A general repaint question

[ShaneG_old]

What is the best way to get rid of these jaggies at the blue/white border? I've tried using the soften brush but it keeps leaving an off colored line at this border. I use Paint Shop Pro 9. Thanks for all help.

[Brett_Henderson]

There are a few ways to go about this (and a few causes to the problem)..

First, I'd ask the size of the bitmaps. Are they at least 1024X1024 ?

[ShaneG_old]

Let me know if I got this right,(this is my first attempt at repainting )
I'm using the paint kit provided by the creators, and it is a1024bmp.
When I first layed out that line, I used the pen tool for a point to point line and then applied the upper and lower colors on seperate layers.
I then zoom in and do all the detail work with a size 1 brush to trace out the borders and then use the fill tool to handle the large area inside.
Are you saying that it would be best to resize the whole image to 2048 and then do the repaint? I can see how that would help after it gets compressed back down to 1024. And also how do I enable AA in PSP9? I always thought that AA was just an ingame function.(showing my newness) Or are you refering to the GC setting itself which I do have enabled.
Thanks for the help, it is very much appreciated!

[Brett_Henderson]

Ahh.. OK.. If it's someone else's model. your options are limited.

Yes, working at a higher resolution and then re-sizing helps the jaggy stuff ..

I've never done two, touching colors as seperate layers.. I'm not sure if that would agravate the jagginess or not.. my guess is that it would, but I could be wrong. I just do it like I would for real... Lay the first color so it overlaps the line where they'd meet (and yes, make that reference line its own layer) and then "paint" the other color right up to within a pixel or two of the line... and then draw a line of that color AT the reference line, then collapse it into the raster layer.. then fill in the odd pixels last.

When you draw the color line, a vector layer will be created.. there's an AA check box to 'check' up by the line's width roll-out...

[ShaneG_old]

Thanks again for the help! I got a little too far into this one to try the resizing trick, but will definately use it on my next attempt. I'm glad I wasn't as lost as I first thought when I started. Repainting seems very intimidating at first, but after a while of fiddling with it, it gets to be and exercise in common sense.
I should be ok as long as I have a paint kit to work with. Haven't messed with anything that didn't come with one yet. And I'll leave the model creating to those who know how. I don't think I could do anything that hasn't been made a few times already anyway.

[todayshorse]

Interesting. I go about these things slightly differently. I use the 'box' tool (dont know its proper name) but you define a box shape by dragging the mouse, for length and thickness, which i then 'paint' in with the colour. One this is done i then manipulate this 'box' by dragging and so on till its in the right place, wether that be diagonal or simply stretching it across the length of the aircraft - this obviously is a new layer - and go from there. Never had a problem with jaggies unless its at an extreme angle, which i often do by creating a more vertical box and using the same methods...difficult to explain! :-?

To create curves and shapes i generaly define a 'box' then use the methods above, then use the 'circle' tool to then erase the line i require - like this on this BOAC repaint - the curved section towards the front of the aircaft  isnt hand drawn, its erased to the shape i want, the curved bit was a 'box' of colour...the line created by a large diameter circle which i posistioned and 'erased' the rest of the box to be left with the 'curve'! As you can see, no discernable jaggies until you zoom in real real close....

Ive read many tutorials, but have generaly found my own methods which seem to work - as with a lot of things repaint wise, trail and error is often your friend - what works for one person may be difficult to explain and pass on to someone else!

[Brett_Henderson]

Yeah..  like building the models themselves.. it's an art form.

Other peoples techniques can get you pointed in the right direction, but you gotta find what works for you..

[todayshorse]

Indeed. Here you can see jaggies on the top of the red stripe - but i kept asking myself why is this? The bottom of the red stripe has no jaggies - i created the red stripe using the methods above, but the problem was the top line of the stripe mirrored the lines of the 747's hump, abliet slightly at a downward angle. Ive been trying to complete this for some time - work gets in the way

Its evident in the completed repaint and when i get the time i will correct it - but i couldnt see any other way of replicating the 'line' so used the magic wand on the whole aircraft and moved the outline down over the stripe to then painted it with the correct line and angled it slightly downward and joined it to my completed 'stripe' - from a distance its fine but a little closer and it stands out a mile! Ive yet to figure how to lose the jaggies - they come from the aircraft itself as i mirrored it! The top of the aircraft has no jaggies on the repaint due to the way its wrapped round the model......hmmm

Sorry to go on, just demonstrating that an angled line is possible without jaggies, but a shaped line is somewhat different!!!

[ShaneG_old]

Could you please recommend a good repaint kit to practice on. You mentioned in my other post that the one I was using seemed to be a bad one to start out with. I really enjoyed doing this, as I've never got to really create anything for FS before that I could call 'my work' like I can the repaint I just did.
Thanks for all the advice and tips. I will definatly give them a go.

[todayshorse]

Have a look at the AFG King Air - its a detailed paintkit - but i discoverd a minor error in the way the panel lines or shading were lined up on one of the psd's although i cant recall which one, it was a simple fix, i chose the layer and simply rotated it - took a while to figure why things looked wrong, mind!

Its a bit more complex than the one you used for this aircraft - it has multiple layers and quite a bit of detail.... but you will notice the difference immediately, once you start painting and then tunring on the detailed layers! Its for fsx and fs9 i think, although i only painted for fs9.

The project airbus is another but i think thats for fs9 only - but you work with a full fuselage psd, then have to cut it into the bmps using cut and paste, and varying the opacity of the layer your putting on top of the bmps for alignment....but i find a full fuselage much easier to work on for alignment and getting a 'feel' for what your doing than working on the seperate bmps!



This is an example of a 'full fuselage' psd - what you see here is how it appears in photoshop - much much easier!