I wanted to do a short commentary here on my findings in making the hybrid Blender/PDN livery which was the Eva Air 787-10 recently released by myself. A few key takeaways that I got with my experience.
Pros for the blender method:
- It’s extremely useful for creating and placing even cheatlines. I will continue using this for future paints solely for this reason.
- It’s possible to paint multiple different models at the same time, which greatly reduces the time it takes matching up lines (Shown below with the 787-10 that uses a Fuselage 1, 2 and tail configuration for paint files.
- Placing text. I found that this method was much easier. When placing the “B-17801” just beside the 1L and 1R doors, the sim would output it as crooked even if using references such as the rivet lines.
- In general, it’s very simple to convert the drawn on model to the 2d paintfile and resume painting there. The learning curve is not that huge.
- The method makes it much easier to find out what I’m painting on or find out what resources need to be painted. Things such as the gear doors are often on separate locations in the 2D paint file
Cons for the blender method:
- Colours are off. This is seen in my previous post where the “EVA AIR” titles look dark grey. Those would be the same titles/reference image I use in the final repaint, which, is evidently light green.
- Basic layering is not possible, fill option is also difficult to use.
- Because of the previous two cons, placement of titles, large logos, and livery emblems must be done on 2D applications such as photoshop or PDN.
- Painting the lines and baking them onto the livery is no easy process, but easier than 2D. I used the “Curve” stroke method inblender. Any changes in the zoom or any panning of the camera will not change where the line is placed. If you end up offsetting yourself, you have to redraw the line.
- Some resources don’t transfer over. For example on the 787, the rudders do not show when pressing “CTRL+H” on the fuselage. The rudder doesn’t automatically place itself in the correct location either.
Here are some interesting pictures:
The blender model which has a baked-in cheatline that was eventually used in the final repaint:
An example of the blender repaint output vs the final repaint, side by side :
A showcase of how uneven the line is in the 2d repaint. Note that this appears almost completely even in the 3D airplane. Straight lines in 2D drawings do not always translate to straight 3D lines.
Conclusions:
The second picture shows that I really only used the blender method with the orange cheatline. Fact of the matter is that this would’ve taken the longest time to complete. What would’ve taken 5ish days got cut down to just 3 days of work. One of the inherent problems of the 787 model that Asobo provided us is that it’s extremely difficult to paint straight lines using the 2D method. Moreover, with the 787 and some other models, the vast amount of parts makes it difficult to line everything up. This holds true for many aircraft I’ve painted (Default XP 747, XP A350, XP 777, various AI aircraft and so on). Ultimately, it’s safe to say I’ll be continuing to use this method. Thanks again to @bestdani90 for introducing this to our forums.
but I think there will be some fixing in some plane models as well since some have really weird UV maps (or unmapped parts) and for a sim that has so many people who want to create liveries and such I can’t imagine they don’t make some planes a bit more friendlier to skin.
