Help
Quote
Originally posted by mattski_:
Hi,
I thought you guys may be interested in a bit of knowledge sharing re: the techniques I used when doing my Mig-29 'Fulcrum Farewell' skin. I'll try and get some supporting images later but here is the tutorial. Also, all of this refers to Photoshop but could easily be done with Paint Shop Pro.
This is the Aircraft:
Forward
-------
This skin is the hardest skin I've ever done. At one point I truly thought I had bitten off more than I could chew and was on the verge of giving up. However, thanks to encouragement from you guys and friends, I continued.
Q. Why the Fulcrum Farewell skin and and not another?
A. I saw an article in an aviation magazine about them and there were fabulous pictures of this very special Mig-29. I had originally started skinning another Mig-29 but realised that the skin was already included in the full version of Lock On ! (the black/red Mig-29) When I realised it was already there I decided to look for another challenge, the Fulcrum Farewell Mig was the one for me.
Q. How long did it take?
A. Too long, probably about 6 weeks.
Rivets
------
One of the things I wanted to do was retain the fabulous amount of detail in the original skins. I was dreading doing the rivets and simply 'painting over' the original skin would destroy them.
I found a technique that I think works quite well. Here is what I do for Rivets:
1. Select all of the original skin and create a new layer from copy - this will give you a straight copy of the original.
2. Apply a Threshold function to the image, adjusting as required. This is the stage that 'extracts' the Rivets from the original skin. You will probably get some 'noise' and areas you don't want but they can be fixed later.
3. Apply a white removal filter to this layer, this will give you a transparent layer of rivets and 'noise'. The filter is available here: http://www.graphicbu...es/macwhite.zip
4. Apply a black colour overlay to the entire layer. Yup, you heard me - put a black colour overlay on it.
5. Zoom right in and use the eraser tool and a 1 pixel pencil to remove the 'noise' and create any pixels that the Thresholding operation missed.
6. Now, create a copy of your black rivet layer and change the colour overlay to be white. You should now see white 'rivets' over the original texture image.
7. Whilst zoomed-in, use the move tool to move the transparent white pixel layer one pixel to the left, right, up or down. See what looks best. You will now have two rivet layers and rivets that consist of one white pixel and one black pixel.
8. Adjust the opacity of the black and white rivet layers until the rivets look '3D' and you can see what is beneath.
Panel Lines
-----------
I did panel lines the old fashioned way, by hand. Here's how.
1. Create a blank layer over the original texture file.
2. Zoom in and select the line tool, 1 pixel size, coloured black and antialised.
3. 'trace' the lines of the original texture. This takes a long time but be patient, it's worth it.
4. When you're finished, copy the layer and put a white colour overlay on it.
5. Move the white panel line layer one pixel to the left, right, up or down. I find that a move to the left and down works well.
6. Lower the opacity of the black panel lines so that they _slightly_ accentuate the original panel lines. Don't go overboard
7. Lower the opacity of the white panel lines until they are _just_ visible. This gives the panel lines a nice 3D effect and gives them a little, tiny, bit of depth.
Complex Curves
--------------
The biggest pain in the ...... in the world.
The skin files, esp. the fueslage one, doesn't necessarily work as you expect. For the Mig, the German/US curves on the top of the fuselage actually make use of two sections of the fuselage template file. But, it gets worse, one of the sections has 'dual use' in that part of it is used for the top of the fuselage, part of it lower down. Here is how I did the curves:
1. Take a deep breath and get a coffee, you'll need it.
2. Look at the thing you want to replicate, study it carefully. Look at where lines intersect vents, panel lines, anything you can see. Try to get photographs that are 'flat' and use the measure tool to measure how big the curves are in relation to something like a vent or hole. Use the calculator to work out the size ratio between the photograph and the skin file and use guides to help you.
3. Once you have your guides in place, drink more coffee.
4. For the curves, I created a blank layer over the original and set the opacity to around 30%. I then drew large, solid, circles and oberved the curvature of the circle with respect to my guides and the original photo. When the curvature looked 'right' for a particular section, a new blank layer was created and the process was repeated.
Some curves need to be 'assembled' from multiple circles/ovals, for this, just get everything into the right place and then merge the layers down. Use the line tool to 'fix' any errors. Of course, you should be checking it in Lock On to make sure it looks right.
6. I found the real hard part to be getting the curves to continue across the varying parts of the skin. To overcome this I did the following:
7. Create a blank layer and create a manually drawn, random grid over the area you want to match up. Then it was a case of trial and error, observing screenshots and working in photoshop until a good join was made. ( I know some bits still aren't quite right)
Paint
-----
Is the fun bit Once everything is in place, use the eye-dropper tool on the original photo get the right colour. Then 'paint' your airaft. There's nothing hard here but here are a few tips:
1. Use a pencil tool with anti-aliasing to remove any 'jaggies you have'. This works particularly well on colour boundaries.
2. Create a copy of the 'painted' bit and apply noise to it. Adjust the opacity of the noise to be around 4% - 6%.
Thats it, for now, I hope you find it useful.
ta,
Matt.
Hi,
I thought you guys may be interested in a bit of knowledge sharing re: the techniques I used when doing my Mig-29 'Fulcrum Farewell' skin. I'll try and get some supporting images later but here is the tutorial. Also, all of this refers to Photoshop but could easily be done with Paint Shop Pro.
This is the Aircraft:
Forward
-------
This skin is the hardest skin I've ever done. At one point I truly thought I had bitten off more than I could chew and was on the verge of giving up. However, thanks to encouragement from you guys and friends, I continued.
Q. Why the Fulcrum Farewell skin and and not another?
A. I saw an article in an aviation magazine about them and there were fabulous pictures of this very special Mig-29. I had originally started skinning another Mig-29 but realised that the skin was already included in the full version of Lock On ! (the black/red Mig-29) When I realised it was already there I decided to look for another challenge, the Fulcrum Farewell Mig was the one for me.
Q. How long did it take?
A. Too long, probably about 6 weeks.
Rivets
------
One of the things I wanted to do was retain the fabulous amount of detail in the original skins. I was dreading doing the rivets and simply 'painting over' the original skin would destroy them.
I found a technique that I think works quite well. Here is what I do for Rivets:
1. Select all of the original skin and create a new layer from copy - this will give you a straight copy of the original.
2. Apply a Threshold function to the image, adjusting as required. This is the stage that 'extracts' the Rivets from the original skin. You will probably get some 'noise' and areas you don't want but they can be fixed later.
3. Apply a white removal filter to this layer, this will give you a transparent layer of rivets and 'noise'. The filter is available here: http://www.graphicbu...es/macwhite.zip
4. Apply a black colour overlay to the entire layer. Yup, you heard me - put a black colour overlay on it.
5. Zoom right in and use the eraser tool and a 1 pixel pencil to remove the 'noise' and create any pixels that the Thresholding operation missed.
6. Now, create a copy of your black rivet layer and change the colour overlay to be white. You should now see white 'rivets' over the original texture image.
7. Whilst zoomed-in, use the move tool to move the transparent white pixel layer one pixel to the left, right, up or down. See what looks best. You will now have two rivet layers and rivets that consist of one white pixel and one black pixel.
8. Adjust the opacity of the black and white rivet layers until the rivets look '3D' and you can see what is beneath.
Panel Lines
-----------
I did panel lines the old fashioned way, by hand. Here's how.
1. Create a blank layer over the original texture file.
2. Zoom in and select the line tool, 1 pixel size, coloured black and antialised.
3. 'trace' the lines of the original texture. This takes a long time but be patient, it's worth it.
4. When you're finished, copy the layer and put a white colour overlay on it.
5. Move the white panel line layer one pixel to the left, right, up or down. I find that a move to the left and down works well.
6. Lower the opacity of the black panel lines so that they _slightly_ accentuate the original panel lines. Don't go overboard
7. Lower the opacity of the white panel lines until they are _just_ visible. This gives the panel lines a nice 3D effect and gives them a little, tiny, bit of depth.
Complex Curves
--------------
The biggest pain in the ...... in the world.
The skin files, esp. the fueslage one, doesn't necessarily work as you expect. For the Mig, the German/US curves on the top of the fuselage actually make use of two sections of the fuselage template file. But, it gets worse, one of the sections has 'dual use' in that part of it is used for the top of the fuselage, part of it lower down. Here is how I did the curves:
1. Take a deep breath and get a coffee, you'll need it.
2. Look at the thing you want to replicate, study it carefully. Look at where lines intersect vents, panel lines, anything you can see. Try to get photographs that are 'flat' and use the measure tool to measure how big the curves are in relation to something like a vent or hole. Use the calculator to work out the size ratio between the photograph and the skin file and use guides to help you.
3. Once you have your guides in place, drink more coffee.
4. For the curves, I created a blank layer over the original and set the opacity to around 30%. I then drew large, solid, circles and oberved the curvature of the circle with respect to my guides and the original photo. When the curvature looked 'right' for a particular section, a new blank layer was created and the process was repeated.
Some curves need to be 'assembled' from multiple circles/ovals, for this, just get everything into the right place and then merge the layers down. Use the line tool to 'fix' any errors. Of course, you should be checking it in Lock On to make sure it looks right.
6. I found the real hard part to be getting the curves to continue across the varying parts of the skin. To overcome this I did the following:
7. Create a blank layer and create a manually drawn, random grid over the area you want to match up. Then it was a case of trial and error, observing screenshots and working in photoshop until a good join was made. ( I know some bits still aren't quite right)
Paint
-----
Is the fun bit Once everything is in place, use the eye-dropper tool on the original photo get the right colour. Then 'paint' your airaft. There's nothing hard here but here are a few tips:
1. Use a pencil tool with anti-aliasing to remove any 'jaggies you have'. This works particularly well on colour boundaries.
2. Create a copy of the 'painted' bit and apply noise to it. Adjust the opacity of the noise to be around 4% - 6%.
Thats it, for now, I hope you find it useful.
ta,
Matt.
Back to top
Posted 30 July 2007 - 10:51:59 PM
Posted 01 August 2007 - 11:22:01 PM
