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New F-5 model

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Graham King
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New F-5 model

Post by Graham King »

Having set up this forum, I am one of a couple of people who cannot show our wares as they are destined for packages and our policy is not to preview them before they are released. Not because we are spoil sports it is that making packages is our hobby, so we do not want to be tied to dead lines, we get enough of that at work. We also do not take requests because as this is a hobby we want to work on packages that interest us. I suppose I am slightly different, I just want my paints to be used. Prior to this groups creation I used to paint and publish in the hope they got used. Now 95% of what I paint gets used, yes we do have packages that do not see the light of day, against the 5% before.

What I am going to show here is the new F-5E model. Before we start a couple of rules. Lets keep the Gee Wizz, Great, Can’t Wait comments down. Do not ask about packages or release dates, what I said earlier still stands. No requests for paints, packages or model variations.

As you have probably seen on the home page we have a new F-5E model by Jake Burrus. It comes in 5 variations, Clean, Wing tip missiles, Wing tip missiles and Centre tank, One Wingtip missile and an air combat training pod on the other wingtip. Finally there is a ground attack model with missiles, centre tank, bombs and Maverick missiles.

The model has 8 LOD's and polygons vary from 3086 to 32 for the clean model and increase to 4030 for the ground attack version.

The paints I have done so far are the US Navy and Marine aggressor versions. The Marines in particular was difficult because the “MARINES” text goes across different colours of the camouflage.

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I have painted 2 basic schemes in various colours which led to the 9 variations you can see below.

There is also a F-5F in the works which Jake has passed to me for painting. Fortunately most of the parts are in the same place as the F-5E so I only have to make alterations for the longer fuselage and larger canopy.

Questions are more than welcome. If you want to know how I did something or want advice again please ask.

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Graham King

Why can’t they keep the colours in the bloody paint pots and just leave them grey

www.graham-king.me.uk

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merlin101
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Post by merlin101 »

WOW! great work Graham, looking forward to this one! :D
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Post by Pixy »

Thank you very much, Graham! :smt003 I've been waiting this for a long time. Keep up the good work!
Last edited by Pixy on 31 Mar 2009, 06:48, edited 1 time in total.
james84

Post by james84 »

Cool!
I've seen in the screens on the homepage and I guess it's going to be included in a MAIW package... Yuma v2 perhaps?
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Re: New F-5 model

Post by Firebird »

Graham King wrote:What I am going to show here is the new F-5E model. Before we start a couple of rules. Lets keep the Gee Wizz, Great, Can’t Wait comments down. Do not ask about packages or release dates, what I said earlier still stands. No requests for paints, packages or model variations.
Awww come on guys, you may be doing it tongue in cheek but please try to read the text. Graham is doing this to help people improve their painting skills and techniques, and to preview what he has personally painted. So please stick to questions about techniques.
Steve
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Post by aerogator »

And keep in mind, all of these questions will probably help with the modelling process as well. I have run into some special "challenges" with this plane because of the complex shapes involved. This aircraft dates back to my earliest efforts as a modeller: back to the T-38 days before I learned a lot of the tricks I know now. Also I'm not as experienced as Nick or Kevin especially with the texture mapping and don't have the computer savvy of the younger guys. (No Graham, I'm sure you're not as old as me :) )

Anyway guys, ask away. Graham has a lot of experience and it will be good for the community.
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Post by davidbernard »

I do have a question for Graham.

I have been playing around with repainting lately. Because I have some basic knowledge of Photoshop (I'm in the graphic arts business) I am able to edit excisting repaints.

But I wonder how you do the camo patterns. How to make sure the pattern follows the shape of the aircraft, especially when wings and fuselage are different 'objects'? How to make sure that the pattern on the wing connects to the one on the body? It's a little hard to explain, hope you understand what I mean ;-)

Regards,

David
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Post by Graham King »

Dave

Painting Camouflage Schemes

I use Paint Shop Pro but I am sure the technique will be similar using other paint packages. For the camouflage I use an air brush tool for the edges, I think it gives a better finish to the edges, I will then use a fill tool for the middle and then an ordinary paint brush to fill the gap between the middle and the airbrushed edges.

There is nothing clever just a bit of trial an error lining up the various parts. I start off with the whole aircraft painted in what I think is the background colour of the scheme. For each colour for each part of the aircraft I then use a different layer, just in case there is a problem I will only have to delete a little part of the scheme. I normally start with the fuselage as these usually have the best photos and drawings.

First tip, to avoid having paint from one part of the camouflage spilling over onto another part I go to the base part of the paint layer and using the Magic Wand Tool (I am sure Photoshop has something similar). I select the base part, in this case the forward fuselage. This has 2 uses. First the paint I apply will only go on to this part, as I go over the edges the program stops applying paint. Second when I use the fill tool to fill in between 2 edges it will only fill the area I want filled and not the whole texture.

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The only area that will be painted is inside the dotted area. So I now create a new layer, in this case for the Fwd Left Hand Fuselage and using the airbrush tool apply paint. As this is the first area to be painted I just refer to photos and drawings to get the paint in the correct place.

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Next I use the fill tool to paint most of the area in between.

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Finally I use a normal paint brush to fill the edge between the airbrush and the fill.

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I then do the same to complete the section. Notice at the rear of this fuselage section I have only one edge but because I used the Magic Wand Tool earlier when I use the Fill Tool it fills between the airbrush section and the edges of the part.

If the camouflage scheme has more than 2 colours then repeat this process and until you have the full scheme painted for this part.

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Now it is time to look at what it looks like on the model. For this I use FSRepaint from Abacus. (The free demo version is perfectly adequate, especially as I use DXTBmp to compile the paints later.)

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From this you can see that the cockpit nose section will need to be painted green but I have made sure the green from the fuselage section also appears below this section so I just paint the cockpit nose section all green and do not have to worry about lining up here.

So the next part to paint is the LH Aft Fuselage and here the problems start. We need to line up the green at the back of the Forward LH Fuselage with the Green at the front of the Aft LH Fuselage. There are 3 methods to achieve this.

This first involves the use of a full body kit. Some paint kits come with these or you can make your own by working out where the actual edges are and some alignment marks so you can cut and paste from the paint kit to a full body kit. Notice I have also taken some registration marks from the paint kit to the full body kit so I can align the parts when I take the camouflage scheme back into the texture from the body kit. (I have made the background for aft fuselage and tail red to show what is going on.)

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In this method you paint the camouflage scheme over the body kit in one go. You then cut out each area, do not forget to make sure you have added the alignment marks in the area you copy, and paste it into the main texture. Position using the alignment marks and trim as required. If all goes well the camouflage lines up perfectly.

The limit for this method is it is only for the fuselage and tail.

The second method which you will use most is trial and error. So create a new layer, in this case the left hand aft fuselage, no magic wand tool yet, and airbrush a line on that is parallel to the line on the back of the forward fuselage. Deliberately make it too long.

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Save it and look at in FSRepaint.

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Then adjust it’s position until you get it to line up with the forward fuselage. Important Note: make sure this layer is outside of any groups otherwise you will be moving them as well.

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Now trim the line so it only covers the part you are painting.

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Now paint the rest of this part as above.

The third method I developed for Henry’s C-130’s. As I have literally painted thousand of these and dozen of camouflage schemes I strategically relocated the registration marks for the forward and aft fuselage sections so I can not only use them to line the Left and Right sides but also the Forward and Aft Fuselage sections. What this means if I copy the camouflage of the forward fuselage section plus the registration mark and move this and line it up with aft fuselage section I know where to start with the aft fuselage camouflage section.

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In the above screen shot I have copied the fwd camouflage paint, marked the registration mark, the bright green square, and moved and aligned it with the aft fuselage section. Then all I need to do is create a new layer and airbrush a new line for the aft section using the moved fwd section as a guide. I have used a red line to highlight what is happening.

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All you need to do now is delete the copied forward section and continue painting this part. Again of limited use with AI aircraft that normally have 1 texture file but maybe more useful for full aircraft paints with several texture files. I only went to the effort of setting this method up as I had painted several camouflage schemes and was expecting to paint more.

Lastly if the scheme has a different colour for the belly I use the same methods as above for alignment but I use vectors to paint on the fuselage section. The belly will be close to the bottom of the round fuselage and if I use the airbrush here once the texture is placed on this curved section it will look very blurry. You can use a paint brush, I just find it easier to use vectors if the belly paint is mostly straight and only curves where the fuselage goes at the nose and the tail.
Graham King

Why can’t they keep the colours in the bloody paint pots and just leave them grey

www.graham-king.me.uk

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Graham King
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Post by Graham King »

A handy tip I have used for years an literally save me hours.

Saving and viewing textures while painting in Paint Shop Pro

Paint Shop Pro has a scripting function where you can record and repeat actions. I use this to save the texture quickly to the aircraft folder so I can look at it in FS Repaint.

First you need to get the script toolbar showing in Paint Shop Pro so right click in the toolbar area and in the pop up menu select Toolbars and then Script to show the toolbar.

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Next you need to organise your aircraft folder. I have 2 texture folders \texture.a and \texture.b where I save the textures to whilst I am painting. I then have the following entries in the aircraft.cfg

[fltsim.0]
title=HTAI C130H a
sim=AI Lockheed C-130H
model=wing_tanks
prop_anim_ratio=-0.12
texture=a
ui_manufacturer=Henry Tomkiewicz AI
ui_type=C-130H
ui_variation=a
description=\n

[fltsim.1]
title=HTAI C130H b
sim=AI Lockheed C-130H
model=wing_tanks
prop_anim_ratio=-0.12
texture=b
ui_manufacturer=Henry Tomkiewicz AI
ui_type=C-130H
ui_variation=b
description=\n

[fltsim.2]
title=HTAI C130H b_no_wing_tanks
sim=AI Lockheed C-130H
model=no_wing_tanks
prop_anim_ratio=-0.12
texture=b
ui_manufacturer=Henry Tomkiewicz AI
ui_type=C-130H
ui_variation=b no_wing_tanks
description=\n

The “a” texture I normally only allocate one model, for fighters the clean model but in this case, Henry’s C-130’s I use the wing_tanks model. I then use the same model for the “b” texture entry. For these 2 entries I only give the ui_variation as a or b. After this I list the remaining models only using the b texture and for the ui_variation I use b plus the model name. Also notice I use a shortened name for the ui_type, “C-130H” in this case. This helps separates these paints from the actual paints that go into packages as they will have a ui_type of “Lockheed C-130H Hercules” (see the screenshot at the end). When you go and look in FSRepaint I get to see the following.

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Back to Paint Shop Pro and time to record a script to save the texture to these to folders.

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Now using the menus I save the texture first to folder \texture.a and then \texture.b

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When I have done this correctly and then save the script.

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I give it a obvious name “C-130H” and you MUST save it in the Scripts-Trusted folder.

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You can then select it from the drop down list

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Whenever you want to look at the changes you have made just click Run Selected Script button to save to the \texture.a and \texture.b folders and then go to FSRepaint and select a new texture. FSRepaint will not reload the texture unless you change the texture folder, so if you have a texture “a” showing click on texture “b” or if you have a texture “b” showing select texture “a”. That is why I use 2 folders.

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One Last thing. When I want to view the paint in Flight Simulator I only compile the files in the \texture.a folder. In the \texture.a folder I always have a batch file, “copy.bat” which I double click in explorer to copy all the files to the \texture.b folder. So if I see something in FS that I want to quickly change I make the change in Paint Shop Pro and use the Run Selected Script button to save the change, recompile the file in the \texture.a folder and then run “copy.bat” to copy the changes to the \texture.b folder. Then in Flight Simulator I just select a “b” texture in the aircraft selection screen to quickly see the changes.

Seperated Lists in Flight Simulator

This screenshot shows the 2 aircraft selection screen, the Left for “C-130H” which are my test/working paints and on the right “Lockheed C-130H Hercules” which will eventually be published.

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Code for copy.bat

copy *.bmp "F:\Flight Simulator 9\aircraft\Henry Tomkiewicz AI C130H\texture.b"
Graham King

Why can’t they keep the colours in the bloody paint pots and just leave them grey

www.graham-king.me.uk

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Graham King
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Post by Graham King »

Jake, I do not know how old you think I am but I reach the big Five-O this weekend.
Graham King

Why can’t they keep the colours in the bloody paint pots and just leave them grey

www.graham-king.me.uk

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Post by f4nutter »

they say you learn something new every day, and today thanks to you graham i have. i tip my hat to you sir. and i guess its a major party at yours this weekend then ? happy B/Day.
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Post by CelticWarrior »

Graham King wrote:Jake, I do not know how old you think I am but I reach the big Five-O this weekend.
Class of Fifty Nine - a fine vintage :drink:

Oooops, thread creep, sorry :oops:
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Post by aerogator »

Jake, I do not know how old you think I am but I reach the big Five-O this weekend.
Congratulations Graham, but I've got you by ten years. :)
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Post by ricktk »

Youngsters! :lol:
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Thanks, Graham!

Post by Gene K »

I'm new to repainting, and because I use Paint Shop Pro, I really appreciate the detailed tutorials using that particular program.

Gene K
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