1/2 Black 1/2 White Spit I Belly

[Bullethead]

I haven't seen anybody say they're doing one of those BoB spit1s with the 1/2 white, 1/2 black belly.  That's something I've always wanted in the game and now it's possible with the new version of the skin.  So, in the absence of anybody else doing one, I'm gonna start on one right now .

[Krusty]

I was wondering about that myself!

It would be a nice change, only with the way spittys display in this game they already have black outlines outside about d400 or so (it would diminish the black/white effect on the belly).

[Kev367th]

Originally posted by Krusty
I was wondering about that myself!

It would be a nice change, only with the way spittys display in this game they already have black outlines outside about d400 or so (it would diminish the black/white effect on the belly).

They are looking at the black outlines.

What it is -
As planes get futher away LOD's with less polygons are used, to keep a smooth shape an outline is added, this is the black we are seeing.
It should be a grey color and I believe it is being changed.

[Krusty]

Wonderful! Good to hear that ought to be fixed.

So who's going to tackle the black/white spitty?

[Kev367th]

Bullethead is -

Sqn codes for a 1939/40 aircraft should be medium sea grey, not the later sky type 's'.
Strictly speaking wasn't black but Night Black - RGB 66 66 67
Possibly use RAF ident white - RGB 242 241 234

Just because it's a bad idea to use pure white on any skin, looks far too bright.

History of camo etc for RAF -
http://www.rafweb.org/sqn_codes.htm

Just found this - describes 1940 camo schemes, hold on to your hats
http://ftp.bob-ma.org/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=898&start=0

If you do a black / white Spit I,
I'll do a black / sky type 's' one. (prob with Sky Blue tailband and spinner).

[Bullethead]

Kev367th said:

Bullethead is -

Sho'nuf I am .  Been doing panel line surgery today converting a MkV into a MkI.  The only other structural change necessary is tweaking the oil cooler parts, which for some reason don't match those of the MkV.  But that's all done so on to painting tomorrow .  I'm doing one from 72 Squadron as flown by Desmond Sheen.  No roundels on the lower side.

Sqn codes for a 1939/40 aircraft should be medium sea grey, not the later sky type 's'.
Strictly speaking wasn't black but Night Black - RGB 66 66 67
Possibly use RAF ident white - RGB 242 241 234
Just because it's a bad idea to use pure white on any skin, looks far too bright.

Yup, gray codes.  The one I'm doing has a black spinner, too, and no sky band.

I've always thought using RGBs in the 60s for Night Black made it too light, closer to gray than black.  I prefer using RGBs in the 30s for that.  I think it matches the photos and restored planes better.  I'm with you on the low 240s/high 230s for the white, however.  OTOH, on most old AH1 skins, 255/255/255 made pretty decent natural metal due to how the specularity was set up on particular planes.  It actually came out silver in the game.

Just found this - describes 1940 camo schemes, hold on to your hats

Yup, they really worked overtime changing things there for a while.  I've seen pics of schemes not covered in those excerpts, too.  For instance, a ragwing Hurricane with very small Type B roundels on the fuselage and upper left wing only.  Also, I saw a spit with the regular size Type B roundels on the upper wing, but they were at mid-span like the Germans did it.  OTOH, the Germans COULD have actually done it, because it was an alleged combat shot of the spit going down in flames, and was probably actually a model done by somebody who'd never seen a real spit so put the roundel where he knew his boys put their crosses.

If you do a black / white Spit I, I'll do a black / sky type 's' one. (prob with Sky Blue tailband and spinner).

Deal.  Try to find one that has the itty bitty roundels way out at the very tips of the wings to go along with the black wing.

Once Hurricanes get revised, I'm gonna do a ragwing MkI with the combination of black, sky, and silver on the bottom.  Got it already picked out from the Battle of France .

[Kev367th]

Found a 92 sqn one from Nov 1940.

Std Dark Earth / Dark green uppers.
Black port lower wing, sky type 's' stbd wing and lowers.
Sky blue spinner, tail band.
Med Sea Grey sqn codes.
Black serial number.
Itty bitty roundels extreme tips lower wings, std side, upper wing roundels.
Full height tail fin flash.

Seen that pic of the Spit with roundels too far inboard, concensus is it was faked.

[Bullethead]

Kev367th said:

Found a 92 sqn one from Nov 1940.

Sounds  perfect .

I've got mine pretty much roughed out, just to show off so far.  Still got lotsa touch-up, finagling, and tweaking to do, not to mention my favorite part of skinning the new spits:  FINDING THE DAMN EJECTION CHUTE DECALS! Why, oh why did that have to make those damn things decals, especially when some of them ain't in the right place?!?!?!?!?

Anyway, I think this'll work out pretty well in the end.  The large area of white paint is forcing me to deviate from my standard methods to make the panel lines and such show up correctly.  But I think I'm on the right track, plus by playing with the materials.txt file I've managed to keep the white from glaring too much for flat, dirty paint, without muting the rest of the plane too badly IMHO.  But like I said, it's got a long way to go yet.

NOTE:  The way I'm doing the white is, I've got a layer of white under the panel lines, then another rather translucent layer above them.  However, I haven't done the translucent layer for the fuselage white yet, because I haven't quite worked out where the boundary between the white and upper camo is yet.  That's why the fuselage panel lines are sooooooo ugly in the white areas.

[Kev367th]

Roughly the same stage.

Going to become my Spit I template, so once all basics are done I can start softening individual panel lines on the black areas.

[Bullethead]

Looks nice, Kev.  I'm trying to decide whether to leave my codes as is, with them nearly faded off, or make them more visible.

And BTW, where did you find the left wing's ejection chute decals?  They don't seem to be near the right wing's.

[Kev367th]

Ejection chutes are built into the model, not decals.

[Guppy35]

To help the cause, or maybe hinder it.  Lots of variation on the black white undersides.  Some even had aluminum along with the black and white.

[Kev367th]

Tks Dan will come in handy for later ones.

Getting close to being able to do specific stuff for this skin only.

[Bullethead]

Originally posted by Kev367th
Ejection chutes are built into the model, not decals.

No, they're really decals.  They're just on the main skin .bmp file somewhere instead of in a separate file like the decals on some AH1 skins.  As proof, look at my screen above.  You can see the 3 outboard chutes on the left wing are white, whereas the inboard and all the right wing chutes are black.  This is because I know from previous spit skins where some of the chute decals hide, but ain't found them all on this skin yet.

In the stock new spit skins, there's a black background around all the parts.  Certain areas of this black background are used as decals for the ejection chutes, but you can't tell where because it's all the same color.  I take it you keep the black background when you make your skins, so haven't noticed this.  I don't--I HATE that, so always work from a white background.  But this means I lose the black areas that form the ejection chutes.  Thus, I have to go hunting them.

On the spit5, all the ejection chutes are in the upper left corner between the antenna mast and the wheels.  On the seafire, some are there and some are a bit lower on the left edge, between the wheels and the upper-most stabilizer skin.  On the spit1, the right wing's chutes and the inboard chute on the left wing are in the spit5 place, but the outboard 3 left wing chutes are somewhere else.  They're not where the seafire's chutes are, so I'll have to hunt them elsewhere.  My best guess is they're down where the oil cooler parts are different from the spit5 and seafire, but they could also be up above the pitot tube.  But find them I will

[Kev367th]

Ah, got ya, yeah I always use black background.

View of uppers, with corrected roundel red (early bright red) as described in the "RAF roundels and colors" post.

Correct bulges on nose cowlings, 5 spoke wheel (from Vb).