Blade

I also noticed that. AFAIK none of these units flew F-4Es, but they all had Mirage IIIOs...

This method works without the empty decal files. In case of your example, all you need is the appropriately numbered decals for the 3rd, the 5th and the 7th aircraft.

It is also strange to see 'InsigniaLV' decals (the blue-red circles), because the RNBlue skin's decals.ini refers to 'Insignia' decals (blue-white-red circles). Is it possible that you have a decal in your mod folder with a name that overrides the stock RN insignia decal?

Where are you stuck? Creating the decal (a tga file), or putting the appropriate entries into the decals.ini? What you’re trying to do is possible, because I made something similar in the form of the red ’excellence award’ used on Soviet planes and it works.

VMF(AW)-212 in the Rolling Thunder campaign and VMFA-333 in Linebacker I and II.

Like THIS one? THIS ONE is also cool, though it is VF-41.

Glad to read that you managed to solve it.

At least you don't have to worry about the nose fairing issue, because, as far as I can remember, the undernose fairing on the 1st gen Phantoms is not a separate mesh. I also ran into this problem while creating repainted versions of the stock F-4 droptanks.

Now I’m getting puzzled. The entries you posted seem to be OK and I guess that the decal is OK as well (otherwise it wouldn’t appear on the nosecone). If you use these same entries in case of the nosecone, and the decal appears there without any problems, then it must also work in case of the fairing. Do you mean DecalLevel? I already deleted the entries, but all I did was creating a simple green tga, then copied and renumbered one of the fuselage insignia entries in the decals.ini, modified the ‘MeshName=’ and ‘FilenameFormat=’ lines and increased the scale, so I guess the DecalLevel was 0. What is the level you use in case of the nosecone?

Just ran a quick test with the F-4B. I successfully put a decal on the undernose fairing by using 'rwr_nose'. Perhaps you could post the decals.ini here, so that we could take a look at it to see if there is something wrong. Bl.

In case of the 1st gen games, it is called 'vertical_stab_ant'. For SF2 Phantoms, you can use 'rwr_tail'.

Box02

No need to apologize. We’re just trying to help each other here. If it doesn’t work then it doesn’t work. So what? You can’t have it all. Let’s just forget the drooping ailerons. Your F-4N DECM fairing in itself is a huge step bringing us closer to a visually realistic in-game F-4N. So thanks again. Unfortunately I only have the lods from SF2E extracted and safely stored. Though I have earlier versions of the other games as well, I was too lazy to reinstall them just for the sake of the lods. The Abyss? You mean the one from ’89 with Ed Harris? Now that’s a great movie.

I also checked the node names, so that’s not what I’m missing. Indeed, the 1st gen F-4B has ‘drooping_aileron_left/right’ and doesn’t have ‘aileron_left/right’, but in case of the 2nd gen F-4B it’s vice versa. I can’t check the lod anymore (because TK made them inaccessible), but the data.ini calls for ‘aileron_left/right’. If I use ‘drooping_aileron_left/right’ the ailerons don’t droop (suggesting that the 2nd gen F-4B does lack nodes with these names). So I guess the root of the problem lies elsewhere. Otherwise everything you wrote makes sense, I also made the same changes.

OK, I give up. I can create drooping ailerons which droop, but in that case they don’t move (apart from the drooping). Mike, what changes did you make in the data.ini? I added the [LeftAileronDroop] and [RightAileronDroop] components (from the F-4J_Data.ini) and changed their node names (‘aileron_left/right’ instead of ‘drooping_aileron_left/right’). I pasted the following lines (also copied from the F-4J_Data.ini) into the bottom of the [LeftAileron] and [RightAileron] sections: HasFlapDownSetting=TRUE FlapDownMaxDeflection=16.5 FlapDownMinDeflection=-16.5 Where did I go wrong?

You are right, it works. This is also as far as I got when I last tried to mod it. But do they move as ailerons as well? I found that if they droop they don’t move like ailerons. It seems that visually you can have drooping ‘ailerons’ (appearing like ‘flaps’, because they don’t move like ailerons) or have moving ailerons which don’t droop (as in the unmodded F-4B), but not both at the same time (due to the F-4B models lacking the dedicated nodes). My conclusion is that by editing the F-4B_Data.ini, the in-game F-4B can have ‘pseudo drooping ailerons’ which have the same effect as those of the in-game F-4J, but they cannot be simulated visually. At least I couldn’t succeed (though I’m still hoping).

I think the ‘aerodynamic effect’ (if that’s what you refer to) of the drooping ailerons can be simulated by simply copying over the relevant entries from the F-4J_Data.ini, but you won’t see the ailerons droop, because the F-4B model doesn’t support that animation. At least this is the conclusion I came to when I tried to mod a late F-4B/F-4N using the SF2 F-4B_67.

You mean they are not parts of the model? I just checked the 1st gen F-4J.lod and I could find 'drooping_aileron_right' and 'drooping_aileron_left' in it.

Fixing the inboard LEFs is not a problem. IIRC all that needs to be done is deleting the [LeftLEFlapInner2] and [RightLEFlapInner2] entries. The drooping ailerons might be more difficult. The F-4J has different nodes for that (drooping_aileron_right and left), which the F-4B lacks, and that may make a difference.

Finally! After nearly four years of waiting... Thank you!

How's this for Dagger?

I haven’t checked the patched game yet, but the AircraftList.lst included in the F-8E(FN) DLC also contains interesting things. Maybe a glimpse into the (not immediate) future…?