Eagleskinner is back - new W-i-P

[Naki]

Hey welcome back! Long time no see. Nice paint BTW!

[CBris]

Actually, the model mapping is a feed to the paintkit process. When you decide to put a detail area inside the texture, you can end up with visual chaos. A sharp paint line on a detail area will merge to a less defined line outside of it. On the door handle on the C182 in my flag paint for instance, you will see sharper lines on the handle than on the adjacent structure.

Every poly the model maker processes can affect a paintkit. It is not difficult to alter either. As ok developer and beta tester for several Aerosoft planes (and from quite a few other FSX, aircraft modellers)I would constantly annoy the developer for just pulling and tweaking a piece of mesh just so that it would fit on an already overcrowded paint sheet. But once convinced, the resizing and remapping of an item honestly only took a few minutes.

Agreed, I am not a model expert, but even as a layman, I have remapped the odd model. By the way - if you look closely at the mapping of the C182, please take a look at the registration/airworthiness (?) sticker under the elevator. The painter can use a separately modelled "patch" to hide it. The only trouble is that if there is a paint line on the fuselage you may notice that the patch is ever so slightly rotated, so that the repainter has to spin his cover by about a degree. I'll see about some pictures later, when I finally crawl out of bed....


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[CBris]

Right, here's my proof of pudding with a very quick visualisation of just some of the issues where the modeller does affect the paintkit by what he does with the mapping of meshes. I base these on the C182 paintkit, but these quirks and dozens, nay hundreds, of others exist throughout the repaint world. There are very, very few aircraft paintkits that I have been able to use without the odd hair pulling moment...

one:

Stripes on the fuselage which may have to pass through a "patch" area such as the "State of Connecticut Department of Transportation" placard. first come two shots of the paintkit. in the first you can see that the pinstripe on the fuselage has been copied over the "patch area". A repainter will immediately see that the mesh poly line is skew. So the second screenshot show the patch line rotated. Hey, just what kind of an angle is that to copy/paste/drag/enlarge a piece of mesh into the paintkit??? 357.255° (Corel Draw folks - that's another quirk, but you get used to them...)





and on the finished article you get this:



Just look at the difference in sharpness between the line over the patch and the fuselage pinstripe.

two:

Now as to the door hinge - there's no reference mesh on the door area, just the shade areas on the "Linear Burn" layer (by the way, just show I am not perfect: what the heck is a linear burn layer? What is it supposed to do? What dooes the term mean? That shading over the tailplane is a pain). This next image shows a simple three colour pattern over the meshed bits and the linear burn bits. Without a mesh reference anchor, this can only be a good guess. In the subsequent image I add a third, background, colour for purposes of demonstration.





Right, time for save as TGA, convert to 32 bit 888-8 dds, drop into a new aircraft container in FSX. This is what you get:





Again... notice the sharpness of the imagery on the door handle over the blurryness of the fuselage decor.

It's the little things that distinguish a paintkit and make a difference between a good one and a REALLY GOOD one. If you use patches, make sure that the "unpatched" area on the rest of the plane has absolutely no tonal variations so that the patch really does become invisible and not look like a scrubbed area on a dirty area. If you do use patches - look out for any possibe fuselage pinstriping that may cross it - differences in sharpness will stick out like a dog's whatsits.Do not rotate patches - that will cause jaggies too. If you do use patches, then or pete's sake modeller, please not the scaling amount and let the painters know that it's 205% scale vertical, 235% horizontal and 3.179° rotated anticlockwise. That's all just laziness - drag, drop, stretch to fit and there you go is not a sign of quality. Don't you guyys have a real quality control department? Poka yoke and all that. Actually, I don't think I have ever seen any quality guidelines for flight simulation models - I guess that's why there are often so many after sales issues. Cynical, yes, but 40 beta testers means 40 less sales. And getting the right beta testers is also an issue - you need qualified beta testers, not just for the flying side - you have the best guys in the world for that. But you commercial model makers need to make sure the little things count too.

Paintkit mapping: one 4096 square at 32 bit dds 888-8 or four separate 4096 squares at dds dxt5 is the same data volume. BUT you really do get better resolution in the latter (more pixels per inch) so that even rivets are more round. Mapping one sheet or four is not that much more difficult. The modeller has to reference each single material piece by its location. Calling a second texture sheet is NOT that much of a time consuming effort - I have direct and personal involvement with several modellers at various addon smithys and when I see mapping queries answered and fixed in less than half an hour (a regular occurence with LIC and their Eagle or a friend's Oracle Pitts - sadly he never got it to market before two or three others did).

I know, I know, after two years of hacking around with the aircraft model, mapping is the last thing on a modeller's mind. Such a nuisance. I want to see money at last. That's all understandable and all Maslow. But that is not the time to relax and get slippy...

Just don't get me wrong. Yes this may seem like petty moaning - even if I have been repeating this since I started repainting sim models around 15 years ago. As far as paintkits go, A2A's count as the best - but even Carenado's single layer white aircraft do the job adequately too. Even if I did critique the 'name withheld' for not duplicating the engine compartment vent gills. Oh yes - if anyone is still reading - that was another "lazy" on A2A's part - mirroring the headrests in the VC!!! tut tut! But then who expects a pedantic QA guy to come along and want to put his own mark on the cabin interior??



(Yes - I know, i have left a couple of red interior bits. After doing a quick review of the texture 3D embossing in flight, I saw the mirroring and threw my teddy into a corner)

I do like A2A products, heck, I have spent a small fortune on all sorts since FS9 days and I will be spending more - especially when the T6 comes along. Even more so if you get the Reno versions!

Expect the "Midnight Airforce" with this level of detail - IF you go multi-sheet that is.



Ok, enough already.

[EightyFiftyFive]

Looks like you have an older version of Midnight Miss III. Did you paint that one?

Here's the latest:

[HercFan]

I will simply say one thing: anyone who's been around the flight simming community for awhile will immediately react to reading "Eagleskinner is back".

All I can say is that I am looking forward to whatever will be coming out of your paintshop. And given I spent about 99.9 time of my virtual flying in the cockpit, I hope some panel repaints and interiors are on your list.

[Lewis - A2A]

I think theres a lot of assumption in how the sim/computer works in your post. Theres a big difference between 3d modelling for art + media (tv shows, cgi etc) than for games design. A lot of what you are saying doesn't really fit in with modelling for games but rather modelling for art/media which is a different kettle of fish altogether.

cheers,
Lewis

(Edited post for not sounding like a numpty)

[CBris]

@855

I did that Midnight Miss (and the rest of the Buehn Air Force) quite a few years ago and used photos sent to me by the owners/operators Dennis and Tami Buehn. Our first contacts, according to my mail folders, were in 2008, so I guess my skins are of an older verion, yes.

...and a quick quote for the makers here; Tami wrote this about their Texans:

Chris
1) Performance...When racing the speed is approximately 235 mph, aircraft stalls @67 mph, climbs @ 2000' per minute.
2) The nose art girl is 'Midnight Miss III', not the Crystal Bay.
3) No arial mast in front of canopy.

I have attached some photos, one is of the sponsor decals on the aircraft and the other is of all our T-6's, 'Midnight Miss III', Midnight Rendezvous' and 'Midnight Express'. We call it the Buehn Air Force.
Have fun!
Tami Buehn

Ah yes, here's the original photo courtesy of (and © ) the Buehns

[CBris]

HercFan... Interiors? Certainly, especially on "Bushies"





But A2A don't do heavy duty dirty bushbirds, no? Although I do recll seing some "interesting" Cubs, Pipers and Cessnas in that Alaskan Bush Pilot series on TV. I wonder if you can transport dead elk or bear in a 182? Dirty 182? I wonder... areally really grotty Cesspip? hmmm... my thoughts are feeding...

(Old One-Eye wanders off into the middle distance thinking dirty thoughts about his "Dirty Betsy" Beaver....)

[CBris]

"Dirty Gertie" is giving me ideas. A few tasters to show the directions my ideas are wandering...

She needs to be dirtier. That last Elk transport left too many bodily fluids to drain out through the bottom of the fuselage...

[ebo]

Looks stunning. Großartige Arbeit!

Reminds me of my Blond Dynamite paint.

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[CBris]

Oooh i missed this reply.

This is not a rant...

When the modeller peels off pieces from the model and slots them on to the textures it would be nice if he kept the same scale - have you seen how godawful some differently scaled parts look side by side? Say there's a door panel on the fuselage that is two times the scale of the fuselage. When the painter puts a graphic on the side of the plane that overlaps the door panel, then the end result at runtime will show (relatively speaking) a blurry fuselage and a sharp door panel. Even when we painters go to 4096 32 bit 888-8 dds there is occasionally a noticeable 'blurry'.

This is even more blurry if the modeller rotates a panel (viz the C182 "registration" on the port rear of the fuselage)

Anyway - the "Old Glory" themed skin is available on my website - go help yourselves folks! 'Dirty Gertie' will follow - somewhen...