P-47N, 1st FS, 413 FG

[Krusty]

Well I had about a couple dozen layers overall in my last 47N skin from everything to basic paint bucket fills, to brushes, to highlights, lowlights, panel shadings, and a bit of emphasis spent on mapping the highlights on the upper wings. What I did was flatten all of that into a "base BMF layer" and then begin work on the new skin with this. I can still go back and tweak things because I have the previous files (this is why you save iteratively while skinning, folks!).

I know what you mean. There is color variation but no "grain" no "texture" to the metal. I had tried to rememdy that, but my layers doing this become severely understated for some reason in-game. I will bump the values up a notch or 10 and see if the results look better.

Lyric: Thanks for the suggestion. It is hard to see that area sometimes, and going off of what I could, and the default skin, I gave it a guess. Problem is that area stretches. I had to take the top 1/3 of the star and bar and scale it down noticably (it's not perfectly round on the bitmap) because as it leans inward it distorts. I'll try extending this OD antiglare backwards, but with the way it interacts with the fillet and how it stretches, no guarantees it'll look any good.

[Nr_RaVeN]

Seems over shadowed and skinned ac look worse in screen shots but look great in fight, in game its always a balancing act.

[Krusty]

Been a while. Haven't had any free time. I did manage to get it near completion.

At this point I'm going to let it sit and take lists of any nitpicks/changes people have to suggest. I'll come back in a week or two with fresh eyes for a final submission.

EDIT: Forgot to add, may or may not notice I redid all panel lines to be aliased, retweaked mapped-on highlights to rely mostly on the materials.txt settings instead of 2D artwork, tweaked a number of things that needed redoing like the dorsal anti-glare and some of the shaded panels.

I did something different this time. Trying to get the materials file sorted out and get feedback is hard because the screenshots can look so different based on the angle and how much sunlight is reflecting off of it. So I made a quick and dirty fraps video showing it, rather than still screenshots.

The screenshots will be included below for better detail, but I really was self-doubting and changing things on the materials and how it looked many times. I'm not totally happy with it, but I am "happy enough" to send it in like this.

The video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqKP7ciqTgU

The skins are attached. I would also like to say I think HTC screwed with the handling of the jug in the recent flurry of WW1 patches. You need almost full roll delection to take off (and when below 120mph). I tried landing on a CV with almost no fuel onboard and doing very gentle moves. The stall buzzer starts at 150mph without any Gs loaded in level flight, and with flaps out I could not increase throttle enough to prevent from dipping a wing at 100mph and crashing to the side of the CV instead of landing normally. It never used to do these things! Screenshot added just for frustration's sake.

[Krusty]

Can only attach 4 pics per post. The frustration screenshot:

[lyric1]

I like the youtube presentation gives it a in game realism. Looks good

[Krusty]

I was looking at some non-p47 skins and sparked a question:

Did P-47Ns have filling caps on the wings for the wing tanks? Do I need to mark these? Make them red? Or were they covered by panels so they did not need any special markings?

[Stoney]

Well, the wing tanks fed into the main via a pump (only on the early N models) and both a pump and a gravity feed on the later models.  I imagine that they were filled separately, but there were 3 separate tanks in each wing that made up the wing "tank".  I've never seen separate fillers for each tank, or for the wing tank at all, to be honest.  Its odd, but sometimes, the hardest Jug to find this type of documentation for is the N.  I've got a detailed book in storage that might have some pictures, but I'll have to go dig it out to see.

[Krusty]

No rush, then. I'll leave them off until somebody comes out in the future and says "see here" to prove otherwise 

[Krusty]

Now's the time to get your nitpicks in! A couple more days and I'll give it a once-over then send it in!

[BMathis]

I really like this one Krusty.  Nicely done; I always enjoy you're preparation and walking us through your skinning process. 

[Mus51]

I'd say the rivets and panel lines could use some more opacity.

[oboe]

It's a very clean bird - is that unusual for a '47?   Sorta looks right out of the factory door to me.  Trailing wing edge perhaps a bit heavily shadowed?    Hard to find anything wrong with this one though.

[Krusty]

I'd say the rivets and panel lines could use some more opacity.

It's a very clean bird - is that unusual for a '47?   Sorta looks right out of the factory door to me.  Trailing wing edge perhaps a bit heavily shadowed?    Hard to find anything wrong with this one though.

That's why I ask! You're both quite right. I do get rather caught up in the bitmap editing sometimes rathe than the how-it-shows-up-in-game editing.

I need some help in this case. I need suggestions on how to make the metal look better. I did the little mini-tutorial somebody did way back that was most helpful with a spitfire wing as an example. I've got a number of layers with varying shades and gradients just to get the underlying colors. On top of that I've got a few filtered/fabricated layers that give the metal a bit more of a grain to it, and some other layers on top of that that give individual panels some different shades.

That last bit is why the trailing edge looks so dark. Normally the panels right in front if it aren't too different, but those particular panel I gave an offset shade. I'll turn that layer off if I can get the rest looking better.

Here's what the flattened bitmap looks like:



As you can see, in-game it's a bit different:



So, I'll try ramping up the "grain" effect, dialing down or removing the offset shades for panels effect, raising the panel lines. Outside of giving every panel it's own bulging highlight/shadow effect (which I'm not overall a fan of on all skins), what other details make BMF "look good"? What would make this stand out? With paint I can bleach it, black it, smooth it (shine), scratch it, scrape it, fade it, wear it, tear it....

But with metal I really can't do all that. Thoughts?

As a parting comment: I've kind of been of the mindset that the traditional "paint chip" effect doesn't work on BMF and that scratches would simply be lost in the grain and overall sheen of the metal. Perhaps that's why it looks too "clean"? Maybe I need to scratch it up?

[Stoney]

Just remember that bare aluminum oxidizes a bit with some weather--gives it a bit of an opaque patina.  Greebo does a very good job at simulating BMF, especially on Jugs, so perhaps there's something you can pick up there? 

Regardless, appreciate the effort to "get it right".

[oboe]

Agree with Stoney, definitely examine Greebos' work closely.   I think he's a master at oil leaks and grease stains - I love his work on the 78thFG 47D-25.

I think more skinners are allowing dark rivets to be more visible than the light ones on metal skins; here I also recommend taking a peek at Fester's bare metal P-51Ds for ideas.

Coupla detail suggestions:   Weren't the 50s gunports numbered on the leading edge of the wing?    I know I've seen that before but not sure if they carried the practice through on the N.

The red squares at the wing root - should they have text the says "STEP HERE" or something similar?   Or perhaps "NO STEP" somewhere along the wing's trailing edge?

Also have you tried playing with the material.txt fiel values?   The metal looks nice and shiny but so does the antiglare.   Perhaps the specularity values could be reduced somewhat to take into account the oxidation of the bare metal?