Keeping current...

[Flying Trucker]

Goodly afternoon all...

Snowing and blowing outside and the old girl is out so a good excuse to do a little simulated flying...

While the college boys are out and about in their C17s, C130s, King Airs, Cormorant Helicopters along with a few other flying mechanical marvels like their Airbus I am snug as a bug in a rug puttering about with the FSX Cessna 172.

They pass by our front windows at several hundred feet on approach to land or when they depart over the water.
We can almost look directly into the cockpit sometimes.

We also enjoy looking at the boats as they come and go.

Hope to get some ski flying in this weekend with a grandson or a friend.
It has been months since I was up in a Citabria Aircraft but for now here are some shots of a short flight I did today on the FSX Simulator...

FSX and Windows 7
HDE Clouds
3D Lights
FS Water Configurator...not on
Season is Winter and the flight took place during day and night hours to keep the Night Endorsement Current.
Location:

[andy190]

Great shots. What scenery is that in the second shot?

[Flying Trucker]

Thanks andy190 for the comment...

It is FSX Ontario, Canada in all the shots...

[Bud Greene]

Wow!  With shots that nice I'm tempted to spend money I cannot spare on upgrading... well... everything (starting with my pc)!

[mfaulisi]

Cool shots and nice livery

[Flying Trucker]

Thanks Bud Greene and mfaulisi for the comments...much appreciated...

[Daube]

Hi again Doug,

Some nice shots here as well. The first three have cool colors once again, and the water looks really nice too.

The night shots are nice but a bit dark. I understand you wanted to emphasize on the runway lighting as well as the landing light of the plane, however the rest of the shots around those details are quite empty. Once again, by choosing a different camera position, you could certainly get the same kind of view of the terrain, coupled with a more interesting view of the aircraft ! That would be a better balance, don't you think ?

This applies to all shots. For example the first one... wait, I'll try to make a similar screenshot to show you what I'm trying to say...

[Flying Trucker]

Okay...thanks Stephane...again much appreciated...

[Daube]

Ok here is an example.
I tried to reproduce your first shot, but I failed to set the time correctly so my shots are a bit too dark...

So, here is a similar shot to your first one:


The plane sits in the center of the picture, with a nice background, nice sky, nice weather, nice colors etc... but it's a very classic shot right ? Now, I change the view to the special external ones, those which are just before going back to the VC when you circle the views with the S key. It's the view "right wing to cockpit" or something like that. Then I move the camera position (with the various key combos CTRL+ENTER, SHIFT+CTRL+BACKSPACE etc....) forward and left to reproduce the same angle of view than the first shot, but also a bit down in order to get the plane out of the center of the picture, in front of the sky. Also, I keep the camera closer to the plane than where it was in the original screenshot, keeping the same zoom value. Look at the result:



And since the default Cessna has quite a beautifull 3D model, we can even get closer to it, so I move the camera again to get closer :



Do you see the difference ? Suddenly, the shot looks a bit like a postal card instead of a simple screenshot ! Of course, the goal is to find the correct balance for distance, visibility of the background etc... It's nice when the plane is off the center of the picture, but if you put it too far off the center, it can look quite bad actually.

Honnestly, sometimes I spend more time trying to find the correct angle of view for the screenshot that just flying around 

[Flying Trucker]

Wow...yes I do see the difference Stephane...

Will have to keep that in mind when I do another simulated flight.

Again thanks for taking the time to do this because I think it will help a lot of other folks also to do better, more interesting screenshots...

[krigl]

Nice ones! I have to say I enjoy the C172 as well
The tips from Daube are great too, I'll give them a go.

[Flying Trucker]

Thanks krigl and you are absolutely right about Daube's tips...