So here we are at the engines. What we aim to accomplish here is a to add a bit of depth to the engines and make them look a little more "alive". We do this by adding highlight and shading effects as well as a reflection effect. If you imagine a shiny engine in the sky, it's going to reflect it's surroundings. In this case we want to give an impression of the sky and the horizon.. but more on that in a little while. The reason for doing this is firstly the simulator has yet to include such renderings (although FSX is getting there) and we need to help it along a bit. Secondly, what happens if the person using the simulator wishes to have such dynamic effects off due to performance issues or otherwise. By doing this they'll still have a reasonable simulation of the external model.

It's very easy to go overboard in this area and it's important to know when something is too much. Over time you'll get to know what looks good and what doesn't, from this tutorial I hope it gives you the knowledge to experiment further.

Open posky757rr_t.psd, containing our engine textures.

So the first thing we'll do is add a top and bottom to the engine. Just like the fuselage, imagine the sun is coming from the top and from the front. We'll want to paint the top of the engine in a lighter colour and the bottom in a darker colour.

Add a new layer folder and then create a new layer ready to use inside of it. Just like when we did the fuselage we're going to add a gradient to the under side of the engine to give it a more round appearance.

Select the Paint Bucket (G) and click and hold on it to select the Gradient Tool. Make sure that black is selected as your colour in use and that you have the gradient as the type with only one colour in it.

First make sure your newly added layer is selected. Using the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M), make a selection box from a little below the bottom of the engine to just over a third of the way up. Then select the Gradient Tool (G) and click at the bottom of the selection, holding the mouse button go vertically upwards and stop just below the top of the selection. To save time you could hold Shift while dragging the cursor, it should cause the tool to snap to certain angles .Release the mouse button.

You should get something looking like this:

If not experiment a bit before proceeding with the rest of this section.

Hit Crtl+D to deselect the selection.

Now the bottom is done we'll do the top. Add a new layer and like before make a selection using the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M). This time only make the selection a little way down from the top of the engine and finishing a little above it. With black still selected, click and drag using the Gradient Tool (G) from the top of the selection box vertically down to just above the bottom of it.

Reduce the opacity to about 40% and you should get something like this:

If not, once again experiment until you have a satisfactory result.

Press Crtl+D to cancel the selection.

Reduce the opacity of the bottom gradient to about 70%.

Save the psd.

We can see already the engine is looking quite a bit better, now we'll move on to some highlighting.

Add a new layer and select the Brush Tool (B), set the brush diameter to about 15 pixels for this situation.

The purpose of this first highlight is just to lighten up an area to give the impression of light. Draw a line about 3rds of the way up the engine, as you can see from mine it doesn't need to be neat.

We now apply a Gaussian Blur by going to Filter - Blur - Gaussian Blur, a radius of about 6-7 pixels does the job. Of course, experiment and use your preferred results. If all goes to plan you should have something like this:

Reduce that layers opacity to about 15%, remember that its alot better to be subtle than over the top. A good trick is to deactivate and reactivate the layer to see what it looks like over all, with and without.

Returning to some more shading, I think a little more general shading is needed. It's important to view the entire piece and attempt to establish what is required.

Add a new layer and select the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M), start the selection a little below the bottom of the engine and finish it just below your new white highlight.

Just like before, select the Gradient Tool (G), click at the bottom of the selection and hold. Drag the line vertically up to just below the top of the selection box and let go.

Press Crtl+D to cancel the selection.

As usual, if you don't have something similar or satisfactory experiment until you're happy with it. Reduce the layer's opacity to around 30% and you should have something like this:

Save the psd.

Here's how your layer pallet should be looking:

Returning back to highlighting, I think the engine now needs the "horizon" as mentioned at the beginning of this section. As what we are doing is obviously not dynamic it's important to be very vague on what you're actually reflecting. You can see pictures where the engines are reflecting airport terminal buildings, mountains, other aircraft. But here we just want to give a general appearance of reflection.

To do this, like the other white highlight, we'll draw a white line horizontally across.

Add a new layer and select the Brush Tool (B). Set the brush's diameter to about 6 pixels, we want this line more defined. Unlike the first white highlight we will not be applying Gaussian blur so make this line more accurate and straight. Draw the line so it goes horizontally a little below the centre of the original white highlight.

This is where the trick comes, select the Smudge Tool (R) and set the hardness to 0% and the diameter to about 20 pixels.

Starting from the left of the white line click and hold the mouse button. Go along the white line and regular move the mouse slightly up and down, do small flicks up every now and then. You hopefully should have something similar to this:

Set the layers opacity to about 10% and you should have something like this:

Now would be a good time to save the psd.

I think a little extra help is required under our newly created horizon in the form of a hint of black.

Add a new layer, select the Brush Tool (B) and set the diameter to about 15 pixels.

Once again, draw a fairly straight horizontal line under the horizon. We'll be adding Gaussian Blur and it's better if you aren't too accurate.

Now we'll apply some Gaussian Blur by going to Filter - Blur - Gaussian Blur. Select a radius of about 9 pixels and hit ok.

Reduce the opacity to about 10% and you should have something like this:

I think there's one more thing needed and we're pretty much there.

The horizon line looks a little lost in there and it needs a bit more defining. What we're going to do is a blanket of shading with a defined top hugging the white horizon.

This time instead of using a gradient we'll work with a solid block of black. Select the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) and draw a selection from the bottom of the engine to just below our painted horizon.

Add a new layer and fill this selection with sold black using the Paint Bucket Tool (G).

Press Crtl+D to cancel the selection.

Select the Smudge Tool (R) and keep the settings you used previously on the white horizon. Start from the top left of the black box, click and hold the mouse button then move the cursor along the top of the box. Like before, continually make slightly up and down movements but not as much as with the horizon. We're trying to keep the definition between the horizon and this black box.

You should have something similar to this:

Reduce this layer's opacity to about 10% and you've now got a fairly nice looking engine:

Save the psd.

That's pretty much it for the engine effects. If you wish experiment further with different ideas, perhaps add another "horizon" type line further up the engine and make it a bit more patchy.

Now it's just the case of dragging over the layer folder to the 3 other engine sides.

We'll use something that's common to all 4 sides of the engine, the below panel line and rivet section will do. Add a new layer to your layer folder and trace part of the panel line using the Pencil Tool (B) and a diameter of one, include at least one corner so you can line it up again.

Duplicate the layer folder by right clicking on the layer folder and clicking "Duplicate Group" and select the Move Tool (V).

With the layer group selected and not one of the individual layers, click and drag the group of layers down. Align the reference layer you made to the panel line section on the engine below.

Now duplicate that layer group, go to Edit - Transform - Flip Horizontal and align the reference layer to the bottom right engine.

You can see where this is going.. duplicate that layer folder and move it up and align it with the top right engine.

Remove or deactivate the reference layers from each layer folder and you're all set.

Save the psd.

I think its about time we checked them out in the sim! I have discussed how to get bmps in to the sim in a previous section here.

Although looking nice, as I said at the beginning of this section, I think it looks a little strong.

By reducing the opacity of the layer groups to about 70% I think it looks pretty good.

The effects used here could also be used in other places, for example on the fuselage.

Lets now have a look at some more general highlights and shading, including panel lines and rivets.