Thoughts on people in the airplane

[patful]

its ez to do for everybody.

My hair paint jobs around the scalp looked like a kindergartner used finger paints.

[dvm]

What was cool about Lyons pilots is that didn't have to know how to paint you used an actual photograph.

[aonyn]

Anyone remember Bill Lyons some of his aircraft had the a feature where you could put your face or who ever on the pilot and passenger figure from a photo. It actually didn't look half bad. Not sure if it is doable with the current A2A aircraft but that would solve the problem of diversity. I remember spending lot's of time putting me and my wife in the open cockpit of some of Bill's airplanes. I spent a lot of time enjoying his freeware aircraft and scenery.

https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/fslib.ph ... d=66364139

Bill Lyons, what an asset he and his wife were to the community. I loved his golden age collection, and was very sad when he closed up shop.

Fun times these were in the FS Hobby, perhaps not the level of sophistication we have now, which is indeed amazing, and especially with A2A, but also I think an there was an element of simple fun which has been somewhat lost in pursuit of absolute realism (not referring to A2A of course, I am speaking generally of the state / focus of the hobby as I have observed over the past decades).
I noticed a major shift in this regard with the release of the original IL2. It was amazing, and raised the bar in numerous areas, and in fact I loved it and still use 1946 from time to time. However, there was a certain charm in some of the previous generations of flight sims which I have not seen since.

Or maybe it is just me getting old, as in, "Back in my day Sonny, I walked to school, in the snow, barefoot, eight miles, uphill both ways,.... And I LIKED IT"


Regards.
Dave

[Buffy Foster]

Theres lots like this on the web that you can adapt for your airplane people:



If you do an image search for "3d human head textures" theres tons and tons.

Maybe some airplane painters would be interested in making sets of people textures?

A2A does real nice, I think, making both boys and girls for the planes. Most makers only have boys so even if I put a nicer face on, the hair is still gonna be way short. :'(

[CodyValkyrie]

Dave, let’s be honest, you’re correct. There was a lot of charm that’s nowadays been lost. When I ordered my first plane from Bill, he custom made a hanger as part of his scenery for every customer. You’d get a hangar with your name on it. You’d download his add on which changed the entire AI to a set of 1930s style aviation, with many airfields to boot. You had your little base, a hidden place that you could call your own. There’s a few developed which have done this for FSX, but they never took off or were fully supported like in the past. Andras Field and Sahara Fly-In were products like this, but they weren’t terribly successful like the old Emma Field scenery.

Things change, and we get older. I miss those days too. I miss a lot of the charm that the old simulators used to have in the late eighties and nineties, which gave way to more “business” like simulation software. I guess that’s why so many people miss their Cub and B-17, honestly. It takes them back to a time in simulation history when we didn’t take our simulations so serious, before we would dismiss an add on because it didn’t have the latest Garmin in it, etc. It was lightning in a bottle, when imagination ruled, and we didn’t have the ability to create as much complexity so we filled our simulators with other ingenious ideas to stand out.

[Alan_A]

It's nice that there are community repaint/re-texturing options. But it'd also be good to see A2A expand the range of their crew (as they've already done by including an African-American pilot for the P-51 Red Tail repaint). Smart consumer-facing companies find ways for as many people as possible to connect with their products. It's simply good business.

I guess that’s why so many people miss their Cub and B-17, honestly. It takes them back to a time in simulation history when we didn’t take our simulations so serious....

Agree with that. I've gotten more enjoyment from those two than from any other sim airplanes, and I think you nailed why - they never felt overwhelming and they never felt like work.

[aonyn]

It was lightning in a bottle, when imagination ruled, and we didn’t have the ability to create as much complexity so we filled our simulators with other ingenious ideas to stand out.

Exactly! You hit the nail on the head.

Regards,
Dave

[Hook]

I miss a lot of the charm that the old simulators used to have in the late eighties and nineties

I missed Chuck Yeager's Air Combat a whole lot less after loading it on a more modern computer once. The memories were somewhat better than the reality.

I look at my log files and see that the four top aircraft I fly started off in FS9. They have had many updates to bring them up to FSX standards. I am not going to complain about the updates. FSX itself has considerable charm, and serves as an excellent base on which to build. One of these aircraft was recently withdrawn from the market and an update created, with better textures and more features, but I much prefer the original, which I am still flying and currently has the most hours of all the aircraft in my current installation, and at one time had twice the number of hours as all the rest combined. The stock Grumman Goose (with extensive tweaks and eventually OZx textures accounted for almost half the hours in my earlier installation. It has plenty of charm and is currently number three.

No matter what the appearance or features, an aircraft has to be fun to fly.

--------

Just for fun and as a proof of concept, I edited one of the characters.dds files from the A2A Cessna 172, changing the pilot's flannel shirt and jeans to a light blue shirt and beige pants. It worked, didn't look half bad, but was hardly noticeable unless I zoomed in very close and opened the Cessna 172 door. The same could be done with the skin tone, and I tried the edit but did not save or test it in-game. If you want an African-American pilot, edit the file, select the areas of skin (face, hands, eye) change the brightness to about -90. Not perfect but you generally won't be looking that close.

I once gave the Cub's Heidi red hair using a similar technique but didn't much like the effect and reverted. This is a lot easier then doing a complete repaint for an aircraft.

Hook

[patful]

If you do an image search for "3d human head textures" theres tons and tons.

Those are great, Buffy! Thanks!

[dvm]

I stumbled on a old post I made on FlightSim.com.It is a tutorial on how to put your own image as the pilot in some of Jim Lyons aircraft. Unfortunately these aircraft will not display properly in FSX DX10 preview as the textures would have to be updated. It will work in FSX without DX10. anyone who wants to try their hand at this here are the links to the Tutorial and one of the aircraft. The good old days.

https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/fslib.ph ... fid=119324
https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/fslib.ph ... fid=107101

[Buffy Foster]

If you do an image search for "3d human head textures" theres tons and tons.

Those are great, Buffy! Thanks!

You're welcome!

[Skycat]

I noticed a major shift in this regard with the release of the original IL2. It was amazing, and raised the bar in numerous areas, and in fact I loved it and still use 1946 from time to time. However, there was a certain charm in some of the previous generations of flight sims which I have not seen since.

Jane's WWII Fighters hooked me on flight sims. The sim was challenging but fun, but it was chiefly a revelation about 3D game space in an era dominated by 2D side-scrollers. And when I learned how to make repaints for that sim, a whole new world opened for me...

IL-2 Sturmovik was the logical successor to Jane's WW2F, but its success either caused or was part of the turn towards technically authentic flight sims that, for all their depth, lack the charm of the old sims. Maybe the old sims were more light-hearted and whimsical. Maybe they more often pushed storylines over procedures. And maybe they urged and inspired our imaginations. As a kid I could play Asteroids and Space Invaders for hours on my Atari 2600 ... back then we made do with limited graphics and game structure (and we liked it!)