It's that time of year again...

Well, actually, it's over at last, and the days are already getting longer. Won't be long now and we'll be looking at Easter Bunnies on the supermarket shelves.

I hope you all had a pleasant Christmas. Did you remember the Christmas Spirit? Or was it just the Christmas spirit?

Hasn't tempus fugitted this year? It seems like ages since I last had anything to blog about. Not to worry, the Dornier has taken up a lot of my free painting time and of the rest of my available hours, my day job has been responsible for hacking those away.

In the meantime, FSX has come and (in a few cases) gone from our PCs. Some folk are dismayed at its (lack of) performance, others are pragmatic enough to realise that it's been designed to have breathing space for the next few generations of PC growth. I have been playing with this tenth generation of FS and fortunately have a computer that can handle the load reasonably well, although I still have to adjust my settings before each flight.

I've also been invited to do some beta testing, so now I have a mission as well as a cause. And I have also been asked to do a commercial paintkit for someone in the new year, so my card is relatively full for a while.

What really has pleased me has been a plethora of new goodies for FSX - just in time for a Christmas CC bashing session. There's been the Tiger Moth (a little disappointing but not a total waste of money), Some new sceneries and - much better - some excellent freeware released. Although I've only had her on my PC for a few hours so far, Rick Piper's Chipmunk for FSX has already won her place in my heart for FSX. Even as installed (she's still a work-in-progress) the Chippie is a delight. The only mistake I made with my first flight was to set up weather in FSX and not spot an errant zero in the windspeeds settings...

...I had 10 (ten) knot winds gusting 150!!!!!! And bear in mind that I also use FSUIPC and have effects such as turbulence activated. Man, can you imagine the bumpy ride I was getting?

Anyway, here's a couple of images to show what I am up to these days. There's more on my photobucket link. Have a happy New Year's Eve and remember - it's not much longer till Burns' Night!


"Beavering towards Sitka" in somewhat minimal conditions - FSX


"Chippie over London" using the real weather as provided by ActiveSky for FSX


Flying Chuck Lischer's F260 over Oshkosh in FSX


Chippying over High Wycombe... ATC has just told me that Booker is IFR, but I'm still going in!


"Vingt et Un" pair doing a very close pass at Wanaka.

Been Away for some time....

Ah well, we all need a day job so that we can pay for our hobbies. It has been a wee bit busy at work of late, so I haven't had much time in the way of feeding the blog.

Another thing keeping me busy these days is the Dornier DO27. 'Tis a wonderful plane, with an excellent paintkit, but the more you delve, the more you find inconsistencies with the scaling and aligning of the various parts of the model. If you pay a visit to my Photobucket album, you can browse to the various albums to see what I am up to.

Thing is, when you get down to the detail, you find you need things like a detail grid so that you can locate and line up details on the textures. I do this with a simple scaled and multi-coloured grid - here you can see a couple of examples. Try it yourselves sometimes...

Recorder Module and Smoke

Bazzam posted a comment recently - er well, some while ago - and asked about smoke in the recorder module.

You can show smoke and record smoke in the recorder - there's an option in the setup of "recorder" to record smoke.

Let's do a DO?

One of my most recent acquisitions has been the Digital Aviation Dornier DO27 and i must say, this plane has one of the best paint kits around. OK, I can nit-pick about a few very minor inconsistencies, but all in all, this is one pretty plane - whether you fly her in "ugly" mode or in a prettified paint.

My first re-skin was - foolishly enough - a zebra-striped one; D-EDDY. I was approached by the guys over at Digital Aviation and given a nudge: "Perhaps I'd care to do this skin?" Ah well, I'm game for a laugh and I went and did it. Bl**dy Nora! What a lot of aligning work that needed! Anyway, the results let themselves be seen, so here you can see a few tasters.


After this one, I went for something a little easier: a Swiss registered Dornier in yellow. Hah! Little did I know! First of all I got digs about the tone of yellow... "Perhaps you could make the yellow a touche more reddish and not so lemony?" And then: "Hey, you haven't painted the cowling in the VC view!" Ah well, we live and learn.




Next up on the drawing board - and still work in progress - is a Portuguese Air Force "27". I saw this one on airliners.net and liked the look of the squadron crest. I couldn't read the motto underneath the shield, but a fellow forum member told me. "Lealdad e Perseveranca" - with a cedilla.

Thing is, the crest is not well shown anywhere on the net, so I got out my Corel Draw first and created a vector graphic crest and a Portuguese cross. Also while in paint, I made some jacking and tie-down point symbols. _It may seem like a lot of work for something that is almost invisible on the FS9 plane, but knowing the detail is there means a lot to me.

Anyway, you have a look and see what you think. I shan't be doing any more until Sunday - tomorrow is the Aerosoft Flight Simulator show in Paderborn, and as it's a three and a half hout drive, I guess I could be up early. I need some beauty sleep!

Let's talk dirty...

No, you fools! Dirt on aircraft paints!

So far most of my painting has been along the lines of "It's just come out of the spray shop, so it should look clean. But of course, planes wear... after a few landings on a grass strip you have things like mud splatters along the underside. Eventually panels chafe and you get that typical black gunge where metal has rubbed agains metal. If the aircraft stands outside in the rain for a while, the pollutants in the atmosphere wash over the aircraft skin and leave dirty grey streaks...

With that in mind, I have started "dirtying up" some of my planes. The first candidate is the Tiger Moth paint of the "Mount Cook Flightseeing" plane. I have a photo of the real world version, so I decided to "take a hint". Take a look and judge for yourselves.

Tiger, tiger, burning bright, in the middle of the night...

..beware! You'll set the bush alight.

Well, I have been busy skinning tigers of late - a risky business at best of times, and certainly not something to do while they are still live!






OK, not tigers, but Tigers! DH 82 Tiger Moth, to be exact. I just got this urge to do a new series and stumbled across the Warwick Carter Tiger Moth again.







The paintkit is, well, not the best (shall we say) but it has one endearing feature, and that is each part of the plane has it's own skin texture. (Except for just a couple of very simple items which are mirrored - undercarriage legs for instance).






So far so good! I have managed a handful of skins in the clean and pristine versions; that is to say: "Fresh out of the spray shop". Thing is, these are all paints of real world planes, and some of the research photos i have show some very dirty Tigers. Next on my list of things to do then, is to make some dirt layers to "Sex them down" a bit (if I may deliberately misquote a reason for going to war...)




I also found yet another new toy! A neat little addin to Photobucket, where I hide a lot of my screenshots. It's a slideshow tool. If anyone does ever read this, here's the link: Photobucket Slideshow

Multiple formation flying

If you read my recent post about "Flying with yourself" then you'll be aware of Matthias Neusinger's addin module for FS9.

Well, there's 1.3 version in beta and this modification allows multiple recordings of multiple flights.

If you really must know, this addin is payware standard. It takes a bit of getting used to, but once you do, it is possible to create some excellent multi-aircraft recordings and eventually some really fun flights. If you visit the simflight forum (link in the side-menu on the right) you'll see several sequences of what I (an amateur flyer) can do....

This really must be the most impressive addon for FS9 yet - and I hope Matthias does a version for FSX. Anyway, take a look at the pictures attached and see for yourselves. By the way, the multi coloured smoke schemes take a bit of thought, and I won't tell - except to my future multiplayer team members ;)

Have you ever flown formation?

With yourself?

I have recently been pointed at a module that you can add to FS9 and record a flight. Once recorded, you can load up another plane, start the playback and fly with yourself.

Go here to see more about this recorder module

This is immense fun! I had a sleepless night (again) so I went flying - with myself. And discovered that I can do it! I don't know how many times I have watched the short sequence and flown chase or opposites. But if you go the the Emma Field Flying Club Forum, you will see a lot more shots.

Enjoy!

Doing a 720° roll while climbing behind myself

Me and myself doing a half loop with roll out

Something new every day!

I have discovered a new bitmap in the FS9 folders - it's called envmap.bmp. Well, it's not new, it's been there all the time, but what I have learnt is that this image is what governs the reflections on shiny surfaces on your planes.

More to the point, you can use different envmap.bmp images to suit your individual flight - although you have to stop and restart FS9 every time you want a different reflection.

So what is this image?

Well, the basic one with FS9 is a stylised landscape texture bitmap 256 pixels square. The lower half is ground and the upper part sky. I have been playing around with freely available ones that can be found on the net and also with some I made myself. It seems you can also use a photograph. The thing to remember is that if you're flying under a cloudy grey sky, you aren't likely to get blue sky reflections or if you're flying over a city, then snow capped mountains are out.

A pity there isn't some detection utility that changes the envmap to suit the environment. You could have a whole library of useable envmaps and have the reflections change according to where you are. Anyway, here's a couple of screenshots - you judge. And if you look closely, you might even recognise the chase plane from which the photos were taken...

Here's one using a summery alpine photo for the envmap:


Here's the "Hawke's Bay Helicopter Rescue Service" Piper Cheyenne over a summery New Zealand - see if you can spot the camera plane.


Here's Dan Knutti's Cheyenne over a sunny, wintry alps - spot the cam-plane again

Sushi Time

Well, I am back from a trip to the Emerald Isle - been a busy week and now I have to reload various drivers (MoBo and GraphCard and whatever) because I have discovered strange "effects" in FS9 - the scenery and/or the models suddenly break up and look like shattered glass.

Anyway, just thought I do a quick addition or two to the side bars - I've added "Helifreak's Autorotation" blog. As a 'Rotorhead' myself, I can't resist all things helicopter - I have plenty of real world "passenger - you have" hours - about 400+ actually flying and even some hovering. So I can only endorse Helifreak's blog in the highest tones. There just aren't that many "good" flightsim helicopters around.

My favourite helicopter for the sim has got to be Peter Salzberger's Lama (http://fsheli.ch/) - it's a really good helicopter and the only thing really missing is that "butt feeling". Of course, there are other good helicopters around - in fact anything with "Nemeth" on the box is a pretty well modelled chopper too, and there's a few good air files around that have been improved by various users over the years.

A good example is Nemeth's AS 350. There's plenty of work in progress and a passable version is in progress for the "B3" version of the Ecureul (squirrel) so that you can actually land on the top of Everest.

Also added this evening is a link to Aerosoft's blog - here the developers will get a chance to "come out" and tell us what they really think.

Anyway - time to go and unpack a suitcase - or just go to bed?

Another day, another post - but I am away again. To the Emerald Isle.

Tonight's sim-session made a change - I finally corrected the butt end of the Cheyenne and then decided to try some multiplayer flying up in Alaska, By the end of the evening there were five of us on line - at one time all in helicopters. It was a nice relaxing bimble around the locale. We didn'#t go anywhere... just a spot of local "fling winging" around the Sitka area.

A pleasant evening was had by all.


Oh, and I als odid some sky dancing in the Eagle...


There's more on simflight / emma field - here's a successful first half of a "Cuban Eight"

Well now... two posts in almost as many days. There was nothing particularly interesting on the box today and I was just munching a piece oc chocolate when I thought to myself "Hmm - haven't I seen that on a real world plane somewhere?"

Power up the PC - swift search of airliners.net - AH!

Well, the results can let themselves be seen - I hope. Anyway - published a few shots on Simflight and had supper.

Later... Still nothing wildly exciting on TV, so i went flying some more and then back to the forums to see if there was anything to read. After a few minutes of browsing, I re-discovered Simon Stansfields "Emma Field" shop. AH another idea snuck itself into my brain. OK, open of Corel Photopaint again and let's see what this one looks like. Fictional this time, but still interesting.

For those who are interested, go visit the simflight forums (there's a link on the right. The Chocy bar screenies are in the "Screenshots" forum and the "EFC" paint is in the "Emma Field Flying Club" one.

Oh, and lest I forget, the JU 52 is not new to me - I did a skin for a guy down under a couple of weeks ago - he was after a specific skin to suit his little business there - he's a scenery designer. The result can be see below.

Flying over St. Maarten in the FSX Demo

So what to do on a rainy, well grey anyway, Sunday afternoon? i sat down and built a campaign bus for Emma Field. There's this sweet little Dornier 27 available as freeware on Avsim, so I gave it a try. I can't say I liked the thickness of the panel lines on this model - they wereup to 3 pixels wide and more round the doors.

Yuck!

Anyway - I re-drew them suitable for a freshly painted machine and have kept these new panel and rivet lines safely saved in a separate file.

You can't be too safe! If you could see my hard disc, you'd be amazed at just how much space is being taken up by backups! Anyway, it's a pretty little plane for sport flying - a bit dated now (she is, after all, 50 years old now).

HAH! still younger than me!

Anyway, here's a couple of WiP (Work in Progress) shots to give you some idea of what this little bird is looking like even now.

Click on the images for a large view.

Enjoy!

French cuisine and FS

The two don't just mix well. A week in France means a week away from flightsim and all that is involved. There has been a flurry of activity while I have been gone and I have not been able to do much. The big surprise, though, was the Cheyenne paint job - 370 plus downloads already. Must have been a popular buy - well done Digital Aviation and Aerosoft!

AviaSim.ch have requested permission to host the skin on their site for "local" use - so why not? Seems that a few Swiss simmers know the real thing - I only hope they don't look too close.

Also good for a laugh is the new scenery by Bill Dick and friends - it seems there really is a place on this planet called "Shit Creek" - and it even has a "Paddle Shop". Weird!

Saturday lunchtime - sitting down to a sandwich lunch. Pumpernickel and sliced meat.

Well, that Cheyenne is finished and uploaded. Time to pack my bags again as I am off to France again tomorrow. For those who fancy a bit of Swiss, the paint is up on avsim and should be ready for your downloading soon.

Going ballistic!

Well, a parabola is a ballistic curve - and that's what the trouble is with this repaint I am working on.



Critical? Me? I only work in QA....

But take a look at the shot here (clickable to show full-size). You'll see what's getting my goat. That part of the fuselage covered by the trimlines consists of 10 segments on the 3D model. A Parabola drawn in Corel Draw is round - so it needs to be chopped into straighter bits...

If only I could paint 15 to 20 parallel lines - on the 3D model - it'd be a breeze! But we painters don't have the models at hand - nor the software all the time.

(Tobias - if you're reading this... )

I could then "unskin" the model and use the now curved lines to do the job.

The curved red and blue lines are straight on the Corew Paint image and the coloured trim lines are currently parabolic. If you look closely, you'll see a recurve towards the fuselage sides.

Now "that" is the annoying factor.

Curved lines

Have you ever been close to screaming? I have... You know those pinstripe lines that go along the side of a fuselage? Well how do you paint them on a flat texture so that they are rendered as a curve around the rear lower fuselage - especially when the fuselage vertical cross section is not circular.

Fun... Like a visit to the dentist - and yes, I do know - I have been there a couple of times recently. Pity the tooth fairy doesn't visit us oldies, when we have to give a tooth back!

Anyway - back ends of aeroplanes... I have been buggering around with this Piper Cheyenne for over a month, on and off. I am finally getting there. Pretty bird, isn't she? I even have the owner's permission to do this paint.

Well, so much for a first post on the blog - maybe someone will read this.

First Post

OK, just a test, but everyone does, don't they?-