Cfs1 furball

[rince33]

Hi Ivan

Guy Martin is quite an amusing character to watch.

He is isn't he? imagine having a merlin engine in the front room of your house.

Interesting pic, It looks like the cockpit perspex took a hit as well.
The Spifires that they are building today must be using the aerial browning, would have been nice to have seen the effects of one of those.

 

[rince33]

Hi aleatorylamp.

I am having what I think is a lod issue with the new dornier model when I test it in a campaign and I'm wondering if the model has lods. Other models like the stock 109 and user created bf110 I can see at quite a great distance but not your dornier model which leads me to believe that it either doesn't have lower lods or it is a lod setting or colour issue.

My knowledge of lods is not that great I must add. The same thing happens with the original textures and model.

I have saved all of the new textures with mip maps.

The thing that I love about Cfs1 is aircraft visibility. Other than that your model looks great close up in the campaign in formation unlike the terrible stock version.

 

[Ivan]

Hi Rince33,

The difference in effect on sheet aluminium won't be any different with a US .30 cal or a German 7.92 or a British .303.
There isn't enough real difference in hitting power between them to make any real practical difference.
The point I was really getting at was that the rate of fire was VERY low compared to the aircraft MGs.
If you want to see what the Aerial Browning was like, the German MG42 Ground MG was pretty similar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhOrY88MGbM

8 of those together makes a pretty nice hailstorm.

BTW, I agree with you about the canopy framing on the Dornier being a bit narrow. Another thing that was missed was the asymmetry in the framing and especially in the lower nose section. I had a b*tch of a time trying to figure out the framing there.
The shape seems look quite a bit different depending on the angle and of course the windows aren't even close from left to right on the lower section.

- Ivan.

 

[aleatorylamp]

No LODS in AF99

Hi Rince33,

The new textures certainly look great on the Do17z2. Very nice indeed!

I´m afraid I know nothing about lods. The Do17z2 model is built using AF99, and
there´s no LODS option there. It only has the SCASM virtual cockpit correction.

The only way I know LODS can be implemented into an AF99 model, is to convert
the model to Gmax format using ModelConverterX, entirely re-build it in Gmax, and
then use the LODS function there.

If the problem is only a texture issue, I know the model can be processed using the
program "TEX512.exe", which then allows the use of extended bitmap textures with
512 colours and larger sizes. It requires textures to be renamed, but tells you how.

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

 

[rince33]

This is the completed texture set for you to check out. I've included all of the aircraft files and I've renamed files so that they can be used in stock campaigns and missions.
There is a texture alignment issue on the upper rear fuselage that can only be fixed by mapping but it's not too serious. Again, I used Avhistory textures to create this set, here is the zip:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/wv6lhphcod79wnx/Do-17z2.7z/file

 

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Rince33,

That looks fantastic! Very good work. Thanks very much!

I just got the files and installed them to have a look. Very authentic looking colours
indeed. It´s impossible to get those colour tones with the standard 256-colour pallette.

A nice enhancement to the model! I bet Smilo will like it very much too!

Incidentally, about the windows on the lower right side of the nose are on the nose
texture bitmap (the lower left side has none), not transparent, as it was impossible to
get them to show more or less correctly.

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

 

[Ivan]

Except for the Light Blue-Gray on the underside, the other colours can find a pretty close mapping on the FS5 palette.
I ran into the same problem when trying to paint the underside of the Me 109E-4. Either it was too Blue or no Blue at all.

Hello Rince33,
you did quite an excellent job repainting the Dornier. If Aleatorylamp has no objection, perhaps you should upload it here as a repaint (with proper credits of course)? It would not hurt to have another couple entries in the CFS1 downloads area.

Hello Aleatorylamp,
I believe it is quite possible to build the windows on the lower nose section as glazing rather than as textures. It gets a bit complicated and quite expensive in terms of AF99 Parts though which is why I figured that project had to be done in sections.

- Ivan.

 

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Guys,
It would be a great idea to upload the Do17z2 with the newly improved textures,
and of course also with a possible lower right transparent window improvement,
so please do feel free to proceed accordingly!
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

 

[Ivan]

Hello Aleatorylamp,

The transparent windows would be a serious rework and for that amount of work, I would probably do better spending the time on my own version of the Dornier 17Z. The project that Rince33 repainted here is your baby and you are still around to fix things if they bother you enough.

The attached screenshots show the sections that exist for my Do 17Z now.
The Nose section was done once but I found that I had miscounted the number of frames and had to start over to get the spacing right. Most of it is just tedious work except for the telescoping rear section of each engine nacelle which I haven't figured out how to do yet.

The final assembly became much easier earlier this year when I finished working on a spreadsheet to calculate the parameters for translating AF99 Glue Parts to SCASM parameters.

- Ivan.

 

[rince33]

Thanks for the kind words guys. A while back I created a graphics mod for Rowans bob(http://a2asimulations.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=68079). I took a stack of in game screenshots of the il2clod dornier and patched together this skin from the those to create a skin for the rowanbob dornier model, a fun project.

AND THE OLD SKIN

AND MY BOB2 RESKIN OFTHE HURRICANE AND DORNIER, ALSO USING IL2CLOD SCREENSHOTS.

MY BOB2 STUKA RESKIN

I'm now keen to see what these would look like in cfs1, they would be low res though.

 

[Ivan]

Hello Rince33,

It is pretty obvious you know what you are doing. It is a pity those don't look like CFS1 models. If they are, I would suggest uploading them so others can benefit from your skills. My own paint jobs tend to look more like cartoons in general. No highlights and very little contrast or shading.

By the way, what was the mapping problem you saw in the upper rear fuselage of Dornier 17?

- Ivan.

 

[rince33]

Hello Ivan.
Those were Rowan's Battle of Britain and Battle of Britain Wings of Victory models. I'm going to try and skin some of the cfs1 models with those textures but it won't look that great down sizing textures from 1024x1024 to 256x256 as you can imagine, still, I'm curious. I'll have a look at your me109 for starters.

This photo wasn't of the end product so there were other issues that I can see that were cleaned up before I uploaded the textures.


The texture glitch is there:

 

[Ivan]

Hello Rince33,

I believe when you attempt to texture "My" 109E-4, you will have an extremely easy time of it.
All the textures are square and are a constant scale across related parts.... Mostly.
The Wing Root / Fillet section is a different scale from the Wing because to fix that would have required some serious remapping.
If you find any problems, just let me know.

The image you posted for the Do 17 mapping problem doesn't display.

- Ivan.

 

[rince33]

Sorry about that.

 

[aleatorylamp]

Hi Rince33,

That´s not really a texture mis-mapping issue. It´s just that the mid-fuselage top
component, and the rear-fuselage top structure, are textured with the mid-fuselage
and rear fuselage textures respectively, which are both side-application textures.

I´m afraid this causes the straight line perpendicular colour divisions on fuselage top surface.

The 2 attached blueprint screenshots show the respective top fuselage elements in light blue.

There were already 15 textures, so unfortunately I couldn´t put in an extra top/bottom
texture for the top fuselage, and I matched the camo pattern on the fuselage top
surface with the wings accordingly.

Update: On 2nd thoughts, a top-bottom texture wouldn´t help either. Where would one
put it? The markings on the sides would then be distorted... The only way is to paint the
textures with colour shapes like I did originally (shown on the leftmost screenshot).

Update2: I was trying to adjust the pattern on the mid-fuselage bitmap No. 6, the one
with the markings, and got confused, because the front fuselage bitmap No. 1 also needs
a pattern adjustment.
The division between the darker and lighter portions of the new textures would have to
be like the ones I had originally. Here´s a fourth screenshot showing both the old and
the new bitmaps.
I´m trying to adjust it myself, and I´ll post the bitmaps as soon as I get them right.

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

 

[aleatorylamp]

A tentative fix

Hi Rince33,

It´s a difficult one, this alignment, not perfect by any means, and not
exactly like your colouring, but it´s my modest contribution to trying to
align the texture pattern a bit better. I wonder...

Granted, the fuselage part is not dark there... a tentative fix, as it were...

Here´s a screenshot, as well as the altered bitmaps No. 1 and No. 6, as a
possible improvemet for pattern alignment.

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

 

[rince33]

Hi Aleatorylamp

The section in front of the tail plane looks much better but I don't like the bit at the main wing, it breaks the continuity of the orange line section.
This is a good compromise:

 

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Rince33,
Very good, I agree with you there.
And thus, the fix has improved!
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

 

[rince33]

Hi Ivan

Work done on your me109 thus far. The spinner will be yellow.

 

[Ivan]

Hello Rince33,

Regarding the Emil: Not bad at all.
I do see one issue though: It appears from the screenshot that the Cross on the Starboard Wing is just a touch further forward than the one on the Port Wing. Is this actually the case?
Which Geschwader Emblem are you planning on using for this repaint?

My original paint scheme was really one for nostalgia reasons. I found another Monogram Me109E kit in my stash, but after this model for the simulator, the drive to build the aeroplane in plastic is not quite as strong. The kit I found as a replacement is even older than the first kit.

- Ivan.