Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => Custom Skins => Topic started by: Greebo on April 11, 2016, 04:08:47 PM

Title: RAAF B-24
Post by: Greebo on April 11, 2016, 04:08:47 PM

Many thanks to Lyric1 for finding me some photos of this aircraft, which is an update of a skin I first submitted in 2006. Apart from making the skin markings more accurate, I have changed the skin resolution from 1024 to 2048 and added all the latest AH III bump and lighting effects. The first three shots show the new skin and the last one the old.

This B-24 was part of 24 Squadron of the Royal Australian Air Force. From mid-1944 the RAAF operated seven squadrons of B-24s against the Japanese mainly from airfields in Borneo.

New skin:

(http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c155/Jonchaz/Screenshots%20other%20countries/24_Sqn_RAAF_B-24_SC1_zps7tlt7mc1.jpg)

(http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c155/Jonchaz/Screenshots%20other%20countries/24_Sqn_RAAF_B-24_SC3_zpserejvd0u.jpg)

(http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c155/Jonchaz/Screenshots%20other%20countries/24_Sqn_RAAF_B-24_SC2_zpsarr7dmqd.jpg)

Old skin:

(http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c155/Jonchaz/Screenshots%20other%20countries/24_Sqn_RAAF_B-24_SC4_zpszvrhp5ln.jpg)

Title: Re: RAAF B-24
Post by: Skuzzy on April 11, 2016, 05:43:03 PM

That is gorgeous!

Title: Re: RAAF B-24
Post by: Devil 505 on April 11, 2016, 06:08:12 PM

A vast improvement  :aok

Title: Re: RAAF B-24
Post by: Nefarious on April 11, 2016, 06:10:07 PM

That's good stuff! Nice work!

Title: Re: RAAF B-24
Post by: bustr on April 11, 2016, 10:07:50 PM

May I wash and wax that puppy....... :O

Title: Re: RAAF B-24
Post by: lyric1 on April 12, 2016, 03:26:16 AM

 :rock

Title: Re: RAAF B-24
Post by: oboe on April 12, 2016, 07:50:11 AM

That's as realistic-looking natural metal as I've seen.  The 3rd screenshot is amazing.   Did you have an trouble with pixelation when you went from 1024 to 2048?  If so, how did you resolve?

Title: Re: RAAF B-24
Post by: Arlo on April 12, 2016, 07:57:09 AM

Positively prodigious.

Title: Re: RAAF B-24
Post by: Greebo on April 12, 2016, 08:45:08 AM

My B-24 template was originally built in 2048 res and the resultant bmp shrunk to 1024. After a few years doing that I realised it was a dumb way to skin so I converted my template to 1024 res. That was a lot of work as I had to redo all the rivets.

When I decided to take advantage of the new 2048 res limit for heavy bombers I decided not to rescale the 1024 template as it would have made everything blurry. Instead I resurrected my old 2048 res template and updated it with the stuff I'd since added to the 1024 res one.

The B-24 is one of the oldest shapes that the new effects can be applied to and so has a few issues with them. Most annoying is that I can't get rid of the black de-icing strips since their specularity is baked-in to the shape.

I've been concentrating on bare metal skins with the AH III effects since it is the hardest thing to get right. When the game is finished I'll update the skinning tutorial I wrote in the beta forum and repost it here.

 

Title: Re: RAAF B-24
Post by: FTJR on April 13, 2016, 04:09:45 AM

Its beautiful, and I (and others ) appreciate the effort you`re putting in. :aok

Title: Re: RAAF B-24
Post by: Nefarious on April 16, 2016, 09:49:17 AM

Can't  wait to see the forts updated.