Six years of absence... and more

[Cbris]

...shame on me!

But I am still around and I have come back to (flight simulation) life with msfs 2020. Sadly I don't have any image host, such as photobucket, out there anymore so I can't (fortunately for you ) flood the forum with a boring slideshow of thousands of eye-candy screenshots showing off the new Flight Simulator. Besides, some of you are already enjoying the new features and eye candy no doubt.

The thing with msfs, though, is that sadly there is not much representation for you from MS / Asobo. I see very little in the marketplace that is worthy of NZ. About the only people making any effort are the freeware developers over on http://www.flightsim.to - there's somer really pretty sceneries there. As for repaints, well I am back and almost fully up and running with the standard texture files. I still have to figure out the "NORM" and "COMP" textures - Asobo have really made (decent) livery painting a minefield with all their new conventions. Also on that: the model developers, both free and pay still seem generally unsure how to convert 3D models to useable textures (sorry if you're a 3D modeller you do do great jobs). There have, however, been a few wonderful new addon aircraft in recent months and my current all-time favourite is the Bell 47 from Flyinside. But as I implied above, that is one of the nightmare scenarios for us livery painters. I have so far found that most of the 144 editable textures are very confusing to sift through to find which part of the heli is where. Trouble is, some of my Bell 47 liveries that are currently on pause are actually rather "fat" at up to 750 MB because I have up to 27 albedo sheets added so that I can put a lot of little goodies details into the skin.

Having said that, I have so far managed half a dozen RW liveries for that wonderful little flying clockwork mouse... they're all on flightsim.to if you are interested. Oh yes, and Flyinside have listened to my tirades about their mapping skills and are promising a revamp of the Bell 47 with improved mapping. Some day. There is an Aussie livery up there if you are interested, and I am working with Becker Helicopters to do their "Oscar" - VH-ORC - soon

Anyone have any recommendations for an appropriate NZ Livery? Feel free to drop any suggestions here. If there are any of my old FSX skins that have msfs counterpart aircraft, let me know if they are of interest - if I have the model I may even "do" them. As long as they are not "Tubes". I don't like "Tubes" that ain't flying for the likes of me Some of you might remember me as "Low, Slow and Dirty" with my flying style.

Anyhoo, I am back and will be happy to see what I can do for my NZFF friends.

So, it's nice to be back

[Charl]

Hello Chris, there are some survivors here who will remember your skillz...
Good to hear from you, I have high hopes for MSFS, especially as a coherent place for the simmers of the world to gather once more and share the love.
I'm still an interested outsider, but look forward to many interesting things in the future.
Meantime, there's some really good stuff here

[Cbris]

Hmmm, Hi Charl! Those look interesting sceneries.

More to the point: that Cessna paint looks really great! At first I thought that was on offer, not Cambridge

I will try to give NZ som livery attention too now. I know I had a few real life skins of default aircraft in FSX days. Maybe the odd Extra, maybe some of the Wanaka stuff? We shall see as time goes on.

All I can say to any msfs doubters here is: Don't worry folks, you'll get used to being bu66ered up by the Asobo sim and world updates in the end. I am finding it to be really "pretty" now that I have been patient for a while.

More to come as time passes...

[Naki]

Hi Chris Long time see!

I've dived fully into MSFS. Got myself plenty of aircraft and airports already.

Yes, you are right about not much in the way of payware airports for NZ but some are on the way .

There's quite a few repaints though, including from Jankees and others.

Looking forward to any repaints that you may put together...don't have the Bell 47 though.

[Cbris]

What I really do like in MSFS is the level of detail you can reach as a repainter...

(HAH! I just realised earliere that I do have an image hosting place)









I especially like the Bell 47 though, because you really can add even small part number and ID tags.

[K5054NZ]

Welcome back! I have good memories of your Tiger Moth skin I finally have a machine that will do FSX justice but unfortunately it doesn't meet the minimum system requirements for MSFS, so I'll just have to cheer you on and be in awe at what you can produce.

[Cbris]

Hmmm, thanks for that reminder about the tiggy! I have recently found a freeware offering for msfs and it looks rather familiar. Maybe even the Warwick Carter one simply ported over. I must take a really close look at that and maybe I can "upcycle" some older skins...

Anyone remember this pair? It was a composite mix of screenshot and photo take near Wanaka that I did in 2006.

[Splitpin]

Ahhhh Cbris ...I remember you well Sir.
Welcome back

[Splitpin]

Was it you that had that pesky bug walking thing on you Avatar ?

[Naki]

Hmmm, thanks for that reminder about the tiggy! I have recently found a freeware offering for msfs and it looks rather familiar. Maybe even the Warwick Carter one simply ported over. I must take a really close look at that and maybe I can "upcycle" some older skins...

Anyone remember this pair? It was a composite mix of screenshot and photo take near Wanaka that I did in 2006.

I remember that pic....the freeware Tiger Moth in MSFS is Ants freeware version. At least that's the one I've seen in MSFS.

https://www.antsairplanes.com/tigermoth.html

[Naki]

Oh if you want a suggestion for a repaint of the Bell 47 can I suggest...

https://www.jetphotos.com/photo/6203055

[Cbris]

Hi Naki, funny you should mention that... As I said, I am on a bit of an hiatus waiting for Flyinside to get their finger out, but here is a screengrab of my livery projects folder:



In fact there's two tail numbers in there - 3702 and 3705.

[edit]ooops and 3706 as well. And there are a few subtle differences between each one as well.[/edit]

[FlyingKiwi]

If I recall correctly I believe the photo part of the composite image above was taken by me. Unless you took an almost identical one!

[Cbris]

If I recall correctly I believe the photo part of the composite image above was taken by me. Unless you took an almost identical one!

Ooops! I admit to that - do you want me to delete it? (i.e the one saved on my PC. The shot in the background was it's picture on jetphotos.net, so technically I should just crop my screenie...

But more to the point - have you got any close ups showing the text details? Seat colours? Earthing socket? Placards? Crew Chief? That "F" number below the fuel star? That red ring of text on airframe just by fwd lwr corner of doors" Is that an emergency fuel or battery cut off?



Also - I guess the skids are only black forward of the front legs? What about the ant-slip tape bits - are they edge sealed with rubberised gloop?

Oh yes, and until Flyinside fix the canopy as a mapped surface instead of an env.map texture, I won't be able to add embellishments to the perspex.

[Cbris]

Was it you that had that pesky bug walking thing on you Avatar ?

Not that I can recall. I wouldn't know how to. I thing the only animated signature banner I ever used was the world's smallest ever flightsim program where you could control an artificial horizon / attitude indicator using your mouse or joystick. Hmmm I wonder if I still have a copy? I think even the fsx input parser routine was hundreds of times bigger. And mine was written in basic.

[edit] Not Basic! I found it - it's a Shockwave Flash toy and they seem to have been all but made unusable now. Ah well. Never mind. [/edit]

[dbcunnz]

Was it you that had that pesky bug walking thing on you Avatar ?

That pesky bug was bouncing in Adrian Brausch's Avitar

[FlyingKiwi]

If I recall correctly I believe the photo part of the composite image above was taken by me. Unless you took an almost identical one!

Ooops! I admit to that - do you want me to delete it? (i.e the one saved on my PC. The shot in the background was it's picture on jetphotos.net, so technically I should just crop my screenie...

But more to the point - have you got any close ups showing the text details? Seat colours? Earthing socket? Placards? Crew Chief? That "F" number below the fuel star? That red ring of text on airframe just by fwd lwr corner of doors" Is that an emergency fuel or battery cut off?

No, not at all, I was just happy to see it again to be honest! I don't have any closeups of it though sorry!

[Cbris]

I have not changed any of my Bell 47 liveries yet because despite at least three updates, Flyinside have not yet managed to improve the modelling and texture mapping. I am in close comms with them, but they are still having problems with the texture mapping and still have too many double mappings (i.e. parts mapped on two different textures so you don't know which one is actually on the helicopter and you thus have to paint them twice...)

The B47 is still my current favourite flyer though, but simply just not fully up to scratch yet. The are promising changes. We shall see.