Simviation Forums

This may seem somewhat basic but I'm keen to learn how panel designers go about creating their textures.   Some panels are fairly crude - sort of simple 'paint' creations - and not very realistic looking.     Others seem to be almost photo-realistic in their rendering of the metallic textures employed.       How do they do it?

You actually answered your own question. Some people use mspaint or some kind of a bitmap editor while others will scan a actual picture of a panel into a good bit map editor and convert the image into a bitmap thus giving it the realistic look.
But there are people who are good enough to to the same without scaning a picture and it will look just as real.

Yes, it's a basic question: We all know each panel-view has its own *.BMP and this file can be of anything. So there ya go!  :D

Thank you for replies.    WJI - I don't understand the point you're making.       And I'm still no further forward in finding out how these clever designers create panels with realistic looking metal bits.

"WJI - I don't understand the point you're making"
I hear ya . . . sometimes I mumble  ;D

Often when we d/l a photorealistic panel, we read the credits to whomever took the photographs of the aircraft's interior -- including the panel.

Whomever creates the 2D photorealistic FS9 panel converts these photographs to *BMP files (in the requisite format and size), creates all the blackholes for the designated gauges and uploads the finished product as a Photorealistic Panel -- meaning it uses real photgraphs of the panel and some views.

Therefore, I thought I gave a difinitive answer to your question:
"This may seem somewhat basic but I'm keen to learn how panel designers go about creating their textures.   Some panels are fairly crude - sort of simple 'paint' creations - and not very realistic looking.     Others seem to be almost photo-realistic in their rendering of the metallic textures employed.  How do they do it?"

I've done many myself and that's how I do it. Take any photograph or texture, rename it in the native format (panels are often just 24bit), and there ya go!

Try it I presumed you were referring to 2D panels

P.S. The same applies to outside aircraft textures; as noted, I thought it was pretty basic stuff. Have fun.

wji       Thank you.