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Post by retrofs9er on Sept 28, 2024 21:11:38 GMT -5
How do we make a paintkit? The most important feature will be obviously the wireframe and the highlight/shading.
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Post by chasensfo on Sept 29, 2024 7:13:21 GMT -5
How do we make a paintkit? The most important feature will be obviously the wireframe and the highlight/shading. Adobe Photoshop is a good place to start. You can use the selection tools to create layers and make the wireframe stand out over the paint. |
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Post by cgold on Sept 29, 2024 15:50:59 GMT -5
retrofs9er: Just moved this post to here.  I was always curious how to make a paintkit too. I can fathom out a blank texture, given enough time. But a full-on photoshop file with layers and such? That's beyond me.
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Post by chrisP on Sept 29, 2024 16:43:24 GMT -5
I start with the wire frame. Next step is to make the "grey body" layer; in Photoshop, I'll select everything that's outside the wireframe, invert the selection and expand that by 2 pixels. Next fill what's selected in neutral grey.
Once that's done, I'll find a good line drawing of the aircraft (preferably one for port AND one for starboard). Scale it to match your grey body fuselage and trace the windows (I do it with paths, but that's a personal preference). Do the same for the doors, but on another layer.
Next step is the shadows. On another layer, I select a rectangle that overlaps the lower 20 percent of one the fuselage halves and fill it with black. I then use the edit-warp command to make it fit the nose/tail. Last, I apply the motion blur filter to blur the upper end of the black area. For that layer, change the opacity to about 35pct.
Very, very basic description of the process, but I hope it helps someone.
Exit runway when able
Christian
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Post by Jason on Sept 29, 2024 18:29:13 GMT -5
If you have a copy of ACM (Aircraft Container Manager), you can generate a wire-frame image file (.bmp) by clicking on the UV MAPS button. It is found under the 3D-model tab. I don't know anything about making paintkits or what developers used to make them, but if I WAS going to make one, this is probably how I would do it. Maybe. On the other hand, I may be totally off-base with this idea. No clue. You can see, below, that there is a LOT of work involved in a paintkit. For instance, Charles D and the late, great Frank Severino, created 302 individual layers in the DC10-30 paintkit. It's not for the faint of heart. I suggest starting with something small, like a Boeing 747-400 LCF, like a GA prop plane.  |
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Post by Jason on Sept 29, 2024 20:46:53 GMT -5
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Post by retrofs9er on Sept 30, 2024 0:59:48 GMT -5
Well gentlemen you seem on fire with this, I too have no idea how to do but I know something like you need another program than photoshop to make the highlight/shading stuffs. Might as well need the plane in obj file format, the entire plane is needed to generate the shadow or whatever that goes on, again I'm not too sure how it works with FS and it looks like Jason has done quite a good wireframe already. Can that wireframe be exported to ps? It fits the paint mapping scheme so it looks good.
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Post by Jason on Sept 30, 2024 1:20:53 GMT -5
What paintkit are you looking for? There are very few AI aircraft that have don't have a publicly accessible paintkit. The AIM DC10s and the AIA 747-400F are the only examples I can think of.
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Post by retrofs9er on Oct 1, 2024 0:49:05 GMT -5
Precisely those 2 lol. More towards the DC-10.
Come on guys please let's work together and form one.
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Post by Jason on Oct 1, 2024 1:22:07 GMT -5
Precisely those 2 lol. More towards the DC-10. Come on guys please let's work together and form one. Not to be rude (honest), but I am not going to spend many, many hours making a paintkit for a model I already have a paintkit for. If you want your very own paintkit(s) for the AIM DC-10s, then have at it. Considering the amount of hours that go into making a paintkit, AND the fact that the paintkit(s) already exists, AND the person who has possession of the paintkit(s) is (wait for it)..... ME, wouldn't it be easier (everyone say yes and nod) to just request a certain repaint? Which DC-10 would you like painted? |
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Post by chasensfo on Oct 1, 2024 3:58:08 GMT -5
To be fair, Jason has a point here. I mean the colors in his liveries were used in a lot of paints by Mike Pearson, Ranmori, Christian, myself, ect. With Jason here actively filling in missing paints at the moment, why IS it worth the work exactly? It is a valid question.
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Post by retrofs9er on Oct 2, 2024 0:39:25 GMT -5
You both got a point but to answer your questions I'll explain my side of point of view.
I understand and is aware that in order to achieve a paintkit or also even a model, lots of hours would go into it, no doubt about it. Jason's point of view is completely understandable and well very appreciative from him to accept requests as I see it. But to answer you directly why I need it. Personal use, it's that simple. It's literally only for my personal use, nothing more. It's not to possess it to then make money with it, or sell it, or share it discretely with someone, or showcase it, or upload it somewhere, or this or that, it's simply simply simply for my personal use for whenever I need to paint an AI DC-10's. The AIM model is the best I've experienced with even though the readme files are presented with negativity about the model and that I don't know why, my best guess is something happened back then during the development which then could be the reason why it led to no paintkits availability. Anyways, furthermore, I stick to FS9, I'm not going to buy a new desktop with some high budget just to have newer FS. For the record, I've been setting up my AI traffic since 2010, yes a very long time and still on it. Paints, conversion paints, flight plans and airport editing. There's no way I'm going to restart everything I've done on my sim for the newer FS. About requests, well I could request I guess but to tell you the truth I really don't like requesting a paint, not saying Jason for example won't be capable of doing exactly what I described, it's just that I prefer to do it myself on my version of painting/editing and also as I've mentioned above it's just a random timing for when I want to paint something on a DC-10. As of now, I don't have any and as we know Jason has done lots of them and probably will do more, with every single one of them being as wonderful as it gets. I have zero knowledge to do one with no tutorial available. I know some basic stuffs in photoshop and that is it, not advanced with it.
According to the readme files in the model I have no ways of contacting Charles Dayhuff as I don't know if his information is still valid so if this message gets to him then that will be great.
So yeah, that's pretty much it from my side of the story. Again, I'm not fooling anyone, I'm all about loyalty, commitment and respect. Having the paintkit or another one will be forever grateful.
Thank you guys.
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Post by Jason on Oct 2, 2024 11:02:22 GMT -5
To understand the derogatory statements in the 'Read Me' file, you have to know Charles. He has an amazing sense of humor and, obviously, isn't above making fun of himself or his creations...or me. He often has me rolling with laughter. Working with Charles and Frank at AI Malcontent was hilariously fun. Nobody was above being blamed for something and publicly humiliated. It was drama free and totally chill, unlike a lot of the other forums (PAI, Evolve AI, Flightsimmer, etc.). Below is another example of Charles' finger pointing.  A lot of that AI Malcontent style sense of humor is still found in my posts. Jason's Crappy Repaint Dump, for instance. It's not only humor, it's the truth. I know I'm not the greatest painter, and a lot of it is sh crap. Don't take a lot of the stuff I say seriously. I like to have fun, often at my own expense and, more often, at someone else's expense. I'm kidding 63.934% of the time. On to the next topic... Asking Charles for permission to use the paintkit is a no-win battle. I can 100% guarantee that he won't allow anyone else to use it or possess it. Actually, the last time I asked him (for a very well known and respected painter), he didn't even answer my text. I've known Charles for a very long time, and when he doesn't answer my texts, that says a lot. Actually, it's not saying a lot, it's saying nothing. Him saying nothing, though, is saying a lot. He says a lot by saying nothing. Nothing says a lot like saying nothing. With that said, or unsaid, or not said, I'll say this; don't waste your time asking. If you're desperate for a DC-10 model that has a paintkit, use the EvAI models. Charles also created those, so you know they're garbage good(ish). I'm certain that someone here has them, along with the paintkits. |
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Post by retrofs9er on Oct 2, 2024 23:07:33 GMT -5
Ah ok I didn't know that about the readme. All right Jason no problem. And still I will thank you and as well as the admins for not flipping on me about this subject as I'm sure on other forums some top members would interfere and belittle with me. I'm semi active here and this is a retro site afterall. Eventually I will get to my retro stuffs so I'll try to be more active here. Already great repaints done by you, Brian and others. Cgold's FP cargo topic is very good too.
I do have EVAI models with some paintkits. They're indeed great too however just something that is very noticing is the nose belly with EVAI models is straight while with AIM it's curved.
Anyways, I guess I'll contact you whenever I need a repaint of AIM DC-10. Thank you Jason, much appreciated.
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Post by sierraair on Oct 3, 2024 20:03:44 GMT -5
I'm a bad role model for this. I just counted - I have 29 partially completed paintkits for different models. And that's not counting paintkits where I did minor or major updates. The steps Jason and Christian talked about are similar to how I do it, too. If you're going to do it, start by building a fullbody paintkit, then copy layers and elements to the standard paintkit. That said, building a paintkit is the hardest part of painting - by a long shot. For a standard paint, you can usually get away with using a handful of good photos (I've used as few as one, though I hated it). For a paintkit, I will usually look through hundreds of photos for reference at different angles and distances. Then, it's finding all of the variations - the DC-8-61/63s have, at my last count, at minimum, five different window/door configurations that involve changing panel lines, ports, lights, and other things. Paintkitting isn't for the faint of heart and that's why so few people do it, and why I have so many sitting at various stages of completion. |
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I was always curious how to make a paintkit too. I can fathom out a blank texture, given enough time. But a full-on photoshop file with layers and such? That's beyond me.
