Carenado Cessna Caravan released

[euroastar350]

http://www.carenado.com/

[PeteHam]

Just purchased it.

Thanks Carenado.

Pete.

[mgchrist5]

Finally...a decent Caravan for FS9! Looks great.

I think I'll be purchasing the Caravan this weekend when I get a moment, but in the meantime I'd be curious to hear the opinions of anyone who's already bought it.

Thanks.

[Tom Clayton]

I'd love to see a float version!

[PeteHam]

There's just a minor bounce issue on the ground ( contact points I suspect)

But it's way better than the feelThere one.

Pete.

[EMatheson]

There is already a patch out for the bouncing... that was a fast response! And you're right about the feelthere caravan. I thought that was only barely better than the default!
This is a really nice one. I do not regret the purchase, impulse buy though it was. I will post screenshots when I get home from work...
And there are so many nice repaints already! It only takes 5 minutes (or less once you have the workflow down) to convert one for FS9!

[PeteHam]

There is already a patch out for the bouncing .......

....... And there are so many nice repaints already! It only takes 5 minutes (or less once you have the workflow down) to convert one for FS9!

Got the patch, much better now


I've checked the FSX repaints, there's a good selection. Now how to convert to FS2004 ?

Pete.

[pfflyers]

Do you have Martin Wright's DXTBmp? That's the program I use. If you are familiar with that program then explaining how to do the conversion is not difficult.

If the FSX textures are 32 bit bitmaps you might only need to resize them. If the FSX files are DXT5 then you need to resave them (using DXTBmp) as DXT3. If the FSX files are DDS the process requires a few steps: open the file (using DXTBmp), flip it vertically, resize if necessary (FS9 is limited to 1024x1024 max size), then save as DXT3.

I use the default MS Paint as my "editor" for DXTBmp.


This link came from a thread on another forum, I've never used it myself:

http://www.easy2convert.com/dds2bmp/

Hope this helps.

[PeteHam]

Thanks for your help.

I've recently got Martin Wright's DXTBmp and tried to convert textures from FSX to FS2004 but failed miserably.

Been too busy lately to try again.

Pete.

[pfflyers]

All the FSX textures I found were 2048x2048 DXT5 format. For those I opened them with dxtbmp, sent to my editor (ms paint), resized to 1024x1024, saved, imported back into dxtbmp, did the same with the alpha, then saved in DXT3 format.

Actually that's not quite accurate. I changed the alphas to pure white, except where the spinner is. Some FSX repaints have alphas that don't look right to me in FS9, I think it's because of differences in the way textures are rendered and the bump mapping and such. If I knew what I was doing I might be able to make them work, but I can do without the reflections, makes the plane look a little more lived in.

I'm sure there are other members that can explain the proccess better than I can.

[EMatheson]

Here's some screenshots of my favorite repaint for it.




These are resized and compressed as jpgs. The actual plane looks and sound even better than it looks like it does with these screenshots as your guide!

[mgr]

Next one is coming, the C-337 Skymaster!!

[pfflyers]

That's awsome news! Their 337 is one of the models I was really hoping they would do.

[Sunny9850]

Yes, that one was on my shopping list, just could not convince myself to get it for the other sim.
But for FS9 I will bite.

Cheers
Stefan

[Duckie]

Yep. Light GA normally not my cup of tea. But this one I'll definately pick up.