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8 Modifying the Appearance of an Aircraft An aircraft in Plane Maker may have a paint job applied to it by telling Plane Maker how to drape an image file over its model, or you can use 3-D objects (as might be created in Blender, Maya, 3ds Max, etc.) attached to various points of the aircraft to achieve a much higher quality appearance. 8.1 Creating a Basic Paint Job The effects achievable by draping 2-D image files over a 3-D, Plane Maker-created aircraft model are perfectly acceptable, albeit not as impressive looking as what can be done with 3-D modeling tools. Creating a basic paint job in this way requires only Plane Maker and the image editor of your choice. Before beginning, be sure that your ACF model is in its final or near-final form; changing the shape of the fuselage, the wings, etc. later would require you to modify the image file used in your paint texture, possibly in significant ways. We will be working primarily in the Visual Texture Regions dialog box, which is launched from the Expert menu. This dialog is used to specify which portions of your PNG texture images will be draped over each body of your aircraft. You can use the tabs along the top of this window combined with the radio buttons on the left to select which specific part you will edit. You can click and drag the regions covered by a part using the large box in the center of the window. Additionally, if you plan to use two image files in your aircraft’s textures, you can check the box next to a part labeled “use second texture.” In that case, the area of the texture image available for draping over that part will come from the second texture rather than the default one. For instance, if you wanted the entire top half of the default image file for your aircraft to be draped over the left side of your fuselage, you would: 1. Select the Fuselage tab at the top of the dialog box, 2. Click the radio button labeled “edit left side of body,” and 3. Click and drag the flashing red box until it was around the entire top half of the image. Ideally, once your aircraft model is ready to use, you will set the regions of your texture to use with each part of the aircraft, then let X-Plane create a “starting-point” texture map, which will be divided according to the geometry of your aircraft’s parts and your settings in the Visual Texture Regions dialog box. This starting-point can be opened in your image editor of choice and recolored or blended with a photo of your aircraft. 87
88 8. MODIFYING THE APPEARANCE OF AN AIRCRAFT Figure 8.1: Editing the portion of the image used to texture the left side of the fuselage To create this starting-point texture, open the Special menu and click Output Texture Map Starting Points. This will create one or two PNG files, depending on your use of the “use second texture” checkboxes. For instance, Figure 8.2 shows the starting-point image file created for a Van’s RV-7. If you have not changed the locations of your aircraft’s bodies using the Visual Texture Regions, X-Plane will use the default locations, sizes, and shapes for each of your aircraft’s pieces. These image file(s) will be saved in your aircraft’s folder with the proper names. The first image (or the only one, as the case may be) will be called [ACF file name] paint.png. The second image, where applicable, will be called [ACF file name] paint2.png. Note that in order for Plane Maker and X-Plane to find the image textures, they must keep these names. Note that images used with an aircraft file must have dimensions (in pixels) that are a power of two. For instance, the image could have a resolution of 512 x 2048, 1024 x 1024, 2048 x 1024, and so on, with a maximum resolution of 2048 x 2048. The files that Plane Maker outputs will abide by these rules. Using the starting-point images from Plane Maker, you can create painted or photo-realistic textures. After modifying the image files, open the Special menu and click Reload Textures (or press the T key) to refresh the textures from your files. For a step-by-step guide to creating a simple photo-realistic texture, see this tutorial on the X-Plane Wiki. Fine-Tuning a Paint Job As discussed in the section above, the Visual Texture Regions dialog box can be used to modify the portion of your texture image used for each part of the aircraft. Modifying these regions using the mouse, however, will always be limited in precision.
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CONTENTS iii The Body Data Box . .
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CONTENTS v 9 Performing a Test Flig
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