You have your dive bomber 1st wave Leader for your Pearl Harbour missions!

[kelticheart]

A good day to everybody! :wavey:

I just uploaded a demirrored repaint, originally by Jaxon, of stock D3A1 Val "EI-238", Shokaku Hikotai, flown by Ltnt. Cdr. Kokuichi Takahashi, dive bomber Flight Leader of the 1st wave during the Pearl Harbour attack.

Now you have another historical Flight Leader to put in command of your dive bomber squadrons in the Pearl Harbour missions designed by Talon!

If you are asking yourself "How in hell is this possible?..." take a peek in Cody Coyote's splendid Mission Builder tutorial, second edition. There it's explained very clearly how to edit missions and manually create flights with differently painted aircrafts, instead of the usual CFS2 way of putting several of the same aircraft in each formation.

The resulting visual effect is simply amazing and it contributes immensely to the historical immersion factor!

All the goodies I uploaded with the other stock Val repaints are included.

Enjoy!
KH :ernae:

[Steve2112]

Very NICE!

[Rami]

Kelti,

Awesome work. Thank you so very much! :ernae:

[PomBee]

Superb job, as always. Thank you Kelti,

Cheers,

PomBee.:ernae:

[Jagdflieger]

Great work once again Kelti!

I'm replacing all of my stock IJN aeroplanes with your new skins in my Pearl Harbor/Early War installation.

[miamieagle]

Thank you!

[Captain Kurt]

It's great to have these skins - thank you :ernae:

[kelticheart]

You are welcome!

I realised I had left out a Val repaint, included in the PHP2-Vals pack list.

I am speaking of "Houkoku-522", the aircraft that was gifted to the IJN through donations from schoolchildren. "Houkoku-522" flew off the carrier Kaga, after Pearl it participated to all early war actions, including Midway.

I am currently working on it, I hope to be able to upload within the week. I'll include historical notes from the very knowledgeable source of SOH's member Sandydog, who painted an identical skin for Akemi Mizoguchi's model.

Cheers!
KH :ernae:

[dombral]

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Kelti,

Awesome work. Thank you so very much! :ernae:
les avions US et Japonais présents à Pearl Harbor

[kelticheart]

A good day to everybody! :wavey:

I just finished demirroring and cleaning up another two of Rick Spork's (aka Smashing Time) stock Kate repaints:

- B5N2 "AI-301" carrier Akagi, flown by Lt. Cdr. Mitsuo Fuchida, Strike Force Leader, First Wave level-bomber force;
- B5N2 "BI-181" carrier Soryu, First Wave level-bomber force. In this aircraft bomber-aimer Petty Officer Kanai, the IJN bomb-aiming champion, was credited with the sinking of the battleship USS Arizona with a Type 99 800kg AP bomb.

I also completed the last of Revev's repaints included in the PHP2-Vals pack: D3A1 "AII-256 Houkoku-522", carrier Kaga. I quote from SOH's member John Shore, a.k.a. Sandydog, who painted the same version for Akemi Mizoguchi's Val:

"This aircraft was a presented to the Navy at Haneda on September 20, 1941 as a 'Houkoku'(Patriotism) gift purchased with donations and collections from Japanese citizens, especially schoolgirls. The port fuselage markings are the 'Houkoku': The 522nd aircraft donated to the Navy, '55th All-Japan Schoolgirls Gift to the Nation.'
Houkoku-522 was crewed by Itto Hei Yamakawa Shinsaku and gunner Itto Hei Nakada Katsuzo. It was at Pearl Harbor, the attack on the USS Pecos on 3.1.42, and at Midway."

As in the other skins I uploaded, I tried demirroring not only letters and numbers, but also some of the weathering spots, trying to make them different on each side. I also re-did almost all of the paneling and rivets in Fuchida's Kate vertical fin and the anti-glare cowling of both Kates, reproducing lines and small panels that got lost in the original repaints. Again in Fuchida's mount I resized the aircraft tail code AI-301 (now it fits better), I corrected it from 801 to 301 and added the four white stripes on each side of the top tailplane surface which were missing from the original repaint. I replaced entirely the Japanese characters on the Houkoku-522; the new characters come from Sandydog's same repaint of Akemi's Val, they are much more detailed and realistic looking than those in Revev's version.

I'll be uploading these repaints as soon as the damage texture files will be ready.

Cheers!
KH :ernae:

[UncleTgt]

:ernae:

Superb effort! Your attention to getting every detail just right is to be applauded. It must take you hours & hours ...:applause:

[kelticheart]

:ernae:

Superb effort! Your attention to getting every detail just right is to be applauded. It must take you hours & hours ...:applause:

Thank you, Uncle Tgt!

It's nothing compared to what you are doing in terms of ground textures and aircraft repaints! But you are right, it's also taking a toll on my eyesight staring at a window open on the original skin, measure the position of the details and reproduce them on the new one.

This is why it's taking such a long time to complete this project I started as soon as the PHP2 team released all the missions for Pearl Harbour!

Some might think I am wasting time on the stock models. Thicko's Kate and Akemi's Zero/Val look certainly better than the stockers, but the huge numbers of aircraft/ships involved in Talon's missions and PHP2's thickly populated Oahu scenery hits the animation framerate performance dramatically even with the most recent computers.

The only possible answer is using stock Japanese models with their unsurpassed balance between looks and animation speed performance. In my opinion, anything possible to improve their looks should be attempted, so that they will not degrade the high quality of the global Pearl Harbour attack developed by PHP2. This is why I went about "borrowing" details from better addon models.

Stock skins, although generic, are very good for stock models. Yet, I am discovering new demirrored detail improvements I should have included in my previous uploads, like the paneling/cowl flaps black anti-glare area on the Kate nose, extended in these repaints vs. the stock one. I spent part of this weekend trying to reproduce back in Fuchida's Kate elevators the same fabric-covered effect present in the stock skin, I am satisfied with what I did so so far. Since I haven't got the time to learn (I haven't found good quick hands-on tutorials) more sophisticated photo-touch applications than MS-Paint, this will do.

I'll say that from an attacking plane distance the stockers look pretty good with these small touchups, the number of downloads of what I uploaded so far, tells me I am on the right track.

Thank you everybody for your appreciation! :wiggle:
KH :ernae:

[Talon]

Kelti,

Nice work and it just makes everything better for the missions.

I tried using the Thicko Kate and Akemi Val but not with much succes Frame wise.

I'm trying to get the PHP2 ships that we were going to use. If I get them this should help with the frame rates. The creator just has to compile them from what I understand,I was told this last July.


Talon