To all WW1 skinners (now and future)

[Krusty]

I would like to thank you all for any work whatsoever that you provide for these nice WW1 biplanes.

I want to discuss something. I hated how many of the WW2 skins we have look like they have stamped steel ribs with precision cuts in them. I would very much hate seeing the same thing happen to biplanes and the ribbing on the wings.

I'm seeing some nice screenshots for some new skins. The paint, weathering, details, all lovely.

Except what REALLY turns me off on many of them is the giant undulating trenches depicted where the wing ribs are!

Many folks don't think about how tightly pulled and how taut these fabric covered surfaces were. Much like many WW2 control surfaces, you see little actual "bump" where the ribs are. They were heavily doped down and the surface shrnk like a drum head.

For your consideration:

Almost no sagging here:


You catch a hint of it under the upper wing, but almost none under the bottom (I'll describe why below):


Photo a bit blurry, but hardly ANY ridges/deformations visible at all on this one:


I think the reason folks consider WW1 biplanes to be wrinkled, with sagging, undulating skins, is because the skin itself was semi-translucent! It let sunlight through on bright days, even when painted. The material itself was light but strong.

Seen in this picture, there are "ribs" on the upper wing (not the lower) but the light highlights around the midwing area show you there are no "bumps" along with the shapes. What are they? Shadows! The sunlight passing through the wings is being blocked by the ribs.





Food for thought. I really don't mean to insult, and am NOT starting a flame war of any kind.

Anybody would jump on any WW2 skin with 100% opacity panel lines. Anybody would jump on a WW2 skin with totally undisrupted "solid" paint fills... or no weathering.... or totally garish colors... Same should go for WW1 planes. You all have the painting and detailing down, but this is one detail that I must address. I am not saying "they were perfectly smooth." I am saying "they were not trenches, you wouldn't get much lift if they were!"


It ranks up there (IMO) with stuff like making sure stripes line up left/right (which the don't on some of our WW2 skins)

[gyrene81]

Krusty, take a real close look at the wings on this Dr1.





From the glossy look of the paint it looks like some of those "contours" were part of the manufacturing process.

[Serenity]

I think a big thing to take away from Krusty and Gyrene's posts are that we are looking at two different aircraft from two different countries, so skinners, do some solid research! Perhaps one country SHOULD see those ribs, as they are manufacturing process, and some SHOULDN'T!

[Nr_RaVeN]

Absolutely Serenity your dead on that point.
 
Some machines have/show more of a definition in regard to the wing stretch than others.

Admirably I think Kusty is just trying to do us all a service by calling attention to it so things don't get OVER done.

 Fokkers show more than camels from the photos I've seen.

There is a fine line between keeping it "real" and having the effect show up in game, so as to give the feel of the real thing.

 In screen shots "trenches" can scream at you, but in fight, in game, they might show well or realistically.  If there skinned to light... they may not show at all.

On Fokkers you want to see them.

 It's a very fine line skinning for Sims some time you have to over do a skin so it plays well in game were in a screen it looks crappy or over done.....were all learning at this point how to skin so they look good in game..... After all that's what were skinning for here, to use these skins in this game.


 I hope that made sense... 

[Mus51]

One little question: Do  you guys skin the damage models? I noticed if you damage a plane parts of the default skin show up at the places where the plane is damaged.

[Knite]

One little question: Do  you guys skin the damage models? I noticed if you damage a plane parts of the default skin show up at the places where the plane is damaged.

I noticed while picking through (thinking of doing a couple of Camels) that it appears there are not only 2 skin files per plane, but also 2 "Alpha" skin files, for lack of better terms. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure there are 2 skin files in the skin folder that show the standard skin with large pink sections. My guess is that those files are what's used for damage and "transparency" when holes are punched through the plane. Unfortunately, I haven't done enough testing to know if you need to keep those pink "alpha" areas exactly as is, or if they are changable to a point, and since I don't know that, I'm not sure how well/easy/difficult it would be to replicate those transparency damage files. Anyone else have thoughts on that?


Also, to Krusty's point, I agree mostly with what he's said. Since the new WWI planes have come up, it's admirable that a new group of skinners (as well as some old stand-bys ;-) ) want to give things a try. Just have to be very careful when detailing in finding a balance between what looks good, and what's realistic. Similar to panel lines on WWII aircraft, at one time they were pretty dark, and over the years people found a way of making them look "apparent" without making them look overly huge and unrealistic. Hopefully, in the rush of trying to get new skins created, people are paying attention to details like that.

[LesterBoffo]

 I'm not sure about skinning in this sim, but a lot of alpha mapping in some sims are done with 256 grayscale or colors as the transparency channel for damage modelling.  If you attempt this, make sure your alpha masking colors have sharp edges.