PBR Aircraft Conversion: Boeing B-50

**cavaricooper** · April 21st, 2020, 02:49

Gordon-

So good to hear you are safe and well!

Manfred’s work was legendary before, now your update has bumped it into the Stratosphere. This is greedy, but would you both have an opportunity to visit his C-47 whilst we are all sequestered? Surely that is one of his most popular releases, you have already done stunning work on it, and Jan-Kees already started the process. Your added details would be a stellar addition mate.

Hope springs eternal

Best- Carl

***jankees*** · April 21st, 2020, 08:35

Gordon,

out-bloody-standing! And I love the quality of your movies too, you're a magician!

**cavaricooper** · April 21st, 2020, 17:59

Ok, a bit more digging shows me that the initial PBR conversion was already a joint project involving GM, Maea culpa. I was struck with the Dural look and detail on this conversion, but perhaps that’s from the painter alone? Do forgive my ignorance and if possible comment on the processes between the two? Is there a different PBR technique? For me, this aluminum is more like the metal I remember. Have there been refinements and changes between the two projects?

Again, if these are silly questions, please forgive me. They come from complete ignorance about the conversion process and all the subtleties contained therein.

Best- C

**addman** · April 22nd, 2020, 04:02

Wow! This project looks amazing, it will go on a rather short list of aircraft I'm really looking forward to.

**Old Timer Nick** · May 27th, 2020, 16:48

Hey Gman, just checking in to see if I missed something on these upgrades. Are you still working on them?

**gman5250** · June 30th, 2020, 10:35

Update:

I decided to make the B-50 and C-97 compatible with P3Dv5, as well as the earlier versions. No point in releasing one model, then releasing a second time. Confusing, so I bit the bullet and dove in to the V5 SDK and learning curve. The tricky bit was the new blue channel as it applies to metallic skins. That aspect is tricky, but I think I nailed it. Best part is the metallic skins are better than earlier PBR rendering in PREPAR3D. There were some issues that needed to be resolved relating to the old polys in Manfreds original model. Primarily rotating cylinders like prop spinners. The new capabilites in the V5 SDK as they relate to texturing animated objects are very subject to corruption when changing textures. It breaks how the light engine renders light. I got it sorted out and the model now works perfectly in V5, and of course earlier versions.

I put together a very brief "beauty" video of the B-50 to bring everyone up to date. There will be a C-97 video shortly.

I have one or two items to sort out on both models relating to mouse activated items such as starting engines via clicking on a spinner. I'll have those sorted out in a few days, then we are looking at releasing the models after Manfred gives them a flight worthy cert.

Enjoy the video, these models absolutely rock in P3Dv5.