JG54 Me109G-2

[Devil 505]

It’s not reckless.

And it works. 

Don’t save time if you don’t want to.  I’ve shown this technique to others and they love it.   Do it the hard way if you prefer.

I’ll say it again.  A darkened negative image of your grayscale diffuse is a great starting point for your Power Map.   Darkened gray scales of the diffuse also work great for the Environment and Spec Maps.   

The funny thing is that your method is actually harder than mine.

My method for spec maps is simple.

Bottom layer is entirely the desired shade for painted surfaces  (dark gray).

All other elements are then set to black or white on their individual layer and that layers opacity is adjusted to create a gray shade for the drsired sheen. Simply decide if an element needs to be more glossy(white) or flatter(black) than the base paint.

For example, for smoke stains I change the smoke from sooty brown to black. For oil streaks, I change the color from dark olive to white and reduce that layer's opacity until I get a light gray that I want. I can easily make adjustments just by using the opacity slider.

[Vraciu]

I've done a little test to illustrate the effect of the power map. The screenshots below show the same skin viewed at the same angle. The only difference is that the upper screenshot shows the skin with a pure white power map and the lower with a pure black one. As you can see the pure white power map gives a much more focused highlight and the lower black one a lot more spread out.

I do agree with everyone that the power map should be fairly close to black for both paint and NMF surfaces in AH but on my skins the paint is a little darker than the NMF. The only thing I make light on that map are glass and highly reflective gear pistons. The specular map is where I have the biggest contrast between paint and NMF.

(Image removed from quote.)

That's a good illustration. 

I'll have to play around with it some. 

How does your Environment map look on those?   Is it black?

[Vraciu]

The funny thing is that your method is actually harder than mine.

My method for spec maps is simple.

Bottom layer is entirely the desired shade for painted surfaces (very dark).

All other elements are then set to black or white on their individual layer and that layers opacity is adjusted to create a gray shade for the drsired sheen. Simply decide if an element needs to be more glossy(white) or flatter(black) than the base paint.

For example, for smoke stains I change the smoke from sooty brown to black. For oil streaks, I change the color from dark olive to white and reduce that layer's opacity until I get a light gray that I want. I can easily make adjustments just by using the opacity slider.

So your map is almost plain?


I tried that on mine and it didn't look as good as leaving some variations in.   

Are you drawing a map from scratch for each plane type?

My method takes less than sixty seconds to do three maps for a quick look.   It's taking me longer to type this paragraph than to make those maps.   Final settings take only a fraction longer since the major adjustments are done on the Spec map at the very end.

[Devil 505]

how plain does this look to you?



The only thing I did not include on this example are markings, which I only do if reference photos show a distinct difference in sheen from the base paint.

[Vraciu]

Much more plain than mine.  (That's not a slam.) Not sure how to post them since my phone won't save in the proper format. 

Where does this map come from?   Is it built from scratch?

[Devil 505]

That's the Pmap from my P-40C. It is completely from scratch using layers from my P-40C diffuse file.

[Vraciu]

That's the Pmap from my P-40C. It is completely from scratch using layers from my P-40C diffuse file.

That's what I thought. 

I do the same thing except I just Grayscale my Diffuse and delete layers I don't want and save it as a new file.  I adjust opacity and brightness on the rest for the final product. 

If I need to get rid of details for a layer I just darken them all the way, close, open, adjust.  Makes it look like yours does (a solid color) when appropriate.  I don't have to cut and paste (unless I make a change after the final adjustment phase—which saves time).

But if I want a quick look I don't adjust anything.  I just bang out three quick files to replace the defaults.   Final adjustments come later and overall brightness is applied only to the single layer bitmap at the very end.   It's ridiculously fast.    The biggest problem is figuring out what shades things should be.  The test Greebo just did means more experimentation now.

[Greebo]

That's a good illustration. 

I'll have to play around with it some. 

How does your Environment map look on those?   Is it black?

The power and environment maps are both quite dark on my current skins for paint and metal but with the NMF areas a bit less dark than the painted areas. On the specular map painted areas are lighter and NMF areas a lot lighter than on those maps. I tend to ramp up the dirt effects on the specular map to give the reflections some variation.

[Skuzzy]

Thanks for taking the time to do that Greebo.  Perfect.

[Vraciu]

The power and environment maps are both quite dark on my current skins for paint and metal but with the NMF areas a bit less dark than the painted areas. On the specular map painted areas are lighter and NMF areas a lot lighter than on those maps. I tend to ramp up the dirt effects on the specular map to give the reflections some variation.

Interesting.   

I will need to mess with this more when I get home.  I'm also dealing with the bug in the P-51B Environment map so that could be a factor in what I'm seeing.

http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,393627.msg5223245.html#msg5223245

[Vraciu]

Thanks for taking the time to do that Greebo.  Perfect.

Yeah, It's good stuff. 

[Larry]

How does this look?

[Vraciu]

Looking better but I will leave the critiques to the experts.  It's a tad shiny in some ways, with sharp reflections.   Too darkly lighty.   Lol

[Greebo]

Try making the painted areas on the power map very dark grey to spread out the reflections more.

[Devil 505]

Much too shiny for me, Larry.