Marineflieger-Albatros from MFJ 1

[Olham 164]

Hasse Wind, here is a book from AMAZON Germany - still 65,- Euro; not cheap.

 

http://www.amazon.de...l/dp/381320541X

 

And a website of the Seeflieger (interesting the craft list from 1914):

 

http://www.seeflieger.de/geschichte/geschichte6.php

 

 

Edited August 29, 2009 by Olham

[Hasse Wind 46]

Hasse Wind, here is a book from AMAZON Germany - still 65,- Euro; not cheap.

 

http://www.amazon.de...l/dp/381320541X

 

And a website of the Seeflieger (interesting the craft list from 1914):

 

http://www.seefliege...geschichte6.php

 

 

 

Thanks for the info, Olham - it seems that Marinekorps Flandern is such an expensive subject that all books written about it cost an awful amount of money.

 

That website is really interesting, I had no idea the Imperial Naval Air Service was such a massive organisation at the end of the war. Strange that so little has been written about them. The more I read about WW1, the more I'm surprised how little many of its topics have been studied. It's very unfortunate the sacrifices and efforts of all those people are almost forgotten today.

[Wildfowler 0]

Naval flying in WW1 really interests me.

 

The only WW1 sim before to tackle it is FS WW1 which included seaplanes and even early carrier operations. There is also the chance to fly a seap[lane from a battleship by being winched down to the water and then you have to taxi back under the winch to be taken out after the mission is over!

[Olham 164]

I'm still trying to get the German Marinekorps hex camo colours better.

I have checked Dan San Abbott's fabric samble photo again, and took up the colour info

of several more pixels; so I came to a different value. Of course you can come up with

lots of varieties, but it is interestingly darker in it's appearance; maybe more like on

some b&w pics?

I attach it here - feel free to judge about it.

 

 

 

[Hauksbee 103]

I did Photoshop auto-adjust.....but one ends up still with guesswork...

I would suspect that even if somebody handed you an original piece of fabric, you'd find it sun-faded, or otherwise degraded with age. Do you know if standard colors of paint were issued, or did each factory mix their own?

[Olham 164]

The Germans like to standardise everything, but I don't know for WW1 colours.

In WW2, there where the RLM Colours (Reichsluftfahrtministerium); behind that

the gigantic industrial enterprise IG Farben.

Their camo colours where named RLM 75 for example, and they seem to be identical

with the nowadays RAL colours - the same tone has the name RAL 7500 there.

Notice the 75 in it's new name.

What I'll do next now, is compare the Munsell Naval Colour Chart with a RAL Chart.

I would not be surprised, if I could find the same tones in there still.

[RAF_Louvert 101]

Olham, I don't think we will ever know exactly what those colors were, but I applaud your efforts Sir. I spent a bit of time this morning working with stumpjumper's Alb W.4 model and have the following put together so far.

 

 

 

I used the hex pattern with the 5 degree tip as noted in the Aerodrome posts and tried to get as close as possible to the colors that seem to have the consesus.

 

I still have some playing to do with this but it's not too bad at this point.

 

Cheers!

 

Lou

[Olham 164]

So the Alb is already delivered? Must check my E-mail then!

 

I find your colours too "pastel" (? - bright and soft), Lou. Perhaps more contrast and darkness?

But you're right - we'll probably never know.

Thanks for the "5 degrees" reminder - I had forgotten. Must change it all over again.

[RAF_Louvert 101]

You may well be right Sir. I was using this example as a guide:

 

 

 

The swatch in the middle of the pattern is an original piece of the printed fabric used by the German Naval air service.

 

Cheers!

 

Lou

[Olham 164]

Is that the same piece of fabric I worked after, from a photo of Dan San Abbott?

I use it since I started this. But I thought, it might be very faded, cause, as far as I remember,

it was never varnished? Do you know more?

So I adjusted it with "brightness/contrast" in Photoshop, and got it a little more saturated.

 

But it's still guesswork - I zoomed in so close, I could take a colour sample from a single pixel.

But which one is the right one?

 

This patch you show here looks pretty good indeed. Only on the Alb in the sim, it appears

brighter. Perhaps, if you add darkness and contrast a bit, it will look more "right" on the model?

[RAF_Louvert 101]

Olham, I agree with you that the hues look a bit washed out on my project, so I went in and cranked up the hue intensity and the contrast a bit on the camo layers. I think it is going in the right direction.

 

 

 

Cheers!

 

Lou

[Olham 164]

Definitely, Lou! And thanks again for the "5 degree" tip - will go at it again now.

[RAF_Louvert 101]

TKS Olham, I'm going to keep tweaking. And glad I could be of help on your project. BTW, I increased the size of the file to 1026 x 1026 pixels just like the majority of the planes use for their texture files. Much easier to work in the larger size. I also grabbed some higher quality parts from the default Alb DIII texture file as well. Good luck Olham.

 

Cheers!

 

Lou

[stumpjumper 3]

So the Alb is already delivered? Must check my E-mail then!

 

I find your colours too "pastel" (? - bright and soft), Lou. Perhaps more contrast and darkness?

But you're right - we'll probably never know.

Thanks for the "5 degrees" reminder - I had forgotten. Must change it all over again.

 

 

OLHAM CHECK YOUR PMS I BELIVE I SENT THE W4 TO YOU THERE IF NOT LET ME KNWO ILL MAKE SURE ITS EMAILED TO YOU

[stumpjumper 3]

thats looking great iknow its only ai, but may find a use for it inmission building or everybody, if we get a couple of skins from differnt folks and have some info to go witht hem what seafrosta etc,etc i can then relse them as standalones,

[Olham 164]

Here's my latest tweaking on the fabric sample colours. A pity I couldn't get the skin

further, but got one call after the other; grmbl!

 

Thelower left pic is after auto-correction; the bit top right is then darkened and contrasted.

 

Stump, I sent you my E-mail addy, but didn't receive a mail or PM yet.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 30, 2009 by Olham

[stumpjumper 3]

onits way olham

[Olham 164]

Okay, thank you, Stump.

I wont find any time for it the next days - have to help a friend renovating his house.

So on the weekend then, I'll see what I can do.

[RAF_Louvert 101]

I had a couple more hours this afternoon to do some additional work on the Alb W.4. I have the cabane strut fittings on the fuselage resized and relocated so they line up, and I reworked the area around the engine and cockpit as well. I also brightened the colors of the hex pattern a bit more and spent some time trying to get the top camo strips on the fuselage to align, (which they do not the way I want them to, yet). Here is the project so far.

 

 

 

 

 

Olham, if you would like my file for this I'd be happy to share it. It would save you a fair amount of work rebuilding the fuselage and other sundry parts, and allow you more time to devote to your camo layers and markings.

 

Cheers!

 

Lou

[Olham 164]

Oh, yes, very kind of you, Lou. Can you send it as PM?

I may only really check it wednesday or even later, cause I will help a friend

renovating his house, 20 kilometers off Berlin. But I'd like to work on it on the

weekend.

[stumpjumper 3]

guys looking great thats why i wanted you all to have a crack at her a real community project

[RAF_Louvert 101]

Glad you like it stumpjumper, thanks for providing us with the model in the first place. Olham, I am including a link in this post to the bpm file of the basic Alb W4 so that you and anyone else who wants to try their hand at painting this bird can do so with a lot less initial prep. I reworked the flying surfaces so they now offer a uniform color to lay your camo layers onto. Then I fitted and adjusted a high quality generic fuselage so that things line up better around the cockpit, engine, cabane struts, and wing fairings. And I lowered the upper-most seam along the rear of the fuselage so that it aligns with the contour of the 3-D model stumpjumper created, which gives you an accurate guide as to where to stop the camo on the top of the body. I also increased the file size to 1024 x 1024 pixels to make it easier to see what you are doing, (this is the size most of the OFF plane texture files are anyway). Here is the link to the file, click it and allow it to display, then right-click and save it.

Albatros W.4 bmp Paint File

 

A few other pointers on this plane. It does not have left and right sides to the fuselage or separate tops and bottoms to the wings and elevator, so you will have to work around the mirror issues. Also, the finish and color of the floats and rear float supports are not adjustable as these are generic plane parts located elsewhere in the game files. I think that's about it. Have fun.

 

Cheers!

 

Lou

[Olham 164]

Looks quite different to the BHaH skin layouts. You may have had some work to get it right?

Thank you, Lou.

As I said, I'm renovating with a friend this week, so I may only find enough time on the weekend.

Maybe even out mostly, when you post new pics for the contest. But that friend deserves help;

he helped me a lot too.

Maybe, late today, I can post screens of my Marineflieger-Albatros. I have come to some good

colour compromise between Dan San's photo, and his Naval Hex Colour Guide at the Aerodrome.

I think, she will look good.

Edited August 31, 2009 by Olham

[Olham 164]

After checking Dan San Abbott's Naval Hex Camo studies at the Aerodrome again, I tried using his colour sketch.

It assumed, the colours where shown as dark as the fabric would look from close on view. As the colours appear

brighter, the further you walk away from them, and our sim models are usually seen as if from a distance of 20 -

60 feet, I brightened them carefully, until it seemed to look right.

Here is what I got.

This time, I gave the rudder and wings a canvas appearance, while the laquer colours on the fuselage

remained semiglossy. Seeing the craft over the mud, the colours are indeed a good camouflage.

What do you think?

 

 

[RAF_Louvert 101]

Looks very good Olham, nice effect and it does blend well into the background. But I thought you were doing camo for the seaplanes?

 

Cheers!

 

Lou