Leen de Jager

Just to keep you posted. The exterior is almost finished , then the interior and cockpit will be taken care of.

Never heard of this. Please tell me (us ) whats all about. I will be great for me and others to have explaned how that works and what that program does , and where to get and how to install it. This way a forum like this gets an enormous value.

I use X-Plane and Planemaker simultaniously , my computer has no problems with that. I can even fly FSX the same time. About payware-paints.........I am sure they will be common goods in X-Plane-land in a year (or so). Personally I only make free-ware paints , just because I just want to paint liveries I am interested in. As I am involved in "repaints on a commercial basis" ( not as actual painter ! ) I know whats needed to make a quality that sells. This means I am spending many hours on a paint , because I want it to have "commercial quality" especially for this one. (McPhat-freeware) Till now this livery took me about 25 hours and when its ready probably twice as much. This way a "repaint" almost becomes a "remake". Need to be a bit crazy for doing this.......... This is the same bird as shown above , as you can see changed on many points. Re-designed walk-strips on wings , placed on the right positions.. Wing-joints made visible. No need to say this needs to be implemented in the normal files and speculars too. This paint is not really 100% depicting the original aircraft due to the limitations of the texture-mapping of the model. Nevertheless it gives an acceptable impression , I hope.

You might have a point there BUT. How many repaints are available for the default Stinson ? How many repaints are available for the default Cessna? The real problem is ( in my humble opinion ) in X-Plane-land there are just so few painters. I can assure you repaints are vital for a sim , it keeps the sim alive and interesting. In MSFS ( you know... that other sim) there is (even) a commercial painting-studio involved selling just repaints. I can assure you its profitable (being one( not painting ) of that team).

Painting for MSFS is not more complicated than painting for X-Plane , I can assure you. For me, painting for X-Plane is at least as complicated ( or simple if you like ). Leen

Hi folks, After being active in FLYII , MSFS 9 and 10 , I came addicted ( mildly expressed) and for a year or so I am active in painting for X-Plane. LES released a very good DC3/C47 and I aimed my brushes on it last moths. Strange enough the amount of "paints" offered for the model is very disappointing. Being (better said having been) "one from the other camp" I simply cannot understand that. Did Goran publish a model hardly anyone is interested in? Is the model so/to complicated to be "painted". Are there so few people capable of painting in the X-Plane community ? Guys ( girls ) I cannot beleve that !! Magnificent airplanes for X-Plane , great choice available. Repaints, liveries,cockpits......................please folks, if you know how to use the brushes , grab them. Making a livery............... who wishes for more? There is also room for repaints to be published at AVSIM for thos who...............

LES DC3 real military Cockpit and Cabin paint. After having created a brown , a green and a blue cockpit with different panel-impressions , it was time for something more complicated. As there is a magnificent C47 paint for this plane available ,made by CYTZ Watcher , its no wonder I went military too , with the inside-stuff. This paint not only involves the the entire cockpit , the complete interior has been refurbished into military color scemes also. Interior-paints are in fact ready and I expect to publish them next week. MIND!! I am talking about the interior paints , the exterior paint-work has been made by CYTZ Watcher and is available at the Org already.

Thanks pal. Leen ps its on .... you know.

No its NOT the same plane !!!! Madine is right. Leen PS New version of the aircraft including the two paints showed on top of this topic will be avaiable shortly. http://www.vfrnetwork.com/forums/index.php?/topic/10604-nouvelle-version-3-du-robin-dr400-180-regent/

Extremely well done aircraft, followed by a row of hastely made repaints. This plane deserves better. Leen de Jager

Thanks guys. The plane is available for download on "the other site" indeed. http://forums.x-plan...&showfile=15590 The paint is not available and still WIP. Nevertheless you can fly/try it if you like just mail me at my website e-mail adress. www.flybike-paints.nl Uploading to public sites is not allowed naturally. I appreceate feedback on WIP. Placing this paint as a "livery " is not possible due to the fact this plane has no liveries-folder nor accepts creating one in a for the average user acceptable way. Making a renamed copy of the original plane and inserting my files overwriting the originals is the way to do it. Cheers Leen de Jager

Thanks for your kind words. Making normals is not such a big deal, if you are used to doing it. These normals can be generated with a program like GIMP. "Generating normals" however is just half the job ,editing the normals manually is the funniest and trickiest part. Most interesting is what I call "free-bumping" , creating accents and stuff * on a normal ,entirely by hand. *On the "Colani" I made severe damage on the nose of the fuselage , these damages are present in the normal as well and grooves show like real grooves on the plane. The specular alpha in the same normal makes these groove less ,or non reflective. At McPhatstudios we do this at a daily base. We did not invent it, we just use it the way it should be used. Leen de Jager

Some days ago I downloaded the magnificent freeware "Shoki" Could not resist laying my hands on it adding some attractive paint and bringing it a bit more to life with a custom-made set of normalfiles. As I did not yet create specular-alphas the (default) gloss is still uncontrolled. See the difference between wheelhatches with and without normals on the third picture.

Its just a matter of well adjusted LIT files in my texturesets.

You are right , allthough setting ATTR_shiny_rat at the top of the obj file has exactly the same result. Insterting separate shiny_rat values is very cumbersome indeed , I never do that This GLOBAL-specular value however also makes the model glossy first to be made matt with an alpha afterwards. Cheers Leen ps How do we paint a checkerboard , I make it white and fill in the blacks?

Great news to hear. Making normals is a bit "my thing" more precise going into detail doing much normal-mapping the manual way. Gloss is something completely different nevertheless we need normals to to achieve glossyness the way I am used to. Editing the OBJ files so they start reading NML files is not complicated , editing the OBJ-file to make the model shiny isn`t that a problem to. BUT it leads to a model on wich even the tyres are shiny. There comes the specular-alpha in the normal very handy. Using this alpha to regulate the gloss is extremely funy. Glossy wings with sometimes dull spots ,glossy wings with non (better said less)-glossy de-icing boots. Dents and damages created with normal and gloss, whatever. This method enables to get just that amount of gloss that you like on excact the spot you like it. e.g. a extremely refletive chromium placard with an non glossy ingraved text , everything is possible Being one of McPhats I know how it works. Today I have been fooling around with the landing gear. It looks used and old , nevertheless the brakedisks and the pistons of the hydraulic are extremely glossy if the sunlight expects them to be. The rims are a tiny bit glossy , the tyres however lack any gloss. OK one must be a bit crazy , I admit. I really did not expect to achive this in XP just two years ago. I am thrilled. Cheers Leen

Will that 1.5 update have changes to the mapping? If not my, universal-normals set for the Mu will apply gloss and bumpmapping to the model. http://forums.x-plan...&showfile=15754

Maybe I cannot promis. Working on this one at the moment. Would be great to have an cargo-interior obj file for this one. From outside its a cargo nevertheless the cabin interior and windows ( seen from inside )remain.

Same paint a couple of days later.

I understand Tom , I must say the MU-2 is quiet painterfriendly as it is now and there is no reason for complaining. As I said before , I am very spoiled and demanding. And whats more important I am just a "hobby-painter" not making any money with my painting activities. I am doing quality-control and research at McPhatstudios , I never touches the brushes there. When I started painting for X-Plane ( after many years of MSFS and FLY!! ) I knew a lot about painting , speculars and bumpmapping. About normals and gloss on X-Plane models I did not know a thing and it was not really there in X-Plane. In time I sharpened my skills and after having succeeded in adding these things to several existing X-Plane models...............whell ehhh you know the rest. I could not resist starting a livery for the Mu-2 myself. Still "work in progress" , still a lot to do. Cheers Leen

Really my favorit plane. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19900507/bona.png

Thanks for the info Tom. More pix for more crisp and detail. Sounds swell. Making the wings and empannage file twice as big ( four times as much pixels ) is not so hard . The fuselage needs a total new mapping wich I cannot do being just a humble painter , I`ll have to wait for that. Cheers Leen ps: would like to have a spot to place an underwing registration.