Secrets Of Great Screen Shots

By Phil Colvin (13 January 2004)

Seriously (a little more seriously, anyway), I'm glad to be back contributing to the flightsim community. Health, financial issues and a damaged computer stopped me for a long while, but here we go again. If you're like me you grew up admiring and saving the artwork on the boxtops of the model airplanes you built, and in later years you browsed and bought the aviation art magazines and catalogs, occasionally purchasing a print or even investing in a couple of signed lithographs to decorate your home and office. The pride of my collection is "Yeager's Quest" by the great Stan Stokes (gee, I wish somebody would upload a really great Bell X-1 to the site!).

I began flying flightsims like Falcon 2.0 in the eighties on Amiga computers and then in '97 began using Microsoft Flight Simulator on my first Windows-based system. When FS2000 came out I was so enraptured by the improvement in the graphics that it finally occured to me that here was a way to create my own custom aviation artwork, and soon my cubicle at work was festooned with screen shots from my new Epson color inkjet. By then I'd discovered a lot of the simming sites, and over the next year or so I entered about five of my shots in contests, winning three of them. From there it was only a short step to contributing reviews and articles, and of all those I've done so far this is a subject dear to my heart, for I've saved hundreds of my screen shots and look at them often. It gives me a lot of satisfaction to go back to them and to share them with others.

So if you feel the same way, perhaps a few of the following tips will increase your enjoyment too if you haven't discovered them yet. In this article I'll be talking more about tools and ideas and less about composition and aesthetics. Perhaps those will be addressed in a future article. (Incidentally, in case you're new to this subject, all you have to do to take a screen shot is hit alt+print screen on your keyboard to put it on your Windows "clipboard". From there you can paste it to Windows Paint, or Photoshop or whatever you're using.)

   

1.) Camera Distance The first shot of Dino Cattaneo's great F-14 (above, left) is taken in FS2002 from the distance at which the sim loads it in: 114 feet. The second shot was taken from 52 feet. Quite a bit more dramatic, eh? Makes you feel physically closer to the aircraft, and the plane seem far more massive. This wide-lens perspective was one of the tricks used by Douglas Trumbull when shooting the model of the Starship Enterprise in the first Star Trek movie to make it seem like a real spaceship, hundreds of feet long as it moved past the seemingly tiny camera. Now of course I'm not suggesting that you always take it quite as far as I did for effect in that first example, but it certainly gives you ideas, eh?

Notice that same effect in this FS2002 shot of the wonderful Meljet 747 (below, left) in the Virgin Atlantic livery: the empennage (tail section) looms large in the foreground, just as it would if you were up close to it with a small camera and the wingspan is more impressive as well. The distance field can be found by hitting the alt button in full screen mode, then pulling down the "view" column and selecting "view options". Just notice your current distance from the aircraft and change it to whatever you like. Try flying around in spot view from different distances as well, and experimenting with the other settings in "view mode". Another thing camera distance is good for is increasing (by shortening the distance to the aircraft) or decreasing (by doing the reverse) the amount of scenery in the background of the shot you're trying to compose.

   

2.) Time of Day FS2002 and FS2004 are both capable of some pretty dramatic lighting, which heightens realism. Taking all your screen shots at high noon will minimize some nice effects you could be getting. See the very long shadows cast by the buildings as Thomas B. Beard's cool X-Wing Fighter (above, right) streaks over Meigs Field in FS2002 while twilight approaches. Notice also that as the X-Wing banks into the setting sun, the wings reflect its light.

   

Similar effects are apparent in these shots (above) of Hong Kong around sunset, with the same F-14 in FS2002 and Roger Dial's superb Reno Mustang in FS2004. If you get a shot you really love except for the lighting, then leave all else the same and try different times - make the sun go where you want it to. Movie directors should have it so good!

3.) Instant Replay, Pause, and Slew Mode Some of my favorite shots have come from watching a flight I had just made, by choosing the spot plane view during "instant replay" mode. Both FS2002 and FS2004 allow you to replay an entire flight (as far as I know, at least - mine are never hours long like some of you folks!) from start to finish, and by panning and zooming in the spot plane view you can catch some wonderful shots of what you just did. When you see something you really like try pausing the shot and panning and zooming further.

   

That's how I managed to get Mike Stone's beautiful Super Constellation (above, left) framed so nicely between land and water in this FS2002 shot over Rio, and how I got this great FS2002 shot of Daniel and Dennis Da Silva's Aermacchi MB-326 (above, right) rising above the Chicago skyline. By the way, don't forget you can tweak the camera distance during your instant replays too! Furthermore, if you find a favorite angle from which you wish to view your aircraft during the replay, select "roll" from the "type" window under the "view options" menu, and that angle will remain while the scenery changes around it as you pan. It can also help to uncheck the "gradual transitions" box, most especially if you're going to use "slew mode" during a live flight; more about that momentarily (on the other hand, my own preference during a live flight or a playback is to have the spot camera in the "fixed" mode, and to leave the gradual transition on. 'Seems more real to me that way).

As far as "slew mode" is concerned, it can sometimes help you compose a shot during a live flight, especially when composing a screen shot is your intention from the get go. Just hit "Y" on the keyboard shortly after takeoff and then hit F10 to access all the slew commands on your kneepad. You can change attitude and altitude and cover ground very quickly indeed. And another great way to use these tools is in setting up reproductions in MSFS of photos or video stills of the real thing! This shot (above) from my Reno Mustang review compares that bird to the real thing, and this one (below) from an op-ed I wrote compares photos of LAX to their FS2002 equivalents.

4.) Special Effects The water spray from Mike Stone's teriffic Grumman Goose, the tire smoke from Giuseppi Chiacchietta's good old F-16 Thunderbird (which was so far ahead of its time it still looks good today), and the contrails from the Meljet KLM 747 (I had composed this for my Meljet review, it's one of my favorites) and from the Shigeru Tanaka's fun Pan Am Spaceliner from the movie 2001, all FS2002 shots, illustrate the impact of these special effects. In fact, these screen shots were built around them.

           

Even more so in the case of the wingtip smoke in this FS2004 shot of Kirk Olsson's wonderfully detailed USAF Thunderbird's F-16 Fighting Falcon (right) as it comes to the top of an Immelman. These are all clean, uncluttered shots, elegant in their simplicity, yet the special effects make them highly dramatic.

By the way, if you like the wingtip smoke effect (which I deliberately arranged in order to update, in FS2004, a shot which won me a contest years ago with FS2000), just replace the "smoke effects" section of Mr. Olsson's aircraft cfg. file with the following:

smoke.1=0.00, 2.00, 20.00, fx_smoke_w.fx

smoke.2=0.00, 2.00, -20.00, fx_smoke_w.fx

5.) Interacting With AI Aircraft This is not only tons of fun when you're flying, but it makes for great screen shots. If your system can handle it then max out the air traffic in FS2002 or FS2004 under "options/settings/atc/percent traffic" and then turn on the aircraft labels (ctrl+shft=l) to help you see them a long way off as you're flying. Today I had fun in FS2004 flying Robert Christopher's outstanding Lancair Legacy in formation around Chicago with the sim's AI Piper Cherokee, which had taken off from Meigs shortly after I did.

       

This is an occasion when camera distance and angle are essential to get you the shots you want. Notice also how much more fun the "winter wonderland" selection from FS2004's weather menu makes everything. And FS2004's sun makes a nice special effect too, doesn't it? You can even have lens flares if you want - I don't like 'em. More? You wanna see shots of jet fighters buzzing civilian planes day and night? I've got plenty, but go make your own!

   

6.) Cockpit Views These are often overlooked and can be very immersive. In the first one we see ourselves #2 in line behind a 747 at KTPA, at night, in the rain. The panel is one I downloaded for a Learjet, and don't have anymore and can't name. The shot from the virtual cockpit is Steve "Ratt" Robinson's gorgeous Heinkel P.1079b flying wing as it banks over Los Angles one summer evening. Both are FS2002 shots.

   

7.) Composite Shots These go above and beyond ordinary screen shots because they utilize programs like Adobe Photoshop to create images you'll never see in FS2002 or FS2004. If you're into computer graphics as well as aviation art, then MSFS can be a wonderful launching pad for some real creative fun - dare I call it art? Yeah, I think so! (In fact, let me take a moment to say that all the images in this and all my other articles are my own work and may be used elsewhere and for other purposes only when accompanied by acknowledgement of me as their creator. I've run into others using my screen shots as their own a couple of times over the years - naughty, naughty!) In the first shot we see the Moonbeam McSwine texture for the Reno Mustang, flying escort for C. Rosenmann's impressive "Sky Queen" B-29 in FS2002. And in the second we leave simulator backgrounds behind altogether to make a star-spangled statement with the Reno Mustang Miss America and the Kirk Olsson Thunderbird. I don't currently intend to do any Photoshop or Paint tutorials, but if you have access to these programs and you're and aviation art fan, why not create your own frameable prints? It's one more way to enjoy your hobby. Above all, have fun!

Phil Colvin
gimpyfoot1@yahoo.com