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DH114 Heron Upgrade WIP

Cheers Rog.. pulled em both:encouragement:

I've had a look at the RN and RAF paints for XM296 and nice as these new textures are.. they make the lower fuse look blue not grey as it should be. However.. the new maps open up great possibilities for XM296 in another life. She was once part of the Queens Flight and appeared with fully polished ally. Should someone have a go at that.. I'll bite their hands off:encouragement:

EDIT: http://www.abpic.co.uk/photo/1051311/

I'm also using Bob's global Envmap btw.. not sure if that's adding to the blue.
ATB
DaveB:)
 
Cheers Rog.. pulled em both:encouragement:

I've had a look at the RN and RAF paints for XM296 and nice as these new textures are.. they make the lower fuse look blue not grey as it should be. However.. the new maps open up great possibilities for XM296 in another life. She was once part of the Queens Flight and appeared with fully polished ally. Should someone have a go at that.. I'll bite their hands off:encouragement:

EDIT: http://www.abpic.co.uk/photo/1051311/

I'm also using Bob's global Envmap btw.. not sure if that's adding to the blue.
ATB
DaveB:)

XM296 RAF should display neutral gray in the sim, which is very good at rendering light/reflection, but not always perfect.
http://avia-dejavu.net/XM269.jpg

My source photos for XR442 Royal Navy showed a tiny bit more color.
http://www.abpic.co.uk/images/images/1306003M.jpg

If the consensus is neutral gray for Royal Navy, I can make the mod. I can also provide a more neutral spec map. Spec on matte military paints can be a challenge when taking into consideration the myriad of system mods out there.

The current spec channel will shift towards blue/gray, and the env map/Fresnel combination may vary depending on your setup.

I created all of the skins with very little service wear with the intent that the end user can use the basic skins as a canvas to add their own enhancements as they see fit. My modified paint kit will provide all of the layers necessary to do very detailed mods to any of the aircraft.

I'm always looking for feedback gentlemen...so don't be shy.
 
RGr that Gman:encouragement:

I'll pop the default global env back and take another look. While Bob's works absolutely brilliantly most of the time.. it does have trade-offs with certain paints.. the WBS Restored set for one. All the polished ally paints look blue unless you fly the model on a knife-edge out of the skies reflection.;)
ATB
DaveB:)
 
I actually use Bob's env map as my default in all three sims. I keep a folder of env and Fresnel maps just in case I need to tweak a thing here or there. I find that I do a lot of tweaking...lol.

This particular model was extremely friendly towards alphas, specs etc. One could spend an immense amount of time fine tuning individual aircraft. This was what drew me to this Heron, besides the fact that I love both the Heron and the Dove.

When I have more time to devote to paints, I'll have a go at some of the other variants....

This is just toooo lovely.





 
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She´s so cool now. I think the developer owns you a beer. Its like a different plane. Million thanks!
 

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I don't see a hi-vis vest on that girlie!!:biggrin-new:

Not sure if the polished metal needs a bit more polish to be QF standard (it looked like chrome.. almost!!). I'm pretty sure QF aircraft carry a crest too but that's a cool paint nonetheless:encouragement:

ATB
DaveB:)
 
Much appreciation and thanks for all the time and effort you've put into this, Gman - incredible job, thank-you :applause:
 
I was never really interested in this aircraft, but I am sorely tempted now...
Outstanding work, gman!
 
I was never really interested in this aircraft, but I am sorely tempted now...
Outstanding work, gman!
Thank you Jankees,

You can rest assured that I will sprint to the MV P-38 the moment it's released. Your work on that project is absolutely magnificent.

G
 
I took XM-296 QF more in the direction of highly polished aluminum. If we can find some source photos I can bring the details into focus.

 
Hi Gman:wavey:

Here's a couple showing the location of the QF logo and the logo itself..
qfheron.jpg


qflogo.jpg


EDIT: To qualify the above.. that's Prince Phillip in the LH seat of his 'personal' Heron C3.. XH375.
EDIT#2: another link.. http://forums.airshows.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=17968
ATB
DaveB:)
 
Hi Gman:wavey:

Here's a couple showing the location of the QF logo and the logo itself..
qfheron.jpg


qflogo.jpg


EDIT: To qualify the above.. that's Prince Phillip in the LH seat of his 'personal' Heron C3.. XH375.
EDIT#2: another link.. http://forums.airshows.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=17968
ATB
DaveB:)

BTW the fuselage stripe on XH375 was 'Edinburgh Green' not the blue of the other aircraft!
Excellent stuff gman. When your paintkit is issued I will use it to re-vamp the Heron paints I have done (with your permission!).

Peter W
 
I took some of the roundness off the sides of the nacelles, brought up the alpha a bit more, added the QF Crest and detailed a bit here and there.

Glad everyone likes the work. The PK will bring a whole new palette of paints to this lovely lady.

When I get the PK uploaded, everyone has my full permissions to create and publish their own skins.
FYI: The skin tweaks for this high polish look are simple slider adjustments in the PK files. It's all in there.

 
XM296 RAF should display neutral gray in the sim, which is very good at rendering light/reflection, but not always perfect.
http://avia-dejavu.net/XM269.jpg

My source photos for XR442 Royal Navy showed a tiny bit more color.
http://www.abpic.co.uk/images/images/1306003M.jpg

If the consensus is neutral gray for Royal Navy, I can make the mod. I can also provide a more neutral spec map. Spec on matte military paints can be a challenge when taking into consideration the myriad of system mods out there.

The current spec channel will shift towards blue/gray, and the env map/Fresnel combination may vary depending on your setup.

I created all of the skins with very little service wear with the intent that the end user can use the basic skins as a canvas to add their own enhancements as they see fit. My modified paint kit will provide all of the layers necessary to do very detailed mods to any of the aircraft.

I'm always looking for feedback gentlemen...so don't be shy.


First and foremost, thanks for this great effort. I actually bought the plane because of this work. :)

3 questions.

1. I use FSX and have a non default install. F:\FSX when I copied the new skins over to my ../simobjects/Airplanes/DH-114 Heron folder, the aircraft wouldnt show up in the simulation. I did the usual checks on aircraft.cfg sequencing order, etc. but still no go. I isolated it to the texture.cfg which seems to map to some other file structure, perhaps P3D? I noticed that the default structure for this AC does not have a texture.cfg, so perhaps thats it. I blunt forced it by copying my texture folder to the individual livery folders to test this out and then it worked. Not sure if theres a more elegant way to work that.

2. I dont use DX10 etc. I use ENBseries.ini etc. I find that some aircraft, particularly the Apache Airlines Heron, are too shiny. How can I back that off some?

3. Your blank aluminum liveries are awesome. However, I cant open them up in Photoshop because the files are too big. Photoshop 7, which I use (and admittedly OLD), doesnt like those huge textures above 2048x2048.dds Possible to get a set of these that are 2048x2048? I find that textures above this on my machine at least, really just suck FPS.
 
Thank you Gordan,

Up and running, great job. Made a huge difference to my pleasure levels !!


2015-5-6_12-32-13-715.jpg





2015-5-6_12-53-0-659.jpg



Can't wait to see what comes next !..quality for sure :)
 
Just back from a short test hop in the Prinair paint. What a fantastic improvement - a whole different airplane. Many, many thanks!

One question - I notice in P3D 2.5 that the cockpit windshield reflections are pretty fierce - picking up clouds, I think. I haven't flown the original in a long time and can't recall whether that was a feature of the original as well. Are there options for toning it down? And are they realistic? If not, I'll be more than happy to keep flying it as is and will just tell myself that it's spent a lot of time in the salt air - which for Prinair is pretty much on target.

Really just a minor question about a truly great effort. Thanks again for putting the Heron back in my fleet!
 
Wow "G"... really look authentic! There are painters, then there's you... one of a kind true artist!!!
 
The QF seems to have a white(?) line on either side of the color band, and an outline along the first window?
 
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