Bare metal B-17G

[Greebo]

Its looking really good Oboe, looking forward to seeing it finished. I've been trying to decide whether to do the B-17G or the Ki 84 as my next template so this has saved me from having to make that decision.

Bear in mind when you come to create the normal map that many of the wing and tail surface areas have reversed textures on the bmp. I would suggest treating the panel lines the same way I did on the reversed texture areas of my P-38 build. Also as the inboard and outboard engine nacelle textures are each used twice and are mirrored then painting panel lines on the normal map will cause the lines on one side or the other of the plane to appear raised, so I'd just leave the nacelles blank on the normal map.

[oboe]

Thanks Greebo - I did just that.   The B-17G must be an older model too- I noticed quite about of stretching on the cowlings and fuselage spine, and also the chin turret.  Most unfortunate as that ruled out a skin I liked - "Flak Eater" - which had a shark-like mouth painted on the chin turret.

I actually hope you do at least  few B-17s at some point.   I learn a lot from your skins.   

I think I've pretty much reached the final state here:



 

 

[lyric1]

  

[Greebo]

Excellent skin Oboe, really nice weathering on the metal.

If I'm going to do another template I'd rather it was something that no one else is currently making skins for. Just to get up to date skins for as many different rides in the game as possible. No one's been skinning B-17Gs since HornetUK left the game so yours will be a great addition to the game. There have not been any Ki-84 skins for a while either. Devil has skinned a couple but a long time ago so I am assuming his template was another victim of his HDD failure. The other aircraft I've looked at recently is the Tempest but that has a truly awful template with really bad scaling and shape issues so I gave up on that one.

I was asked a few months ago to do a skin of a B-17G of the 452nd Bomb Group, can't remember by who though. I had just finished my B-25C template at the time so I declined but noted it for future reference. So if you are looking for future subjects I'm sure that would be appreciated by someone in the game.

[oboe]

Thank you, Greebo.  If you look closely at the skin where the fuselage meets the base of the tail - that shading is produced by the Ambient Occlusion technique you described in your P-38 build log.  So that's all you.   I've used that technique on the engine cowl-wing and horizontal stabilizer-fuselage joins also but it is most apparent along the base of the tail.  This is also an area of stretching so it took a lot of trial and error adjustments to get it to look right.

One thing, while this skin looks fair in bright sunshine - inside the hangar, it's a different story altogether.  It looks terrible.   Its just a bluish-gray pulpy mess under hangar lighting conditions.  I wouldn't expect someone looking at B-17Gs in the hangar to choose this one based on what they see there.   The bare metal P-38s I've done look OK inside the hangar, and compare well to other P-38s in hangar lighting - but not so for this behemoth.   

I am sure I'll be doing at least a few other natural metal B-17Gs.  I have a few in mind, and continue to browse for more subjects.  I'd be interested to learn about any dedicated bombing squadrons who would like a B-17G skin done.   

There are quite a few B-17 skins up for adoption, but I'm ambivalent about whether to adopt and redo them.   There may be players who like them just as they are.   I'm open to encouragement on that matter.

Here's one from the 100th BG that caught my I recently as a potential skinning subject:


 

[Fencer51]

Wow.. just wow.  Nice work.. Redo mine, especially that OD one I did, it was my fave... 100th BG..?

[Greebo]

IIRC Hornet's B-17G skins are 2048 res and have lighting maps but all the others are 1024 res with no AH3 maps and so would benefit hugely from an upgrade just because of that. I'd be amazed if anyone complained about a B-17G skin update done to this standard anyway.

[oboe]

Wow.. just wow.  Nice work.. Redo mine, especially that OD one I did, it was my fave... 100th BG..?

Thank you Fencer.  It'll be a while before I get to OD B-17 skins.  But you do have some tempting bare metal ones - I think "Sleepy Time Gal" from the 381st BG and a yellow-tailed one with a red-headed beauty on the nose "Dinah Mite" are great subjects in particular.

I didn't know HornetUK left the game.  IIRC he has some nice ones from the MTO.   

[Vraciu]

Looks great, Oboe.  Based on the photos I would adjust the opacity of the fuselage codes a touch to darken them, perhaps, otherwise nothing to add.  Nice work.


Edit in: I can't stop thinking about the CAF's "Sentimental Journey" when I see this metal work.   That's a gorgeous machine.

[oboe]

Looks great, Oboe.  Based on the photos I would adjust the opacity of the fuselage codes a touch to darken them, perhaps, otherwise nothing to add.  Nice work.


Edit in: I can't stop thinking about the CAF's "Sentimental Journey" when I see this metal work.   That's a gorgeous machine.

Thanks Vraciu - I think you are right about the fuselage codes.  I believe I used x'2b2b2b' as my black, and probably dialed it down to 80% opacity, which does seem too far.

The other thing I noticed is the "American Beauty" text is not being affected enough by the glare - I may increase the specularity of my markings and decals layer.  I've already bumped it up twice, but it looks like it needs more tweaking.

"Sentimental Journey" is the first one that came to mind when I initially slapped a bunch of metal sample textures on the skin and lit it up in game.  I researched it but its not a historical skin.  I'm not sure if Hitech wants any more CAF skins.   I'd be tempted to crank up the environment map to try for a more polished aluminum effect.  Might be interesting to see how far I can take it.

[Devil 505]

Thanks Vraciu - I think you are right about the fuselage codes.  I believe I used x'2b2b2b' as my black, and probably dialed it down to 80% opacity, which does seem too far.

I generally use 262626 at 100% for my black.