Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Custom Skins => Topic started by: Xasthur on February 18, 2008, 08:21:07 AM
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I've noticed that not many people use circular rivets in skins.
I flew a sortie in one of NrRaven's early 109 skins and I noticed that he used circular rivets and I think they look pretty good. His colours are odd, but the rivets looked good.
Is there any particular reason that most people use square pixels for rivets?
I've not tried it yet and the only reason I can think of is that it might not be possible to get 1 pixel circles to look right. Is there any other reason?
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I'm confused. Is there such a thing as a 1-pixel circle? I think 1-pixel is as small an element as the skinner can use, and that 1-pixel always shows up square.
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A few folks blur their rivets. I don't like it because in essence the rivet takes up 3x3 (9 total, with the corners low opacity).
If 1 single pixel is already far too large to depict what a rivet looks like, 9 of them is far far far too many to use.
Also, you think you'd really be able to see them? I put rivets in to break up colors on the skin, not because they were really there.
The type of rivets you're thinking of are good for "bolts" but not so good for average rivet patterns.
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Yea I used to use this way. You could see on my JG54 109G2. One pixel dark then one light pixel right next to it then blur and set opacity.
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I think a bit of artistic licence is used sometimes for visual effect, using a black one pixel rivet set and placing another overtop in white, offset one pixel in whatever direction your 'light source' is intended gives a nice '3D' set of domed rivets. But this is blatantly wrong if used on an aircraft which used flush rivets where the most you'd get is a slight dimple (or crease along a line of them) effect. A good example is the Tempest, which had predominately flush rivets except certain areas of the fuselage, and the H. Stab, which had domed headed ones. It's a toss up between anal retentive accuracy and artistic good looks.