Metal F8 Experiment

[Bullethead]

Tex's posts got me interested in trying my hand at this metal stuff.  Lucky for me, they made a few real FWs without paint, so I get right to work.

After tinkering with this for about a week, varying all the metal layer contents and opacities, I came to the conclusion I couldn't make the whole plane look good under all light conditions or from all angles at the same time.  Part of this seems to be due to hard polygon seams, such as along the fuselage just below the cockpit, and the rest just seems to be how the game works.  Or maybe I'm just hosing it up.  Is this a common problem?

BTW, this plane was in II./SG 2 in Selesia, April 1945

[TexMurphy]

As you said its very hard to make it look good in all light conditions and since metal is quite reflective it will look really light where the light hits.

You notice this on your skin near the tail. Look how dark it is on the tail and how bright the elevators are.

The screeny you have makes it really hard to judge how it really is.

What Id like to see is a screeny directly from the side or from slightly up and behind... but just slightly and in level flight.. this way you minimize the reflections...

Actually this is easier to do in the skin viewer...

Anyways what I do wana get at is that your metal *might* be a bit too light in color, but Id like to see a pic that doesnt have so much reflection in it...

The back fuselage from the back cannopy to the tail looks absolutely gorgeous...

What looks a bit odd though is the thin plane lines on the wings. But this is quite likely due to the reflection. They look kind of blury and would look better with a bit darker color on the metal so that the contrast isnt as big as it is.

If I was you I would try to darken up the metal a bit.

Also please post some less reflective screenies and one that is more up close so one sees more detail. Cant wait to see it.


Tex

[Bullethead]

Thanks for taking an interest

TexMurphy said:

What Id like to see is a screeny directly from the side or from slightly up and behind... but just slightly and in level flight.. this way you minimize the reflections...

OK, here you go:

Anyways what I do wana get at is that your metal *might* be a bit too light in color

The pics in this message were taken after I darkened the base metal dark gray layer from 30% to 45% opacity.  This tended to cut down on the reflectivity and also made the slight color differences I put on different panels show up much better.

The back fuselage from the back cannopy to the tail looks absolutely gorgeous...

Thanks.  Here's a close-up with less reflectivity (plus the darkened metal)

What looks a bit odd though is the thin plane lines on the wings. But this is quite likely due to the reflection. They look kind of blury

Those are lines of rivets.  My usual technique for them is to have another layer under the rivet dots that has faint, blurred dark lines along the rivet lines.  This works well under paint to give the appearance of collected grime in the dimples around the rivets and makes them show up much better through lighter paint (or metal) above them.  I'm still working on making this look good with the metal skin.  Up close, the rivets are distinct, but at longer distances the underlying blurry line predominates.  Here's a close-up of the wing surface showing the rivets.  Compare to the next shot from further away.


Note I added the rest of the pilot's body to the "inkwell", plus some side panel instruments.  I also tried to put some scratches on the wing root and fuselage side where the pilot climbs in and out, but they came out too blurry.  I'll have to go back and sharpen them up.

And here is a shot from about the same perspective as in my 1st post, showing the effect of having the darker metal layer.


The control surfaces I did in RLM 77 primer.  I figured if they didn't paint the whole plane, they wouldn't have bothered putting silver paint on the fabric.  I was tempted to have some of them in camo colors, as in salvaged parts from other planes or from dispersed factories, but that didn't work out well.  With the materials.txt set up like you posted, ALL surfaces are so reflective that the control surfaces go from being blindingly white to suddenly the dark camo color.  That was too big a change for me, so I figured the primer color avoided the worst of that problem and also was justifiable from a realism perspective.  I'm just working off a profile anyway, so there's room for artistic interpretation .

Thanks again for your help.

[TexMurphy]

Freekin awsome!!!! serious sweeeetness...

Especially the back and wing parts... chirst that is nice...

Two thing Im a bit puzzled about is the front.. there is something there that just looks strange to me... Its the first and second big plane lines... something just looks wrong to me up front...

And the scratches... or I would actually call em bird poops.. No please no..

Seriously scratches to metal are a great idea but I would do them with a pen tool and scratch it up in very thin lines 1x1.. then put different blending on them... do like 3 scratch layers and then when you are happy with the different opticities.. merge em...

Tex.

[Bullethead]

TexMurphy said:

Freekin awsome!!!! serious sweeeetness...  Especially the back and wing parts... chirst that is nice...

OK, I'll take it I have the metal just about right then?    Thanks, sensei.

Two thing Im a bit puzzled about is the front.. there is something there that just looks strange to me... Its the first and second big plane lines... something just looks wrong to me up front...

Here's a close-up of that area...


The front-most panel line is between the rear edge of the armored oil cooler ring and the rest of the cowling.  In real life, the oil cooler ring's rear edge was a little above the cowling, and the front edge of the cowling was curved in a bit, to provide a gap of an inch or 2 so air could flow out the back of the oil cooler.  Unfortunately, the poly model is flat across there, so you have to fake this 3D effect with a series of lines in various shades of gray, like you do to fake the curve at the front edge of a control surface.   I've got those lines in there but they're too dark at present, making the whole line just look too wide at a distance, instead of 3D like it does close-up.  I'm saving that for the final touch-up phase.

The next line back is between the front cowl ring and the main upper side hinged engine access panel.  This side access panel was hinged at the bottom, on the line just above the bump on the side of the cowling.  The other edges usually had some gaps around them, especially at this stage in the war, so I did that line in black.  Compare it to the fixed panel line at the top of the front cowl ring.  I've also faked the hinges above and below the side cowl bump, but haven't quite got that the way I want yet.

What I like best about this pic is that this angle gets rid of the annoying poly crease that runs along the fuselage side just below the cockpit.  From most directions, this crease creates a sharp light/dark line all down the fuselage, making it look like the exhaust stain is perfectly flat on top.  Here, you can see it really isn't.  Also, you can see my self-portrait in the cockpit
 

Seriously scratches to metal are a great idea but I would do them with a pen tool and scratch it up in very thin lines 1x1..

Yeah, I did them 1x1, but then blurred them too much.  I think I'm just gonna try leaving them unblurred and let the game's built-in blur factor soften them up so very slightly.  And if that doesn't work, I'll tweak it somehow.

BTW, the 9 on the fuselage is hand-made, like most of my lettering.  I didn't have a font with a straight back on the 9, they all being more or less curved.  Fortunately, the font I needed used real circles and parts thereof, so it was quite simple to make this type of 9.

[United]

Looks absolutely fantastic!  It puts my metal to shame!

[Bullethead]

United said:

Looks absolutely fantastic!  It puts my metal to shame!

Thanks .  Here's how I have it at present:

1.  Materials.txt per Tex's post in "How I Did the Metal".

2.  Layers as follows (from top down, all as whole layers):

{layers containing markings, stains, fabric control surface stuff, details like wheel wheels, etc.}
A.  "Secret" Layer, opacity 10
B.  Clouds layer, opacity 60
C.  Blue layer, opacity 10
D.  Dot layer, opacity 5
E.  Base layer, opacity 30.  The base layer is mostly 80/80/80, but with some skin panels done in colors ranging from 30/30/30 to 120/120/120 to add some contrast.
{layers containing panel lines, rivets, etc.}

[Bullethead]

D'OH!!  The opacity of the base metal layer is 45%, not 30%.