daddyairplanes

awesome to have you back! would some models from the pm's help at all? i know its not the max files but most were pretty far along and it would be better than nothing/ locked up elsewhere yes im thinking the Twin Hueys but im sure im not the only one you PMd. that way you could maybe see what you can or want to wrap up

if you dont skin that Roman bird in Lizard Green, you know I will! (and yes some did serve long enough to get painted that!) bad-ish news tho, was building up a collection of reference photos (and serial nums) from C-130.net when my desktop HD crashed. might be able to retrieve that folder but gotta get a new bit of gear at months end to try. had well over 100 pics with the model, year, SN and unit in the filename and no old heads i was in the middle of it when it happened. had planned for it to go to external when i was done for the day

reworking the below deck spaces to accomodate the catapults and arresting gear would be what makes it cost prohibitive. the INS Vikramaditya was the equivalent of fixing up an old 70s muscle car to look and function like it did out of the factory(body work, engine rebuild). This project would be more like taking the same muscle car and trying to make it a RV camper. anything could be done, but the ones that would want second hand couldnt afford it. IRL much better bet would be to refurb and sell as Harrier Carriers. most of the Foreign Military Sale money would actually be for McDD AV-8s to equip the air wings, better fit to the smaller coastal navies that would pick them up, and you dont have the rip up the ship to install alot of new bulky gear. in game however do what you do!

well for my purposes that might be okayish. esp with the LOD viewer changing a mesh name is nothing now, but dancing the coordinates still takes some time. sooo if the positions match i'm in business, even if i gotta tweek it some on the final. as stated above, tearing up C-130.net and google for USAF serials (active, AFRes and ANG) through about 1992 (maybe later 90s but not past 99) wouldnt be a all air force serials like most everyone else does that would be freaking huge. aiming for two serials per unit, 3 eras a decade plus maybe two for Vietnam and one for ODS. also probably broken into Pacific and European groups with ANG and AFRes birds mixed as the pics show them being involved. not a whole lot of work then

looks great. one drawback of the decal as skin method is it will highlight any model irregularities. had similar working with the Galaxy and Starlifter. one got fixed by setting postion to front rather than top (probably not applicable) the other by putting a patch decal if you will over that spot in the very bottom of the decal.ini. and some just never worked out (tried putting "Qatar" title on bottom of C-17, shot a skewd version of same on the sides as well as clear version on bottom. wound up leaving it off) one other note, your left outer wings seem abit lighter than the inner. are you using different tga for both parts?

or the crew chief!

two questions one for Dels and one for the greater community watching this project Dels- will your current E serve as a good stand in for decal placement on these new birds? i asked awhile back but honestly don't remember the answer CA at large- i am starting to do my research on ANG use of this aircraft, in particular the A,B,E and H variants. once ive got decal placement down (the decal.ini) would anyone be interested in joining me on this? i will be working the SEA and Euro 1 skins as that is mainly what i have reference for (esp the World Air Power Journal book on the ANG from 1992) but once the decal ini and templates are good should be nothing to plug in the markings for later units (Air Mobility Command era esp light gray) this is still abit of a ways off, as i am now looking up good reference pics and serials on C-130.net then airliners.net and google. My goal is to have two serial per operational unit in a skin

last ones til after the weekend. some RL to take care of and got to quit being lazy and finish the decal.ini (i always put off plugging in the landing gear until the first skin or 2d one. cant go to far in though or would have many ini's to edit)

texture size not so much with placement. but mue's viewer saves ALOT of time in finding mesh name (most important) and where that mesh is in space and time (extremely close second) ive had huge meshes not show for being .025 off a measurement, and definately had fun in the older days trying to figure out what a mesh was called ( remember the old days of messaging and meshname threads?) for those less software savvy. slight bit more detail on that... center of a tail is generally something to the tune of say -15.0,8.0 or -23.50,9.75. setting coordinates to 0,0 and hoping it covers all as a 1:1 only works if the tail portion is at one extreme side or the other of the tga. and that would be bigger still. to cover an airliner or cargo plane right now i use two fuselage (1024) two tail (512) and two engines as well as some times one radome that's reversable (usually 256). thats to pack a fairly appropriate amount of detail into each one, esp given in the case of jumbos they are really more at a distance eye candy and not main attractions.

more action at the Dhimari Paint Works.. GOOOOOOD bye DYE- MAR! this post brought to you by Combat Ace, the smoothest tasting sim site on the internet...

amariani, yes and no. the decal ini dance is individual level of difficulty, i've grown quite accustomed to it myself. as for details (esp panel lines) there are tricks to it. with the heavies i've been working on, doors and windows are a layer of the template up on the top (so its easier for them to show of course) and other parts such as cargo doors or exhaust ports can also be added on near top level. though they usually start on the skin, i plug em into the tga for reference on other parts in relation to the doors and windows. the bottom levels of the template are the colors, stripes, words etc that change plane to plane. as for the panel lines the main bare metal skin itself has darker than necessary panel lines throughout and try to remember to set opacities to around 75-80% for main colors and 85 to maybe 90 for stripes, text and logos. i'm experimenting with some panel lines on the side of yeyeye's 757 this time around but it's not a main focus. also it helps to have as much on each decal as possible (meaning fewer decals per plane). Using the Phantom as an example, a right upper wing decal with the camo, insignia, stencils if from the late 70s, and weathering. that level of detail would need at least a 1024 size tga. again, it is doable, you just have to be a millionaire with nothing else to do to have the time to work it

well you did say slightly

oh yeah (Gibbs slaps self on back of head...) need more units. one day maybe

nice. any plans to do USAF squadron hacks?

i've thought of simlar for the naval phantoms, making a weathering pattern tga to go over the skin (naval paint patterns are the same aircraft to aircraft, it the amount of corrosion control touch ups that is different). do 6 and repeat in different orders across the 12 or 14 birds assigned. CAG bird and XO bird would be the best looking as they were the best maintained USAF Phantoms would be a PITA as you would have to 1. line up the camo for the major types 2. make 2-3 variations for the major schemes 3.assign a major scheme as primary (camoLwin etc) then the vairations for the others (camoLwing003) 4. redo the decal.ini so the camo's are up at the top of the ini, and squadron specific stuff overlays on top of that. 5. unless your do it all in 512, the decal folder will be freaking HUGE. i know from experience as 7 airlines for one skin produced a 84MB folder for one era. yes thats just decals for a mid 80s skin alone on a project that will feature 5 time periods it is possible, and the results would be outstanding esp with random generation (look at how many squadrons in 1983 had SEA, SEA Wraparound and Euro 1 on the flightline). to get there might turn one off from modding though!

rugged yes. cheap? well cheaper than the F-35 anyhow. and look at Brazil's AF-1s, also known previously as the A-4 Skyhawks for example of how it is being done already

wondering if any of our Indian friends can clear up if this is fact or internet fiction, though it does seem more plausable as an Indian LWF http://zittara.com/2016/04/23/super-hunter-jet-to-be-in-production-in-india/

looks good, now i'm wondering how far off the DAT Strikemaster is from a Tudor for the current team

yakarov beat me to it. game selects main skin first, then based off of start year. i have multiple units or airlines on my multi engine skins because of setting the unit or airline as the serial number. in the case of the airliners i create a bare metal or white skin, then add the airline markings (2048 sized for the fuselage ones; they run the whole length). so there is a work around, it is just time consuming the pic is the same skin on all Airbuses (L90 iirc) to show what im talking the hardest part is the first one, getting everything lined up. after that, if you make a template like with a skin its just pluggin in the different items.

Launch Customer...

welcome to a club with a long and illustrious member list..... those banned by DAT!

oooh is he going offline? (cue the 60s Batman announcer) WILL .......DAT give up the ghost? WILL .......all those files become abandonware? IS ............it worth it to propagate that rumor just to mess with him? TUNE IN NEXT WEEK for answers to these and other burning questions same CA time, same CA place (sorry bout the ot hijack RC)

well as i've said it isnt completely dead. i know of several project out there but the folks seem to be on sabbatical at this moment. btw check pm sir

not to mention that the alure of his site is not the quality of the mods, but rather the variety he has that we don't (Connies, various WW2 ships, the above requested). Also i think most of the 3d modellers wont recreate the wheel since it is available, just difficult to get. F24A, careful what you ask for. those are set to Gen1 (means some minimal conversion at best) and esp props have wonky FMs esp in SF2.

new customer for the DA paint hangar.... after a little more placement for the tail and engines