Simviation Forums

Good afternoon all...

FSX and Vista
HDE Clouds
FS Water Configurator
Piper Cub from FSX




I was not happy with lens flare.
Tried many angles with the use of the "A" Key and still could not get an angle that I liked that took in the water, clouds, sun and aircraft.

To me the picture is very plain, not sure if I should have used a more photogenic aircraft or not.

Comments and advice most welcome.

Hi Doug,

Just saw your PM, I was flying in FSX
I started FSX again to build a little example, to show you what is, in my opinion, one of the only points left that can still be improved in your screenshot above: the angle of view.

Your screenshot, in its actual form, is really great and I like it a lot:
- the choice of aircraft is cool, this plane is well detailled and has nice textures. The yellow is a bit classic, perhaps you should give a try to the cream/red variant too!
- the sky/meteo is outstanding.
- the sun "glare" is just cool. The ligthing in this shot almost makes it look like a real picture.
- the scenery, only water here, is very good too: the water color is realistic, the waves look fantastic, and you won't get problems like blurries or poor scenery objects/autogen in such a case.
- the quality of the graphics could be improved, since we can see a bit of aliasing (visible pixels on the edge of the plane), but it's ok.

So in the end, the angle of view in this shot is very good, because it shows so much stuff, it creates a good composition. The only problem is that the plane is in the perfect center of the picture, which is too much classic, kind of boring. This is, I think, the only thing that makes you unhappy about this shot.

Now, I will show you a concrete example of what we've been discussing in our previous message: the "off-centered" aircraft

Take a look at my shot, I did it quite quickly, and made a very poor attempt at creating the same screenshot as you did, but I was completely unable to get a sunglare as impressive as yours, and my water was not so good-looking either (I guess I was too high )...



Can you see the difference ? It looks much more like a picture taken by somebody, not just an external view classic screenshot. What I did is:
- switch to the "special" view, with the S key. I went to the view that show the plane from aside
- switch to "Tail" view mode, by pressing A a couple of times
- moved the view point on the right, by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER for quite a long time, until I got more or less a similar angle as you had.
- moved the view direction to place the plane in an interesting part of the picture (typically off center, at 1/3 of the picture width)
- adjusted the zoom level to get more interesting proportions and adjsusted the view position again accordingly, to find a good general balance
And that's the result.
Tell me what you think about that ?

Wow I like it better than mine.

Your shot looks like it was taken from another aircraft in formation with yours rather than just a picture like mine.

The "S" Key...never used that before. 

I find the view like the back of the aircraft and then I hit the "A" key to move around slowly.

I can go to a "Side" or "Tail" view from the view section by hitting the "ALT Key" and selecting it there.  It will lock into my Numbers Pad when I have the Number Key on.

From there not sure I understand how you move the "View Direction"  which moves the aircraft off center.

The reason I like your picture is you have the total aircraft including the clouds, water and sun and the aircraft looks like it is flying rather than posted to a picture like mine.

So here is what I have written down and will try.
-set up a similiar flight again
-hit "S" key
-from side view go to tail view with "A" key
-move view point by pressing CTRL+Shift+ENTER to get an angle
-move the view direction off center which is still vague to me but will try to about 1/3 of picture width
-adjust zoom lever with + or - Keys
-readjust the view position again

Okay I see where there is a step or two I am not doing and I think it gives you more control and options.

Thanks Daube will have a go at it later as we have friends dropping over.
Thanks for getting back to me so quickly and don't forget that parachute when you go up next.   ;D

Cheers...Happy Landings...Doug

Ah, guess what ? I forgot that you could select the views directly from the menu

Nice shot Doug! I haven't seen anyone mention the space bar and mouse for adjusting view angles, maybe I'm not understanding the discussion though.   

Hi Steve...

Daube is giving me some advice on taking the aircraft from the center of the screen and moving it left or right and I see now up and down.

I guess my next question is using the Numbers Lock and keypad for doing some of this.

I am also using a G15 Logitech Keyboard and there must be a way of programming some of this into that.  I am not up on this keyboard so do not know.

Thanks for the comment on the shot...

Cheers...Happy Landings...Doug

I really like this one. perfect balance of water, sky, and clouds.

[quote]Nice shot Doug! I haven't seen anyone mention the space bar and mouse for adjusting view angles, maybe I'm not understanding the discussion though.

[color=#000000]Nice shot Doug.

Good morning all...

Thanks A1 for the comment.

Never used that technique Dave and just heard about it so will have to give it a try.   ;)

Larry not sure about the difference as I removed FS2004 some time ago as I thought they might conflict with each other. This machine was built for FSX and Vista with loads of memory but another member told me to only have one or the other installed so I removed FS2004.   ;)

I was asked the other day by someone at the bugsmashing field how to take a picture in FS2004.
You know I did not know.

In FSX all I do is hit the "V" Key and it goes directly to a folder.   Not sure about FS2004.

Any help you could add will be most appreciated.   :)

Cheers...Happy Landings...Doug

[quote]Nice shot Doug! I haven't seen anyone mention the space bar and mouse for adjusting view angles, maybe I'm not understanding the discussion though.

[quote][color=#000000]Nice shot Doug.