The Thing About AH3 Skinning That P(beeps) Me Off In 100 Words Or Less...

[Vraciu]

That mottling is good!

[Devil 505]

That mottling is good!

Looking st the screen shots, you really cant see the mottle I added just for the metal. Most of the variation is from my regular methods.

Something else I thought of pertaining to your Pony skins: the silver painted parts should use a darker value on the _S map and a lighter value on the _P assuming you want glossy paint. Also the silver paint should not have any blueish tone to it.

[Skuzzy]

Getting panels to look uneven (warpy, if you will) would require the normal map to contain the uneven heights, then matching the specular unevenness using the power map.  The oxidation would be in the diffuse.

Do not try and bake lighting effects into the skin.  If you do, they might look good from one direction, but then lousy from another.  Besides the color, the diffuse would also contain dirt, smoke stains, and so on.

[Devil 505]

Skuzzy, the problem is that the normal maps struggle to smoothly render subtle details. In my first screen shot, you can see that the rivets on the front cowling are made into solid strips with hard edges and right angles in the normal map - it looks horrible. Also, because of the wash-out effect the lighting system has, baked in detail is washed out before the differences can be seen. A combination really is the best solution.

[bustr]

Skuzzy, the problem is that the normal maps struggle to smoothly render subtle details. In my first screen shot, you can see that the rivets on the front cowling are made into solid strips with hard edges and right angles in the normal map - it looks horrible. Also, because of the wash-out effect the lighting system has, baked in detail is washed out before the differences can be seen. A combination really is the best solution.

Being willing to present a bare aluminum project like that means at this point you are probably the only person who can see anything wrong with it. This 109 is in a league of it's own compared to anything else you have done. Now if you can bless Vriacu with your technique, that already good looking skin file he posted will look as good in the game as the file does in it's current 2D format.

By the way, I like the subtlety of your blue in the reflections and your rivets and panel lines have great proportions to the world's scale. I bet it looks just as good under a cloud cover.   

[Devil 505]

Being willing to present a bare aluminum project like that means at this point you are probably the only person who can see anything wrong with it. 

At first I thought I was doing something wrong, or else I would have been more vocal on this specific issue right after AH3 launched. Once I saw that Greebo's new Ki-61 and TBM skins do the same thing, I knew it was the the system that cant handle shallow indentations.

Here are more shots to illustrate the problem and the viability of maintaining baked in detail/

Wing angled to avoid reflecting light. Shows baked in detail only.


Wing pitched up to encourage shading and highlighting stark normal map details. A single pixel rivet projects a 5 pixel wide square that connects to the next square to create a solid stripe.


Overhead view to show more awful details. As the camera pulls away, the details become spottily drawn but no less stark.


Any skin I have done for AH3 and will do for AH3 will be sans rivet detail on the normal map.

[Skuzzy]

Skuzzy, the problem is that the normal maps struggle to smoothly render subtle details. In my first screen shot, you can see that the rivets on the front cowling are made into solid strips with hard edges and right angles in the normal map - it looks horrible. Also, because of the wash-out effect the lighting system has, baked in detail is washed out before the differences can be seen. A combination really is the best solution.

How are you generating the normal map?  Take a look at the rivets on our B29 skin.  They are smooth and we have a slight dimple around them.  If you are trying to edit the normal map, by hand, then you are not going to get the results you want.  You need to be working with a bump map, then converting it to a normal map.

Take note of the many options available when generating the normal map.  You might have to mess with it a bit to get what you want.

I have no idea what you are talking about when you say "wash-out" effect.  Do you have power and environment maps?  That B20 test skin I did shows many effects with the lighting you can have and how they impact the light interaction with the skin.

If you are trying to match a photograph taken in direct sunlight, with your diffuse, then you are not going to get the results you are looking for because you are painting the light interaction in the photograph, which is then going to be lit again in the game.

[Devil 505]

Yes, Skuzzy I'm using all of the maps. And the normal maps are being made from bump maps.

Take a look at the rivets on our B29 skin. 

Looks banded to me.


The "wash-out" effect is what I'm seeing when the reflected light off the skin overpowers the diffuse map at the right viewing angle angle. It is more pronounced on light colors. Pay attention to what happens to the white stripes.

[Fencer51]

I am seeing the same thing Devil.  Look at my 190D9 post in the skinners forum.

[oboe]

This may be the best bare metal I've seen, Devil!   Congrats!



However its really hard to get the lighting to interact with the flat horizontal surfaces.  When I get the angles on the fuselage that show very believable glare to the metal, the wings look too flat and dull and to me. 

[Devil 505]

This may be the best bare metal I've seen, Devil!   Congrats!
However its really hard to get the lighting to interact with the flat horizontal surfaces.  When I get the angles on the fuselage that show very believable glare to the metal, the wings look too flat and dull and to me. 

Thanks Oboe. That is why it is still important to bake in lighting effects into the diffuse map.

I am seeing the same thing Devil.  Look at my 190D9 post in the skinners forum.

Where?

[Fencer51]

Here it is.

[hitech]

Fencer you need to raise the power.

HiTech

[Fencer51]

Fencer you need to raise the power.

HiTech

Thanks Dale, I will give it a shot.

[Vraciu]

Being willing to present a bare aluminum project like that means at this point you are probably the only person who can see anything wrong with it. This 109 is in a league of it's own compared to anything else you have done. Now if you can bless Vriacu with your technique, that already good looking skin file he posted will look as good in the game as the file does in it's current 2D format.

By the way, I like the subtlety of your blue in the reflections and your rivets and panel lines have great proportions to the world's scale. I bet it looks just as good under a cloud cover.

Thanks Bustr.    I would love for skills like his to rub off on me but that's a miracle too far I suspect.   

May just have to stick with non-NMF skins from now on. 

Devil, that aluminum looks fabulous.   How much of that is due to bake-in vs. spec mapping?