Virtavia Phantom Blue Angels paint

[Flapsfull]

Hi everyone,

does anybody by chance have a (preferably good-quality) Blue Angels repaint/texture for the now freeware Virtavia Phantom Pack1 , the - J model?
I searched on the net, but found only a single paint for the older alphasim f-4 model, which still works on the virtavia clean model, but the textures are
showing their age.

Thank you very much,

Kind regards,

Oliver

[Cowboy1968]

Hi everyone,

does anybody by chance have a (preferably good-quality) Blue Angels repaint/texture for the now freeware Virtavia Phantom Pack1 , the - J model?
I searched on the net, but found only a single paint for the older alphasim f-4 model, which still works on the virtavia clean model, but the textures are
showing their age.

Thank you very much,

Kind regards,

Oliver

Will this do, if so, pm me your email, and i will dig up the file from my backups and send to you, but if you can't wait go over to flightsim and do a search using Blue Angels as keyword and it should show up!

[Flapsfull]

Hi Cowboy,

thank you very much for replying with picture even and offering to dig out your old files.
I do think this is the single repaint I found & downloaded as well on flightsim.com
for the alphasim phantom, so I already have it.
The textures were a bit too reflective for my taste(at least the way they showed on
my system) and I hoped there might be a set out there with some more details , but
I guess it'll just have to do then, as I m not much of a texture artist myself unfortunately : )


But thanks again for your offer,

Kind regards,

Oliver

[Mick]

...The textures were a bit too reflective for my taste..

There's a fix, no artistry required, just a little effort and maybe a bit of trial and error. Actually two fixes, one simple but the other better if you can run the required software.

Sadly, some painters don't understand the difference between specular gloss (like the paint on a real Blue Angels jet) and metallic reflectivity (like highly polished bare metal) and they use reflectivity when they need gloss. The result doesn't look right, as your Phantom skin illustrates.

Specular gloss is in the model file, while metallic reflectivity is in the textures. The simple fix is done just with the textures, and while it's not a true solution, it can be a big improvement. The required software item (DXTbmp) works in any Windows operating system. The true fix also requires another software item (Shiny) that only works in WinXP or later systems that include "virtual XP."

For the quick and simple fix you'll need a copy of DXTbmp (from Martin Wright Graphics.) Open each texture file in DXTbmp. Send the Alpha channel to your chosen image editor and make everything except the corrogard leading edges much lighter. Don't go to pure white or the plane will look dead flat, but make it light enough so there's just a hint of reflectivity. It still won't look quite right, but it will look a lot better than it does. You might want to do some trial and error to get it to look as best you can.

Depending on your operating system, that might be the best you can do.

You can only do the true fix if you're rig has "virtual XP" (as in Win7Pro) or you have an old coal-burning rig running the real XP. I think you're out of luck if you run Win10. That's because you need a copy of "Shiny," which is in the library here, and it's an XP program that won't run in later Windows OSs unless they have virtual XP.

Again, open the texture files in DXTbmp. This time leave the corrogard leading edges alone, but make everything else pure white. (No trial and error needed here!)

Install Shiny in virtual XP and copy the model file to your virtual XP desktop. Right click the model file and select full gloss finish. When Shiny is finished running, your model will have specular gloss enabled and your Phantom will look like a real blue jet.

It sounds complicated but it's really not hard, and you should get a result that you'll like.

While you're fiddling with the textures you might consider adjusting the color. It looks much too purple to me. But that's a different issue.

[Mick]

It occurs to me that I may have maligned an innocent painter. If the model doesn't have specular gloss enabled, and the painter doesn't feel free to make the change in the model file (or doesn't have the software to do it) then he has no choice but to try and fake a glossy finish with reflectivity.

On the other hand, for all I know, maybe the model already has specular gloss enabled and the painter didn't make use of it. But since the vast majority of Phantoms wore matte camouflage schemes, I'd guess that the model probably has a matte finish.

[Flapsfull]

Mick,

thank you very much for replying in depth with the explanation of gloss versus reflectivity. I learned something
new for the day from that, thanks a lot!

I hope I may ask a few follow up question, (I do have DXTbmp and have done some alpha channel editing before,mostly FSX though):
I always thought that the alpha channel does define transparency of the texture in question. In other words, a black alpha makes
it completely see-through, while white makes it non transparent and the spectrum of gray tones in between correlate between
these extremes.
So in how far is reflectivity influenced by this?Or does the FS9 alpha channel function differ from the FSX one?

I run win 8.1 , so I think it still has the option for a virtual XP machine for Shiny , would have to check again though.
Does Shiny effectively change the model file, in other words, are there copyright issues to consider?
Is there a way to check beforehand whether full gloss is already enabled?

Thank you again very much, most informative !

Kind regards,

Oliver

[Mick]

Mick,

...I always thought that the alpha channel does define transparency of the texture in question. In other words, a black alpha makes
it completely see-through, while white makes it non transparent and the spectrum of gray tones in between correlate between
these extremes. So in how far is reflectivity influenced by this? Or does the FS9 alpha channel function differ from the FSX one?

I run win 8.1 , so I think it still has the option for a virtual XP machine for Shiny , would have to check again though.

Does Shiny effectively change the model file, in other words, are there copyright issues to consider?

Is there a way to check beforehand whether full gloss is already enabled?

Thank you again very much, most informative !

Kind regards,

Oliver

What the alpha channel affects depends on the model. If the model has reflectivity enabled, the alpha channel determines the degree of reflection - black for a mirror finish, white for no reflectivity at all. If reflectivity is not enabled in the model then the alpha channel affects transparency. This means that you can't use the alpha channel for transparency and reflectivity with the same model. (You can have reflectivity and specular gloss at the same time, because they are completely separate things.) I don't have FSX, just FS9, but I'm pretty sure the alpha channel works the same in both sims.

Once upon a time, back in the early days of FS9, you could tell whether or not a model had reflections enabled by checking to see if the texture file names ended in _t or not. (I forget whether the _t indicated reflectivity being enabled or not enabled.) That convention seems to have fallen by the wayside many years ago.

I have Win7pro, and virtual XP is called "Windows XP Modet" on the start menu. In Win7, W7home doesn't have that, only W7pro does. I have no idea about Win8.

Shiney does change the model, as it alters what the modeler built into his model. It allows you to add reflectivity to a model that doesn't have it (but not the other way round; it won't remove reflectivity if it's enabled.) It also allows you to set the level of specular gloss to full gloss, semi-gloss, semi-matte or dead flat. You can change the level of specular gloss regardless of whether or not reflection is enabled, so a model can be glossy and reflective at he same time. Or not.

Once in a blue moon you'll run into a model file that Shiney doesn't work on, but that's pretty rare in my experience.

There's no copyright issue if you just muck around with your own copy of the model. I think there would be one if you wanted to release it to the public. I wouldn't do that without asking the modeler's permission (other than a few modelers who I know well enough that we have understandings that we can fiddle about with each others' stuff and share the results without asking every time.) I would feel especially compelled to get permission if there was a payware model involved.

The way to see if the model is already glossy is to make a copy of the external texture file(s) and delete the alpha channel (make it pure white,) boot up the plane and see if it looks glossy. You don't even have to load it into the sim; you'll be able to tell when you see it in the window of the Select Aircraft menu.

As for levels of gloss, full gloss gives a deep glossy finish like you'd see on custom cars at a car show, or a Blue Angels jet, so deep they look almost like liquid, as if you could stick your hand down into it. Semi gloss is fine for most ordinary glossy finishes. Semi matte gives just a tiny bit of gloss, and looks best for nominally flat finishes, like camouflage schemes. Dead flat is technically "correct" for matte finishes, but really doesn't look quite right in the sim; it's too flat and just doesn't appear realistic, except maybe for extremely weather-beaten finishes. One of my most common uses for Shiney is to change dead flat models to semi-matte. (Thanks to Shessi for teaching me how much better planes with "matte" finishes look that way!)

[Flapsfull]

Mick,

thank you very much .It's clearer to me now and also for explaining in more detail what shiny does and how the different levels of gloss
turn out in the sim.
Also it seems after a cursory search , that with a small bit of freeware extra software, it is possible to install the WIN XP mode on a win8/8.1 system
as well, so using shiny should be possible.

Thanks again , for writing back so detailed!

Wish you all the best,

Kind regards,

Oliver

[Mick]

Happy to help!

[wombat666]

And this exchange illustrates the excellent camaraderie that exists in SOH.
Good on you Mick for the support and to Oliver for the polite and sensible questions.

[Mick]

There is one caveat about Shiny that I neglected to mention. Sometimes when you make a non-reflective model reflective, the VC plane becomes reflective, ruining the VC by making the panel reflective behind the gauges. This has something to do with something the modeler does when they build the model, and I don't understand it. Jamie posted a fix but it's very technical and I don't understand it at all.

So it's very important that if you enable reflection in a non-reflective model, make sure you don't delete the backup copy that Shiny makes for you until you've loaded your newly reflective model into the sim and checked out the VC.