Pony NMF Wing Dilemma Part Two

[Vraciu]

Okay....   In regard to the natural metal finish Mustang D...

I am trying to get this right and I have tried three different ways of doing it.

1) Drawn Panel Lines along with Spec Mapping
2) Panel Lines-Only
3) Spec Mapping-Only
4) Panel Lines with both Spec and Bump Maps

There are things I like about  2 and 3, but neither seems to totally get the effect I am after.   Although 3 is closest.   I want the panel lines on the forward half of the wing to be very subtle and only viewable from certain angles.    The sun tends to offer this effect but it is not consistent.


If I get it to look good from the cockpit it doesn't always look good from outside, and vice versa...   

If any of you have a clue what I am getting at I would appreciate your input.

My panel lines may be too high in contrast, perhaps???   Maybe barely noticeable panel lines with a spec map for reflection is the way to go.

[Greebo]

Bear in mind not every player has bump mapping turned on in the game so ideally you want the skin to look at least reasonable with those effects off.

I usually create two levels of panel lines on the main skin. There are the lighter panel lines that represent overlap joins in the panelled surface and the heavier lines that represent the gaps around removable hatches. This is quite simple to do if you have created a seperate layer for your skin's panel lines, but a pain if you are still trying to make your skin all in one layer.

After all the panel line layer is finished, duplicate this layer and change this second copy to a bright colour like red. Then erase all the parts of the second layer that are not heavy hatch lines. Then turn the layer black again and play with the opacities of both layers to suit. Both layers get copied to both the spec and bump maps as well.

Personally I find heavy use of bump mapping on aircraft skins looks awful from the cockpit. All those shadows and highlights crawling around the panel lines on the upper wing as the plane turns looks very unrealistic. So I turn the effect down by making the last number in the xxxx_B_d.txt file down to 0.03000 or so. Spec mapping is the effect that makes the difference on BMF aircraft.

[Vraciu]

Bear in mind not every player has bump mapping turned on in the game so ideally you want the skin to look at least reasonable with those effects off.

I usually create two levels of panel lines on the main skin. There are the lighter panel lines that represent overlap joins in the panelled surface and the heavier lines that represent the gaps around removable hatches. This is quite simple to do if you have created a seperate layer for your skin's panel lines, but a pain if you are still trying to make your skin all in one layer.

After all the panel line layer is finished, duplicate this layer and change this second copy to a bright colour like red. Then erase all the parts of the second layer that are not heavy hatch lines. Then turn the layer black again and play with the opacities of both layers to suit. Both layers get copied to both the spec and bump maps as well.

Personally I find heavy use of bump mapping on aircraft skins looks awful from the cockpit. All those shadows and highlights crawling around the panel lines on the upper wing as the plane turns looks very unrealistic. So I turn the effect down by making the last number in the xxxx_B_d.txt file down to 0.03000 or so. Spec mapping is the effect that makes the difference on BMF aircraft.

I will give it a shot.  You are speaking in PHD language while I am still in fourth grade but I will try.  LOL

[Greebo]

This is what the heavier panel lines would look like after erasing the unneeded parts. On more recent skins I put all the little hatches on a seperate layer.

The black lines are the original panel line layer and the red lines are what is left of the copy layer I made. In PSP you make a copy layer by right clicking the layer in the layer list and then selecting "duplicate". Temporarily turning this copy layer red simply makes it a lot easier to see where you have already erased the lines you don't want. The heavier lines here are the hatches to access the engine and guns/ammo, the canopy hood, the gear doors and the flaps etc. If you carefully look at photos of aircraft you can see these visually stand out more than the panel joints, which are just overlaps in the metal skin.

[Vraciu]

Very cool stuff.   I am going to have to try that.