Daddy's Girl P51D

[GhostCDB]

The original "Daddy's Girl" was named after Diane Knuppenburg Wetmore, the first of four children born to Wetmore and his wife. Diane was born in summer of 1944.

Ray Shuey Wetmore was born Sept. 30th, 1923 in Madora, Cali. He was assigned to the 370th FS of the 359th FG in April of 1943.

http://www.crazyhorseap.be/Mustangs/Mustangs/N20MSDaddysGirl/N20MS.htm










I suck at Bare Metal 
I read Greebo's tutorial. . .over and over and over and over again but I just don't get it 

Mistakes I caught but didn't fix in screenshots:
Where the engine pipes exit, the holster itself should be green but I am a noob and didn't notice it till after.
Where the tail wheel drops out, I didn't even touch it in Photoshop cause I honestly didn't know what it was so I left it alone. 


I still don't understand the whole panel line and rivets concept, mine are always really dark and bold. I literally have them on 5% opacity but they still come out extremely dark. I used the same material digits Greebo placed in his Bare Metal tutorial.

I probably won't submit this skin, I don't even know if it is in-game yet or not (I didn't check before I decided to do it), because I feel it could be better I just have to work on the whole bare metal concept.

[Dragon Tamer]

I would suggest making the panel discolor layers a bit more stark. As they are now, it's not even noticeable. I would also suggest that you turn up the blue, and green BM effect a bit and turn the white BM effect way up. It doesn't look like you are using a spec map yet so that may be contributing to the look of it a good bit.

I would also adjust the material file to make the skin look a bit brighter than it currently is. Turn up the spectacular for the default and it should give it a nice glossy look.

Remember that the wings of the P-51s were sprayed with a putty to fill in the rivet holes. So there should be no rivets showing on wings at all except for a certain area. It would also mean that the panel lines would be faint to not visible at all (in photos it seems to vary a bit).

It's not bad, I really like the way that the ware is done on the wings. I don't think we have a green nose in game yet either but don't quote me on that.

Edit: I found the chart.



Blue areas - two layers of sprayed putty and polished for the smooth surface entirely with no rivets seen. Then sprayed with a silver paint.
Green areas - one layer of sprayed putty and polished for the smooth surface entirely with no rivets seen. Then sprayed with a silver paint.
Yellow areas - a silver paint only.

[Slash27]

Oboe was working on her but that was years ago now.

[Vraciu]

I like it.  I was considering doing that one.  Glad you beat me to it.   I want to do LITTLE HORSE and GALVESTON GAL but I am burned out and need to fix what I already have out there.


Throw some shiny spec map stuff in there and you will have a show stopper.

[800nate800]

Hello Sexy! 

[GhostCDB]

I honestly don't see a difference. . .This really is frustrating.

[Dragon Tamer]

I honestly don't see a difference. . .This really is frustrating.

You don't, but I do. It looks better now.

It looks like you are using RGB 0/0/0 for the black lines, it's not letting the panel lines or rivets show through.

On that note, you may also want to play around with the blending method of the panel lines and rivets. I've noticed that I usually have to change it between skin that are bare metal and painted because it interacts with them differently. Tomorrow morning I can grab the blending method and opacity that I used for my 51B skins if you want.

[GhostCDB]

You don't, but I do. It looks better now.

It looks like you are using RGB 0/0/0 for the black lines, it's not letting the panel lines or rivets show through.

On that note, you may also want to play around with the blending method of the panel lines and rivets. I've noticed that I usually have to change it between skin that are bare metal and painted because it interacts with them differently. Tomorrow morning I can grab the blending method and opacity that I used for my 51B skins if you want.

Are you referring to the bottom? If so I made them to look that way. I don't know if that is bad but I kinda like the way it looks that is why I do it as such.

For panel lines I have three layers.
1) Top layer is pencil tool in black 1x1 pixel anti-aliased. The opacity is 10% and fill is 50%.
2) Middle layer is pencil tool in white 1x1 pixedl anti-aliased and displaced horizontal -1 and vertical -1. 5% and fill is 50%.
3) Bottom layer is pencil tool in black 1x1 pixel Gaussian blurred by 4.5 pixels. The opacity for this layer is 8%

The strong rivets on the sides are that way from viewing skins by Cactus and Fester. I also noticed they are farely noticeable in the photos provided by Google and Bing.

Ratio

[Dragon Tamer]

When I do panel lines I usually end up with only 2 layers. The first is the actual panel line layer and I use RGB 89/89/89 with an overlay blending method at 100% opacity. The second layer is offset 1 pixel horizontally and 1 pixel vertically, but the direction of offset changes based on the part of the plane I'm working on. I do this for light perspective. For the color I use 150/150/150 with the layer set to overlay 100%. After I have these two layers set where I want them, I alter the colors of the panel lines and highlights just a bit to give certain areas more depth.

For rivets I use 4 layers, the first is the standard rivet layer; RGB 76/76/76 overlay 100%. The second layer is in the same place as the first but the rivets are pure black and a Gaussian blur of 2 pixels is run (sometimes I will copy the layer and paste it back in to make it more profound) overlay 100%. The third layer is offset in a similar way to the panel lines to give light perspective, the direction changes based on the part of the plane I'm working on. I make this layer 166/166/166 overlay 100%. The final layer is done in 2 parts, first the direction is offset 1 pixel horizontally or vertically from the original rivet pixel. Whichever way it was offset the first time, copy and offset a second time in the opposite axis. These use the same 166 color as the previous layer but the opacity is set to overlay 75%.

As for the fasteners around the access panels, they look fine the way they are.

[Greebo]

WRT panel lines I would suggest making another layer for hatch lines. On an aircraft like this some of the lines represent the overlapped edges of adjacent metal panels and some lines are the gaps between access hatches, gear doors or flaps etc. In RL the overlap lines are a lot less visible than the hatch gaps and they should be on the skin as well.

To create the hatch lines make a copy of your base panel line layer and turn the lines on the new layer a bright colour, say red. Now erase all the red lines that represent panel overlaps until you are just left with access hatch etc lines. Turn this new layer back to black lines and adjust opacities as needed. I'd suggest making the overlap lines a little bit less opaque than now and the combination of overlap and hatch line layers a bit more visible than now.

Bear in mind that my BM tutorial was written before spec and bump maps were introduced to AH. A good specular map makes more difference to a BM skin than anything else. The variation in a highlight as it runs from shiny metal to duller paint is the most convincing effect to create the illusion of bare metal.

[Vraciu]

I honestly don't see a difference. . .This really is frustrating.

Way better.  Way!  It is alive and bright.   That's what you want!      

Now tweak it.  Listen to the guys above.  Adjust the spec for different areas...metal vs nose art, etc.   But a gorgeous skin!   I love it.

[Lucifer]

This new skin is gorgeous, Ratio : good F Work ! 

[Vraciu]

This new skin is gorgeous, Ratio : good F Work ! 

I agree. 


One small suggestion...   You need a radiator exit door.  I drew one in and made it appear closed (a small opening).

[darkzking]

what we need are some more 332nd skins 

[noman]

Vraciu I have a really good picture of Galveston Gal from the airshow in Houston a few years back. If you might be interested in it gimme a shout. I would post it here but I can't figure out how to post pictures.