P-47 Progress Thread

[sixstrings5859]

Looks fantastic ! Awesome work ! Regards,Scott

[rbp71854]

Oh my word Joost! Fantastic work. So far from the beach defenses and "hedgehog" days of old.

[Pat Pattle]

Hells bells Joost, what a beautiful piece of work! The old cfs3 pilot doesn't do it justice though.

[gecko]

I'll take a squadron's worth, please. No, better make it a group.

[sixstrings5859]

Turning out to be one of the best looking models i can imagine ! Fantastic work ! Regards,Scott

[FireStorm II]

I will definitely want some of those!

[sixstrings5859]

Hello Frosty ! How are things coming along with the wonderful P-47 ? Excited to see this aircraft get the attention it deserves ! Best news i've heard in years ! Thank you for all the work and effort . Regards

[Frosty]

Thanks for asking!

But I am afraid there's nothing much to report: I spent some trying to get the Spit's Real Systems Module work. It refuses to do so to this day but it also involved re-installing ETO and rebuilding some of my personal setup. Then real-life-after-the-summer-holidays started again, which in my case means most evenings spent on sports and/or training. So I have only drawn a few panel lines for the empannage fairings that I found quite difficult to do: not only are they rather curvy, they are also split over three parts on the texture sheet. Not easy to align! But I think I did a decent job.

I'll get back here when I have made some significant progress.

[sixstrings5859]

Thank you for the update . Have a great one ! Regards,Scott

[Frosty]

It's amazing what you can achieve with a little paint and bump-mapping: the little ribs on the roof of the wheelwells are a combination of those two, as I saw no need to 3D model them.



As I was quarantined for the past week, I found some time to work on several things at the same time: I started painting the wheelwells, played with a basic weathering layer and I am still trying to create the ultimate Bare Metal Finish. That last part is not so easy... Maybe I should first decide on what I want to depict: a factory-fresh aircraft, one halfway through its service life or a well-worn model
(Disregard the mapping and weathering of some parts in the screenie - like I said, I am trying out some things and I didn't always clean up things)

[mongoose]

Looks like a worthwhile labour of love there Joost!

[Bravo/4]

Yea Joost, bump mapping is perfect for stuff like that, model is looking very sharp!

[sixstrings5859]

Amazing !Things are looking up for my favorite WW II fighter. Excellent work ! Regards,Scott

[gecko]

When this is finished I have a feeling it will be difficult to tell the difference from a photo. Incredible work.

[gecko]

I am still trying to create the ultimate Bare Metal Finish. That last part is not so easy... Maybe I should first decide on what I want to depict: a factory-fresh aircraft, one halfway through its service life or a well-worn model

Not being much of a painter, my thoughts are that the aluminium parts look a little noisy, but the steel looks right on.

[Frosty]

Not being much of a painter, my thoughts are that the aluminium parts look a little noisy, but the steel looks right on.

Thanks for the feedback - I'll see what I can do!

[mongoose]

... Maybe I should first decide on what I want to depict: a factory-fresh aircraft, one halfway through its service life or a well-worn model
(Disregard the mapping and weathering of some parts in the screenie - like I said, I am trying out some things and I didn't always clean up things)

I think at least somewhat weathered is better and more realistic. I imagine wartime use and European weather did a pretty quick job; ground crew had platy to do without 'polishing' aluminum!

[Bravo/4]

Yea Joost I wouldn't go with a high polish. It might look great with all the reflections and what have you, I've done a few polished skins, and I wished I hadn't now, it's a wartime sim, not an air show!

[Frosty]

I agree with the both of you, but when looking at contemporary colour photo's, I see aircraft in various stages of service life (weathering) etc. So I settled for a 'medium aged' version: I removed the noise from the diffuse texture and used it in the _r/_s texture to get some non-uniformity in the reflection while still retaining some 'metalness'. This seems a reasonable basis for further weathering:

[Bravo/4]

Joost it's your model, do what you feel right with. Shot looks good to me, you probably picked the hardest texture to get to look right in the sim!

[gecko]

That aluminum looks pretty convincing Joost!

One thing worth bearing in mind in general with WWII aircraft, is that these aircraft had a lower life expectancy than the pilots. They often didn’t last long enough to get too beat up. Dirty perhaps, depending on operational conditions, but most of the time, these are not high time aircraft.

[Bravo/4]

Yes Dan totally agree with you on all that, but, speaking as a skinner I think factory schemes just don't look right in the sim, they can look a bit cartoonish, just my opinion, nobody has to agree with it, as I said to Joost, it's his model/skin, he should do what he wants to with it!
Now if it were possible to start off with a factory scheme, and then gradually dirty it up, that would be something, all the aces would have filthy worn out aircraft!

[gecko]

Well, the factory new look probably disappeared quite quickly too!

Now if it were possible to start off with a factory scheme, and then gradually dirty it up, that would be something, all the aces would have filthy worn out aircraft!

Well, I do have thoughts on this, but they are a long way from being realized yet.

[Bravo/4]

lol I might have known, interesting Dan

[Frosty]

So, I've been playing a bit with textures and deciding on what skin(s) I would like to equip the P-47 with. As an exercise and learning experience I decided to create a .mos file with one selectable ID letter, one selectable digit in the BuNo number and selectable nose art. This raised a few questions that someone hopefully will be able to help me with:

1. Am I correct in thinking that the selectable numbers and digits were omitted/disabled in ETO?
I found only blacked-out .dds files and therefore copied them from stock CFS3. The stock nose art files seemed to have been omitted completely.

2. After copying the nose art files to ETO, they don't show in the aircraft selection pre-view window (Paint-button). Is this on purpose or have I forgotten something else?
I still can select the various nose art images and they do show on the aircraft in the UI; they're just not visible in the selection window.

3. I thought that having selectable letters and digits meant that CFS3 would randomize them for the other aircraft in your flight, giving the suggestion of different squadron aircraft.
However the other aircraft a just copies of the player's ship. This is correct as well?

4. MM already mentioned it earlier in this thread (#131): the .mos file reduces the size of the textures causing loss of resolution. That is a bit of a bummer, as I did my best to cram most of the external model's texture on a single texture sheet. To have good texture detail, it is possible to create a single large-resolution file or spread the main texture over multiple smaller-sized files. But both solutions are seemingly not compatible with a .mos file. Nobody has found a solution for this problem? If this is not the case, I might create a .mos file for those that like to have bullet holes etc. But to enjoy the most detail, you better not install it.

Other than the above, I've also been working on a dorsal fillet-less P-47D-30 3D model and associated texture by grafting the back of a previous incarnation of the model on the current D-40. After adjusting some panel and rivet lines, we will have two decent late P-47 models!