Brinigng shine to the P-40 project.

[pilottj]

Hey guys,

I started an experiment to bring shine to the P-40...ala early pre war schemes. I saw some pictures of Planes of Fame beautiful static shiny prewar P-40B and used it as a reference.


The key files are involved are fresnel3.dds and env.dds. I took Martin's shiny P-51 fresne5.dds and started replacing/renaming it to the P-40s fresnel files. I was able to isolate the fresnel3.dds as the one controlling the main shine level. Doing this brought some shine to the P-40 and at the time I thought that was as far as I could go. I ended up making the metal tone pretty dark at first to bring out the deep shine as far as I could at that point.

This was the result with fresnel3 but stock env file.


Then I thought what would happen if I copied the env file used in 'Stang Evil, Squeaky Clean, and Musicman's shiny P-51 paints.
Here was the result


So after playing around with various metal tones, I reworked the metal tone again to a tone sampled from the stock P-51 metal color, then added a duplicate multiplyer layer with opacity set to 25% for a slight darkening. That was the metal tone I used for Lucky Lady VII

This was the result that I endup going with.



For ducks I tried Squeaky Clean's more subtle fesnel file.
Here is the result of that.


It is all packaged up and on avsim now.

With this project done, it should help open the door for other shiny P-40 paints. You might be able to even make existing bare metal paints shiny by simply copying the fresnel3 and env files from this scheme. For any painters interested, the fresnel3.dds and Env.dds are what does the trick. I believe you can play around with fresnel file itself to alter the shine intensity.


If Martin or Lewis have any sugggestions or info on what exactly the fresnel files do and how they manipulate the reflectivity that woudl be great.

I think this same process could also be applied to the Spitfire if desired.

Cheers
TJ

[Baron58]

Hey TJ.
Great paint there! I'm afraid I couldn't resist adding my 5 pence worth here, though!

For any painters interested, the fresnel3.dds and Env.dds are what does the trick.

The Env.dds file is just the environment map that is pseudo-reflected in the diffuse surface and the Fresnel map is what controls how much of Env.dds is "reflected" at the surface from a maximum at 90 degrees to minimum at 0 degrees to the polygon face. Together, they do not give you that superb chrome effect! The Diffuse Alpha channel is what controls the amount of reflection of the surface, IF it is set up to do so by the modeller in gMax or 3dsMax!

I think this same process could also be applied to the Spitfire if desired.

No it can't! I've been trying for months now to put a chrome shine on the Spitfire.

My challenge to anyone is to do a shiny Spitfire, 'cos I've given up!

Ted

[pilottj]

I was curious to see if the same proceedure would work so with the Spitfire paintkit, I created a simple grey metal scheme with a dark alpha, then copied the env used for shiny p-40, tested the fresnel files with the one used for this p-40 project...fresnel3 is the kicker again.

With this, I have an idea for a quick shiny Spit scheme...wonder how one would look in the shiny prewar USAAC colors with tail stripes...I will have a go at it.

Cheers
TJ

[Baron58]

That's amazing TJ! I've well and truly made a complete idiot of myself! But I still don't see how those two images can make the difference! It just goes against all the documentation.
My problem now is I don't have the P40, so stop talking and post that Spitfire paint!!

Ted (chief plonker!)

[pilottj]

More in the Sptifire forum.

[Killratio]

A stunning success mate!!

[Lewis - A2A]

Great work

[pilottj]

From what I can tell learning from this process, think of your aircraft's main alpha textures as like individual 'shine' volume settings on your shine 'sound' mixer. The fresnel appears to act like the master volume. You can have the alphas on your aircraft textures set for dark full shine but if the fresnel isn't set, there will be no reflection. As far as I can tell the 'whiter' the fresnel, the 'louder' the shine. WIth this control you can manipulate your planes skin to have extreme shine or extreme subtle shine.

I was playing with Tejanahawk, looking to add a very subtle shine to it. It already has some of the weathering effects so I didn't want a high shine, I think it looks great with the more flat metal look. Also I no longer have the PSD layered files for it so I would have to start from scratch if I wanted to do major metal work to it.

I took the more sublte shine fresnel3 used for the P-40 and Spit, then used a multiplyer layer and using the opacity slider, made it about 75% darker. Using the default P-40 env file.

Here is the result. Might be hard to see in the screen shots, it is more noticeable when panning around with the camera, but there is a very subtle shine to it.



Cheers
TJ

[Baron58]

TJ: Thanks for explaining your method, there! It's incredible how such a subtle change in the fresnel image can have such a major impact on the degree of reflection. That sharp env.dds map helps a lot, though. I may have to flatten out those mountains, though. It's pretty flat around here!

Thanks again.
Ted

[arkady86]

That's some gorgeous work TJ!
So, just to sum up for the novices (like me), the involved files for the -51 are fresnel5.dds and Env.dds, meaning the adding the Env from say Glamorous Gal and Martin's fresnel5 to a bare metal-ish P-51 should increase its shininess dramatically, correct?

EDIT: here's what I got on my personal skin, after adding the two aforementioned files to the skin folder and fiddling a bit with the spec alpha and diffuse alpha settings...
In particular, I had to tweak the anti-glare's diffuse alpha to make it less shiny (it's matte paint after all...) and enhance the contrast between shiny and dull areas in the spec alpha, just to add some sharpness to the mix...

[pilottj]

yep it looks like you got the idea

Compare the fresnels between Martin's super shiny and Buzz313's 'squeeky clean' on your own schemes and see which you like. As said before the fresnel is like the master volume control for the shine while the individual alpha textures are like the sub-volumes on the mixer control. Martin's fresnel is set to LOUD while Buzz's fresnel is set to Medium. The P-40's fresnel is set to quiet...even tho it may have 'loud' shine within it's alpha textures...you need to make the master volume louder in order for those shine settings to show up. Look at the various fresnels in your paint program to get an idea of what is 'quiet' and what is 'LOUD', then you can adjust it to your liking

Think of the ENV file as like the 'tone' contol...sharp-soft reflection