Bare metal skinning for AH3

[oboe]

I am determined to someday perfect the techniques to producing authentic looking bare metal skins.  AH3 offers a lot of control to the skinner regarding Specularity, Environment, and Power settings and I tried every combination of low, medium and high for each of the values, and this is what I think looks best, but I wanted to get you guy's take on it.   So many of the skins look to me like they are made of glass, and I've been able to avoid that effect.  Its also possible to produce a pretty realistic looking polished chrome affect, but that doesn't seem right for a working warplane to me.  The new lighting is so bright and intense I may need to dial back saturation - the bright colors seem over-saturated to me (my gamma is at the default setting).  Also, I 'm not sure why the nearest wing surfaces are blurry - it always seems to be like that.

"Down For Double" is a work-in-progress - lots of adjustments and weathering left.   

[FTJR]

Dunno Oboe,

Looks pretty dam good to me 

[Devil 505]

Oboe I totally agree with trying to give bare metal a proper appearance for usage. Your example looks excellent.

I also agree that there is an issue with colors in direct sunlight in AH3 bold colors get over saturated and others are bleached. I don't like how this happens - I have spent hours on my color pallet to ensure that they are not too bold and work well with the total skin.

[StLouis]

I think that looks pretty good! As close to perfect as I've seen, there isn't much to critique. 

[Vraciu]

Oboe, that skin looks fabulous.   I am in awe. 

I had no idea AH skins could look that good.  Well done.

[lyric1]

 

[Greebo]

Great skin Oboe. The bare metal effect looks very good and I don't think there is much you could do to improve it. Perhaps the drop highlights are a little over-powered on the painted areas of the skin though. What I usually do is have one set of the skin's highlight layers placed above the paint layers and a copied set of these layers placed between the paint and bare metal layers. The lower set of highlight layers are usually set to a higher opacity than the upper set.

I'd tone down the saturation on the red and maybe the blue as well. Also HTC might take issue with the swastikas on the kill markings, small as they are.

[bustr]

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.

[Plazus]

Oboe,

Looks fantastic! The only thing I can point out is that the panel lines on the wing surfaces and the elevator surfaces appear a little blurry and not crisp. As if they're "out of focus". I'm not sure if that is because of the camera angle, or how the game stretches the skin around its surfaces.

Keep up with the great work!

[oboe]

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...

[oboe]

Oboe,

Looks fantastic! The only thing I can point out is that the panel lines on the wing surfaces and the elevator surfaces appear a little blurry and not crisp. As if they're "out of focus". I'm not sure if that is because of the camera angle, or how the game stretches the skin around its surfaces.

Keep up with the great work!

I have that question for Hitech.  Its almost like the depth of field is too shallow.  I agree they should appear crisp - they are in the bmp file.  I think its camera angle - I'll have to check on that...