FSPaint issue, I first have to reconsider whether I really want to get back into this activity. I haven't done a repaint in over ten years, probably longer, so considering the many changes and the DDS files that were introduced in FSX there are numerous other things I must take into account. There is no existing Plug-In for my present editor, Paint Shop Pro, that allows it to access DDS files directly (as far as I can determine). According to what I have read, the original PhotoShop Plug-In worked at one time, but it has now been revised so that it cannot be used in any other editor. There are apparently other work-arounds , but none of these appeal to me because of the extreme number of repetitive extra steps involved.With PhotoShop, it appears that everyone is qualified for a 75% or so discount except people in my "eligibility" group. :( I don't think I can justify to myself paying the "sticker" price for PhotoShop while most of the rest of the world is paying about 1/3 of that, especially considering the limited use I would make of the program. I did a lot of photography in the "wet film" days, but that is no longer true, so I would have to justify it to myself for the FSX repaints only. That reasoning does not compute.Thanks Again,Regards,Thrakete

Leem,O.K., I am not afraid to admit my mistakes, and I may have acted with undue haste in destroying my FSPaint Copy. Since it obviously upset you, or the fact that I revealed the act of destruction did, I would like to make a truce offer that I think will put things in perspective.However, please!! DO NOT EVER AGAIN refer to me as one of those who "Burns Things Down". Destroying my copy of FSPaint was not a crime. "Burning Things Down" is called Arson and is a crime, at least where I live, and those words in your post came out of the blue and should not have been there. They had to be aimed at me as there were only three of us giving inputs to the subject matter, and it could not have referred to the other person.I have looked at some of your other posts on the forum now, and you seem to be the accepted expert on this program, and a reasonable person.That matter disposed of, I would propose the following.I will purchase a new full featured copy of FSPaint to replace the one I destroyed, and do my level best to give it a fair trial. I only ask that you answer two simple questions.1. How do I get the basic information to learn the program? I am by necessity working from memory here, but as I recall there was essentially no manual with the program, either printed or on the disk. There were a couple of miniature size pages containing one or two simple examples followed by the suggestion that the user go to the FAQ section for any other desired information. Feel free to refute this if I am wrong.2. My computer is set up to use FSX SP1/SP2 with the "Speed" add on, and Vista SP1, which is the configuration last recommended by Microsoft and the now defunct ACES Team. FSPaint version 2 is represented as a full-up Re-Paint program that now covers FSX. I am a retired Aerospace Engineer who was a launch team member for years, and have considerable experience following printed procedures and check-lists. After careful study of the FSPaint information furnished in the package, and whatever else I can pick up, can I then be reasonably expected to construct RePaints of FSX aircraft of a quality that I can post on the forums (as freeware of course), and that will compare favorably with the other uploaded repaints?Question 2 goes to the heart of the matter, and is the most important to me.Thanks,Regards,Thrakete

Mark:Thanks again for your help, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with your post! My intended humorous comment about cutting the disk in half was true, but probably ill-advised, and that, nothing you did, I am sure was what provoked the outburst of rage and the personal attack that was the result. The personal criticism tantrum was aimed at me, not you, by the way. (Even though I really did play piano.) I certainly took longer to learn the piano than I would be willing to spend on the program in question.Considering the ease of unintentionally offending someone, I think it is time we dropped this whole subject.I have been thinking of taking up needlepoint for a new hobby since Microsoft dropped Flight Sim from its' product line anyhow. My wife already has that down pat an is a very patient teacher. :(Just kidding. I will probably keep simming as long as FSX keeps working.Take care and hope to talk to you again without getting you on someone's bad guy listRegards,Thrakete.

Info Item to readers of the string: YES, I operate with Vista SP1 and and FSX SP1/SP2 (and even the ultimate Evil, the "Speed" add-on), and YES, I could therefore expect some of what are currently euphemistically referred to as "issues" with products that are not fully compatible with the last FSX changes. :( -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Mark, thanks again for your help. There was absolutely nothing wrong with your post, so I am sorry I got you into that exchange. Actually, I think it was the perceived criticism of a commercial product by yours truly that provoked the rage, not your comments, so you do not owe apologies to anyone. My own opinion is that nothing I said should have provoked that kind of an outburst of personal criticism aimed at me either, but then I am a dinosaur from another age and frequently get surprises on the internet.Re the CS3 version of PhotoShop, I did look at it, and the discount from CS4 at the sources I checked is so small it is not worth considering. I guess that if there was a sizable gap in prices, everyone who wanted PhotoShop would buy CS3 and then get the huge "up-grade" discount if they wanted CS4.I think I will forget this whole thing and take up needle-pointing. :( My wife is already proficient at that, and is very patient when teaching me anything.Take Care, and best wishes Mark. Regards,Thrakete

Mark,There is a funny story behind this. I bought FS Repaint a month or so ago, and tried it out. I found out that it's behavior, (with my particular computer/OS/updates/Video Card etc. anyhow), was completely unpredictable. Also, I did not have a very high opinion of it's repaint capabilities. All this fits in with my personal belief that "You get what you pay for" is very optimistic, and it is more accurate to say "You seldom get more than you pay for-usually less".Anyhow, an uninstall/reinstall and re-run attempt produced the same results, and it took a couple of hours to clean up the resulting mess in my airplane folder. I uninstalled it again and cut the disk in half so that I would not forget and try it again at some time in the future. It has now been recycled into the "long half-life" environment of plastics.However, these problems occurred after an attempted texture rework, and using it as a viewer for the unchanged textures just might work out. Since I paid for it once, I feel I am entitled to that. :( I'll give it a try.On the PhotoShop approach, I have found some unbelievable prices on line for the CS4 version that would put it back into consideration, but am a little suspicious of getting a bootleg copy (or nothing) if I order online from some outfit I never heard of before.Thanks, Regards,Thrakete

Hi Mark:I didn't go away, I am just getting slower in my old age.It looks as though the DXTBMP usage you suggested might work. The only problem immediately obvious is that it is a very long process to find the file I need (with no immediate viewing capability) and go through the necessary transfer/comversion steps. For the small changes I am considering, it could be a solution though. I think that method would be out of the question on a complete repaint hoever.I am still looking at the other possibilities you suggested. The big hang up in anything I consider is the inability to first view the file in PSP, and therefore having to do the "needle in a haystack" search to pin down the DDS file I want to change. This problem of course would go away with a plug-in for PSP that would allow immediate viewing.It's been well over a decade since I made a full repaint, so nothing I learned at the time is applicable now,and I am in effect a novice again.I looked at Gimp, and to be fair did not spend much time on it, but the User Interface completely baffled me. Maybe I am too old for this kind of stuff!I have pretty well convinced myself that there is no workable Plug-In which would allow DDS handling within PSP, but there are several independent file conversion programs available. That would probably still be clumsy compared to a Plug-In. but may be the best solution available. Any time I consider otherwise, I look at the PhotoShop price again, and that inspires me to either keep trying or just forget the whole thing!Thanks for the reply-will let you know if a find a solution.Regards,Thrakete

Mark:Thanks, and I checked to be sure, but that one can now only be installed in PhotoShop. It has been incorporated into an automatic install program that will not allow anything else. From statements that I have Googled up, (and I have to add that none of this is verifiable) the original Plug-In was created by another well-known organization, and when it first came out, you could install it and some .dlls into PSP and it would work. However, the developer then reworked it, apparently to prevent this, and encapsulated it into the install program which will only allow it to be installed in Photoshop.(This sort of irritates me, as I have one of the plug-in developer's more expensive cards in my computer, :<( but of course they have the right to restrict use of the software in any way they desire.) As for Google, I have spent hours on this topic, and the information I found was all either outdated or the sites no longer existed, so I started in on this late. I guess that starting after Microsoft has dropped Flight Sim from their product line could be considered VERY late!I noticed that PhotoShop now has a couple of products at half of what their original version costs. Are you familiar with these, and do you know what the differences are (other than $300.00)?Thanks for the try,Regards,Thrakete

(I tried this post once and it went to never-never land because of something I did wrong, so there may be a duplicate somewhere.)I have seen many conflicting posts on this subject elsewhere, but the answers either don't work or the files referred to are not in the locations specified and I can't find them.Can PSP 8.0 be used with the DDS files in FSX for FSX repaints? If so how do I get there?I am only interested in using PSP. I do only minor repaints (Serial Numbers/ fuselage Lettering etc) and even those infrequently, so the price of PhotoShop puts that program out of the cost-effective range for me. Also I have used the various versions of PSP for years and am at least somewhat up the learning curve on it.Thanks for any help.Regards,Thrakete

Ben: This is the UAC at work again. I got the following, in detail from another poster sometime back.1. You must have Administrator privileges of course.2. Click on the round Windows button on the desktop lower left.3. Type "Start Menu" into the Search Button below the window.4. Wait for the Search to find the Start menu.5. Left Click on Start menu.6. Path then is "Start Menu\Programs\Accessories"7. Under "Accessories" RIGHT Click on Notepad and select "Run as Administrator"8. A Blank Notepad should appear. Navigate to the file to be modified, do your thing, and then save it.The full Navigation path is C:\Users\owner\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\StartMenu\Programs\Accessories (Whew!) if you prefer that.What I did was carry a Shortcut to Notepad out to my desktop so I don't have to go through all this again each time. You still have to remember to run the shortcut as Adminstrator.Regards,Thrakete

Hi Folks,Thanks to all who made helpful suggestions.I think I have just about milked this one dry, so am no longer set up to monitor the string and won't see any further replies.Regards,Tjhrakete

Jeff;What do you have against chopped liver? Ever tried it? I read a culinary review that stated it is great!Back to the subject: No mystery here. Sorry, I didn't read your review or even think of looking for one for that matter. If I had, I probably wouldn't have bought the products because of the lack of a 2D cockpit and the GPS "issue" (Nobody ever has problems anymore, just issues), so my bad. However my "Christmas Gift Giver" insisted I buy something on their nickel to go under the tree, so I sort of quickly picked those two packages at random. As I stated before, I just un-installed the products, I didn't trash the discs, so they may see some use at a later date.I did read one Flight Sim add-on review recently though-don't remember where- in which the reviewer said you could not go wrong on a $15.00 "Universal" FMC. At the end of the review though he also stated that he spent over $100.00 to get it to work, albeit not very well, and only on one airplane as I recall. I'm sure that could not have been you though. :<) I had already bought that one at the time, and It was a bust as far as I am concerned, but I did not try to redevelop it, so I saved $85.00 there I guess.Actually, I think this may be the first time I have posted a negative comment on any Payware, and believe me, I won't do it again!However, your post is received in the spirit in which it was written, and I will reform and consider your reviews along with the Forum comments before downloading or buying something from now on. Happy New Year! Please close this string!Regards,Thrakete

RTH, At my age there is not much that is too old, and about half of my favorite FSX airplanes are Freeware. In fact, I find that quite a few Freeware releases are very well done, and some of the Payware is junk. It's sorting out the bad Payware that is the problem. You have to depend on the forum inputs or past experience with the developers.Thanks for the tips, I printed out your reply and will check them out.Regards,Thrakete

Rhodges,

PeterHThanks much. I guess I didn't exercise much patience with the products, and may have dumped them out prematurely. I don't have a trackIR, and don't even know what it is, but it sounds interesting.The truth is, I am pretty deeply involved right now in learning how to use the PMDG MD-11, and will probably get back to the Beaver and DHC-6 when I get caught up on that. I am still not impressed with the VC only philosophy though.Regards,Thrakete

Hi, Thanks for the reply. I have installed (briefly) then uninstalled the DHC-6 since my original post. I don't really think these are bad models, they are just not as good as I had expected, especially the Beaver. I think the FSX default Beaver is a better product, except MS chose not to put any wheels on it. What these two do have going for them is that they seem not to have any competition if you want that class of plane. As for the VC's in general, I agree they are "usable" and I do use them for part of the time on most of my other planes, but never exclusively. I just don't think most VC's, Freeware or Payware, are good enough yet to completely replace the 2D cockpits. One other problem I noticed is that some of the non-essential DHC-6 VC gauges are not readable, even on a wide screen monitor. That seems to be a common VC problem, at least until you get up into the more expensive products. I don't have the gauge readability problem on my other payware planes, but have to consider that they they cost twice as much as these.At the present time I won't knowingly buy a plane which does not include both 2D and VC cockpits. This is the first time I have encountered Pay-Ware planes that do not have both types.These are just personal preferences of course, and the DHC-6 visual model does look good. Anyhow, everyone has their own "druthers", and that's why everyone does not use the same thing. I didn't "trash" them, so who knows, I may reinstall them at a later date and find that I like them. Thanks again for your inputs.Regards,Thrakete