I thought that right angle effect where the beginning of the shadow having a bar of sunlight bleeding through was only on flat paneled structures like buildings, parts of tanks, and the ship deck structures.
When you are flying in the beta environment, how much more shiny are these bare aluminum surfaces than these screen captures are communicating? I've noticed screen captures from the beta can be really tricky for showing the reality of how good the new graphics environment really looks while inside of it. From these jpg captures it is obvious the new environment gives a realistic reflective effect from curved surfaces. The amount of weathering on the flat surfaces in these jpg files is starting to make them look a bit AH2ish.
But, you are doing an excellent job on the random effect of not all panels weather the same.
Hey Bustr,
Nope, that "shadow gap" bug exists on aircraft structures, too - there is a band of light between the shadow created by an object (wing and horizontal stab in this case) and the object itself.
These are un-retouched screenshots from beta, so I would say the level of shininess you see here is exactly what is shown in the game. The metal texture on the wings is consistent over the whole plane; I haven't added any weathering apart from the temper of the metal panels aft of the exhaust manifold, and the faint exhaust stains on the side of the fuselage that curve downward from the manifold and end near the star insignia.
The specularity setting and the metal texture are the same on the fuselage and upper wings surface; it looks to me like the game is dropping off specularity effect too much for the horizontal surfaces. Seems to me there should still be some level of shininess on the upper wing surface, but it looks completely flat. By playing around with sun position and my point of view, I can get a realistic shininess to appear on the flat surfaces, though - so I know its working. Its just not evident at all on the horizontal surfaces at this angle.
It is really cool to sit in external view with the plane on the runway and move the camera around and watch the band of glare move across the fuselage - its very effective and I think is giving the illusion of bare aluminum very well...
