FS Repaint
Abacus Software
Version: 1.18.46
Review by:
Gregory D. Swagler (SpectroPro)
With contributions by:
John Young (Groundsquirrel)
Date: 05/09/04
System reviewed on:
Dell Dimension 4600 with 3.3 GHz processor
512 mb 400 MHz DDR Ram
128m DDR ATI Radeon 9800 pro
Rating:
Appearance:
9
Ease of use:
9
Features:
8
Built in Editor:
8
Documentation/Help: 8
Overall:
8.4
NOTE: This
review is a re-review of the program. I
did this re-review as the first one was done while looking at the program from
the point of view of a Graphic Designer.
After discussions with the designer, I had to take a look at my method
of review. Points were made to me that
I couldn’t argue with if I stepped back and looked at it from the viewpoint of
someone that doesn’t have the high end software that I have access to or that
has only the desire to re-color an aircraft.
This review is done via the eyes and knowledge of a novice or first time
plane painter. If I honestly look at
the feature list and what it does… it
does exactly what it says. I do still
post some suggestions here that would even make the novice happy. I also do still stand by my first review of
the program as someone that expected more.
I won’t be showing screenshots here as you can download a
free demo of the program that will do everything except let you use an external
editor or save your repaints. But you
will quickly get the hang of what you need to do to change the paint on
existing aircraft.
Let me start out by saying that I am very excited to be
reviewing this program. I have read
other reviews about it on several flight sim sites and forums. Everyone talks about how incredible this
program is and how easy it is to use. They also discussed how they spent only
an hour or so using it to come up with incredible aircraft repaints. As I am getting into scenery design and
plane painting, and having done my very first repaint totally by hand (more
power to they who do it all the time) I was blown away by what I read about FS
Repaint. I also know that Abacus puts
out some very nice software and upgrades.
The installation is very simple. If you download the software, you simply
double click the installer file and it does its thing after a few simple
questions. From there, it all goes down
hill. At least, it did for me.
Having done a repaint totally by hand, and repainting
probably 95% of the plane using a pencil tool a few pixels at a time, I thought
that anything would be better. Why
couldn't someone come up with a program that incorporates painting and viewing
the repaint in one app. Well, they did. And I gotta say....This program is a
beginners dream come true.
Once this program is installed, you need to tell it where
your flight sim program is located.
This will handle both fs2002 and fs2004. I am not going to get into the prefs as they are self
explanatory. And the help system
explains them all very nicely. You
should not even start to play with the program until you familiarize yourself
with the Help system. It is very
thorough and explains just about everything the program has and does very
well. The only problem I found is the
Search feature of the Help system does NOT work.
One thing, that is a very nice feature of FS Repaint, is
that you can set the program to use an external paint editor. I highly recommend this as the default one
is quite basic; however, it will do the job wonderfully for beginners and
anyone that wishes to quickly and easily change the stock colors and text of a
pre-designed aircraft.
You have all the basic tools needed to repaint an
aircraft. Paint bucket fill, selection
tools, text tool, magnify, brushes, etc…
One very nice thing about using the built in editor, is
that you see your changes AS you make them. It is one of the bright spots of
the internal editor. The BEST part of
the built in editor, in my opinion, is the placement of lights and lighting
effects. I must say, this impressed me
very much. I will be using this feature
a great deal in future repaints.
One negative about the built in editor is the lack of
layers. This would make life so much
easier but I understand that for the price of the software, that just isn’t
possible. The place you may notice this
lack of layers the most is in text editing.
You can add, manipulate, edit, move, etc… the text you want. However, once you leave that text selection
to save the program and quit, or enter new text somewhere else, or just paint
something else, you can NOT edit that text again. So if you don’t like the color, font, size, placement, or
anything else with it, you are out of luck.
Added: May 6th 2004
Reviewer: Gregory D. Swagler
Score: 
Related Link: Abacus Software
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