golyaht

Perfect. Thanks for the info, brother! I'll give it a shot. Time to google "how to make a metal texture in photoshop cc" ahahaha. Have a great one. _B

One of the best aircraft ever made for FSX, hands down.

Thanks for that info JasonB! I will take a look at it. As far as the spec maps go... do I just do up a layer with the correct color and export to DDS with a _spec suffix? Are there any other "gotchas" with the spec maps? Blair Hoddinott

Thank you for saving me hours of loading up FSX to check a small detail. I had no idea this was possible. Blair Hoddinott

Hey guys, First and foremost: The PMDG paint kit definitely sets the gold standard of exactly what a paint kit should be. Well done, gentlemen. It is an absolute joy when I get a request to paint a PMDG plane, because I know I won't be fighting with a garbage kit, where I'm pixel-counting to try to line up straight lines (or god forbid curved ones). On to my problem: In the process of making a Deltaflot livery, I was trying to put a whack of shine on the bottom part that's supposed to be metal. The way I thought to do this (and if there's a better way, by all means chime in... I am not a master of photoshop in any way, shape or form) was to add a bunch of dark/black to the alpha channel on the fuse where the metal is supposed to be. My thinking here is that the darker the alpha channel, the shinier it will be in FSX... thus my metal effect would work and I would be a hero. To test this stroke of genius, I applied this to only one mid-section so I could compare the shine between my modified alpha, and the unmodified. Unfortunately, upon loading my masterpiece into the sim, I was greeted with this: In a prior repaint where I was looking for a shiny look, I had repainted the entire alpha channel pure black and had a similar experience. After I figured out that using pure black on the windows is how we switch them to transparent, I figured using a dark grey would make it shine, but not be transparent. I used 80% grey and 90% grey in two tests, and both gave this result. Also, I only applied the alpha where the grey is supposed to be, and instead the entire section went transparent. I un-did the alpha and moved past this, but I'm left with a sad looking grey on the bottom of an otherwise fairly nice paint job. So where did I go wrong? is there a certain percentage of grey I can safely use, and will still give me a respectable amount of shine? Or is there a better/faster/smarter way of doing a metal effect? Also, while we are on the topic of alpha channels and transparent windows; I've noticed that when using the transparent windows, no matter what I do with the alphas I can't get the windows in the main entry/exit doors to be transparent. Not sure if this is by design or if I didn't do something right. Anyway, thanks for all your help in advance! Keep making awesome products... I own everything you've put out and am ready to buy more! (Can't wait for the 744v2 ) Regards, Blair Hoddinott

The paintkit is not actually in that location. Maybe they removed it during an SP. You can only download it from the Aerosoft support portal (http://support.aerosoft.com), and only if you bought the Airbus Extended. To call it a paint kit is on the generous side. What it really is, is Holgi's master PSD files from a few different models. The NEO sharklet textures are missing, so you have to hand-hack the DDS files to get where it is. Very tedious, but doable. Also, the paint kit is in German... so be ready to bust out Google Translate! It's not the worst paint kit I've seen (by far), as I just got finished with a Wilco repaint. THAT is an atrocity. If you are used to working with PMDG, QualityWings or Majestic paint kits, however, you are in for an adjustment period. Cheers! _G

This post helped GREATLY. Thanks bud. I was having a difficult time with the Alphas.