Screen Shots, Videos, Media, OFF Posters

[Olham 164]

Another skin I'm just working on: an Albatros D.Va from Jasta 50, Marchais, April 1918. Still needs some work tough.

 

 

Edited May 19, 2011 by Olham

[+elephant 36]

Very interesting skin there, Olham

I've been experimenting a bit, myself on Albatros skins, tweaking the default ones mostly, as I want them to blend with the already existing ones...but I find their lozenge render, rather weak comparing to yours...(it may be a bit too bright for my taste, but definitely a vast improvement over the default one).

Anyway, here are a couple of shots from my latest Jasta 23b Career...(third in a row)!

 

 

 

Edited May 25, 2011 by elephant

[Olham 164]

Thank you very much, elephant!

I like that Jasta 23 hallmark tailplane painting very much, and I will add another pilot to my roster, with Jasta 23b, Aniche, March 1918.

If I get his skin ready, I will send you a generic skin of it, with no emblems.

[Olham 164]

Jasta 2 was sent out to fly a patrol, but then instead...

 

My last sortie I had fortunately recorded with FRAPS, cause it was surprising.

We were supposed to fly a patrol south of Lens.

Instead, we sighted Flak puffs short after takeoff.

The video shows quite well a situation of surprise at rather low altitude.

Without any Labels, TAC or other help, it is quite difficult to find out, what is going on around you;

which of the specs are EA, and which are your friends, and all that; plus constantly checking 6.

You could easily get dizzy.

That's what this video demonstrates pretty well IMHO. Enjoy!

 

Oh, and make sure to watch it in the highest possible resolution - you can choose that below the YouTube screen.

 

[TaillyHo 2]

Good show, Olham. Very nice to be able to see you in action. I'm impressed you can so readily identify your individual wingmen at a glance - do they all have individualised skins too?

[+elephant 36]

The one he named was a known ace, with individual skin in game anyway...

But he was indeed pretty far away...

I wish we could assign our flight's squadmates personal skins as well, though...

[+elephant 36]

Is there a trick to record with fraps, 'cause anytime I try to do so, my game turns to a slide show, (from 40 fps drops to 10), even with fraps set to record at half the resolution...

I remember Hellshade told me once to disable anti aliasing, but I never really tried it.

[Olham 164]

I'm impressed you can so readily identify your individual wingmen at a glance - do they all have individualised skins too?

Well, TaillyHo, I'm not the "hawkeye" really. The "trick" was, that during the whole fighting, I had crossed my path with

Gerhard Bassenge's several times (his hallmark is a black fuselage with white bands around it aft of the cockpit).

After the cutting, you don't see it so clearly, but I knew, that he had flown in opposite direction and was behind me,

and higher. But to be honest, the guy who shot up the Tripe might have been his wingman. But when he passed over

my craft after the kill, I thought I saw that black-white fuselage. I used Bassenge's name as a narrative addition to the

story, cause I thought, some here would know him as a Jasta 2 ace.

 

My fighting here was not at all elegant. We were still climbing, while the Triplanes as the attackers were higher, and

they made good use of their energy, by flying almost boom and zoom. So I could never really reach any, they were

always faster. That's why I wasted a lot of ammo in long distance shots. I wanted to keep them away from my friends

and to damage them at least, to make them easier prey for the others.

 

elephant, I had the same problem with my previous system. Running the sim, plus TrackIR, plus FRAPS is quite a lot

to calculate for the CPU. I cannot say, if it would help to drop Anti-Aliasing - worth a try. You must check then, if it is

set up in OFF Graphics Config (where it never worked for me) or in your GPU's control manager.

Best is to switch off everywhere. You won't see that in the video.

Edited June 1, 2011 by Olham

[TaillyHo 2]

Well, TaillyHo, I'm not the "hawkeye" really. The "trick" was, that during the whole fighting, I had crossed my path with

Gerhard Bassenge's several times (his hallmark is a black fuselage with white bands around it aft of the cockpit).

After the cutting, you don't see it so clearly, but I knew, that he had flown in opposite direction and was behind me,

and higher. But to be honest, the guy who shot up the Tripe might have been his wingman. But when he passed over

my craft after the kill, I thought I saw that black-white fuselage. I used Bassenge's name as a narrative addition to the

story, cause I thought, some here would know him as a Jasta 2 ace.

 

My fighting here was not at all elegant. We were still climbing, while the Triplanes as the attackers were higher, and

they made good use of their energy, by flying almost boom and zoom. So I could never really reach any, they were

always faster. That's why I wasted a lot of ammo in long distance shots. I wanted to keep them away from my friends

and to damage them at least, to make them easier prey for the others.

 

 

Ah well that explains quite a lot. I could see you were climbing steeply at times and struggling to maintain your aim (but it's hard to get a sense of elevation and attitude from a video). I also initially was surprised you were firing from such an apparent distance, but then I re-watched on full-screen and it didn't seem so far. And I was surprised the Tripes didn't turn you inside out - as you say they were very 'boom and zoom' in their approach - which maybe because they had the height advantage (?)

Do you have your guns on 'normal' or 'less accurate'?

 

Thanks again for posting your vid!

[Olham 164]

Main guns are on "normal".

After installing OFF on my new rig, I still need to reinstall Creaghorn+elephant tracers; the default ones are

too bright and too large. Yes, I was mostly climbing after the Tripes, which makes aiming hard, cause I often

was close to stalling, and the good Albatros went shaky there.

I will soon post another video with a more elegant fighting style.

 

The Tripes being turnfighters, did not make very much of their strengths.

But so are most all AI aircraft yet. The Albatros I see getting shot up in others' videos are rarely performing

their real strength: energy fighting. In RL, they would zoom&boom like hell and give even the good turn fighters

a difficult time that way. At least the veteran pilots would. Also, they fought like a wolfpack - in the later war months,

they could only hold their own by working extremely well together.

 

I hope very much, that the devs (mostly RexHannover, I think) will be able to improve that for P4.

[Olham 164]

What a commotion! If you don't have time - don't fly in 1918. You just won't be able to warp!

Testflying my new Jasta 37 skin, I had to fight Camels (hordes of!), and in the second sortie

we had to save two Pfalz D.IIIa from several SPAD XIII and 2 Bristol Fighters.

On the way back to our home field we saw Flak puffs everywhere.

Well, it's April, and "Operation Michael" is fully underway. This pilot won't get old, I'm afraid.

 

 

[themightysrc 5]

Hi Olham,

 

I'm not surprised you ran out of ammunition! I'm astounded that you started firing at the ranges that you did in that Youtube vid. I prefer to be able to count the hairs on my opponent's neck before I pull the trigger! Still, two down - can't argue with that!

 

Cheers,

Si

[Olham 164]

Mighty, I don't normally fight like that either.

But here, we were still in our climbing rounds, when the attack came, and the Triplanes

had the altitude advantage. They used it like energy fighters, and I could hardly ever get

at them. But I saw my friends being in constant threat, and so I fired at very long ranges,

to drive the Tripehounds off my friends.

We were totally surprised, and I am flying that pilot without any help like Labels or TAC.

So most of the time, I did not know what was going on around me.

Edited June 2, 2011 by Olham

[Olham 164]

I uploaded another video. Not because of the victories - we all know, that the AI is easier to shoot down

than a real human pilot. No, but I had forced one Camel down intact. I landed near it, and that's what I

like about this recording. The music is the Violin Concerto in D minor by Sergej Katchaturyan. Enjoy!

 

PS: I don't know what YouTube did to it - there are some nasty "colour-cracks" - sorry about that!

 

Edited June 2, 2011 by Olham

[themightysrc 5]

Here's one I found on YouTube from our own Mike Dixon. I don't know if it's already been posted, but I think that this is astounding.

 

 

Mike - I hope you don't mind me linking it from here: I was genuinely very impressed with the filming and effects.

 

Cheers,

Si

[Olham 164]

Oh yeah, that is masterly, how he made it. Jammer and MikeDixon have made story-type videos;

very good stuff!

[Olham 164]

Jasta 2, Proville, 26. Juni 1917

Leutnant Harms

 

After lunch, we had to patrol over Phalempin, where we ran into two flights of Sopwith Pup

from No. 46 RFC. Like usual, they spread out and were all over the sky, but our Albatros

are faster, and our wolfpack tactics are showing effect. Two of them went down today, the

rest got quite beaten up. Kemper and Dirks, our greenhorns, received some minor damage.

Now they are battle-baptised, and after the first shock, they feel like veterans now already.

Well, time will tell...

 

 

 

 

[Macklroy 2]

The "Storks" tally another

 

[Olham 164]

Hey, that is a very nice shot, Mack! Good to see you back in action!

[TaillyHo 2]

Great shot, Macklroy - never seen N.11s look so BIG!

[DukeIronHand 8]

My first modified skin. Quite rough and nothing fancy. Still working on minor details but this basically will be it.

Original skin by OBD/OvS, then a (major) modification by Alb skinner extraordinaire Olham as a favor to me. Minor modification by myself.

Using Paint.net (without reading instructions of course) and just experimenting I cleaned up the white tail and iron crosses, added a red stripe before the tail, the red to the upper wing, removal of numbers, etc.

The wheels need recolor as do the upper wing stripes that did not come out quite the color I wanted.

The major point of this post is to thank Olham and RAF_Louvert for the ideas, inspiration, motivation, and the Paint.net program.

 

Anyway a salute to the skinners! What a time investment skinning is and this is hardly a major re-do nor work of art! I would assume as I learn the program it will be much faster.

 

Edit: Forgot the other point of the post. If a graphics noob such as myself can work with skins, rough though it is, anyone can! Give it a try!

Edited June 6, 2011 by DukeIronHand

[Olham 164]

Ah, good to see you actually did your first steps on the way to become a bulletproof skinner, Duke - great to see!

It takes some time to find out tricks how to get there more easily, but it is easy time compared to modelling.

 

I don't know Paint.net - can you work with layers there?

Cause working with layers makes it much easier, as you can always keep the basic ones, you can duplicate

layers and cut or work on the duplicate, without loosing the other.

If you cannot do that, it will always be a good idea to save many steps as numbers 3, 4,5 ... 12, 13 etc.

Later, when you're sure you got what you wanted, you can delete all others and save it under the final name.

[carrick58 23]

Duke U did allright. I am still picking around with paint net trying to figure out how it works. Congrats

[DukeIronHand 8]

I have a fairly good handle on layers (fairly!) but am, of course, still learning.

 

About halfway through I figured out layers and used them a lot. The red stripes on the upper wind, for example, were recolored with a layer.

 

One thing that would speed me up mightily would be the ability to connect two points together in a multiple straight lines. Using the lasso or free form tool I had to "redo" a lot because of a minor drawing errors since you can't, I think, modify the selected shape once you draw it.

 

But anyways thank you both. And thanks to BulletHead who explained layers to me in another thread.

 

Yes carrick58 I am still picking through it too, perhaps if I read the manual(!) things would be smoother. But its pretty intuitive - at least for the basic stuff.

Edited June 7, 2011 by DukeIronHand

[Olham 164]

For going one step back with Lasso tool in Photoshop, I have to press the "back" key.

Perhaps it works there too?

If you want a part in a bright colour, you could copy the area and insert it into a new file.

Then you turn it into "greyscale" and work on it's brightness and contrast.

After that, you make it an RGB file again, and now you can work out it's colour.

Later you copy it back into the other, position it correct, and cut it free.