Next up...

[ndicki 22]

This is the follow-on of the MkVb stand-in - from 15th August 1941, the order went out to overpaint the Dark Earth areas with a new grey shade made up on-station from mixing seven parts of Medium Sea Grey to one part Night. The resulting shade was given the official name of Ocean Grey, but had none of the blueish hue of the definitive shade of (unmixed) Ocean Grey introduced in mid-1942. This theoretically darker, blue-free shade was common up until the end of 1942, and predictably varied immensely in its application, ranging from a dark grey similar to Dark Sea Grey to a paler grey virtually indistinuguishable from the original Medium Sea Grey.

 

These aircraft are from No.401 Sqn RAF - originally No.1 Sqn RCAF, which was renumbered in order to avoid confusion. A certain Pilot Officer Don Blakeslee (BL753 'H') may not be unknown to the Americans on the forum. Again, all serial numbers correspond to aircraft in service with 401 during the spring and summer of 1942, and mnay of the individual letters correspond to the serials. Quite a lot of work, actually...

Edited June 4, 2011 by ndicki

[+Stary 2,426]

great! I'd like some weathering on these... like on the last pic close to wing root. Up to you of course

[Wrench 9,626]

now we just need a 3d guy to build a to-scale Volks and/or Abokir filter, and we can have Trops!!

 

wrench

kevin stein

[+streakeagle 866]

The lines of a Spitfire are timeless. Just looking at them from various angles is so pleasing to the eye :)

[ndicki 22]

great! I'd like some weathering on these... like on the last pic close to wing root. Up to you of course

 

There is a fair amount of paint chipping here and there - nothing extreme, because I never seem to get it just right! - but it doesn't show owing to the limitations of the sim. It's the same with the riveting - it doesn't really show up even though it's all there. By contrast, here are a few from CFS3, which can be made very sharp indeed, and which I use for all my "to-print" screenshots as it looks so good. Well, not from the box, it doesn't, but once you sort a few things out, I mean!

 

OK, I know I'm showing off... But the point is that SF simply doesn't render the detail so well, no matter what settings one uses.

[+Stary 2,426]

Nigel, try fiddling with the specular maps, TK made them usable for a reason.

 

And no, no showing off here, just... err... showing work

 

(Yes, I have CFS3 ETO PTO and MAW installs on my drive too... yesterday had a quickie 109G vs. Wellis in MAW )

[ndicki 22]

What specular maps? In SF2? Learning something here - keep talking...

 

I hope you've installed my series of updated Bf109Gs and Ks in CFS3! They do a lot of things the stock ones don't...

 

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/local_links.php?catid=10

 

The British and German stand-alones libraries are largely filled with my efforts... And there are a few American ones, and assorted skins as well.

[+Stary 2,426]

after many requests TK started adding (since First Eagles 2 back in Feb 2010) specular and normalmaps support to the models -in short -specular map sets the "reflectivity" (or glossines) of given part of the texture (black-white, black does not shine, white does) while normalmaps are bumpmaps adding fake 3d to the texture (panel lines, rivets etc, those funny cyan-magenta-blue bitmaps). I'm pretty sure now stock TW Spitfires do support both. Check the Object_XXX.CAT files for those

 

Contact Julhelm, he's the actual expert in modern computer graphics

[ndicki 22]

I'd sort of understood the bump maps in principle, but not the specular layers. I've just spent ALL DAY repairing a corrupt May 11 update... Download the whole series again, etc, etc. I'll take a look. If he's moved on to dds files, it's easy...

Edited June 5, 2011 by ndicki

[ndicki 22]

Well, the Mustang and the Meteor have tga reflective sheets, but I can't for the life of me see where they go...

[+Stary 2,426]

Aircraft folder root..?

[ndicki 22]

The tgas are cockpit specular files - there are jpg files for external specularity, that go in with the main texture files. The Spits don't get them, being AI-only. The Mustang and Meteor do though. Could be useful if I get bored!

[+Brain32 265]

There is a fair amount of paint chipping here and there - nothing extreme, because I never seem to get it just right! - but it doesn't show owing to the limitations of the sim. It's the same with the riveting - it doesn't really show up even though it's all there. By contrast, here are a few from CFS3, which can be made very sharp indeed, and which I use for all my "to-print" screenshots as it looks so good. Well, not from the box, it doesn't, but once you sort a few things out, I mean!

 

OK, I know I'm showing off... But the point is that SF simply doesn't render the detail so well, no matter what settings one uses.

 

I don't really get this "not showing up" thing, very strange.

 

But maaan those are some very nice 109's for CFS

[ndicki 22]

Well, I use pretty well the same techniques for SF as for CFS, although I admit I don't put quite as much detail always into the SF ones as I don't get to see it on my rig at least! Despite having settings on high or unlimited for aircraft. But the problem of chipping is that aluminium is not shiny really - if you pop along to your local warbirds museum and look especially at the propellors of the ones that still fly (they usually keep the rest of the paintwork unrealistically clean, and even use gloss paint in the US - ridiculous...) you'll see what I mean. It's greyish and shines really only when it gets the light. To represent that in CFS is easy - pale to medium greys in the visible layer, and high specularity in the specular layer to make it glint without it being too obvious when the light isn't on it. Without the specular layer, you'd need to use too pale a grey, and that, in my opinion, would just make it look as though it had had a few pigeons sitting on it for a while...

[ndicki 22]

But maaan those are some very nice 109's for CFS

 

Thanks! Here are a few more then. There may be one in particular you'll like to see... I must remember to finish off the skins I've got for Monty's S-99, as well!

 

(I need more space for photos!)

Edited June 7, 2011 by ndicki

[Wrench 9,626]

those are GREAT skins Nigel!!

 

Now, we just need a better ww2 Euro map for them to play on!

[+Stary 2,426]

Now, we just need a better ww2 Euro map for them to play on!

do you know any terrain builder Kevin?

 

To my understanding rebuilding old EAW WW2 terrain is not an option given the Mount Everest amount of issues with it..?

 

Great skins indeed!

[+Brain32 265]

Thanks! Here are a few more then. There may be one in particular you'll like to see...

 

15.jg 52, nice

[ndicki 22]

15.jg 52, nice

 

What, like this one? The one above is NOT a Luftwaffe machine, but a Croatian National Air Force one. This one below is from 15./JG 52. Enjoy, as the Yanks would say!

[+Julhelm 266]

External spec maps go into skin folder and cockpit spec and normalmaps go into the cockpit folder.