Just Flight's Constellation repaints ?

[Dangerousdave26]

Progress indeed Huub. I'm just amused how people get hot under the collar over projects and products a decade old. We have a guy currently demanding an upgrade on a product we developed 15 years ago. What other business exists where service is demanded on a product that cost maybe $20 and was purchased 15 years ago? That reminds me, I have a shirt I bought 10 years ago and the collar has started to fray. Maybe i can get a replacement....

I once had a customer who called to have her Bolens Tractor fixed under warranty because it broke. It was 22 years old and she figured she had never used the warranty so...

This type of request comes all time to software developers.

Myself just do the logical thing and not provide a paint kit. There will be a painter out there who could produce a good quality layered paint. Let them distribute it freely.

 

[Desert Rat]

Whilst not a prolific or even good repainter, I have never used a provided paintkit, purposefully avoiding those models that come with them. Much preferring to make my own layered painkit. More challenging, definitely, more satisfying, infinitely. I agree with Baz entirely, plus there are many talented repainters around, ask in the right places or even wait patiently (I know, shock!) and your prayers may be answered.

With programs like Gimp, etc. available for free, heck, grab a copy and have at it, you never know you might even enjoy it.


Jamie

 

[bazzar]

To day, a paintkit with layers is the minimum that a client can expect. Your words on the cost of a paintkit is simply out of order in addition to being presumptuous! JMC

You need to settle down my friend. There are one or two more important things in this life than paintkits, I can assure you.

 

[Jafo]

My first foray into painting planes was by rebirthing existing paints...so altering an existing bitmap at single layer. I never used anything to do with 'layers' for years. Then when I did find an existing layered kit for something it was often less than ideal [because PSP wouldn't open it and I hate using PS] being as low res as it can be.
When I had the urge...and a considerable amount of time...I'd rework a 1024 kit into 4096 and get absolutely anal with alignments....1 pixel at 4096 is 'anal'...
Of course, needless to say, I can't recall too many times when someone might say 'thanks for the detailed kit' so the days/weeks spent developing one had better be a labor of love aka hobby or it's a lost cause...

 

[wombat666]

Here's a thought.

First how about everybody settles down.

Secondly it is not set in stone that a developer (ANY developer!) is obliged to supply a 'paint kit', be it layered or plain vanilla.

I'm not a 'repainter' at all, and I'm grateful for the talented individuals that produce such outstanding work that covers my own area of interest and do it FOC.
However, I do not 'request' paints at all and IIRC the last attempt at commercialising this aspect of our hobby (McPhat?) fell over quite rapidly as the general run of the mill user was not prepared to pay anything.
I do believe developers who do provide a paint kit should be applauded, particularly in this time of change, but I repeat, it is not compulsory.

As for whinging over older releases, just stop doing so, 'Tempus Fugit'.

 

[tommieboy]

My repainting days are over but......

I am in agreement that good third party repaints do increase interest in the product, and may at times increase sales. I for one always needed a good layered paint kit (due to my lack of talent and time) as a starting point for my repaints and really appreciate the companies and individuals that provided them to the community.

Tommy

 

[tommieboy]

....I'd rework a 1024 kit into 4096 and get absolutely anal with alignments....1 pixel at 4096 is 'anal'...

That brings back some fond memories of Tim's A-12A Avenger II.....we both went nuts repainting that one!

Tommy

 

[jankees]

talking about going nuts, I'm working on a paint/skin for the Milviz PC-6..
Every single nut seems to be modeled, it's driving me.....you get the idea

 

[pilto von pilto]

When you ask for a " proper" paintkit you are asking for source code. If you arent into software development you might not quite understand why there's push back on this so here's a n analogy.

Imagine going into a car dealership buying a car and then demanding to have access to the prototype and the service manuals. But not pay for it.
Now in the auto world we have people like Haynes who will take a car photograph it , disassemble it and then publish a book to allow you the end user to modify/repair the car. Or you buy the horrendously expensive and more complex written factory service manual. In the first case you are relying on a 3rd party to make the guide. In the second case you are relying on the car maker to publicly release the manual. In both cases you are going to need to pay. It isnt part of the first purchase.

The answer is paidkits ( yep I went there ! ) so say you want a westland lysander for Fsx. you have 2 choices buy the standard edition for 24.95 USD without paintkit or the deluxe edition for 29.95 with the paintkit. Then if at the end of say 6 months the purchases of the deluxe edition far outweigh the purchases of the standard ... well then you could point me to this very thread and I will tattoo mea culpa to my forehead. My thinking is that more people will by the standard edition. And if you want to make your own paintkit and offer it free even though the developer makes one as well... That's progress and the market and I hope that people will do this.

The inclusion or exclusion of paintkits does not increase sales/downloads/life of an addon. Most developers will do something but they arent duty bound to provide a "proper" paintkit

Also alluded to in this thread. Some of the fun of repainting is in fact ... repainting. If you dont have the time to spend on repainting then perhaps it's time for another hobby. I dont have time for plastic modelling so I stopped.

Full disclaimer :
1. we arent building a westland lysander. Cool plane but NO-ONE would buy it.
2. I cant tattoo meaculpa on my forehead I have " undies first then trousers " tattooed there and there wouldnt be any more room.

 

[huub vink]

Wow and this all started with the reasonable simple question:"Does anyone know of a good stack of military repaints for the Just Flight Constellation series? C-69, C-121, EC-121 or any other?"

Well obviously the answer is no!

I think the reason why became pretty clear from the discussion which followed.

Although I'm around for quite a few moons and done quite a few repaints and created many dozens of layered paintkits in this period, including several from the bare wire model textures, I had never been aware that there is something like a "skinner kit" which is obviously something different than a "paintkit". And I always though I made some "decent paintkits", but now I have also learned there there is something like a "proper paintkit" which somehow contains the source code (????).

But perhaps don't fully understand everything said here, I think it can be summarised by: "The sellers sells what he likes to sell, and doesn't give things he doesn't like to give for free" and "the buyer, buys what he likes to buy and although perhaps he likes gifts, he can not demand them".

And simplify things even more, people can get my work for free and Barry's and Mike's work costs money. (Which is valid for many other contributors to our hobby).

Cheers,
Huub

 

[Jafo]

That brings back some fond memories of Tim's A-12A Avenger II.....we both went nuts repainting that one!

Tommy

That we did....[I blame you]...
What I've always liked about Tim's bitmaps was how he managed to get almost everything on one bitmap [or two] so you weren't chasing alignments over multiple images....and that also meant the paints really benefited from being bigger res.
The stuff I mess with has to be user-friendly first for me to consider spending time and effort...though that Yak130 by Hadi Tahir was 'entertaining'...as what seemed simple really wasn't....

 

[pilto von pilto]

Wow and this all started with the reasonable simple question:"Does anyone know of a good stack of military repaints for the Just Flight Constellation series? C-69, C-121, EC-121 or any other?"

Well obviously the answer is no!

I think the reason why became pretty clear from the discussion which followed.

Although I'm around for quite a few moons and done quite a few repaints and created many dozens of layered paintkits in this period, including several from the bare wire model textures, I had never been aware that there is something like a "skinner kit" which is obviously something different than a "paintkit". And I always though I made some "decent paintkits", but now I have also learned there there is something like a "proper paintkit" which somehow contains the source code (????).

But perhaps don't fully understand everything said here, I think it can be summarised by: "The sellers sells what he likes to sell, and doesn't give things he doesn't like to give for free" and "the buyer, buys what he likes to buy and although perhaps he likes gifts, he can not demand them".

And simplify things even more, people can get my work for free and Barry's and Mike's work costs money. (Which is valid for many other contributors to our hobby).

Cheers,
Huub

Huub :
Yes it is source code. Your paintkits are source code. You are giving away ( as are we btw you dont pay for our paintkits ) your time/effort and techniques. You therefore have made the choice to give away your source code. We have been giving away ours.

Everyone :

I think a skinner kit is "Slide your colour and serials underneath this layer and push save and export ". Where-as a repaint kit is wires and a colour id pass. The first is source code. Every dirt/scratch layer, every rivet and every technique that the original dev used must be there and lately even a readme on why we did something the way we did. Where as the repaint guide is entirely up to the repainter.

Further to this PBR opens up even more of an issue.
Take a P40 warhawk as an example with the sharkmouth.
So you have the matte green of the paint but then the gloss of the mouth. Then you have another one where the position is different or a different design. Each metal map would need to be different due to the fact that the glossiness of a material is handled by one of the channels in the metal map. Not to mention the normal map as the height of the gloss paint is on top of the matte paint which introduces what is called micro-normals. How does a developer do that type of skinner kit ( " proper kit " ) ? I mean say you want to put a different type of shark mouth on it. We have to show you where in each alpha channel you need to put your edits. Editing alpha channels is hard as it is. To then make a skinnerkit for it ... well the mind boggles.

Full disclaimer
1. No we arent doing a warhawk.
2. DAAAAAMNNN however I wish we were, love those things!
3. Not an attack on Huub this is purely that he brought up a point that was salient to the general discussion.

 

[mgr]

Above is way to BLACK and WHITE:

1. You have repaintkits in a lot off different forms, from full layered which was used developer, to a bit more basic for the "skinners" as you describe.
2. The better the repaintkit, usually means more repaints = more exposure for the original design = hopefully more sales
3. The line between skinners and repainters as put in this topic is again not that black and white (as repainter i feel even insulted by some comments made in this topic)
4. A good repaintkit which i made in the mind of repainters, will make the "skinners" into "repainters" because they are challenged to modify all the layers (incl. specs en bumps) to fit there repaint.
This may need some more effort by the developer, yet see point 2.

Kind regards,

Marcel
FS Repainters since 1996.

 

[hairyspin]

I'm inclined to suggest supplying a wireframe template only, since apparently so few are satisfied with paintkits. That way they can decide how much or little to do. I have A2A's multi-layered Spitfire paintkit which is everything some are demanding and more, but (1) requires Photoshop and (2) is about the size of the model download IIRC. The A2A paintkit is also much more recent than the JF Connie: to slam a developer's old product by the current standards seems unjust.

Only my tuppence ha'penny

 

[jeansy]

Why dont you just lock this thread as everyone has different methods of painting and now its become a pissing competition on how i learnt or how i do. We all have learnt by differnet means and so what. These posts now are trivial.

All this thread is going to is discourage people who are contemplating on starting on learning to how paint or discourage people in gerenal to paint

The thread has run its course

 

[TuFun]

Bill got me started with his video.

 

[stovall]

Why dont you just lock this thread as everyone has different methods of painting and now its become a pissing competition on how i learnt or how i do. We all have learnt by differnet means and so what. These posts now are trivial. All this thread is going to is discourage people who are contemplating on starting on learning to how paint or discourage people in gerenal to paint The thread has run its course

Looking over many of the inputs from some of the great painters, for now the thread will say open. There is good input and as long as there are constructive comments people can learn it stays open. Painters, if you are so inclined let us know your techniques. There just could be someone out there that will become a great painter someday.

 

[stovall]

Bill got me started with his video.

Tufun, Bill's video that you posted is one of my very favorites. I learned a bunch from watching it. I still watch it from time to time to refresh. Thanks for sharing.

 

[magoo]

Edit: Doubled-up post. Can't figure how that happens.

Onward anyway.....

 

[magoo]

Well.....this is a most interesting thread. Certainly a clear demonstration that's there more than one way to paint with zeros and ones in a given technical medium.

In fact, the variation of technique appears to vary widely.

The nature of personal contradiction I'm reading above makes me think a little of described arguments that may have taken place between a collected meeting of Impressionist artists in an 1890's Parisian cafe while swilling Absinthe. Although the dialogue of many a discussion became heated and most direct, in hindsight, none of them was wrong.

Nor have I read any here who could be labeled, "wrong."

Certainly, the dialogue describes a divergence in expectation and technique among individuals, that is most apparent.

And rather than succumbing to negative emotion, it seems to me that there's a lot to celebrate about this lack of uniformity between desire, effect and deed.

Primarily, this could be seen as a discussion that celebrates pure creative innovation and application of artistic solution and expression with little restraint, in a truly global format.

It's a real privilege for me to have access to other's beautiful creative works, and read on the forums, the trials, tribulations, and ultimate solutions, as per "each one's own tune, in one's own style."

And......like the Impressionist painters, (or any other artistic style, genre, medium, generation).......the wide variety of technique and methods in rendering is what creates a personal style, that which readily connects with the artist.

That is an element that I especially cherish.

If I could, I'd offer up a couple of bottles of Absinthe to this table right now, along with a platter of small glasses and a big jug of water. But lacking that 3D in person capability, I'll offer a thanks to all the painters who give it up freely and enhance this great specialized exploration that we all share and enjoy.

Even notably now.....Tufun's posting of a video by Bill Womack. Holy smokes....the man has a channel of his own....I didn't know!! A sip of Absinthe and mouse click to subscribe....you know where I'll be most of this rainy afternoon. (Thanks Tufun!!)

Be amazed, try to learn, try to apply, and vive la différence!