Decals positioning !

[Lacsap 66]

Hello everyone

Please, need a little help, i can't find the right coordinates for the positioning of decals on the canopy F-51D from FastCargo.

Thank you in advance for your reply.

[+daddyairplanes 10,061]

presuming the kill markings are decals, work your way backwars from there

however, are you putting int the correct mesh name? that is even more common for a side decal not to show than coordinates being off

[+Soulfreak 6,498]

You should use Mue´s lodviewer.

if you go with the mouse on the point, it shows you on bottom of the program the mesh name & coordinates! 

See the red marked parts of the pic.

 

Edited August 14 by Soulfreak

[Wrench 9,768]

Yes, get the lod viewer!!! It's a mind saver! Once you start, you'll never stop using it. #1 tool for texture artists.

Canopy_Frame  is the mesh name

also, remember that 'crew names' are Level=2 decals, linked to the serial or plane-in-squadron number/letter

[Lacsap 66]

Thank you all very much for your answers. I'll try Mue´s lodviewer !!! :)

[PeacePuma 562]

it's a good time to remember the heroic jobs that were done without Mue's LOD viewer... a real challenge to the mind, calculate the coordinates, scales, discover the blessed meshes, annotate on paper, edit the file and start the game again and again just to say.... D'oh !

[Wrench 9,768]

I was the king of that, for a long time!!!

[PeacePuma 562]

Once I increased so much the scale of a zero that the eye (counter) was in the center of the mesh, it was at least 2 hours that I did not understand where the decal was, I had not understood that it was giant and it was around... the search for perfection took quite a long time, in which many times I fell asleep waiting to start the game and overcome that 45% load to only see that the serial number was finally well placed...   Mue's tools have been a relief to that hard process... when they invent the Combatace awards, I'll give my vote to give you a well deserved trophy!

 

Edited August 14 by PeacePuma

[+daddyairplanes 10,061]

i mean i've made some big decals, and scaled some up pretty big. but damn......

personally (myself and helping others) i find small errors are what zonk decals most often. calling for a mesh duselage rather than fuselage. forgeting to swap the minus sign when doing wings. having two entrys for say Decal007 (i often have one style "tailNum" then an alternate "bossTail" in the exact same spot using the same size tga)

[amariani 4,788]

Try these:  y:-1.06515  z: 0.404102.

Keep in mind that for the side views you only need y and z coordinates. Also, usually, just 2 decimals are enough for most applications. AND remember to use the proper mesh name, in this case, "Canopy_Frame".

[ValAstur 1,292]

On 14.8.2024 at 8:36 PM, PeacePuma said:

it's a good time to remember the heroic jobs that were done without Mue's LOD viewer... a real challenge to the mind, calculate the coordinates, scales, discover the blessed meshes, annotate on paper, edit the file and start the game again and again just to say.... D'oh !

 

On 15.8.2024 at 12:25 AM, Wrench said:

I was the king of that, for a long time!!!

I also did most of skins with paint and check ingame. Man! That was a time-consuming thing back then! And even with the Lodviewer existing, I kept doing that for a while. It was @Stratos who told me to use the LODviewer for improving my skinning skills and time.

[+daddyairplanes 10,061]

6 hours ago, ValAstur said:

I also did most of skins with paint and check ingame. Man! That was a time-consuming thing back then!

i know that pain. imagine doing this

but starting from this, with very little reference points

[+EricJ 4,184]

41 minutes ago, daddyairplanes said:

i know that pain. imagine doing this

 

but starting from this, with very little reference points

 

That's why I like FastCargo's work when making a template, when able with any template, but I feel you when you start out trying to figure it all out when you don't have a template. That's why I always search for one for a project.

[+daddyairplanes 10,061]

FastCargo, ravenclaw_007, Sundowner, Dels and yakarov79 all do excellent templates, stuff that has fairly clearly defined layers and you can tell what parts were what. others have made good ones too but those cats' temps are typically the least problematic to work with. even when you go to add your own new details, its minor tweaks rather than reinventing the wheel

i did alot of skin and template work for veltro2k, typically doing alot of stuff from scratch. but he always got me started with a texture that had different color on each of the major parts groupings  so you had an idea of what you were looking at. was trippy to look at the start of any project with him tho

the KC-10 posted above was from Marcfighters and originally in the SF1 ODS mod, in the grey that you see. 

i did it before lodviewer, slapping my own colors on area to see where it popped up in game. iirc, the lodviewer came out right about the time i got the bright idea to serialize airline markings, making a whole airport ramp out of one skin. not sure i would have done as many airliners as i have without it

 

[+EricJ 4,184]

I'm not too much of a fan of the F-16 template, but it is what it is, and otherwise a decent template. I know back in the day Eagle Dynamics made good templates (the Black Shark one was just too much for the bird IMHO) and if I still played DCS, I would probably generate some more skins, but I just don't have the room on my laptop for it, so there's that. Some companies like 3W don't make good mapping so even with a decent template you're still running into issues with it, which for the Tomcat I preferred the TMF birds given that the mapping and templates were good for skinning. Anyway, I limit decals for the USN bird Modex numbers and that's about it. SidDogg did some good work with decals for the Super Bug, but overall I stay away from decals unless I have no real choice.

[+yakarov79 10,905]

yup. I happen to believe that it is better for the game to load 3-4 skin sheets + 2-3 decals (serial, modex, or tactical num)... rather than the same 3-4 skin sheets plus lot of decals like serials, squadron badges, national insignia, air force names, etc. 

Of course, as long as it is possible. If you are going into CAGs or nosearts it starts to get bumpy...or "camouflaged decals" for two birds in the whole squadron - this one sucks - but it is fun.

[+daddyairplanes 10,061]

2 hours ago, yakarov79 said:

yup. I happen to believe that it is better for the game to load 3-4 skin sheets + 2-3 decals (serial, modex, or tactical num)... rather than the same 3-4 skin sheets plus lot of decals like serials, squadron badges, national insignia, air force names, etc.

meanwhile in North Carolina...

[+EricJ 4,184]

3 hours ago, yakarov79 said:

yup. I happen to believe that it is better for the game to load 3-4 skin sheets + 2-3 decals (serial, modex, or tactical num)... rather than the same 3-4 skin sheets plus lot of decals like serials, squadron badges, national insignia, air force names, etc. 

Of course, as long as it is possible. If you are going into CAGs or nosearts it starts to get bumpy...or "camouflaged decals" for two birds in the whole squadron - this one sucks - but it is fun.

I'm sure with the game engine that causes issues that I'm not aware of, but I guess that sucks up the VRAM pretty well, and a lot of a/c flying will choke some computers. Anyway yeah I feel you though.I mean SidDogg did a good job with the decals, but again they look kinda plasticky and not good in my opinion, with the exception of tactical numbers, which more or less when done right, look good on the skin.

[+daddyairplanes 10,061]

43 minutes ago, EricJ said:

.I mean SidDogg did a good job with the decals,

anybody heard from him or did he completely drop off the planet?

[+EricJ 4,184]

Just now, daddyairplanes said:

anybody heard from him or did he completely drop off the planet?

I think he dropped off the planet. Don't know why as I didn't talk to him other him PMing me asking if he could make skins, and I told him sure of course. Other than that never talked to him, and he hasn't been here yet.