Random skins possible?

[+Gepard 10,264]

Is it possible that in game the skin of a plane is select randomly by game engine?

 

Background: In the LSK (east german air force) each single combat plane had an unique camo scheme. There were no two combat planes with identical camo.

 

 

 

[Wrench 9,461]

unfortunately, no

[+Gepard 10,264]

What a pity, never mind.

[+yakarov79 10,513]

Unless you will put camouflage as decal. MIght be hard work but...you never know ...

[+daddyairplanes 8,680]

yakarov beat me to it.  game selects main skin first, then based off of start year. i have multiple units or airlines on my multi engine skins because of setting the unit or airline as the serial number. in the case of the airliners i create a bare metal or white skin, then add the airline markings (2048 sized for the fuselage ones; they run the whole length). so  there is a work around, it is just time consuming

 

the pic is the same skin on all Airbuses (L90 iirc) to show what im talking

 

the hardest part is the first one, getting everything lined up. after that, if you make a template like with a skin its just pluggin in the different items.

 

 

 

[+Sundowner 4,516]

Years ago I did some 366 TFW F-4's with battle damage repair patches and stuff like that as decals set up as individual aircraft numbers, the changes you could make just by putting them on different parts etc was pretty good, just stops every plane looking the same.

[+russouk2004 6,951]

this is summat thats plagued me with SF2   not every a\c skin is the same   we need this sorted   ...one way to do it is.....make say 5 copies of the F4e rename them slightly for each one....make camo slightly different,then in game manually select each a\c of the flight....hey presto unique skins....only down size tho is just that   size of te a\c folder

[+daddyairplanes 8,680]

i've thought of simlar for the naval phantoms, making a weathering pattern tga to go over the skin (naval paint patterns are the same aircraft to aircraft, it the amount of corrosion control touch ups that is different). do 6 and repeat in different orders across the 12 or 14 birds assigned. CAG bird and XO bird would be the best looking  as they were the best maintained

 

USAF Phantoms would be a PITA as you would have to 1. line up the camo for the major types 2. make 2-3 variations for the major schemes 3.assign a major scheme as primary (camoLwin etc) then the vairations for the others (camoLwing003) 4. redo the decal.ini so the camo's are up at the top of the ini, and squadron specific stuff overlays on top of that. 5. unless your do it all in 512, the decal folder will be freaking HUGE. i know from experience as 7 airlines for one skin produced a 84MB folder for one era. yes thats just decals for a mid 80s skin alone on a project that will feature 5 time periods

 

it is possible, and the results would be outstanding esp with random generation (look at how many squadrons in 1983 had SEA, SEA Wraparound and Euro 1 on the flightline). to get there might turn one off from modding though!

Edited December 7, 2016 by daddyairplanes

[+Sundowner 4,516]

All the camo skins I've ever done are all slightly different for each squadron (regardless of country or type), whether it be the overall shape of the pattern or the amount of weathering, wear/dirt etc... ...but I bet no one's ever noticed.

[+daddyairplanes 8,680]

well you did say slightly

[amariani 4,662]

Just think about the amount of work just for editing a decal.ini to cover all meshes needed for a full-body decal. And then you have to add all those surface details to the decal itself!!!

[+Sundowner 4,516]

well you did say slightly

Lol, very true m8.

[+daddyairplanes 8,680]

amariani, yes and no. the decal ini dance is individual level of difficulty, i've grown quite accustomed to it myself. as for details (esp panel lines) there are tricks to it. with the heavies i've been working on, doors and windows are a layer of the template up on the top (so its easier for them to show of course) and other parts such as cargo doors or exhaust ports can also be added on near top level. though they usually start on the skin, i plug em into the tga for reference on other parts in relation to the doors and windows.  the bottom levels of the template are the colors,  stripes, words etc that change plane to plane. as for the panel lines the main bare metal skin itself has darker than necessary panel lines throughout and try to remember to set opacities to around 75-80% for main colors and 85 to maybe 90 for stripes, text and logos. i'm experimenting with some panel lines on the side of yeyeye's 757 this time around but it's not a main focus. also it helps to have as much on each decal as possible (meaning fewer decals per plane). Using the Phantom as an example, a right upper wing decal with the camo, insignia, stencils if from the late 70s, and weathering. that level of detail would need at least a 1024 size tga.  again,  it is doable, you just have to be a millionaire with nothing else to do to have the time to work it

[+russouk2004 6,951]

If decal for skin was same size as the skin texture  size in the dec ini would be 1.0 which would solve placement issues...as you could make the decal layer over the skin to get it correct...

[+daddyairplanes 8,680]

texture size not so much with placement. but mue's viewer saves ALOT of time in finding mesh name (most important) and where that mesh is in space and time (extremely close second) ive had huge meshes not show for being .025 off a measurement, and definately had fun in the older days trying to figure out what a mesh was called ( remember the old days of messaging and meshname threads?) for those less software savvy.

 

 

slight bit more detail on that...  center of a tail is generally something to the tune of say -15.0,8.0 or -23.50,9.75.  setting coordinates to 0,0 and hoping it covers all as a 1:1 only works if the tail portion is at one extreme side or the other of the tga. and that would be bigger still. to cover an airliner or cargo plane right now i use two fuselage (1024) two tail (512) and two engines as well as some times one radome that's reversable (usually 256). thats to pack a fairly appropriate amount of detail into each one, esp given in the case of jumbos they are really more at a distance eye candy and not main attractions.

Edited December 8, 2016 by daddyairplanes

[+Gepard 10,264]

My first test to make random skins for the MiG-21 by using the decal methode.

Its still a far way to become perfect.

 

[Sheriff001 397]

That's an excellent start!

[+Gepard 10,264]

One step forward.

 

 

There seems top be a problem on the right upper wing, where the wing goes over into the outer wing. There the decals are not displayed properly and are flickering along the border between the two meshes.

Dont know how to solve it. Will try my best.

 

Edited December 10, 2016 by Gepard

[+Hans Topp 115]

Great foward steps mate, i hope you could do it soon

[+daddyairplanes 8,680]

looks great.  one drawback of the decal as skin method is it will highlight any model irregularities.  had similar working with the Galaxy and Starlifter. one got fixed by setting postion to front rather than top (probably not applicable) the other by putting a patch decal if you will over that spot in the very bottom of the decal.ini.  and some just never worked out (tried putting "Qatar" title on bottom of C-17,  shot a skewd version of same on the sides as well as clear version on bottom. wound up leaving it off)

 

one other note, your left outer wings seem abit lighter than the inner.  are you using different tga for both parts?

[+Gepard 10,264]

 

one other note, your left outer wings seem abit lighter than the inner.  are you using different tga for both parts?

 

No, it is one decal, which i use for the entire wing. It covers the inner and the outer wing. Dont know, why it looks lighter on the outer wing.

Edited December 11, 2016 by Gepard

[+logan4 845]

Do you also use the standard Insignia.tga decals-s on the meshes or just the camo decal that includes the national insignia itself?

If it is a separate insignia.tga then probably that what lightens up the overlapping section and causes the flickering issue too. Also keep in mind then number of max decals per mesh.

[+Gepard 10,264]

The flickering only appears on MiG-21MF lod and MiG-21bis lod. With MiG-21F, PF and PFM no flickering happens.

The insignia i use are the standard insignias by TK.

 

So it looks when i use the MiG-21F-13. As you see, no flickering on the right wing, but still lighter outer wings camo.

The plane in front (622) shows the standard skin i made as basic for the overlaying decal camo.

 

 

[+Gepard 10,264]

Logan set me on the right path. The insignia caused the lighter outer wings. In a first step i removed the insignias and the outer wing had the same color light as the rest of the wing.

Then i replaced the insignias a little bit, so that it was placed now over inner and outer wing, and the result was satisfying. The outer wing camo was not lighter anymore.

The problem with the flickering is not yet solved. It happend only with the MiG-21MF and bis lods, not on the other versions as you can see here. One MiG-21MF with flickering, one MiG-21PFM without flickering on right wing.

 

 

 

[+Sundowner 4,516]

Is that part of the damage model showing through? If so it's that that's causing the flickering issue.....try commenting it out in the data INI.

Just a thought.