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A word about "cleanliness" in flight simulation.....

Navy Chief

Navy Chief

Senior Member
A word about "cleanliness" in flight simulation.....

Or rather, the lack of "un-cleanliness".

My friend, Fred Sanders, has never gotten involved with flight simulation. He retired from a career dealing with aviation, but I haven't successfully talked him into FS yet. But am working on it.

But I send him screenshots on occasion for him to appreciate. He comments often how "sanitary" all the models look; specifically the US Navy aircraft.

Although there are a few "dirty" repaints available, for the most part - flight sim aircraft are indeed clean.

Is it more difficult to make textures dirty, rather than clean? Most USN aircraft, especially carrier types, are usually filthy with hydraulic fluid leaks, exhaust gas streaks, etc.... Aircraft carrier decks are NEVER clean except when the ship pulls out from port for deployment. The deck stays filthy until the aircraft flyoff for home again.

I have no clue how hard it would be to make USN aircraft and carriers the "filthy beasts" they are in real life, but any designers willing to give it a go?

Thanks.

Chief
 
navychief said:
Or rather, the lack of "un-cleanliness".

My friend, Fred Sanders, has never gotten involved with flight simulation. He retired from a career dealing with aviation, but I haven't successfully talked him into FS yet. But am working on it.

But I send him screenshots on occasion for him to appreciate. He comments often how "sanitary" all the models look; specifically the US Navy aircraft.

Although there are a few "dirty" repaints available, for the most part - flight sim aircraft are indeed clean.

Is it more difficult to make textures dirty, rather than clean? Most USN aircraft, especially carrier types, are usually filthy with hydraulic fluid leaks, exhaust gas streaks, etc.... Aircraft carrier decks are NEVER clean except when the ship pulls out from port for deployment. The deck stays filthy until the aircraft flyoff for home again.

I have no clue how hard it would be to make USN aircraft and carriers the "filthy beasts" they are in real life, but any designers willing to give it a go?

Thanks.

Chief
Click to expand...

It is harder, because it implies an added level of detail beyond that of simply painting the aircraft. Frank Safranek was putting out pretty good dirty (and clean) repaints of Alphasim products, and for the navy guys thereare the captainsim two seat hornets and a few F-14 repaints.
 
Yep, I always thought the same way. Why are they so clean?

There are guys that do repaints for IL-2 and IL-2 Sturmovik 1946 that make weathered skins. These look almost real once ingame. I'll bet there's a few guys here at SOH that can do repaints for FSX with the weathered look that have done them for IL-2.

Maybe even ask in the IL-2 forum here at SOH Chief. If they have a TeamSpeak account they use I bet they'd even help with a tutorial that way. I couldn't repaint or reskin anything but I'd like to learn someday.
 
I like the pic of everyone with their push brooms. That'd make a nice Navy enlistment poster. :costumes:

Brian
 
i had been begging for some repainters to make dirtybird paints for many of the default fs planes as well as the carenado cessnas. i'm not even a r/l pilot and the cleanliness seems weird to me.
 
Most of my planes have the "dirty piglet" treatment. Ya should see some of the planes I work on at work....:faint:
 
I thought someone (here?) pitched a fit about Pablo Diaz' dirty F-14, and how they would never be allowed to get that dirty, etc.

Although I have to say that many of the pictures I've seen don't exhibit the levels of spotlessness that are supposedly maintained, nor have I seen even an airshow display aircraft as clean as some texture sets.

That said, I think they should have some level of dirt on them, and I try to put some on the paints I have done. Most don't reach the level of Pablo's F-14, but neither are they completely spotless.

Brian
 
Well, I’m a weirdo I guess, because I like clean planes. Some real life planes actually are clean, you know… It isn’t that I dislike like paints that depict dirty planes, because many of them are/were, especially the combat types; it’s just that I don’t get turned off by paints that depict clean planes. I like realistic looking paints. Faded paint due to weather and years is fine, but I don’t need it filthy.
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This gets into the whole issue of so-called “photo-real” paints. I once read an article online about this by a sim painter. I wish I could find the article again, because it relates perfectly to this thread. Basically this person hated what is today known as “photo-real”, the process of using photos of real planes to make textures for sim planes. This practice results in textures with “shadows” and “reflections” that were present in the real plane at the time the photos were taken, but don’t change in the sim when the sim’s light angle changes.
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To the writer, the term “photo-real”, originally meant creating textures that look so good, they can be confused with photos of the real thing. It did not in any way mean using photos of the real thing to create textures. This is difficult to pull off, and requires more talent that I possess, but when done with skill results in textures that look “real”, and use the sim’s light engine to make the reflections and shadows, placed where they should be given the current lighting conditions.
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Real planes, even clean and shiny ones, show color variations across the whole plane due to lighting conditions and reflections. Perhaps if more of these sorts of textures were out there, the less complaining about dirty planes we would see?
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Just a thought, worth what you paid for it.
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Oh, and I agree about Helldiver. He’s been over this before, regarding navy planes in the days before jets!
 
Since we mentioned USN aircraft, here's a couple pics of RF-8G Crusaders that show both "factory fresh" clean and not so clean due to daily use and corrosion control efforts. Aircraft 601 is enroute to USS Oriskany following rework at NAS Atsugi, Japan. Nice new paint with no touch-ups, hand prints, etc. (at least not yet, hehe). Aircraft 503 is off USS Coral Sea and landing at Atsugi. This bird was in my detachment and we had been flying a lot of missions with it. You can see almost every single panel line on the aircraft, mainly due to the different shades of gray spray paint used to cover dings/scrapes and places where the base paint has been ground down while removing corrosion. A type of brush-on preservative called (spelling?) Procotone was also used on stress fasteners to protect them from corrosion. This stuff was brown and smelled like kids' crayons.
You often saw rows of brown dots on planes where the Procotone was brushed on the fasteners.
It's pretty easy to add this type of "dirty stuff" to a plane by editing the base textures with a new partially transparent layer containing the dirt and paint effects. I suggest making it a bit transparent so you can still see the panel lines and other details. Find some good pics of real aircraft for examples.
 
The paint chipped "dirty" ones I think that would look great are the WWII a/c. I don't think they worried about them being clean or carrying a 100% perfect paint job. They were used to their fullest and if you look a photos of them it shows. Even some of the civilian a/c I see today aren't 100%. And some are just plain neglected.
 
Oh my word YES!! Dirty birds in my opinion give a quality of realism that can't be beat. Just as one fine example consider the appeal of the Boeing helo repainted by AckAck as a grimy fire fighter for Columbia Helicopters below.


Clean is nice but dirty, you can almost smell the exhaust!

I have also heard that this look is very hard to achieve, but the results are astounding. I say clean and shiny is normal for the corporate jets, waxed to perfection. But out in the world dirt and oil rule. My blessings on those who have the talent and patience to make all these wonderful addons, with a an extra one for those who create these unique textures :jump:
 
Count me in as one who likes "dirty" paints for FS aircraft, at least a slightly weathered look. It seems much more realistic.

Jim
 
Tailhook squadron aircraft are never clean while on deployment; leastwise, not even close to what they are, when operating from shore bases. It's impossible to keep them as clean. The battle against corrrosion is neverending. The aircraft are setup on a wash cycle of every 28 days. Quite often, fresh water is not available, due to the catapults being the top priority. So (unless things have changed) the aircraft are "washed", using spray cans of aircraft foam cleaner (used to be called spray "Turco). Spray can cleaning is a stop-gap measure at best. You end up with an aircraft with multi-shades of gray dirt. When the aircraft goes into a 40-day corrosion inspection, all the various shops are assigned areas to inspect and clean. When they finish, the actual Corrosion Control work center does an overall spray/spot painting of aircraft. Not a depot-level job. They can't do that. But again, the end result is an aircraft which (although cleaner, by anti-corrosion standards) still looks mottled. The coloring looks uneven.

Often, when a carrier pulls into port, a lot of the aircraft will get washed on the flight deck. The squadron personnel (unlucky enough to be on duty) will get tasked....

These pictures are just some cool shots I found. I especially like the VQ-1 EP-3C tail sign.......heh,, heh

And the evening picture of the carrier is awesome. The light from the hangar bay is unusual looking.

Chief
 
Didn't you guys get the groundcrew module from MS when you bought your copy of FS9 ?? (you DID buy your copy, right ?)

Just press Ctrl-F5 and the crew chief runs out with a bottle of windex and a rag. If you press Ctrl-F5-2, you can bitch at him about all the dirt at the wingroots. . .


:applause:
 
It is quite easy to "dirty-up" a paint job using the original "clean files" if you know photoshop and have some good photos to start off with.

Using the burn tool to darken sooty or discolored areas and daubing specific spots with a semitransparent brush and greenish/brownish color you can whip up some wear and tear in no time!

Using the dodge tool in combination with the burn tool you can create highlights and shadows.

These techniques can turn a "plastic" model into a real plane in an afternoon.

The TU-154 images attached took me about 5 hours to do including extra details which I just copied out of the photos and pasted onto the appropiate spots on the skin with some basic color adaption.
 
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