Now that the alpha allows skins to work in the game I thought it would be a good idea to start a thread for discussion on the subject. Also for somewhere to let skinners show off their AH3 skins since I am assuming we can't post alpha screenshots in the skins forum.
Thanks to Lyric1 for supplying the info for the 852 NAS Fleet Air Arm Avenger skin shown below.
This skin uses all the new AH3 effects available to skinners. With the current AH2 skins as well as the diffuse image, i.e the basic skin, the skinner can choose to include a specular map defining how shiny each part of the skin is and a bump map, which simulates bumps and dips on the skin by generating highlights and shadows based on the sun's angle.
AH3 adds several new effects that will be available for AH2-era shapes, while AH1-era skins will now get the option of a specular map, something they didn't have before.
The biggest improvement IMO is the normal map, which does the same job as the bump map but does it much better. The second screenshot shows off the panel ripples, fabric sag and the raised reinforcing strips incorporated into the skin's normal map. This sort of subtlety wasn't really possible on the old bump map. Special software is needed to create a normal map.
Nvidia make a free plug-in that works with Photoshop and Paintshop Pro:-
https://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-texture-tools-adobe-photoshopThere is also a free tool available for Gimp:
http://registry.gimp.org/node/69Also new to AH3 is an environment map which defines how well each part of the skin reflects the world around it, useful for bare metal skins. Then there is the power map which defines how sharp the reflections are on each part of the skin. In AH2 you could only set these effects for the whole skin in a text file. Both these files look broadly the same as the specular map but with some differences. For example it is possible to make reflections on the edges of panel lines extra sharp.
