Stefan Hoffmann
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Posts posted by Stefan Hoffmann
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Hi!
We are not limiting repainters to low-quality textures here by our pure will. It's simply a downside of the decal technique, which aims to efficiently use texture space and computation time to make an adapted approach with local detail. Of course, this limits the painting freedom compared to FSX and P3D. But you must also accept the technical limits that hardware still applies. When I remember right, FSLabs did an A320, which is much smaller in total surface area than an A330. Note that with the increasing area, the memory demand grows not linearly but by square. Then the aircraft must work in an environment that consumes masses of texture data (satellite imagery for the ground) and on top of gigabytes of textures when the plane is operating at a large airport. We cannot influence the landscape texture use, and we cannot influence the airport texture memory usage, which other developers decide, and often they like to consume a lot for their scenery. So we have to aim for a partly invisible target and carefully decide how much we can go with our aircraft to run stable at a large bunch of different hardware (graphics cards can come still with very different memory sizes, shader number etc...). Of course, we want to please everyone we can with our products, but we won't change how our aircraft are technically designed.
But as told one of our primary goals is to make our customers happy. So don´t see all lost now for your issue; we will have some discussion about the next days internally first.
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vor 15 Stunden schrieb Ahmad Elrikabi:
For reference, i am currently flying in Brazil.
Reshade off:
Reshade on:
So much better in my view
"Reshade on" in this situation makes it pinkish! Surely there are people that like this tedency. Note that "Reshade" dont gives you a more realistic appearance by a magic formula. Its in some easy words explained a pixel transformation tool, that adds or subtracts
color information so making it a bit more red here, and a bit more green there. So the results can never be called "more realistic" and "less realistic". What fits more here is the (very subjective) comment of "like" or "dislike". Ontop come color vision deficiency of
certain amount of the population and badly calibrated monitors. How told, at my color calibrated one here it looks pretty pinkish, while it should be a cool blue at this altitude and daytime similar to the first image you showed of the A330 in the other post....
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vor 15 Stunden schrieb Ahmad Elrikabi:
so i think many people know that msfs is kinda "yellow-ish". For example the clouds or white textures in general. Thats why I use reshade.
And as seen in this picture of the real Lufti a330:
and this one from you for example:
you can really notice a difference in the white. Now i know that has to do with the lighting and how clean the aircraft is. But I still see it as too "yellow-ish". Is there anyway to fix this minor issue? Personally, i dont have any issues with coloring since I use reshade. Just wanted to let you know and beautiful pictures btw
You compare here two things that absolutely not fit together for a direct comparision. Note that the aicrafts white body color was carefully researched and the fitting RAL value used (that an industry standard for colors). So there color applied in the texture is the right one.
Now to the second point: What you get out on the display finally depends and many variables. Most forward surely is the simulated direct sunlight, secondly the angular position of the sun over the horizon, and third cloud cover. MSFS does strong yellowish and reddish
tones when the sun is near the horizon. Additionally there is a strong damping of light intensity if clouds are between the aircraft and sun and that in varying intensity. So to think that the second image shows the average look is wrong. When we want to talk about comaprision
between a real image and computer generated one we must first at least try to set similar conditions. I can already recognize difference in the suns angular position (much lower standing in the lower MSFS version, and so more yellowish as described above) and additional
at least a thin 6/10 cloud cover when there is only humid air on cloudless sky above. So even comparing both images is already a baseless matter as the appearance of the aircraft is highly different depending on the conditions described above.
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Hi!
It's worth emphasizing that painting for MSFS operates differently from P3D. For smaller to mid-sized planes such as the 737 and A320, the traditional single-texture approach may suffice for achieving adequate resolution. However, for larger aircraft like the A330 and even the 747, the decal technique is necessary. This means that we are limited to a maximum of 2K resolution for the base textures, with fine details such as text labels, decor, welding lines, and rivets distributed through decals. While some developers may have opted to reuse their old paintings, we prioritize ensuring that our aircraft run seamlessly across a wide range of hardware platforms.
Each airline has its own unique Livery_A.psd, with the registry located in varying positions. Therefore, when using the decal technique, you cannot expect to freely paint the registration in any location. Your hires' material can only be placed within the designated decal area. The only consistent asset is the winglet decal.
1. New decals for your custom registration would have to be created first in a unique model.
2. No.
3. No. Creating 4K or 8K versions makes no sense for us in production as it exponentially makes things slower during development. However you can create upscales of the paintkit textures. But it will also significantly enlargen the graphics memory footprint
and maybe not run of platforms like XBOX.
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Hi!
The LIVERY_A.psd and so the content on the corresponding decals can be altered to create a manifold more variants for the airlines that are provided. The decals provide also reserve space to use new aircraft names (especially Virgin Atlantic and Lufthansa) or to exchange decorative paint (like the lady on Virgin Atlantic).
However fully changing the decals will not work. As an end user you get only already compiled models. Even if you can load them in Blender, you wont be able to fully recompile to model as placements and animations inside the model get lost. Also giving away the original models wont work, as there are
many months of research and hard work in them.
This is a downside of the new MSFS painting technique. As you can observe on repaints done for other aircraft, often repainters make those livery specific decal stuff fully transparent (and so invisible) and blow up the texture to a higher resolution. But be warned, that this may work
at high end graphics cards / PCs, but the effect on low end machines and XBOX may not be acceptable. While on small to medium aircraft you can partly achive high end looks by using 4K resoluted textures, on larger aircraft this is a no go because of the much larger total surface area of the aircraft
and the behaviour of the texture to square their memory demand when doubling the resolution. Imagine simply, that you could cover even a twin otter aircraft fully with a single wing of an A330.
Not even with 8K textures you get the visual result on the other side you can achieve with a fraction of memory space using decals. This is simply the new repaint reality we also face in our internal production and be asured that we welcome any help doing additional repaints.
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Hi!
The file LIVERY_A.psd contains livery specific decal details. This means, that all those liveries inside the paintkit have special geometry for mapping just those decal content. Thats why they are all unique.
So using the LIVERY_A.psd file you can only change the asset content located on such decal geometry. You can make the geometry fully visible if you use a dominant color, like pink, and use full opacity all over the area.
Note that texturing for MSFS is different to texturing for P3D or FSX. While in the older case you painted ALL content directly in one map, you now can only paint low to medium resolution stuff onto the fuselage anymore.
All really fine detail like small text labels, screw, rivets and seams all reside now inside extra decal geometry mesh floating above the base fuselage and are rendered in a special pass to not create a flickering effect as for depth tracing inaccuracies.
On the other side you can make all the livery decals invisible by making the alpha fully black / make all full transparent. The LIVERY_A.psd contains only color content for wingtips and airline specific labels.
Hope that helps.
Kindest Regards
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vor 3 Minuten schrieb James Rob:
Just like the P3D version can we add text onto the main fuselage? For example a registration or does it have to be done via that AS_A333_EXT_LIVERY.dds file?
Hi James!
You have both choices. Either you use the decal from the AS_A333_EXT_LIVERY.PSD which lets you set the registration of course only in the decal area, or you make the decal fully transparent inside the registration area and paint the registration directly into the base material texture sheet (_TAIL_A.PSD).
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vor 11 Minuten schrieb mseder:
Thanks for the info Stefan
Well even though you try to be as realistic as possible my personal hope is that you avoid making a livery that is more or less abandoned, It do not send the "proper signals". Or try to change aircraft to LN-RKR that has the latest livery and I think is the same model. See image
Mats
Hi Mats!
Also LN-RKR obviously uses still the "old" livery scheme. The image you did send is an artistical rendering for the livery concept and not flying on the real world aircraft yet. As soon as this changes (to stay as realistic as possible), we will add the changed livery also to our default aircraft.
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vor 10 Stunden schrieb mseder:
Regarding the images of the SAS livery. I really hope you're aware that this livery is an old SAS livery.
Would be nice to see an image of the latest livery.
MatsIt is known to us that Scandinavian overworked its corporate design. However the repainting process of the airline is not completed and the latest imagery available on the web shows our default livery LN-RKS still in the old colors. As soon this changes, a version of LN-RKS with the new colors will of course be added.
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vor 55 Minuten schrieb Enzo Dewit TPG:
Nice to hear that you will maybe distribute the paintkit before the release !
I just have some questions, if one of them has been already asked, I'm sorry :
1) Is the model same as P3D (or UVs are similar), to avoid to remake entirely liveries from 0.
2) Will you keep the fuselage textures in 2K ?
3) Will you provide a Master Paintkit with the 3 part of the fuselage merged in 1 or in 3 part like on P3D ?
Looking forward to fly your aircraft at the second after the release !
1) The UVs were kept for the exterior components, so you are able to drag & drop your existing assets into the new paintkit files.
2) Yes, the fuselage textures stay in 2K. All the fine details are solved via decals now.
3) For the fuselage there still exist three separate textures. However a master texture of the tubular section for repainters convinience will be also provided with calibration marks, so you can pull the large texture to correct fit into the split textures.
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vor 10 Stunden schrieb Thomas Shepherd:
Hello, just a question on doors 3L/3R, are they going to be changeable or it depends on the livery you have loaded as I noticed you have have mentioned about the type A / type 1 door before when discussing liveries.
really hate the type 1 door so would rather not use it.
There are specific models covering both door types.
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Am 20.2.2022 um 15:04 schrieb Trevor Hannant:
Am I going mad/blind - I can't see the DHC6_DECALS_INTERIOR_INFOBOARDS_albedo.psd file in any of the files linked above. I thought perhaps it would be a separate later in the DHC6_300_EX_WHELS_PAX_Decal_Label_albedo.psd file but don't see it there either.
Anyone able to point to it for me?
Hi Trevor!
As this is a part of the interior model and the paintkit only features exterior stuff normally this isn´t included yet. We are discussing internally to release also those mentioned files for repainters to change.
Kindest Regards
Stefan
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Am 14.2.2022 um 15:54 schrieb Donka:
Thanks for this Mathijs - this is going to make the livery creation process a lot quicker. I do notice there are some missing elements in the Paintkit though. Using the 300PAX fuselage for example, the Static Stuff group is missing some cockpit interior items such as internal door lining. This is also missing from the UV layer which may partly explain why it is missing. It does show up on the example sim albedo layer at the top if enabled though so we can manipulate that to fix the paint kit.
I've not checked them all yet and will do a quick livery test and export into the sim this evening but just wanted to share this so you can hopefully feed back to the texture artists if they can update the paint kit.
Hi Donka!
Note that in MSFS only the outer shell is existing in the exterior model. The cockpit itself (and with it even the insides of doors) are part of the virtual cockpit model. Cockpit and exterior model are fully separate entities now. So you wont find any of the interior parts anymore in the external paintkit which exists already in the interior model. We will have to discuss if we publish some editable version of the interior assets so.
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I am making fantastic progress on BA A319 Union Crest repaints. The only thing I need to know now is how to put the font/registration above the windscreen (like UPC or UOA). This was possible in the A320/21. Is it possible in the A319?
Sure that is possible! The fuselage seems split on the texture sheet. But on the model it continues seamlessly.
So you first create the text, possibly as dynamic vector for clean rescaling and last second changed.
In your case U-P-C, P is to set at the gap. Where one gap ends, the other begins....so you place it at the top gap, then a copy at the lower gap. Some fine adjustment and viola....
I recommend to all the Model X Converter from Arno (FS Developers). Free tool. Within there you can preview your paints much faster than having to boot the whole sim each time for a change.
For this reason of the gap in front look here:
http://www.genekeyes.com/CAHILL-LMW/LMW-2.html
Scroll down to this figure:
LAND MAP OF THE WORLD ON A NEW PROJECTION. 201
When we transfer a three dimensional surface (what is the model) to a 2d surface (what is the texture map) then it comes to unavoidable geometrical tension inside the coordinate system.
Thats why those globe cuts are not rectangles, but look like trigons. Only with such a projection you get an undistordet unwrap. Elsewise you had to cut the model in ever smaller chunks, which then really starts
to make painting a nightmare. And you like on the globe, the flow of pixel data seamlessly continues. If you want to understand where the gaps are in the model, then simply switch either on the contained UNWRAP LAYER,
which contains the full wireframe data of the model, or paint a special colored line along the gap and save the texture ready for the sim. Inside the sim you then see how that behaves.
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I have seen 4 to 5 requests of painting a royal jordanian A319 (including mine, and the whole topic was started by a gentleman requesting RJ too) but haven't noticed any of the painters (if there's more than holgi) confirming that it will be painted can we please have an update or something regarding this matter ?
thanks guys
Which registration should it be?
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Hi Ddeuce!
Why not ask you the creator of the paintkit himself? He should know how photoshop works! ;-)
But to say it in plain letters: Using photoshop is 10 times as easy as driving a car, surely a thousands times easier than
flying an aircraft. Since you seem to have mastered the more complex things, you WILL be able to tame Photoshop too.
People listen, simply ask!
As first help i can tell you, that photoshop organizes the photoshop files in the layer table. This you can imagine as layering
transparent plastic foils onto each other. The more on top they are in the table, they more on top they would also on the
real plastic layering. Some is drawn plain color (mostly the lowest ones). On others exist small pencil dots and lines, they
are layed on top the plain color. The cool thing is now, that the layering can be "almost" limitless and when you change or add
a detail you can easily move, switch on/off, scale and rotate the layer content INDEPENDENT from ALL OTHER STUFF.
Thats beautiful! When you have understood the system i swear you, you wont try another software with the lack of this feature.
I work now over a decade and a half with it, and it never failed to support me.
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Hi DDeuce!
First of all the readers need to know what paint program you use now in first place to help.
Adobe Photoshop is THAT tool amongst artists and repainters, only a small fraction i know of, that are using different formats.
But very often the are plugins and converters from PSD to other software formats. Would i myself have that problem then i would google from "PSD conversion paintshop" for example, if you got the last one in usage currently.
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Hi Ddeuce!
Your need is understood, the armament seargent just gets some additional LAU-7 launchers for you out of the AS ammo dump ;-)...
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Thanks Ddeuce!
Good to see that the passion we invested touched the heart of someone. So this makes all investments done going up in a larger sense...
This is what life should be about!
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CDF is included, of course!
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Thanks DDeuce! I will try to recreate that also lightly optically distorted, as it would have passing the reflective combiner glas one time, and being reflected and enlarged from top lens/mirror.
I guess the light green tick comes with clear filter, while i will use the red one i think for our version.
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Hi Ddeuce!
Do you have access to a sharp image of the reflected target reticle when the gunsight is powered up?
Cheers
Stefan
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Pardon my "civilist style" lol...yeah Mark 4 panels.
Were they backlighted? And i think the suncover could be closed completely, so not randomly to drop bombs already on the home base runway by hectic..?
LIVERY_A.psd vs Base Texture
in Repaints
Posted
Hello!
As you can see in our preview forum for the MSFS A330 there is a Turkish Airlines livery available now (TC-JNP). As I can see that your design closely follows the Turkish Airlines design base idea, you can now apply your VA design to that paintkit. There is a large decal for the text "TURKISH AIRLINES" where you can apply your VA logo and so on.
We hope that this will help you in your painting efforts. However note that we nevertheless follow the decal approach also consequently in the future.