Wrench

Just to let everyone know, I'm going to start releaseing what aircraft that are finished this week. Been working on them for the last 12 days, and haven't even gone back to the map yet... So, you'll be getting "new toys", but unfortunatly without the "playground" to use them on for while yet. So, collect the birds, and be ready for the terrain. Wrench kevin stein

NICE!!! another target!!! Wrench kevin stein

Easy!!! For my WW2 planes, on each of the templates, there's a layer at the VERY top, or the first one. I call mine "dirt, mud, crud and various crap". That way, it gets on top of everything. For the actual color, it's either the "light warm brown" that comes with Photoshop, or "RAF Mid Stone"; both are nice light browns. What I do, is knowing the locations on the skin bmp (or the part of the template) that is near the landing gear/wing root, tail gear -if used like on a Mustang, Zeke, Tomahawk, etc- paint in the "splashes" of dirt or where it would accumulate. I use fairly large, not round brush (in photoshop, they're the "soft round" with the fuzzy edges) of anywhere from 21 - 200 pixels in size, and use a pressure of 50% and just dab it around the effected area. Mind you, this is very much like adding it to a plastic model, with a light airbrush spray (did that for years, but was it was a looooong time ago) Then, I adust the opacity of THAT layer, so it looks like how I want it. As you can see in the screenie, about 50%. I've tried to point out the various part that I've oversprayed, to give you a feel for how it looks. (looks like I also missed the area in front of the radiator scoop, too!! better fix that!) Now, for 'chipped paint', like where things have bounced up and hit, or where the pilot and ground crew have been opening panels, or climbing up the fueselage and dragging their feet, is pretty much the same, but I do THAT on a seperate layer, called "chipping, scuffing and wear". I use a smaller brush, still the soft round, anywhere from 3 - 21 pixels, and lightly dab around cowling panels, gun bays, etc. For the scuffing, I lighten the pressure -somewhere from 10-20% and put that near the cockpit and wing roots where you'd normally expect things to be dragged along. Again, adjust the layer's opacity to taste. For the color, I use either 10% or 15% gray. Exhaust, gun and fuel stains get their own layers and pretty much follow the same pattern Then, to 'dull' everything down, as to make it look more faded by the sun, I usually have ANOTHER layer, below all the panel and rivet lines, but ABOVE the actual skin paint job, called "Fading". I use 25% gray, and usually set the opacity anywhere from 5 - 10%. It all depends on the background color. Navy planes in their blues will be slightly different from land-based aircraft in their camo pattersn. Also, I don't use a fading layer for Natural Metal, as you can adjust how they look via the Specular, Glossiness and Reflectivity in their textureset inis. There's some SUPERB tutorial over at simmerspaintshop.com -- they're more than worth the reading. Those, and multiple experiments until you get it the way you want is the way to go! Wrench kevin stein

Now, THAT'S what I'm talking about!!! I tried to add the some of the "Nazca lines" shapes to the ASW tiles, but the 'spider' looked terrible, so I didn't use them Wrench kevin stein

Yes, that's what I meant. Sorry, I should have been more clear. Apologies!!! Wrench kevin stein

Proper multi-MFD pits for Indian Fishbeds would be superb! And the Bison ... and the Lancer..... and....and.... Any help to improve them is MORE than welcome!! It'll make Ghostrider883 VERY happy! as to the model, its STILL just the plane ole' 3rdWire 21MF lod, so I'm sure it probably needs some "tweeking" Santos, feel free to do what you like ... those readmes with the "ask permission" were from LOOOOOONNNG before the "Freeware Accords Treaty", so jump on it baby!!! No permission from is needed; just spell my right Wrench kevin stein

Excellent!!! And, folks, PLEASE don't laugh too much at my craptastic Vindicator stand-ing Wrench kevin stein

Them's some mighty fine MiGs you got there son. Congrats to you AND TMF for giving us such a beautiful model!!! Now, to replace the old ones... Wrench kevin stein

I added there a couple of hours ago. "Great Minds Think Alike" -- the info, although right off the top of my head, btw -- was just too good to loose!! I actually need to re-edit it, as I made a misatke in the "assumed known length" statement. If something is -9.50 (AFT of the center point - the 0,0,0 coordinate), it's possible the aircraft is 18 meters long, if given equal distance from the world-center of the model. That may depend if the model's world-center is at the same spatial point as the aircraft center of gravity, which may not always be the case. Wrench kevin stein

Yes, Chuck, DO tell us! Ale: Sequoia could be easily added, you just spend an hour or two planting trees tightly placed together on whatever tile you want to 'represent' such a region. You can even make "interesting" shapes with them, too.... Wrench kevin stein

Why not upload this to the downloads section (does that make sense???) Maybe to the "Add on cockpits section"??? Otherwise, this mod will probably get lost in the shuffle. I'd reccomend it!! Wrench kevin stein

There was a question on the boards, as to exactly WHAT all these line mean in the decals.ini. I hope this little description helps. In the decals ini, you'll see a listing such as below, taken from the stock F-4E Phantom II: MeshName= the part of the aircraft lod (or 3d mesh) you want the decal to appear on. ie: LeftWing, InnerWing, fuselage, nose, verttail, etc. As defined (if included) in the OUT file. NOTE: not all aircraft & model builders use the same naming conventions for their mesh names!!! Without the OUT file, you'll need to use a hex editor to search for the "usual suspects", looking for mesh names as defined in the aircraft's data ini. DecalLevel= at what "level" a marking will appear Level=0: national markings, appears ALL the time Level=1: individual squadron marking, only for THAT particular unit/squadron Level=2: individual aircaft serial/modex/ID numbers. Also for individual nose arts, etc Level=3: killmarkings DecalFacing= which direction the "top" of the decal points. IE: right, left, top, bottom (ie: USAF star on TOP of left wing, "NationName" (USAF) on BOTTOM of left wing) Rotation= number of degrees off center or 0; Example used to angle national marking to fit wing sweep, etc. Uses both positive and negative numbers. NOTE: the positive numbers do NOT require the plus (+) sign. Only negative uses the minus (-) sign. Scale= Physical size of the decal with respect to the size of the aircraft. Larger aircraft like bombers will most likely use a larger scale, smaller aircraft like fighters a smaller scale. NOTE: there is no set ruling as to units of measurement that I've ever discovered. For locating purposes, I always start with a 1.0 or 1.5 size, base on a 128x128 pixel decal, and adjust up or down accordingly. MaxDecalLod= how "far off" in distance the decal will be visible, usually linked to multi-lod aircraft models. The average seems to be MaxDecalLod=3 There's TK's decals turorial over in the downloads section, look in the Utilities & Tools Thread. It's several years old, but the basics are all the same. Reccomened reading! http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?autoc...mp;showfile=345 Be advised, it says "don't go over 4 decals per mesh". I've found that 3 is the max number that is usable before the LOD becomes transparent (ie: the aircraft disappears) Locating the exact coordinates is a matter of trial and error, and educated guesswork. For wings, I use the location of the wingtip ID lights, and come "in" approx 1 meter. Fuselage/Nose I use the location of the pilot. After that, it's just a matter of even MORE trial and error dailing in the exact location. Meaning, given a know lenght of an aircraft; say for example, 10 meters, the tail light is at -9.50 meters aft, you'd place the fuselage national insigina at approx -7.5 or -8.0, and see where it shows up. Wrench kevin stein

That is SOME detailed pilot figure!!! Look real good in an FAA Skyhawk or Nesher!! Wrench kevin stein

MeshName= the part of the aircraft lod (or 3d mesh) you want the decal to appear on. ie: LeftWing, InnerWing, fuselage, nose, verttail, etc. As defined (if included) in the OUT file. NOTE: not all aircraft & model builders use the same naming conventions for their mesh names!!! Without the OUT file, you'll need to use a hex editor to search for the "usual suspects", looking for mesh names as defined in the aircraft's data ini. DecalLevel= at what "level" a marking will appear Level=0: national markings, appears ALL the time Level=1: individual squadron marking, only for THAT particular unit/squadron Level=2: individual aircaft serial/modex/ID numbers. Also for individual nose arts, etc Level=3: killmarkings DecalFacing= which direction the "top" of the decal points. IE: right, left, top, bottom (ie: USAF star on TOP of left wing, "NationName" (USAF) on BOTTOM of left wing) Rotation= number of degrees off center or 0; Example used to angle national marking to fit wing sweep, etc. Uses both positive and negative numbers. NOTE: the positive numbers do NOT require the plus (+) sign. Only negative uses the minus (-) sign. Scale= Physical size of the decal with respect to the size of the aircraft. Larger aircraft like bombers will most likely use a larger scale, smaller aircraft like fighters a smaller scale. NOTE: there is no set ruling as to units of measurement that I've ever discovered. For locating purposes, I always start with a 1.0 or 1.5 size, base on a 128x128 pixel decal, and adjust up or down accordingly. MaxDecalLod= how "far off" in distance the decal will be visible, usually linked to multi-lod aircraft models. The average seems to be MaxDecalLod=3 There's TK's decals turorial over in the downloads section, look in the Utilities & Tools Thread. It's several years old, but the basics are all the same. Reccomened reading! Be advised, it says "don't go over 4 decals per mesh". I've found that 3 is the max number that is usable before the LOD becomes transparent (ie: the aircraft disappears) Locating the exact coordinates is a matter of trial and error, and educated guesswork. For wings I use the location of the wingtip ID lights, and come "in" approx 1 meter. Fuselage/Nose I use the location of the pilot. After that, it's just a matter of even MORE trial and error dailing in the exact location. Meaning, given a know lenght of an aircraft; say for example, 10 meters, the tail light is at -9.50 meters aft, you'd place the fuselage national insigina at approx -7.5 or -8.0, and see where it shows up. Wrench kevin stein

AHAAA!!! Found you out Skippy!! Now we really KNOW what you do for a living .... trade Brit Brews for Russian Vodka!!! OTOH, it's nice to see more ships starting to come "down the ways", expecialy modern variants Wrench kevin stein

Check TKs repsonse over on the 3rd Wire boards.... interesting to note he describes is at a terrain height problem (which is a known issue of pre-patch terrains in the post=patch world), and the Z-Buffers, in either/both the terrain or effects or particlesystem Read his response throughly ... "raises" some interesting thoughts for experimentation The DS terrains should have all the new height field info already in the DS_Data.ini Wrench kevin stein

It's REALLLLY good to know the backwards compatibility is working!!!! I know in my heart, TK wouldn't desert all the previous YEARS of mods we've all worked so hard on. Wrench kevin stein

irfanview (free)--also great for inserting text into images for decal creation! GIMP (free) and of course, and of the Photoshop series WRench kevin stein

Here's a El Salvadoran Mustang.... methinks the green is a little too blue (thats what I get for using RLM colors!! -swartzgrun and RAF Mid-stone) I'm going for the "oh *&^%$ we have to camo these planes in a hurry" effect, wherein the erks dash into town, and borrow spray guns from the local auto body shop. Well, at least the serials & fin flash came out nice!! It's definately going back in for a repaint.... Wrench kevin stein

I'm sure we can find a way to blame Micro$oft for that..... (vista+unicode= frustrated gamers?? ) Wrench kevin stein

Don't I wish!!! Like trying to herd cats!!! Hey, you got the important "basics" down! Wrench kevni stein

thanks for the compliement, but that's RussoUK's Thunderjet. I've only done a few skins and things for it! Wrench kevin stein

Let me make things a little easier...the attached bmp has the placment for the "face" on those with no visor, or the visor UP. In this case, its a womans face for the Talon You can also see the placement on the "USMC50s" pilot in my F4U-4B mod here in the d/l section Wrench kevin stein

That's right!!! That's the ticket Or, just patch to the 9/08 or 10/08 levels and works perfectly 'out of the box" Wrench kevin stein

There ain't nothing to that.... it's just another layer on the XXpilot.bmp. The hardest part is judging the size to reduce down to for the "open faceplate" section, on the upper left of the bmp. Now, mind you, there is some "bending"on the finshed in-game, but the faces are usually recongizable. How do you think I got Josh Lucas' face on the Talon pilot?? Or Dave got his mug on the Bronco pilot figure!! If I can find it, and you want to attempt it, swam, I'll send you the Talon pilot psd Wrench kevin stein