Skin problem driving me batty

[oboe]

Can't get the grime/shading on a green drab B-17 skin to look correct.   The image below shows the left wing appearance inside Photoshop and is identical to the bmp produced, but the inset shows how the wing appears in game - the game engine can't seem to handle translating a feathered gray/dk gray color against a green background.  It takes the gray variations and translates them into either 1) brown/tan, 2) dark green, or 3) bluish green with a hard edge between the colors. 



I'm baffled.  I've spent hours playing with slightly different colors, opacities, brightness/contrast, adding noise layers, etc.   It looks fine on the bmp but terrible once I inspect it in game.  I haven't done a non-bare metal skin in a while - have you guys run into this before?  Or is it just a problem with the B-17 somehow?

I'm using a flat black spec and power map for now, trying to eliminate as many possible causes as I can.

Thanks help!

[Devil 505]

I've noticed this effect with many camouflage colors. Some make the effect more noticeable, but it's always there regardless of color.

I'd try shifting the OD color towards the brown side and see if that forces the game engine to stick to brown shades of the weathering. Might mask the pixelated nature of it.

Also making another noise layer in grayscale might scramble the effect to make it less noticeable.

[Vraciu]

This happens to all of my skins.   The engine renders things slightly off from how they are drawn, particularly with OD greens.

[Vraciu]

It looks good regardless.   

[oboe]

I noticed if I save the photoshop file as a 16-bit rather than 32-bit bmp, I get results that approach what I'm seeing on the skin in game.  Not an exact match, but it does show a similiar limited color palette and the inability to reproduce gentle gradients in the shadows and grime.  So I think the conversion to the game's .res file format must involve a loss of color information similar to saving a file to bmp with a lower color depth setting.

[Vraciu]

You could try a different process, too. 

1) I work in PSP7 in .psp format.
2) I open in Gimp and save as a 32-bit BMP.
3) I open the BMP in MS Paint and save without editing to fix the header.

The rest is up to the engine to interpret.   I get random pixels that show up wrong and can only do so much to tame them.

[oboe]

I have played with it enough now that I've got it to the point where I can see changes in the output when I change the opacity of a noise, dirt mask, or color layer by a single percentage point.   I've got to make the dirt and noise layers single digit opacities - I can barely see the difference in the PSD file, but it shows up in the game.

I think I've got it about as good as I can get it, though there is one more thing I'd like to try.

Thanks for your help and suggestions guys.

[Vraciu]

I have played with it enough now that I've got it to the point where I can see changes in the output when I change the opacity of a noise, dirt mask, or color layer by a single percentage point.   I've got to make the dirt and noise layers single digit opacities - I can barely see the difference in the PSD file, but it shows up in the game.

I think I've got it about as good as I can get it, though there is one more thing I'd like to try.

Thanks for your help and suggestions guys.

My noise layers make big changes in output on OD as well.