AH3 skins

[hitech]

Minor quibble but the viewer spells ENVIRONMENT ENVIORment.   I guess that's how LBJ would pronounce it. 

*Ducking Dale throwing scissors at me*

No was
an empty bottle of scotch

[Vraciu]

No was
an empty bottle of scotch

I was gonna' say that but didn't want to sound accusatory! 

[Greebo]

The new lighting makes bare metal skins appear rather flat compared to the old. The increase to diffuse and ambient light causes the aluminium to appear too light and the lack of contrast makes the skin look like it is just painted light grey unless specular reflections are visible.

After doing some tests it seems the main thing that can be done to improve the look of a bare metal skin is simply to make the aluminium colour on the main skin darker. I went with 50% darker at the current skin viewer lighting setting of 1.6.

[Chilli]

I was noticing that also, and although not a skinner.... I was thinking the environment map is what produces the darker impression.  Is there a way to increase the environmental power?  I was wondering if any of the top 7 debug sliders would have had this sort of effect..... but I haven't noticed any effect by them at all. 

[Devil 505]

The new lighting makes bare metal skins appear rather flat compared to the old. The increase to diffuse and ambient light causes the aluminium to appear too light and the lack of contrast makes the skin look like it is just painted light grey unless specular reflections are visible.

After doing some tests it seems the main thing that can be done to improve the look of a bare metal skin is simply to make the aluminium colour on the main skin darker. I went with 50% darker at the current skin viewer lighting setting of 1.6.

Can you show what the effect the new lighting had on your Ki-43?

[Vraciu]

Can you show what the effect the new lighting had on your Ki-43?

I can't bear to watch! 

[Greebo]

Can you show what the effect the new lighting had on your Ki-43?

Here are some screenshots of the Ki-43 skin I did for the tutorial. The first one is the pre-patch lighting and the second the patch 86 lighting. From this angle the difference is fairly subtle but the brighter diffuse lighting washes out some of the bump and specular detail. From angles where you can't see specular reflections the aluminium looks quite flat and more like light grey paint.

Until the AH3 lighting levels are finalised there's no point playing with this too much but I did a simple alteration to the skin to see what would happen. Darkening the aluminium colour on the base skin 50% balanced the diffuse lighting and added some more contrast. The third screenshot shows this. It is a bigger improvement from angles where you can't see specular reflections.

Original lighting:



Patch 86 lighting:



Patch 86 lighting with darker aluminium:

[Citabria]

breathtaking new graphics options you have here.

for anyone interested in aluminum aircraft rivet deformation there are certain aerodynamic principles you can use to know how to do it correctly.

everything on top of the wings will puff out never in. the rivets will always be recessed along with their underlying support structure but open areas of aluminum skin will have a puffed out appearance...

why?

low pressure above the wing contributes to this in addition to the natural tenancies of aluminum to deform when riveted and recess around the riveted area.

making the unsupported areas of aluminum recess below the rivets and supports usually give an unrealistic look simply because any time there is aluminum skin deformation on a real aircraft the unsupported areas will bulge out in varying amounts if at all.

you can usually see the underlying structure underneath almost any aluminum aircraft not just by the rivets which are often flush but by the stresses and deformations on the thin aluminum skin. this effect is especially pronounced when light is  hitting the surface at an angle.

the more subtle and irregular you make this effect the more realistic it will be. it should not look bubbly. think of it more as a force being exerted on the aluminum pulling it down and holding it in place.

wing spars should not have any deformation applied if they are visible on the surface. and if they are directly underneath the aluminum skin the aluminum above them tends to not deform much either.

[Citabria]

another way to think about it is it is similar to the way you can see human skeletal structure underneath the skins surface.. this is true for airplanes as well though it is a more subtle effect but it does add a vast degree of life and realism to any skin it is done effectively on.

also the thinner the aluminum skin such as on Japanese aircraft the greater the effect can be seen.


the only place the unsupported aluminum skin would ever seem to be curved inward and recessed is at the wing root where crews walk on it repeatedly but this recess effect is very faint if visible at all.

[Vraciu]

The original lighting is best, Greebo.   Just my vote.   Guess we will see where it ends up.

[FLS]

Should we be ignoring the aluminum skins when testing brightness levels since the glare is adjustable in the skin? Can the aluminum be brighter without looking like white paint?

[Citabria]

until you put an actual atmosphere in the sky above the bare metal that has a gradient sky color (light blue to dark blue) and a lot of clouds your still better off baking in bare metal atmospheric effects to help the reflective maps.

take samples from the default b17 skin for a good range of colors for the wings upper surface.

don't make it grey on top make it a range of blues if baking. underside generally brown as greens look funky. white or grey along the sides of the fuselage to simulate the horizon.

works amazingly on bombers that always fly level unless they are shot down.

works great on fighters too as no one is looking at the skin unless its in level flight or external view anyway. unless its the parts visible from the cockpit.

[Chilli]

The baked in effects that you are talking about, shouldn't that be covered by the environmental map?  This is why I have been trying to get an answer, if environmental map power could be increased. 

[Greebo]

Environmental mapping is controlled by how light or dark each part of the environmental map is. To alter the overall effect I'd simply make the whole map lighter or darker.

As there is now no way to control the diffuse and ambient lighting on a skin it is going to be a question of balancing the other effects on the various maps so they are not overpowered by the game's global settings for diffuse and ambient lighting. Until these settings are finalised there's not much point trying to do this though.

My bare metal skins have the baked-in environmental effects that Cit describes, as well as baked-in bump effects, specular effects and so on. For those skins that include maps to control these effects I haven't turned the baked-in stuff off, but I have turned it down. My feeling is that not every player will have bump-mapping etc turned on, so for them a skin with no baked-in effects will look bad. OTOH the baked-in effects will conflict with the mapped stuff when the plane is at some angles, so I just set it so the mapped stuff is more powerful and dominates.

[Devil 505]

until you put an actual atmosphere in the sky above the bare metal that has a gradient sky color (light blue to dark blue) and a lot of clouds your still better off baking in bare metal atmospheric effects to help the reflective maps.

take samples from the default b17 skin for a good range of colors for the wings upper surface.

don't make it grey on top make it a range of blues if baking. underside generally brown as greens look funky. white or grey along the sides of the fuselage to simulate the horizon.

works amazingly on bombers that always fly level unless they are shot down.

works great on fighters too as no one is looking at the skin unless its in level flight or external view anyway. unless its the parts visible from the cockpit.

I've been doing this with the Ki-84 that I'm working on. The baked in effects have a huge effect on making the metal realistic looking even though it's static.