To all of you guys who do repaints...

[rdaniell]

...my appreciation of you'll grew tremedously this afternoon. I spent about half of this afternoon trying to make just a couple changes to one (1) airplane.
I had two problems. One was tracking down where just a little bit of RED that showed up was coming from. Finally got that one solved only to be followed by it taking 6 or 7 times of making small changes to the fuselage so that the colors would line up on the top.

So again, I want to just say a big THANK YOU for what you do for our simming enjoyment.

Romeo-Delta

 

[Mick]

Heh heh ...

Now you see why there's been a spate of retirements from FS development lately - particularly by painters...

It doesn't get any easier with practice! Knowing and understanding the process get easier, but doing the actual work remains just as tedious!

 

[Wing_Z]

Wise after the event?

Get Abacus FSRepaint, this allows a preview of what you do, as you do it.
(There is a demo version)
Then paint a large magenta square over everything, and successively halve it.
Very soon you will find that errant texture.

 

[andersel]

I want to add my sincere thanks to Romeo Delta's. I am not able to see well enough to do the kind of work required to paint airplanes. So I avail myself of the trials and tribulations of all the others in the Sim Community who can and do take the time and make the effort to do this for all of us. A BIG thank you to you all!

LA

 

[OleBoy]

Heh heh ...

Now you see why there's been a spate of retirements from FS development lately - particularly by painters...

It doesn't get any easier with practice! Knowing and understanding the process get easier, but doing the actual work remains just as tedious!

+1 Mick

 

[Milton Shupe]

No one can appreciate painters' efforts more than I can.

One cannot appreciate the process, the implications of mapping, or the tediousness until one does it.

Some but not many painters have provided some good input (and feedback) on mapping implications to their work.
Unless this communications line is open, modelers and mappers will not improve.

I always appreciate the feedback to help improve the mapping process because otherwise, how would I know.
But, that needs to happen during development, not after the fact.

Thanks to all of the painters for bringing the models to life, and hiding the many flaws.

 

[Mick]

Working with a modeler who is willing to alter the mapping as required puts painting on a whole new level, and makes almost anything possible. It involves working very closely together, and David and I have become lifelong friends in the process of making and painting the planes and sceneries we made.

Painting, as opposed to repainting, allows the painter, with the help of the modeler, to get it just the way we want it. Repainting limits us to what the modeler built into the plane when the mapping was done.

Despite the possibilities and the help of the modeler, painting a plane from scratch involves the most difficult work of all, where you have to add things like panel lines and make them line up on the tops and bottoms of the fuselage and on the leading edges of flying surfaces, you have to put in lots of little details, and deal with mapping issues. Sometimes the modeler can only come just so close with the mapping, then the textures have to be adjusted to compensate. The majority of the work, and all the hardest parts, come before you even begin to add things like letters, number, insignia and artwork.

Repainting is usually much easier, often just a matter of changing colors or markings. But you're stuck with the mapping that the model came with, and often you get part way through a project only to find that you can't finish it because of some mapping issue that you discover after you've done a ton of work.

Other times it's harder, as there might be mapping issues that you can work around, but only with tremendous, tedious effort. Sometimes you're literally working one pixel at a time.

I credit Heather Sherman for teaching me much of what I know about painting virtual airplanes, and especially for teaching me that those incredibly difficult, tedious, pixel-by-pixel jobs can be done successfully and are worth the effort. My first collaborative project was working on the team Heather gathered to revive that old Grumman J2F Duck and convert it from CFS2 to FS2002. What a job that was! (And it sure made me appreciate Paul's FS9 Duck when that plane came out!)

 

[AndyG43]

But you're stuck with the mapping that the model came with, and often you get part way through a project only to find that you can't finish it because of some mapping issue that you discover after you've done a ton of work.

It is so frustrating when that happens; I have a repaint I would love to do for the He 162, but the mapping on both the Alphasim and A2A models make it totally impossible - ah well, c'est la vie.

As I've said before, I'm just a dabbler, a short bloke standing on the shoulders of giants; give me a layered paintkit, and I know what to do with it, ask me to work one up from scratch ........

That is why I salute :salute: all those talented guys who can produce work from scratch; people like Mick, Zsolt, SteveB, Matt etc are true artists, without them our little hobby would be so much poorer. Thanks guys.

 

[huub vink]

No painting without canvas to paint on!

I love repainting, its very relaxing as it resets your mind.

Cheers,
Huub

 

[Matt Wynn]

as a Texture Artist (Technical term for it ) i think i speak for all of us painters and repainters when i say, it is not us you need to be thanking, it is all of you who download our works and inspire us to keep going which drives us ever onwards, i myself paint for the sheer joy of it (And being an Aviation Profile Artist on the side helps), i like downloading something and thinking "now let's see what we can come up with", currently on my Books in various paint stages.... Alphasim Cessna 170, J.E.N's PA-18 Super Cub, Piglets PC-21, Alphasim Bucc and about a dozen more and as a change as i finish them i will be uploading them to my skydrive, so to all you repainters.... you've been warned that PSD's will soon be imminent arrival...

again, on behalf of all us Texture Artists, thank you! :salute:

 

[rdaniell]

as a Texture Artist (Technical term for it ) i think i speak for all of us painters and repainters when i say, it is not us you need to be thanking, it is all of you who download our works and inspire us to keep going which drives us ever onwards, i myself paint for the sheer joy of it (And being an Aviation Profile Artist on the side helps), i like downloading something and thinking "now let's see what we can come up with", currently on my Books in various paint stages.... Alphasim Cessna 170, J.E.N's PA-18 Super Cub, Piglets PC-21, Alphasim Bucc and about a dozen more and as a change as i finish them i will be uploading them to my skydrive, so to all you repainters.... you've been warned that PSD's will soon be imminent arrival...

again, on behalf of all us Texture Artists, thank you! :salute:

Matt, I can save you a little trouble. The door hinges on the Cessna 170 are found in 170BANDP the red square at the top right corner. That also is mapped to the bottom cowling air scoop. It took me half the day yesterday to find that Heck! if I had know that baby was on your list, I would have just sent you a photo...

Romeo-Delta

 

[SpitXIV]

Re: To all of you guys who do repaints

I sincerely agree, I wouldn't know where to start. So, I leave it to the experts. Kids do not do this at home.

 

[gaucho_59]

A simple quetion...

as a Texture Artist (Technical term for it ) i think i speak for all of us painters and repainters when i say, it is not us you need to be thanking, it is all of you who download our works and inspire us to keep going which drives us ever onwards, i myself paint for the sheer joy of it (And being an Aviation Profile Artist on the side helps), i like downloading something and thinking "now let's see what we can come up with", currently on my Books in various paint stages.... Alphasim Cessna 170, J.E.N's PA-18 Super Cub, Piglets PC-21, Alphasim Bucc and about a dozen more and as a change as i finish them i will be uploading them to my skydrive, so to all you repainters.... you've been warned that PSD's will soon be imminent arrival...

again, on behalf of all us Texture Artists, thank you! :salute:

What is the great impediment for modellers to label the texture mapping areas... exactly
and place them in the texture concerned...exactly where they belong... NOT off to one side or the other,up, down, etc.????????
I certainly enjoy texturing and redoing... adding and/or refining surface details... of starting from scratch.... BUT...
when it becomes an Inspector Clouzot-type of quest to find a small item or forever move, and move a
particular item a dozen times... I become discouraged and drop a lot of hours of work... and pitch the project in the "future" basket...
I enjoy work that produces something... at the least of cost in repetitiveness... I guess I could never be a hunter or fisherman...lol
Furthermore... how come some modellers can put them "dead on" in their productions....???
I think that labeling, though probably not the most important change needed, would greatly alleviate the problem...
the mapping "relocating" is probably less frustrating because one knows WHAT nees to be moved and WHERE...

 

[OleBoy]

After reading further comments on repainting, a short, almost silent, sometimes very frustrated laugh whispers in my ear for what's to come. I find no matter the approach, the task comes with idiosyncrasies.