DisclaimerTaste is expectation informed by a mental data base of what things are supposed to look like. My mental data base obviously has major differences from yours and that of many other people, but that doesn't bother me because I think I'm right 
. Be that as it may, however, there is no way for me to explain why I do things the way I do without getting into the contents of my mental data base. So take what follows as an opportunity to see the world of skinning through my rather cynical eyes, using my mental data base. IOW, it's opinion, although based in a lot of 1st hand experience which, IMHO, is better than most folks'. Still, I'm not trying to make converts, I'm just explaining myself, and I hope I don't come off as insulting. But that's the risk you take when you speak your mind, so be warned 
.Nr_RaVeN said:I see what your saying but there is always a bit of distortion in the metal even on modern day AC. the things do get dents and what not. .
Sure, there is a tiny bit of distortion in the skins of even new planes. It's not caused by rivets (for reasons I've explained elsewhere), but by slight inaccuracies in the process of forming the curved shape of the panel. Even so, this distortion is on the sub-pixel scale at our 1024x1024 resolution, just like rivets. It, like rivets, is not noticeable beyond anything more than about 3', and thus should not be shown on a skin until our resolution goes up to AT LEAST 4096x4096, which is the minimum necessary to draw rivets actual size using 1 pixel (on fighters--buffs would need a higher resolution). To REALLY make rivets appear correctly, though, we need at least 4 pixels per rivet head width so we can draw them as circles instead of dots, or IOW about 16 pixels per inch, which is about 16x the resolution we currently have even on fighters. Thus, to make accurate rivets and any surrounding deformations,
at the correct scale size for the fighter we're skinning, we really need to be working in 16384x16384 (buffs would need even more than that).
Think about that factor of 16 difference between what it takes to do the job realistically and accurately, and what we've got to work with. That's what I'm going on about. There is NO WAY to make any of these features look right at 1024x1024. Attempts to put these features on skins anyway thus always turn out
WAY too big, by at least a factor of 12, often of 16. This makes 3/16" rivet heads come out the size of 18-wheeler lug nuts at the scale of our planes, and other tiny features similarly inflated. Panel lines come out at a scale size of several inches wide instead of about 1/8", and the very subtle (at best) skin deformations of real planes end up the scale size of dents left by baseball-sized hail on cars in Tornado Alley. All this just screams "UNREALISTIC" at me.
Its the shading that gives a skin life. were talking about making skins look good if they don't have high lights ect they look flat and 2 dimensional.
Airplane skin, except in disastrous cases such as taxiing accidents, bird strikes, and being on the bottom of Lake Michigan for the last 60 years (all of which ground the plane until repaired)
IS "flat and 2D" (except, of course, as it follows its aerodynamic curves). That's how it's designed to be, every effort is made to build it that way, and it doesn't work worth a damn if it isn't that way. Planes don't fly around with major, highly visible dents in them unless A) they're so slow and stable already that the ding causes no noticeable loss of speed or stability, AND they've got enough extra strength to handle the loss of strength resulting from the dent, or B) the current owner is too poor to repair it and the FAA doesn't know about it. So on C47s and other slow rides, or the Social Security-eligible warbirds flying today, the odd big dent (which is the only kind we can make) might be OK. But, at the scale we can make them at 1024 resolution, not on active fighters.
But I'm sure you'll say, "these aren't major dents, they're subtle deformations". To which I say, "maybe that was the intent of the skinner, but the result, thanks to the 1024 resolution, is the scale size of major damage, and thus totally unrealistic for a flying plane".
put two skins side by side one with slightly distorted metal high lights and shadows and one with out.... 9 out of ten guys will pick the skin with the distressed metal look it simply looks more 3 dimensional if its done correctly. If not done correctly, your right it looks fake. Any of the contest wining skins I have seen all have that kind of highlighting to them. with out it they just look to flat .
This, IMHO, just shows the unrealistic expectations of most people, whose ideas of how planes should look come, at best, from the excessively visible rivets and panel lines on all the plastic kits they've built, or the wizened appearance of surviving warbirds today. Few end users or skinners have ever built or worked on real planes. Plus, as I'm sure you've noticed, because few end users make skins themselves, they hold skinners almost in awe as people who've mastered some escoteric art. Thus, most end users never question the accuracy of the features on a skin, feeling instead that if the skinner put it there, it has to be right, simply because they don't know any better. So when they see a bunch of unrealistically huge shading, highlighting, etc., on a skin, they think it's better that way because it conforms to their unrealistic expectations and was made by a perceived expert.
I, however, don't care what they think. It is my firm belief that, at 1024, it is absolutely impossible to make all these tiny features come out at the right size for the scale of the plane. I don't care how you do it, because all possible techniques necessarily involve multiple pixels, and even 1 pixel is several times too big to begin with. Plus, even if we had the resolution to make these features the right scale size, they should not be visible from any distance greater than 3' anyway, so making them visible at mid-span as seen from the cockpit is just as wrong as making them way too big at 1024. Therefore, I do not put such features on my skins. That makes me happy.
My opinions on the realism, or lack thereof, of such features, however, in no way detracts from my admiration for those who continue to make skins this way. I well know, having done it that way myself, how much work it is, and how much effort and desire for perfection they put into it. Besides, as you say, it goes over well with the masses.
The bottom line of skinning is that it's our hobby, a source of personal enjoyment. So make your skins in whatever way you like. I'm happy the way I do it. If you prefer the methods of other folks, that's your right. Don't feel guilty about it, and feel free to consider me a misguided victim of a messiah complex.
