SurClaro Flight Simulator Resources

This is for a dead project called Pharaoh Air I treid to develop last year...

http://home.earthlink.net/~calxpress/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/pharaoh-tut2.jpg

http://home.earthlink.net/~calxpress/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/pharaoh-isis2.jpg

These two aircraft, the Kittyhawk 737-700, would have made up the bulk of the fleet, possibly the Kittyhawk 737-800 would have been added as well. Originally the chrome part was to be sand colored, I may try making it a golden chrome color to see how that looks.

Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2006 12:29 pm Post subject:

Wow, do I ever love checking out peoples art...beautiful airplane!
The triangles, or pyramids that the line work meets are subtly gorgeous, and your treatment of the chrome-meets-paint under the nose really works for me. Nice job man, and thanks for sharing. Shocked

Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2006 4:17 pm Post subject:

Thanks. Using the chrome as a part of the livery design has been my goal from the beginning. With an Egyptian based airline pyramids are a sort of prerequisite. I sort of screwed up; I had meant it to curve down about a foot scale further back from the nose, now I need fix the nose gear doors with a sliver or silver. I also removed all the panel lines but in future projects they will return.

I tried the chrome foil effect to pretty good advantage; I’m still playing with the effect and trying to find the right tone. I found a great tutorial on adjusting reflective ness too, going to work on that.

Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2006 6:54 pm Post subject:

Looking good Peter, very good.

The thrill isn't so much getting it. The thrill is what you can do with it.

RD

Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2006 7:34 pm Post subject:

Yeah, and I'm still trying to think up ways of doing things. OK, I worked with some really simple windows programs and got this:

http://home.earthlink.net/~calxpress/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/gold.jpg

I already have two VA's, I can't really manage another as the CEO, but if the RIGHT project came along I'd consider the manager of fleet development just to paint for them. I'm still playing with this, the gold here was applied simply with MSPaint on converted 256 color texture plates, and recompiled with the alpha layer with the DXTBmp converter. No PSP was used, and no animals were harmed in the production of this aircraft.

Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2006 2:28 am Post subject:

Here's a shade variance study I did using a FSP Airbus A321. This is an easier study aircraft since it's a single plate alpha, I don't have to save a bunch of different plates to get the plane completely done.

http://home.earthlink.net/~calxpress/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/alphastudy.jpg

As with the gold and other colors the darker the color over the alpha the more it looks like a plated part or possibly a newer part. Looking at some of the older DC-10's of, say Hawaiian Airlines, you can tell newer panels by their brightness or tint. Also, weathering like engine residue on the bottom of nacelles can be duplicated.

Anyway, it was an interesting experiment, thought I'd show the results.

Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2006 6:06 am Post subject:

Proffesor pleased with students ability ....and the ability to branch out and learn new techniques. Bravo.

Ardie/RD

Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2006 7:37 am Post subject:

:::Bows to Sensei:::

I know I'm not the first to try this, am I? I mean, the concept now is so simple that I'm going to start playing with the alpha to change tones too. I have a Sukhoi SU-80 turboprop that I'm going to start working on this coming week, not sure of the scheme but it'll be a sort of shuttle. I may even apply this process to a S-61N helicopter just to check the look.

Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 7:49 pm Post subject:

I'm not trying to dig up old posts but I have a quick question on making the metal "shine". When ever I edit the Alpha layer
to make it shiny, it always ends up looking like there is some sort of "film". I really don't know what to call it but it looks like the
shine isn't on the plane
I don't know if it's just me being a perfectionist or what.
Thanks

Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 10:24 pm Post subject:

Could be your alpha channel isn't the right shade, or possibly the format you saved it all to. I bow to those with more knowledge as I am still...grasshopper.

Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 10:36 pm Post subject:

Thanks pmckay for the quick response. I had the alpha channel set to make it too shiny

Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 11:03 pm Post subject:

I'm really a novice at this stuff, but I have done a little experimenting with metal, reflective textures.

If you are looking for a chrome-like effect...all mirrory and shiney, then the full effect is done like this...at least this is my way.

Assuming the model was exported with 'has reflectmap' ticked in the 'make MDL' program, a texture then needs to have the suffix '_t' added to it's file name, to match the bitmap name used in gmax, and 'Reflections' has to be turned on in your sim settings.

The texture needs an alpha channel, and will look more reflective with darker shades of gray used wherever you want that 'reflective shine'. Black is fully reflective.

I have had success with the texture saved as 'DXT3'. (With alpha, obviously)

This has been my experience with creating and rendering a high chrome-like effect on a model in FS2004, exported out of gmax V1.2, using makeMDL and Middleman, and the surface bitmap is a chrome-like image with a highlight to it.

Some aircraft models may not have the ability to be reflective at all, depending on export techniques, and bitmap file names.

Also, don't confuse reflections with 'dynamic shine', which is the nice specular highlights you see on many plane's surfaces. Dynamic shine does not require alpha channels or proper filenames, but is dependant on the way the'material' was handled in the original modelling program.

Sorry if I've confused the issue, post back for any clarification. (It's monday. Mad

)

Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 11:27 pm Post subject:

This has been one heck of a Monday. We had a cold day. It was -11 this morning.

Anywhoozle, I understand what your saying. Thanks

Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 1:24 am Post subject:

I'm a bit more stone age in my way I guess. Since I paint 99% of my stuff in MSPaint (that's right, you heard me), and I also produce the alpha as a separate file also in MSPaint and saved in 24 bit format. I use two grays when making the alpha, one is for the chrome and one if for reflectivity. The lighter of the two grays are defined as Hue:160 Sat:0 Lum:120, this is the one you want to have things that are colored to be very reflective, such as the gold on the bottom of the 737.

Of course, if you want your color to just be color, make it white on the alpha so it'll be ignored. The chrome effect gray is defined as Hue:160 Sat:0 Lum:80 and covers everything that is to be silver. If there's a color on the main texture plate it will be very subdued or an added "pearl" effect over the chrome. When I compile I always used DXT3, more for saving frame rates than anything else.

One thing I do when I'm painting when using MSP is to actually pint in 256 color format, get it close to what I want then save it over to 24 bit and recolor the parts that needed 24 bit colors. I don't have some of the best programming so I found that this is what works best for me. I always save templates for doors, windows and panel lines to be applied LAST when doing a repaint.

Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 5:13 am Post subject:

Who in the heck dug this cat up out of the graveyard??? J/K

Reas both the posts above by Hark and Pmckay. They both got it. Differently done, but with the end results being the same.

I use Adobe Photoshop 6.0.1 and CS2. Usually just 6, unless I need something special done.

One thing is a must to add them to your a/c, so it looks good. DXTBmp, totally free, just search it, and it will come right up.

Depending on what you use, will depend on how it comes out, and what your options are.

Best advice, play with it. The grey shades in the alpha channel, as well as your Hue, Sat, and Lum. They all play a role in the outcome.

RD