Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => Custom Skins => Topic started by: Greebo on June 04, 2017, 06:18:15 AM

Title: VB-6 Dauntless
Post by: Greebo on June 04, 2017, 06:18:15 AM
Thanks to Lyric1 for finding me the info for this SBD skin, it should be useful for Midway and Solomons scenarios as well as the MA. This was an SBD-3 in real life but that's considered an acceptable substitution for AH's SBD-5.

This SBD was one of the USS Enterprise's VB-6 aircraft that attacked and sank the Japanese carrier IJNS Kaga during the Battle of Midway. Although B15 suffered a big hit to the tail during the attack and almost ran out of fuel on the way back the crew of Ensign George Goldsmith and James Patterson managed to land it safely on the USS Yorktown.

(http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=387460.0;attach=27646)

(http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=387460.0;attach=27648)


Title: Re: VB-6 Dauntless
Post by: Vraciu on June 04, 2017, 07:08:02 AM
These skins of yours are approaching photorealistic territory.   :old:

 :aok

Is this 2048?
Title: Re: VB-6 Dauntless
Post by: oboe on June 04, 2017, 07:45:40 AM
These skins of yours are approaching photorealistic territory.   :old:

 :aok

Is this 2048?

Agreed, especially the rear gunner in the bottom photo.  On my 13.3 screen it looks photographic.

This skin made me think of a question about the power & spec map values - the first SBD was a darker blue, this one is lighter but seems to have realistic glare.   Do you need to change to values to compensate for the shade of the paint? 
Title: Re: VB-6 Dauntless
Post by: Greebo on June 04, 2017, 01:07:31 PM
Thanks guys, glad you like it. The SBD is a 2048 res skin.

In RL the USN three colour scheme used for the default SBD had a glossier Sea Blue on the upper wings and tail than the paint on the rest of the aircraft. So I made a lighter layer for the upper wing and tail areas on all the effects maps to represent this but turned this layer off on this skin. In general I'll just play around with levels on the effects files comparing them to my source photos until I am happy. On this one I added a reduced brightness layer to the diffuse file as the skin looked too bright compared to RL WW2 colour photos of similar aircraft otherwise.
Title: Re: VB-6 Dauntless
Post by: caldera on June 04, 2017, 01:15:12 PM
Nice!   :aok
Title: Re: VB-6 Dauntless
Post by: lyric1 on June 04, 2017, 01:35:21 PM
 :aok
Title: Re: VB-6 Dauntless
Post by: Devil 505 on June 04, 2017, 02:13:03 PM
Most excellent.
Title: Re: VB-6 Dauntless
Post by: Nefarious on June 04, 2017, 03:58:40 PM
Great job as always, perhaps it's only on my end, but the numbers 815 look blurry or artifacty on my end.
Title: Re: VB-6 Dauntless
Post by: Devil 505 on June 04, 2017, 04:04:24 PM
Great job as always, perhaps it's only on my end, but the numbers 815 look blurry or artifacty on my end.

It's the way the graphics engine renders colors at a distance and off angle.
Title: Re: VB-6 Dauntless
Post by: Nefarious on June 04, 2017, 08:07:35 PM
It's the way the graphics engine renders colors at a distance and off angle.

ahh, thanks.
Title: Re: VB-6 Dauntless
Post by: Greebo on June 05, 2017, 01:42:27 AM
Its as Devil said. The letters are not created using a font but hand-made from rectangular blocks of colour, so no aliasing except on the diagonal corners of the characters.
Title: Re: VB-6 Dauntless
Post by: FTJR on June 05, 2017, 03:42:13 AM
very nice as usual Greebo.