Eyes Front - a new Macchi MC.205 Veltro for FS9 and FSX

[rohan]

Just found this at FlightSim -

FS2004 (ACOF) - FS2004 Warbirds FS2004/FSX Macchi MC205
[ Download | View ]
Name: macchi_mc205.zip Size: 4,703,711 Date: 09-01-2010
FS2004/FSX Macchi MC205. The C. 205 was a single-seat, all-metal, monoplane fighter, intended primarily as an interceptor but with ground attack and escort capabilities. The long nose housed a Fiat RA.1050 R.C. Tifone engine (built under license from the German DB605 engine) which drove a three-blade, constant-speed metal propeller. Three liveries are provided: one model reproduces the aircraft displayed at Vigna di Valle hystoric museum, with the co-belligerant Italian Air Force livery, a second one with the livery of Regia Aeronautica (Italian Royal Air Force circa year 1943) and a third one with the livery of 'Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana' operated in the last part of World War II with the 'Repubblica Sociale Italiana' Air Force. The package features very accurate visual model and VC, highly reflective metallic skin and full animations. The panel background has been created entirely from scratch, based on photographic material found on the net and some photos from an official operating manual. Most of the gauges have been created by the author, a few are default gauges. Included in this model is a virtual cockpit, with working essential flight instruments and animated flight controls, plus camera views (FSX only). By Italo D'Attomo.

[AndyG43]

Hooray!!!

[rohan]

I thought you might be interested ...
Ro

[AndyG43]

Oh, and why do you say that! :-)

Weird that we were all having that conversation, and this must have been in the pipeline. A real Ferrari of a fighter.

Mmm? I'm no expert, but this may need a little attention from the resident gurus. She's pretty, but seems a touch underpowered - I think I may swap out the air file with an alternative & see how that goes.

[mikezola]

Hello All-
Funny you should mention that, Andy- I spliced in the air file and aircraft.cfg from the 1% CFS2 Veltro just to see the difference...
I also agree that it needs a little TLC- did you notice the bracing struts for the landing gear sticking up through the top of the wings during the retract/extend of the gear? Also, most of the textures are in 256 color- some nice skins would be in order... But don't get me wrong, I'm pleased as punch to have it around... -Mike Z.

[luckydog]

Glad I read this before I put into my hanger....

[AndyG43]

Glad I read this before I put into my hanger....

I think it is worth putting in the hangar, just needs some tweaking.

Mikezola, where is that CFS2 1% aircraft, in the archive here? I've already aliased the sound to the FR Bf 109K, which improved the experience (but I'm sure there is probably a Lawdog alternative - that man is a genius) - the textures will need more thought.

This has the makings of a very nice model, just needs that special SOH touch to apply the final polish.

[mikezola]

Andy- I would be surprised if it wasn't here somewhere- I've had it in my CFS2 stash for who knows how long...It was a is4g aircraft that got the 1% treatment, and I think I recall that all the is4g planes, etc. wound up being uploaded here. Sadly, the plane itself won't work in FS9...
- Mike Z.

I just checked- it's here in the archive. -Mike Z.

[mvg3d]

Hi Friends,
I installed the Quai-D'Attomo's Macchi 205V, the general lines of the plane are correct, BUT UNFORTUNATELY (like ALL their aircraft) the surface "shining" is completely unreal, the texturing and the quality of the textures are "really" poor......
I'm trying to make a "paintkit" remaking almost completely the base textures of the external model, it's really a veeery hard work, the authors have applied in a strange way the texturing, the actual paneling is wrong and out of register, I think some errors are very hard or impossible to fix.....

[Mick]

Well, the specular shine is easily converted to semi-matte or full matte with a quick click of Ivan Hsu's "Shine" or Jeff Delhaye's "Shiny" version with a Windows interface. Both versions of the program should be available here at SOH.

As for the textures, a quick fix while waiting for someone to do a complete re-skinning would be to convert them from 256-color to 32-bit format, done with a couple clicks in Martin Wright's DXTbmp or Microsoft's Imagetool. If you haven't done that before you'll be astonished at the increase in clarity (and you'll probably never keep textures in 256-color format again!

[mvg3d]

Well, the specular shine is easily converted to semi-matte or full matte with a quick click of Ivan Hsu's "Shine" or Jeff Delhaye's "Shiny" version with a Windows interface. Both versions of the program should be available here at SOH.

Hi Mick,
I searched, without success, the Hsu's and Delhaye's programs in the SOH library......
Where I can find these programs?

[huub vink]

Hi Manuele,

The "shiny.zip" by Jeff can be found here: http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...fo&FileID=4445

The required model converter by Ivan Hsu can be found at flightsim.com. Just search for the file MDLC117.zip.

Now I have your attention... any news about the Cr.42? (edit: Had not yet seen the other thread!, good to here there is still progress on this model.)

Cheers,
Huub

[falcon409]

I just downloaded the airplane to have a look and to be honest, converting the textures to 32bit won't help, lol. Especially in the case of the Camo textures. . .some of the worst I've seen. Nothing will fix that short of a complete repaint. When doing the paint kit, make it twice the original size, do your liveries then reduce to the standard 1024x1024 and then save as 32bit. It saves a lot of the detail and makes a much nicer finished livery. In FSX, I just leave it the larger size, but FS9 won't accept that.:salute:

Note: There are some excellent examples on airliners.net. . . .just use the "photo" search engine and type in Macchi 205 Veltro in the "key words" area. There are 12 different shots, but good closeups of what a lot of the parts actually look like, which was near impossible looking at the textures.

[norab]

don't know if this will apply, but I tried repainting their T-37 and finally gave up because of the way it was mapped, panel lines appeared in the wrong spots, different sections were in different relative scales to one another. you would texture what you thought was the fuselage and it would appear angled under the wing on the model. finnaly proved impossible to do an accurate paint job. You could come close but not quite get it 100% right

[falcon409]

Well, just looking at the textures, they look pretty straight forward. . .wing tops and wing bottoms are full textures as are the left and right fuselage, but of course I haven't tried loading anything I've done up to this point either, lol.

By the way "norab", I was born and raised in South Jersey (Deptford). Spent a fair amount of my summers down at Camp Roosevelt with the Boy Scouts (if that's even still there).:salute:

[Hurricane91]

but good closeups of what a lot of the parts actually look like, which was near impossible looking at the textures.

Falcon, I have some detailed photos of the C.205. If you like, pm with what you need and I will see what I can come up with.

[falcon409]

Falcon, I have some detailed photos of the C.205. If you like, pm with what you need and I will see what I can come up with.

Thanks, right now I'm trying to figure out the square roundel that's on one of the liveries in that download. I found similar insignia, but they have three rather than two of whatever those black things are supposed to be. Also, the ones on the livery are not oriented like anything else I've found. . .just wondering if the artist just did something that would be close without actually doing any research.

[norab]

The square roundels were used on the wings of Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana aircraft. These were the elements of the Italian air forces that continued to fight alongside the Luftwaffe after the armistice. see this link please
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeronau...e_Repubblicana
The roundel should indeed be square and with only two fasces ( an ancient Roman symbol of legal authority) in opposite directions
Attachment 18136
this roundel was used on the fuselage and tail



HTH, (I was born in AC but live nearer to Philly now Falcon)

[falcon409]

Thanks, I'll replace the flag and roundel I have on mine with the correct ones. The nose art was nothing more than a red splotch, so impossible to tell what it was and I found no pics of anything resembling that particular aircraft. The noseart I'm using was from that era and was used on some of these airplanes. Right now I'm just getting new panel lines, rivets, etc in place and seeing how they look:

[falcon409]

Here are a few that show some new panel lines and rivets. The wing pattern is redone as well as all the insignia's and some of the aircraft parts (exhaust stacks, struts). Still more to do though. I also noticed that at least in my sim, the eyepoint is way too low so I'm going to adjust that up as well.:salute:

[Hurricane91]

Here are a few that show some new panel lines and rivets.

That looks really good Falcon.

[huub vink]

Looks good Falcon. Two small remarks about the Nationality markings. The markings on the wings with the two axes, should outlined with a thick black line.

The straight line along the flag on the fuselage should be at the front. The jagged sides should be top, back and bottom of the flag. (See picture of the Fiat G.55 below)

Cheers,
Huub`

[mvg3d]

Here are a few that show some new panel lines and rivets. The wing pattern is redone as well as all the insignia's and some of the aircraft parts (exhaust stacks, struts). Still more to do though. I also noticed that at least in my sim, the eyepoint is way too low so I'm going to adjust that up as well.:salute:

Hi Friends,
For HUUB: Don't worry, with this repaint I just take a break in the '42 job, however the external model is finished, but the VC needs a lot of work......



I'm working on the '205's paintkit, the job is veeery hard, bur it proceeds......
For Falcon: The overall green camouflage was NEVER used for '205, but only for Fiat G.55 and other planes. The camouflages used for the '205 were basically two:
A) - "Standard Macchi", With dark green irregular rings on sand base with light gray bottom surfaces.
B) - "German Type", with RLM 74/75 "splinter" on upper surfaces, irregular RLM 75 patches on the fuselage's sides and RLM 76 for bottom surfaces (very similar to the German Me 109 G).

Other camouflage used (Dark Green diagonal stripes on Sand base, with Light Grey bottom surfaces) were only experimental and used only for some AC.

ATTENTION : The "Quai's" ANR insignas (dimensions, shape and position) are COMPLETELY WRONG!!!!

Here are some pictures (WIP), I also reduced the original "shining" with the Ivan Hsu's MDLC MDL Converter.....

[falcon409]

Thanks guys, I was simply cleaning up what was already done by the author, who apparently didn't do his research. I will probably not progress any further with this as I can also tell that there are those who know tons more about the airplane than I do and anything not exactly correct will come under scrutiny. Also, it appears that there is a much more quality aircraft on the horizon so I see no need to try correct all the problems with this one.:salute:

[Hurricane91]

I'm working on the '205's paintkit,...

Hello Manuele. Your C.205 textures look great. Are you planning to do an Regia "Standard Macchi" scheme as well?