Composing A Screen Shot: A Reviewer's Dirty Little Secret

By Derrick C. Miller

The Mechanics

1. Max out your display settings. You won't be flying so you don't have to worry about frame rates. Raising display settings assures you will get all of the detail the designer intended. The same applies to FS special effects. Lower graphics details cost you in terms of smoke, fire, water splashes, and the like. Detail equals vitality in a screen shot. One of my favorite effects in FS2002 is the reflection of the sun on the water. In a high altitude pic this can be a life-saver for giving some realism since you can't count on ground detail and scenery for much help. And don't forget your screen resolution setting. I fly at 1024x768 but take my pics at 1600x1200. The visual model of the aircraft is much smoother at higher resolution. You end up with a larger bitmap file, but you can reduce it later in the photo/paint program. Get as much into the editor as you can and reduce it from there.

2. Master the slew functions and zoom settings for all views. Decide what the focal point of the picture will be. The focal point is where the viewer's gaze is naturally or effortlessly drawn. Using slew and zoom commands you can reposition your subject against the background scenery so that it guides the eye to your focal point. I do this by feel and intuition. I just keep moving around until the shot feels right to my own eye The most useful commands are the shift+zoom (- or = keys) to move the view in or out in small increments and the keys used to rotate the plane on its horizontal or vertical axis. The most frustrating commands are the keys assigned to move the aircraft up or down. Tapping them once moves them too slow for me and twice seems too fast. And I forget that tapping it five times to speed it up means tapping its opposite key five times to stop it.

3. Add some weather to the picture. Once I have a sense of how I want the picture to "feel" the next step is to add some clouds and/or experiment with visibility settings. You can place clouds up or down and set their density. Two problems to avoid, though, are the flat sided images of clouds when viewed from the wrong angle and zooming out so far that the clouds only populate a narrow strip of the sky. In FS the clouds are only generated in close proximity to the plane. Zoom in close enough to the entire sky cloudy. I prefer the stratus clouds to the cumulus because they are less puffy and not quite as opaque. Using more than one layer of clouds is another way to add depth of dimension to the overall look. I like stratus for the lower layer and cirrus for the upper one.

4. Experiment with lighting at different times of the day. Typically, this is the last major adjustment I make. I like having all of the other major elements in place. Then I use various time of day lighting to highlight detail or add ambiance. I will select dawn, dusk, or day (night is the least useful) and move the increments of time by 1 hour to see the difference. Dusk and Dawn settings cover a one hour period. The light takes on a coral or gold tone depending on how close you set the time to darkness. This light is also more direct because of its angle on the subject. If you want to produce the basic colors of the scenery or plane use midday lighting. I find the most useful light for detail shots to be within 3 hours of dawn or dusk and the best light for ambiance to be within one hour of the same. Once I get the mood of the lighting where I want it I go back and tweak the positioning of the airplane, the amount and type of clouds, and the zoom to blend all of the major components together. Then, I hit the print screen key and view the shot in the editor for a preview. I usually go back and make adjustments.

5. Render the screen shot in the photo editor. Technically, anything you do to a screen shot in an editor, even cropping, makes it a "render" and not a screen shot. Readers don't seem to mind this, as long as they know about it. Just a couple of tips are necessary here. The very first thing to do in the editor is make sure you pic is sized to 100%. Photoshop often starts me at 66% or so. I spent some time trying to eliminate darkness and jaggies on a series of pics only to find out they were artifacts of the zoom setting in the editor. Big, frustrating mistake! The second step is to crop the image. This reduces file size and strengthens both the focal point and overall composition. The view in MSFS is locked to keep the plane almost dead center. You can use the cropping tool to give the picture a new geometric center with the plane in a position that best serves your composition. (See the "Gateway City Skyline" set for illustration of basic sequence for composing screen shots.)

The Basic Types Of Compositions

1. Aircraft Advertising Photo: These include profiles of the fuselage, shots of the instrument panel, a close-up of an open cargo compartment or any other tightly focused shot to illustrate some unique feature of the airplane. Check out the aviation magazine section at your local bookstore to get a good idea of how illustrate a specific feature. I reviewed one fighter plane whose designer spent weeks getting the flaps just right. He was grateful for the pic that showed those flaps fully deployed. Zoom and lighting are the tools to make details stand out. Be careful of overdoing it with either of these, however. I love the default Baron in FS2002 but only at a certain distance. Zoom in too close and it is just plain, old-fashioned ugly! In a situation like this I rely more upon lighting and less upon zoom to get the detail correct. (See the note on the "Stearman Detail" pics for illustration.)

2. Aviation Photography: These are the pictures of one plane taken from another in flight. You want the picture to convey motion, such as a banking turn or climbing out of the clouds. If your shot is an airplane taking off or landing try to capture the gear sequence in progress rather than full up or down. I recently saw a photo of a Helio Courier landing on a short field. It was taken from under the starboard wing with just a partial view of the airplane closing in on the grass real fast. These photos make you want to turn on the "fasten seat belt" light for your passengers. To enhance the theme of an airplane in action you might want to choose scenery with less detail and population. Microsoft used a snap of the Cessna over Miegs with all the bells and whistles turned on for advertising. All those buildings and boats and the blimp competed with the Cessna for the focal point. If I wanted the picture to convey the feeling of lazily cruising over the Windy City I would have adjusted the view to include more of the horizon and less of the metro clutter. (The "Snowbird" set belongs roughly to this type.)

3. Aviation Art: These screen shots convey a moment in time. Take your favorite vintage plane and stick it in front of an old time hangar at the end of the day. You get the sense that you are witness to both the sunset of that particular day and of an era in aviation history. Position your Piper on the taxiway with a handful of other general aviation aircraft waiting to take off and you convey the sense of a pilot's anticipation on their way to that $100.00 hamburger. The CFS franchise is one setting where this approach really shines. For past reviews I would look at the lithographs of WW2 artists in the aviation rags and then try to duplicate the feel. I used time of day lighting more heavily in these projects. (The "Snowbird", "Gateway City Skyline", and "Pioneer Field" sets include shots patterned after this type.)

Some Guidelines For Variation

2. The plane, itself, is not the subject. The pic always illustrates the plane plus some concept. It might be the plane landing or the plane climbing out of the clouds. To get the message across in your picture try to imagine what the pilot has to do to fly the plane. Cruising around the volcano eruption scenery in Hawaii you could see the pilot banking the wings to get a better view, so go to virtual cockpit, bank the plane, put the smoke and lava in sight and take the pic. This trick is one way to keep "staged pictures" looking dynamic.

3. Experiment with foreground elements. When taking combat pics of a dogfight for CFS2 I stumbled upon a neat trick to add the bogey aircraft to the foreground of the pic. I would slew the fighter close to the bad guy, switch to spot plane view, and then pan around so that the enemy plane was between the camera and the fighter. I would only put part of the plane (the burning part if I was lucky) in the foreground by using the shift+zoom (- or +) keys to get the distance just right. The same can be done on the taxiway or ramp in FS2002 using the AI planes.

4. Balance the tension of the elements. Putting the entire plane in the center of the picture is boring. The viewer's eye wants to sense balance and tension in the composition. But this is easy enough. Just divide your screen into quadrants. Place the bulk of the plane in one quadrant and some other element in the diagonally opposite quadrant. Suppose your Cessna is just low and left of center. Try to place a cloud formation or other scenery feature in the upper right. Again, I just do this with feel. One trick to keep in mind is that you really don't have to use the entire plane in the pic. If the tower is in the background, for example, you can zoom in on the wings and fuselage of the plane to make both the tower and plane larger for a fly by pic.

5. Turn on the lights and turn off screen text. You may or may not want the strobe and nav lights illuminated in your shot. But there are many more lights to consider in the FS scheme of things. To turn on runway and city lights you need to be shooting at dawn or dusk. If you do, you will notice the sun and the moon are also lights you can incorporate. High noon may be the worst time to shoot because of diminished shadows and reflections. Direct light on the aircraft is not necessary and sometimes the best pic comes from lighting up the opposite side of the plane. I set the time of day for mid afternoon to dusk for most shots and then use the slew function to turn the aircraft on its center by using the twist grip on my joystick. Turning off the slew is very important, though, before you snap the shot. You will have bright red text on the screen if you don't. The sequence is important, too. You hit the pause key first, then turn off the slew, then snap the picture when the pause message blinks off. Time it well because that pause message is coming right back.

6. Make the most of special effects. You have to be quick to catch them but the effects in FS2002 can bring a snapshot to life. We all know about the water effects, wakes and spray for the float planes. But you might also want to be in spot view to catch the oily smoke from the engine on startup or burning smoke from the tires on touch down. Another effect that works well in the mountains is really a weather feature. Lower the visibility or put clouds down on the deck with the mountains sticking up through them. I also read that there are fireworks if you set the date to July 4 in the United States. I am still chasing them to take a print from within the cockpit of the FSD J3.

Discussion Of Picture Sets For Article

Conclusion

Derrick C. Miller
dcmiller@semo.net

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