Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Custom Skins => Topic started by: Greebo on November 16, 2005, 04:11:33 PM
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I've uploaded this Spitfire skin to The Skin Department (http://www.ah-skins.com/). This is the aircraft of Major Robert Levine of the 4th Fighter Squadron based in North Africa in 1942/43. As always, any constructive criticism from the group is welcome.
Dan kindly supplied photos of the real plane, which can be seen in this thread (http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=164418).
(http://www.gfg06.dial.pipex.com/4thfssc1.jpg)
(http://www.gfg06.dial.pipex.com/4thfssc2.jpg)
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Greebo, how the heck you are doing it looking like a real???:huh I had just proudly edited my old Finnish Bf 109 G2 to new skin standard, but when I saw your Spitfire pictures I can only :cry
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because greebo rules. :D hehe
excellent skin as always.
ok, criticing...
left and right wing trailing edge has red tape by accident (from leadign edge texture I guess)
I don't like the paper bag filter all over the skin though because I think it makes it look like paper more than aluminum.
also is the spit wings flushed riveted or does it have raised rivets? if raised they look very good for raised rivets :)
so I guess its just the paper bag effect I dont like other than that it looks awsome. I can only articulate it further as the skin not having any areas that are resting? ie a break from variation I dunno its hard to explain kinda a stupid graphic design thing I remember from school from long ago. like you add areas of lots of information separated by areas where there is less so it dosnt give your eyeball burnout? the bag effect makes for variation in every pixel on the wing surface.
btw it looks great from further away... I am only talking about the in cockpit view that the bag effect seems to be too much for.
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Spits had flush rivets in the wings.
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What is the paper bag filter?
How did you get the "streaky" front-to-back look uniformly over the entire skin? I've seen that on some of the new 109s (and some old ones) and other skins but never figured out how they were achieved.
EDIT: Technical note: Youre port wing upper leading edge is short a pixel or two. The black is showing. Need to extend the outline on that wing just a hair more out to get rid of the black pixels. A lot of the 190a5s have this same problem in various areas.
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I think what your callying the streakyness is what I am calling the paper bag filter hehe. its a programmed effect I think.
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Thanks for the feedback guys. I'll sort out those bugs and have another look at the weathering, maybe tone down the filters and add some more specific oil and dirt stains etc.
The paper bag filter Cit refers to is done this way:
Firstly one of my paint layers always covers the whole of the painted area of the airframe. This is used to select the areas just needed for weathering effects, like the overall dirt filters.
Having selected these areas I use an airbrush tool set to very low density (1%) and airbrush over the whole area in some shade of brown or grey. I start with a very wide tool then go over it again with a narrower settings while upping the density slightly, concentrating on dirtier areas, wing walkways etc.
A low density airbrush looks too grainy by itself so I like to blur it with either a 1 pixel gaussian blur or a 5-6 pixel motion blur. The latter is set to the direction of the airflow, sometimes you need to select different areas of the filter and blur them in different directions.
I usually create four of these overall dirt layers using different shades or brown or grey and different blurs. When all the filters are faded right down they should merge into a random looking dirty effect. Note the above filters are just to "age" the paintwork, they shouldn't be noticable unless you are looking for them. Things like exhaust and gun streaks, dirt stains and oil drips have their own layers.
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Thank you for the info Greebo, I am using it to my 109. I just told the other Finns that the third version of the "Suomimersu" (Finns' Messerschmitt) is coming out much more older and worn out looking!:aok
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Just speechless!! :O
BTW, I sure wish there would be more possibilities to fly that FAF Ju-88 you did in AH. :( :)
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wow greebo you've really outdone yourself! it looks vloody brilliant, can't wait to fly it man!
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Hey Mate
You are the best. Many thanks for this one. Very good job indeed.
Cheers
Majors
249 RAF
Oldest Yank in the RAF (and maybe Aces High)
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nice but too much riviting...
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Originally posted by SELECTOR
nice but too much riviting...
no i like it. i DL'd it and flew it a bit offline, and it looks really great, the rivets sren't as pronounced on the actual thing. must have changed when it was converted to jpeg
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No spit is complete uunntil you have exhaust staining. Nice job tho.
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ive got some probs with rivits on spits..sorry but you just can't see them .. they are so flush the paint just covers them...
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I've got rid of the raised rivets on the wings but retained a subtle flush rivet effect. Most Spitfires had raised rivets on the rear fuselage so I've kept them there.
The photos showed a pale coloured exhaust stain which I copied on the skin. It doesn't show up too well on the screenshots but you can see it if you download the skin. I'll up the opacity a bit on it.
Thanks again for the feedback everyone.