Thanks guys, glad you like it.
Damn that is fine work, Greebo!
Beautiful composition too; that terrain looks very realistic.
These screenshots use Machnix's Grinder MA terrain. I've always liked the way the coastlines are done on that map so I use it for all my Far East theater screenshots. The clouds are from a weather file I submitted for my CraterMA terrain and copied across to Grinder. I suspect the reason my CraterMA weather file has never appeared online is that it would be too much of a resource hog for slow machines. Maybe the next version of AH will handle clouds better and HTC will be able to use it.
Thanks for noticing the composition. I've got a technique I use for most screenshots: Pick a suitable terrain (usually CraterMA for ETO, Grinder for Far East, Twinrivr for desert or Avawintr for winter). Log in and set the time to 15.00 hours, which gives nicely angled sunlight and reflections. Then find a place where the terrain gives some sense of distance, so the background has a town, factory, river, coastline, islands, hills or mountains running off into the distance, rather than just sea or endless grass. I narrow the viewing angle before framing the shot, as the standard AH viewing angle gives a fish-eye lens effect that does not look realistic.
For the front left quarter shot above the camera viewpoint is positioned at about 90 degrees horizontally from the sun's position at the left rear quarter of the plane. This shows up the effects of the specularity file as the shinier paintwork reflects the light more than the dull panel lines. This really makes a difference on bare metal aircraft screenshots by showing the contrast of shiny metal to duller paintwork.
The other tip is to take lots of shots at slightly different zoom levels and angles to choose from later.
