Bump Mapping Panel Lines - Stark or Subtle? TORN!!!!

[Vraciu]

Having inspected hundreds of photos of (Natural Metal Finish) Mustangs and even going out to see a few in real life, along with other airplanes I fly...  I am really torn on the whole Bump Mapping of Panel Lines.   The upper surface of the Mustang is smooth.   The panel lines, rivets, and joints are NOT stark by any means even up close.   

So I am trying to come up with a balance that makes the plane look good from the inside as well as outside.   I can't help but think even very subtle panel lines are just too dark, deep, stark, whatever....compared to the real airplane.

If one is going for a slightly more obvious/visible panel or rivet line, what is the objective?   Is it to be more visible to players in a fight at D200-600?   To look good from the cockpit?  To look good flying in formation?

I feel that for a Pony in NMF it is better to go with a darker panel line with NO bumping, slightly noised up so it isn't solid, with a bit of dulling done to the SPEC map.   That just seems to look better, at least in the skin viewer.

Thoughts????

[ink]

the P51 had a coating on the wings that made the rivets pretty much disappear...you could not see them unless you were very close.

"...Mustang's laminar-flow wing were puttied, sanded flush and then coated in aluminium lacquer..."

http://www.ipmsstockholm.org/magazine/2005/12/stuff_eng_detail_p51d_02.htm

looking at the plane the panel lines are not very "bold"

[Greebo]

In general I keep bump mapping turned right down on aircraft. If you have it turned up and look out the side of your aircraft you can see all those fake shadows and highlights moving around the panel lines on the top of the wing as you maneuver. It just looks wrong IMO. I turn the effect up for GVs though.

For BMF aircraft the spec map is what makes the difference. Having the panel lines much less reflective than the bare metal looks great when you get the light angles right on a screenshot.

A panel line on an aircraft can either be the overlap joint where two aluminium sheets meet or a gap around a hatch. The former should be a lot less visible than the latter. In the case of the P-51 wing I'd imagine you would only see the hatch lines as all the panel lines would have been filled and sanded.

To make the hatch lines stand out more I make a duplicate of the complete panel line layer, temporarily change its colour to something bright and then erase all the bits that are just panel overlap joints. With this layer changed back to black it becomes the heavy hatch line layer. I use on this layer on the spec and bump maps as well.

[Vraciu]

Excellent, guys.  Thank you.  I now feel much better and have something to work with.   

[Vraciu]

I tried to do the skin wrinkle trick devil shared with me elsewhere but I wind up too stark.  Is there a way to make the upper wing surface look slightly less than perfect?

I tried noise, too.  Just can't quite get that look.

I considered spec mapping the flush rivets just a shade duller than the panels they are on but not sure if even that will work...   May look too uniform or something...

[Greebo]

I'd have thought you wouldn't see the rivets on the top of the P-51 wing as they would have been painted over. They would have filled most of the dents too, the workers were given templates to apply to the wing surface and filled any gaps to get the shape spot on, as any imperfections spoiled the laminar flow effect. On the rest of the aircraft dulling the rivets with the spec map a bit should look good. I generally do that on BMF aircraft.

Here is a tutorial post I wrote about bare metal finishes. Its a bit out of date now as it predates AH specular maps, but it is still quite useful.

[Vraciu]

I'd have thought you wouldn't see the rivets on the top of the P-51 wing as they would have been painted over. They would have filled most of the dents too, the workers were given templates to apply to the wing surface and filled any gaps to get the shape spot on, as any imperfections spoiled the laminar flow effect. On the rest of the aircraft dulling the rivets with the spec map a bit should look good. I generally do that on BMF aircraft.

Here is a tutorial post I wrote about bare metal finishes. Its a bit out of date now as it predates AH specular maps, but it is still quite useful.

What I want to capture is the fact that the flush rivets still have slight dimpling, at least on the aft half of the wing on the Mustang.  So hard to capture.  Your skinning tutorial is awesome to be sure.

[Greebo]

I do mention how I make panel deformation effects around rivets in that tutorial.