skidmarkz Posted November 6, 2014 Share Posted November 6, 2014 Hello all, I purchased the razbam metro III a couple of weeks ago and am having a heck of a time trying to figure out the paint kit for this aircraft. I've seen some really cool repaints so I know there are people who have some knowledge of working with it. The problems I am having are related to the supplied locked psd file showing the fuselage in several "segments" rather than one continuous section. How do you line up stripes on the different segments without going back and forth guessing each time hoping that they line up? I created a new layer of the aft fuselage and placed it behind the forward fuselage and it is slightly off in size...it doesnt line up perfectly. Also how do you line up stripes on the transitions from the sides of the fuselage to the vertical stab for instance? I also am trying to put an airline logo on the left side above the windows but the psd is cut right in that area so in effect you have to put that logo on two different areas and line those up (hopefully) to form one logo. Another area is the nose of the aircraft getting the side stripes to line up (again) to where they connect such as the American Eagle example below. I'm working on three liveries that are really pretty basic but not having much luck. Also is there only the locked psd file included in the paint kit or was there supposed to be an unlocked psd file with different layers? I'm new to the aircraft repaint world in fsx so am I overthinking it and making it harder than it needs to be? Thanks for any tips or tricks! http://www.airliners.net/photo/American-Eagle/Fairchild-SA-227AC-Metro/0173874/M/ http://www.airliners.net/photo/Lone-Star-Airlines/Fairchild-SA-227DC-Metro/1279266/&sid=6de76131ced090eb15f10eb075db6d50 http://www.airliners.net/photo/Conquest-Airlines/Fairchild-Swearingen-SA-227AC/2254955/&sid=2cb9f88fe55d6d26dfdf8f5076572d8d Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aeroplaneman Posted November 6, 2014 Share Posted November 6, 2014 One technique I use is to 'measure' the distance of stripes from something else that runs along the fuselage, perhaps the windows or rivet lines. In Paint.net if you use the rectangle select tool it gives you the measurements, not sure how it works in Photoshop though. For the logos, there is typically an overlap between the both cuts of the fuselage. If you identify a window that is on both of these sections, you can align the logo to a window. For example, the right edge of the 'm' in American may be placed directly in line with the right edge of the window. Here is a FedEx 757 livery I did on the Captainsim 757, which also has a split up paint kit, hopefully these labelled screenshots will make it a bit easier to understand. Diagram 1 Diagram 2 Doing the join from fuselage to vertical stab is usually a bit of trial and error unfortunately, although you can use any kind of join lines that match up to assist. If you are looking to do more repaints with this aircraft, you may be able to make a basic paint kit, with the fuselage. Although I'm not sure with the Metro. To do this, line up the windows or rivet lines, when connecting the sheets, don't worry about the white space. Also noticed a property of the Captainsim 757 paint kit, that I hadn't noticed before, it may or may not be existent on the Metro, but I do not own that addon. Anyway, there is a white space next to the actual aircraft textures, and anything placed on there will be overlaid onto the next texture sheet. Not a problem if it doesn't exist, just might make things easier. Happy repainting! :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skidmarkz Posted November 7, 2014 Author Share Posted November 7, 2014 Thanks aeroplaneman! This is what I have so far on the American Eagle metro. Joining the stripes from each side and across the nose has been a giant pain! Like you said lots of trial and error. Its close but not quite there yet. Still have to put on the reg #'s and I think the nacelles are too shiny..they look like chrome instead of polished alum; Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skidmarkz Posted November 7, 2014 Author Share Posted November 7, 2014 This is another one that I'm working on; Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skidmarkz Posted November 7, 2014 Author Share Posted November 7, 2014 And yet another. (I used to fly for this company back in the early/mid 90's) This is just roughed out right now still needs the stripes from the tail down the sides below the windows to the nose; Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aeroplaneman Posted November 7, 2014 Share Posted November 7, 2014 Looking nice! Let me know if you need help with anything else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skidmarkz Posted November 15, 2014 Author Share Posted November 15, 2014 Still having a heck of a time with the nose on the razbam metro paint kit. This is what the kit's fuse looks like, just the locked background layer; As you can see it looks like torn paper in the area that I need it to be clean cut. Also there are notches for the fwd baggage doors that are complicating matters as well. I can turn on/off the alpha layer that cleans it up somewhat; I'm using guidelines to line everything up; But I'm still ending up with this; I have the Lonestar metro all complete and ready to upload to the library, but wanted to do the Conquest and Amer Eagle metros at the same time. Next post will show the prob I am having with the Conquest metro lining up the tail and fuse stripes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skidmarkz Posted November 15, 2014 Author Share Posted November 15, 2014 This is the Conquest psd...everything looks good (I thought); But as you can see the stripes don't line up at all in the finished product; And of course we still have the same problem with the nose and joining the side stripes across the top as in the Amer Eagle example above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StringBean Posted November 15, 2014 Share Posted November 15, 2014 Welcome to the world of repainting. These are the things that happen when you wrap a piece of paper around a Coke bottle. Does the paint kit have a mesh, or UVW, layer? Sometimes that will help you with the needed adjustments. Sometimes it helps to save a version of the texture with just the mesh so you can see how it lays on the model. With the mesh layer turned on you can see what part of the texture sheet is/is not actually mapped to the model. The nose is going to be tricky because the two stripes need to go in opposite directions. Hopefully they are on separate layers. It also looks like you will have some scaling issues. One tool you can use to help is the PanelFinder which you can get here- http://www.simmerspaintshop.com/forums/dlcat-general-12/ You can add it as a layer over your paint, set the opacity to something like 50% and save your texture. Then you can see in the sim where things line up. Sometimes these issues end up being a pixel by pixel adjustment to get it as close as possible to what you want. It takes time and trial and error to get it right. Even then, I have a bunch of unfinished textures that were simply impossible to get to a point where I was happy with the results. Not all models are easy to paint, some are mapped better than others. Another tip is to use ModelConverterX as a viewer instead of the sim. It loads faster and you do not lose as much time waiting for the sim to load. You can get MCX here- http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/resources/modelconverterx.92/ peace, the Bean WWOD---What Would Opa Do? Farewell, my freind (sp) Never argue with idiots. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skidmarkz Posted November 15, 2014 Author Share Posted November 15, 2014 Thanks StringBean! I will give the links a try! I was also considering FSrepaint as well. There is no mesh layer on the fuse part of the paint kit but there are mesh layers on other parts like the wings, nacelles, and tail. I'll keep slogging away and keep you guys posted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skidmarkz Posted November 16, 2014 Author Share Posted November 16, 2014 Trying out different things. I don't remember seeing Pan Am express flying metros, but always liked this livery. As simple as this paint job is, still had difficulties with the razbam paint kit. Definitely NOT noob friendly! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samaritano Posted December 2, 2014 Share Posted December 2, 2014 Nice work. Did you ever released these repaints? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skidmarkz Posted December 4, 2014 Author Share Posted December 4, 2014 Nice work. Did you ever released these repaints? Hi Samaritano, not yet....my FSX install got all messed up and my computer blew its cpu about the same time (maybe related?) I did finish the Lonestar and PanAm repaints and will post them to the library when I get my desktop up and running again hopefully by this weekend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackjda1 Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 American Eagle looks great! Will you be releasing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skidmarkz Posted December 12, 2014 Author Share Posted December 12, 2014 American Eagle looks great! Will you be releasing? Hey jackda1, yeah if I can ever get the stripes to line up right on the nose! I almost had it in post #3 but tried to refine it and ended up with what you see in post #7! I had some computer issues about the same time and just got fed up with the whole process and gave up. It's really a pretty simple paint scheme and I don't see why someone who is an experienced repainter/photoshopper couldn't knock it out in about :15 minutes. (I'm a rank beginner in both.) I have seen alot of requests for the American Eagle repaints and was quite surprised that no one has put one out by now. That's why I tried to do my own. The only other thing is to get a release from AMR to use their paint job and distribute it, but that's no big deal. https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/content.php?86-American-Airlines-Release-Form I will try again and post it when I can get it right...or hopefully someone more experienced could knock it out quicker? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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