Shiny Bare Metal painting?

[FSXaddict]

I was wondering if anyone knew of a good tutorial on how to paint shiny bare metal textures onto planes, specifically for FSX. I am trying to get that polished metal look (like American Airlines). Thanks for anyone's help.

[gamary]

A very shiny NMF aircraft would reflect its environment, so you should begin by studying pictures of the horizon (colour gradients and luminosity) you think would fit the aircraft.

Also, such aircraft tend to have some very strong and shiny highlights, which add to the "mirror" effect.

Hope this help. Get a load of pictures of such aircraft and study what you see.

[adlabs6]

I do not have FSX, so I am not sure of how it works. But do take a look at my methods for FS2004, which I wrote in this tutorial:
http://www.simmerspaintshop.com/foru...ps-fs2004.html

[FSXaddict]

Very helpful. If you look at the default King Air 350's prop, the shiny cone is the paint I'm looking for. I'm trying to figure out how to paint an aircraft's wing/engine where it looked like that. Is that alpha layers or something, and if so, how do you do that? Thanks again.

[adlabs6]

Take a look at this page of my FS2004 repainting tutorial, it has a section on alpha.
http://www.simmerspaintshop.com/foru...#content_start

Again, not sure how FSX handles this, but maybe it's similar enough that you can get some help from this.

[Baron von Blutwurst]

In FSX, many of the elements you are trying to simulate are handled by the Specular Map m8. Your best bet may be to read the SDK's notes on the use of Specular mapping and the way the settings in the FSX/Gmax material editor are rendered by the engine.

Cheers
Randy

[FSXaddict]

Thanks a lot everyone for your help.

[jaugust4]

I do not have FSX, so I am not sure of how it works. But do take a look at my methods for FS2004, which I wrote in this tutorial:
http://www.simmerspaintshop.com/foru...ps-fs2004.html

Kind of difficult to read what seems to no longer exist...

[adlabs6]

It's still there. A recent forum change has impacted the link URLs, unfortunately. Below is the present URL, you can also find other tutorials listed in the main tutorial directory.

http://www.simmerspaintshop.com/foru...ps-fs2004-509/

[Serval]

Kind of difficult to read what seems to no longer exist...

The URL for the site has changed since the post was made. So, it makes some links unusable.