well, here is my progress so far on trying to repaint the Default FS9 Baron 58.
it has taken a long time to even do this much, and I still have the Engine housings to do too.

ugh... looks like it's going to be a long night.... (anyone have any Kripsy Kreme Doughnuts and Vault soda?? Im gonna need a 'pick me up' in a while..)

im not. every time I try to paint certain areas, the paint runs all over the table (out side of the lines).  Microsoft did not do a very good job of having ending lines on their paints/textures. UGH!!!!

Capt.Propwash, I hope you are not using Microsoft Paint, as it is very limited for aircraft painting. I'd go with something more flexible, like paint.net. It has a lot more tools, but is still very simple to use. Plus it has layers, so you won't have to redo the rivets. The easiest thing is just to load your texture, create a new layer, set that layer to Multiply, and paint on that. You can also edit the paint out of the bottom layer so that you have a white texture to paint.

I use GiMP - free, has layers, and is basically Paint.net.

I see Patchz keeps preaching the use of layering and I will back him up every time!! Layers, layers, layers. I thought I was a good texturer back before i knew layering. I had no idea! What was I thinking?
There's too much to learn right from the start, but don't put off learning how layers work for very long. It makes life easier, not harder.
I am an avid Paint Shop Pro user. I tried v9 and stepped back to v8. And Photo Shop is just plain evil imo. 
John

Good job! Especially for a first time attempt!
If you're new to repainting though, even though some of the other's are sugesting layers, I wouldn't suggest it.  I do good repaints all the time with just the regular image, no layers. Alot of times even no alpha.  (I wouldn't suggest getting into alpha channels until you're second or third attempt.)  But that's just what I find easy.
    By the way, if you want to speed things up, I would suggest checking out Paint.NET (It's not a website it's a program).  It's a very good painting program and is able to save files in the necessary format of FSX so you don't have to use DXTBMP.  Also, you're able to adjust the levels of leaniency (I think that's how it's spelled) of the fill tool, meaning you can adjust that even colors that are slightly diffrent from the one you clicked will be changed to that color.  But the best part is, if you ask me, it's free. (I don't support it, I'm just suggesting it)

Layers simply allow you to keep items separated. That's it. But than one ability will open up a whole new world. You can lay down graphics on a layer as usual. Now create a new layer and lay down more graphics as usual, but now you can paint UNDER other layers. They won't touch each other. Same file, different layers.

And alpha channels (files) are indeed a whole new experience. Darker reflects more light. Dark is light, light is dark... gets a bit crazy until one has had their morning coffee.

John

You're very welcome.

But don't give up, just take your time and maybe look at some tutorials. It will come.

Interesting reading. Layers really are the key.

I imagine a paintkit to be the following:-

Imagine lets say 10 layers of glass all lined up on top of each other but separated by say a few inches each. The bottom piece of glass is the bare fuselage. The second is the fuselage painted, lets say white for this example. The third is all the lettering, both livery and aircraft name, exits, emergency stuff, you know. The fourth is the windows. The fifth is all the panel lines rivets and doors and so on. The sixth is the weathering, dirt, general aircraft 'muck'. And so forth...

So i want to paint the colour of the fuselage...i pull out piece of glass 2, paint it and put it back. i want to alter the weathering, using contrast, or even multiplying the layers by copying the original and adding more layers of the same effects, which darkens it and defines it more. so i pull out that piece of glass and change it or copy it then put it back.

Once im finished, i can merge all these pieces into one to see the final result. As long as ive saved all my work i can go back and edit some more if im not happy.

Alphas are another matter entirely and i found them most difficult....trail and error trail and error. Try and try again!

Simple really!!! But without layers i don't believe anything realistic is possible without hours of work. Layers makes it easy.

I started by altering reg numbers of the default aircraft then changing the hue of a colour on some textures of a posky 767. I soon realised by the advice of a few on here ( Gary Russell, he was an enormous help to me!) that a multilayered  paintkit and working with layers was the way to go.

Once the bug bites it bites hard. the pursuit of perfection (in my eyes!) took me on quite a journey and quite a few sleepness nites in my quest to produce some what i thought were good repaints....... 

They are all still on avsim and some have some impressive download figures (in my eyes anyway!) and i did get emails from god knows where for requests..

Id like to think i succeded on some levels and still had a hell of a lot to learn on others, but i learnt things and produced things i never imagined possible!!!

Firing up your repaints in flight simulator and seeing them before your own eyes is a good moment, uploading them and seeing several hundred downloads of it is a great moment, to see screenshots appear from others with your repaints is fantastic!!!!!

Actualy making the aircraft must be even better but alas i just dont have the time to even learn let alone do.

However, Never give up in the pursuit of perfection.

garryrussell wrote on Aug 14^th, 2011 at 12:32am:

Oh, never nknew that! to be honest, I've actually never even bothered to try a paintkit or layers.

garryrussell wrote on Aug 14^th, 2011 at 10:00pm:

Correction, just stating what I find easy.

There. I made a few edits.

Sorry to here that........but why not have another go

Just start with changing the registration or titles.....then perhaps chage the colour of the striping.

Build up in stages

A lot of folk get put off because they try too hard and jump too far in.

Give it a go, step by step.....you know where to come if you get stuck

Garry

You need to create a new layer and make a selection of just the area you want

Make the new layer a 'Multiply' layer and fill the selection with colour.

By being a separate layer you can adjust it without altering the base layer in any way.

It's usually the maps split into layers which makes it easier ang quicker to do a good job.

Bleeding.


if i did choose to pick up this project again, and it all on 1 layer.  Would Bleeding such as this even matter being that it would just bleed over to the other side of the craft that would end up being red anyways???

I can see Propwash's point of view entirely here, I've been trying my first re-paint on the C-172 for quite a few days now and even after reading several articles about how to do it there are still a lot of things that are not clear so in my opinion 'the in-depth tutorials' are not as 'in-depth' as they maybe should have been.
I've had a go at multiple layers and a single layer but still can't seem to achieve anything worth a damn, there isn't any guide as to where different parts of the aircraft meet up in a lot of cases.... i.e. - if I wanted to add stripes along the fuselage it's all trial and error trying to get them to join at the right point once FS has joined the two parts back together again.
As for multi-layers, is there a guide anywhere that explains how to use these? I've painted hundreds of cars for the race sim 'Rfactor' using many multi-layers and every single one has worked out fine but for some reason the layers I'm using for FS just end up a big blurry mess once I've flatted them down.... I'm with you Propwash, I'm seriously thinking of giving it a miss....haha!

garryrussell wrote on Sep 1^st, 2011 at 4:42pm:

Garry, the big difference between Rfactor cars and FS aircraft is that when you open up car texture/skins, they are already layered into each individual part of the car that is 'paintable'. Once you've finished your painting you have to flatten all layers and save as a .dds to put it in to the sim. It's pretty easy once you've done a couple so I was hoping FS painting would be the same.

garryrussell wrote on Sep 1^st, 2011 at 6:58pm:


I've tried several different ways of doing this now and everything I try ends up with the same result..... Not a bad paint job but no aircraft detail what so ever. I.E. - all rivets, flaps, rudder, doors etc, etc have disappeared under the paint and this is happening no matter how many layers I use. The finished plane ends up looking like a kid's painting of one because all the detail is missing.

Nice start! So how did you learn this? Is there a manual somewhere? Curious myself.

What programme are you using

Have you tried saving to BMP without flattening the image

It makes no sense..it should stay in the order you put the layers in else there's no point.

What layer blending options are you using?

If your layers are all set to normal then you might as well use MSPaint.

Google can be your friend here, look for some Photoshop tutorials, there are tons of them out there.

One specific site that has some good tutes is- http://www.simmerspaintshop.com/

To produce quality repaints you first have to be proficient with the editing program you use.

Once you master layers and the pen tool the world is your repainting oyster and you will only be limited by texture mapping.

Here is another good tute- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwHkzVszOMg&feature=player_embedded

cheers,
Joe

jon157uk wrote on Sep 3^rd, 2011 at 1:13pm:

All due respect, layer blending options have nothing to do with "saving".

cheers,
Joe