Pearl Harbour Akagi Hikotai stock Val cleaned skins uploaded!

[kelticheart]

A good day to everybody! :wavey:

I just uploaded the first two of a series of cleaned up repaints for stock Japanese aircrafts, dedicated to the "Day of Infamy".

Mine wants to be a tribute, and a big thank you! :salute:, to the monumental effort carried out by SOH's members Crashaz, Talon and the Pearl Harbour Project 2 for CFS2 team to recreate the environment, scenery and missions of that historical day.


D3A1 Val "AI-251", Akagi Hikotai, released in the "PHP2-Vals.zip" pack by SOH's member Talon,
"AI-201", the Val flown from the Akagi by Ltnt. Zenji Abe during the Pearl Harbour attack, from a skin created by SOH's member Talos2005 of Akemi Mizoguchi's very same model.
I simply demirrored the original stock skin, I copied over "AI-251" code, modified it to become "AI-201", plus additional stenciled details copied from Akemi Mizoguchi's D3A1 Val.

Besides, you will find:

demirrored correct damage textures;
new engine texture;
both full disc and single blade textures to choose from;
dp developed by Talon for Pearl Harbour attack scenario AI performance with stock payload array replaced with Thicko's D4Y Suisei 250/60kg bombs and Metal Dreams' Imperial Japanese Navy 30kg bombs;
Thicko's D4Y Suisei wing pylons and simulated ventral bomb rack with Ground Crew's Luftwaffe Hagel Rack. The visual result is similar to Akemi's Val ventral rack;
Green Ghost's DAP gauge-controlled exhaust effect.

In the Ltnt. Abe skin folder you will also find the original historical notes written originally by Talos2005 for his Akemi's Val repaint.

Enjoy!
KH :ernae:

[Rami]

Kelti,

This repaint is an outstanding example of your work. Thank you so very much! :ernae:

[olaf1924]

Kelti thank you for the fantastic work that you have provided over the years. :salute:

[mariereid]

Well that's just too danged nice to shoot at!:salute::ernae:

[crashaz]

Thanks kelticheart! Beautiful work!!:wavey:

[tonybones2112]

Thanks Keltic, to you and all involved:salute:

Tony

[Captain Kurt]

Very handsom inded.

[kelticheart]

Thank you, gents!

I am in the process of packing up other repaints. They are all coming out rather big, I tried uploading the Hiryu Val two days ago, but my dial-up line crashed when I was almost done.

Next week I'll upload again from work and I'll be able to give you Smashing Time's Zuikaku set, composed by A6M2a Zero "EII-108", D3A1 Val "EII-107" and B5N2 Kate "EII-101", the latter of the 2nd wave Level Bomber force, flown by Lt. Cdr. Shimazaki.

Damage textures are taking me more time then I had expected, mostly because I try to "demirror" them as much as I can with damage details a little different from each other sides of the aircraft, but they are coming along. Cutting up the damage detail area is also kind of a time-waste, but I like the results.

The Zero and the Kate will also feature some extra small goodies, like a new engine texture, an aircraft.cfg that includes the belly landing mod plus asymmetrical landing gear animation, and a historical gun arrangement adapted to Talon AI dp file for the Kate.

Now I'll try again posting Revev's Hiryu Val "BII-213". If my connection fails again, you'll have to wait for next Monday as well. Sorry about it.

Cheers!
KH :ernae:

[kelticheart]

YEAH!

WOW! This time no line crashes!

Well, enjoy D3A1 Val "BII-213", carrier Hiryu. Another Revev's repaint, included In Talon's PHP2_Vals pack.

Cheers!
KH :ernae:

[kelticheart]

TRIPLE WOW!

Tonight my dial-up connection is doing so well I decided to anticipate the upload of cleaned up repaint, originally by Rick Spork, a.k.a. Smashing Time, of stock B5N2 "EII-101", 2nd wave Level Bomber Force. Flown during the Pearl Harbour attack by Air Leader Lt. Cdr. Shimazaki off the carrier Zuikaku.



Demirrored original stock skin/damage files, with added "EII-101" codes and insignias;



new engine texture;



both full disc and single blade textures to choose from;



dp developed by Talon for Pearl Harbour attack scenario AI performance: stock payload array replaced with Thicko's D4Y Suisei 250/60kg bombs; B5N ventral racks, type 91 Kai-2 torpedo and 800kg AP bomb; Metal Dreams' Imperial Japanese Navy 30kg bombs;



corrected gun arrangement to historical forward/rearward firing single 7.7mm machine guns;



Green Ghost's DAP gauge-controlled exhaust effect.


Enjoy!
KH :ernae:

[Rami]

Kelti,

I must admit, I am STUNNED by the quality of these repaints. Your work never ceases to amaze, and like the upper echelon repainters, you have the knack for making sure that the skins are not "factory fresh."

Outstanding work! :ernae:

[kelticheart]

Kelti,

I must admit, I am STUNNED by the quality of these repaints. Your work never ceases to amaze, and like the upper echelon repainters, you have the knack for making sure that the skins are not "factory fresh."

Outstanding work! :ernae:
Rami, my friend,

thank you so much for your kind words, but I am stunned too at the quality of the original Microsoft CFS2 aircraft skins! :redface:

As I am explaining in all readme files, I am only copying serials/individual insiginias from other repaints and pasting them on clean, unspoiled stock skins. MS painters made sure those skins had proper weathering for a realistic look. Mine are only touchups, "wee mods", after all.

The first one I ever did was demirroring Smashing Time's Zuikaku Zero skin. But I did not like the DXT red and green "bleed" effect of the skin, so I grafted the Zuikaku Kokkutai insignias on the stock skin. It looked so good on my pc I wanted to offer this cleaned up liveries to all of my SOH friends who gave me so much over the years. :wiggle:

We are so used to third party addon repaints that we forgot the original stock planes were not that bad looking after all. I am not saying our top notch repainter did not reach the same quality, they actually brought the repainting art way up high to an unbelievable photo-like reality. At any rate, for being a stock, off-the-shelf computer game, Microsoft programmers put a visual quality into CFS2 which can still be exploited nowadays for a project like the Pearl Harbour attack.

Such a scenerio involves so much scenery details that stock models, with their unsurpassed framerate performance, can still be nice to see and fly. A little detail improvement here and there can do lots of magic and still be eye-candy.

Cheers!
KH :ernae:

[kelticheart]

Hi everybody! :wavey:

This time it's the turn of stock B5N2 Kate "AI-308", another repaint originally from Revev, listed in Talon's PHP2-Kates pack as Akagi 2 and Akagi LB (both torpedo and level bomber).

With all the goodies I enclosed in the other uploads of this project.

Enjoy!
KH :ernae:

[gius]

Thank you Kelti!!!!:jump::jump:

[Ravenna]

Wonderful work Stef. These will add an extra dimension to Pearl missions. They make a great Christmas present!:jump:
cheers,
Mike