Reworked C-123 Paints

***Mick*** · January 25th, 2010, 08:19

Some time ago I released three repaints of Vlad's C-123 Provider that used reflective textures to simulate polished natural metal. The skins looked great in external view, but the VC background became reflective and that looked terrible in VC view. The glitch rendered the paints pretty much useless for piloted aircraft and relegated them to AI use.

Thanks to a tutorial posted by Jamie ("JTTinballs") in another thread, I've learned how to fix the reflective VC issue. I just uploaded the three skins with new reflective model files that will not make the VC reflective.

Thanks Jamie!

And thanks again to SteveB ("Stalin") for the paint kit that these paints were based on.

***Wild Bill Kelso*** · January 26th, 2010, 06:37

Nice work, Mick!

Thank you!

Cheers,
Markus.

***falcon409*** · January 26th, 2010, 07:21

Hey Mick, I'm flying that beauty in FSX, no reason those paints wouldn't work as well for that is there?

***falcon409*** · January 26th, 2010, 08:04

Only problem I had was that the shine was too much, I just lightened the alpha's quite a bit and it looks great. Nice job Mick!!

***falcon409*** · January 26th, 2010, 08:06

One thing. . .I noticed this when I loaded the airplane the first time, the engine nacelles aren't textured. On one of the repaints they are, the other two aren't. . .is that by design?

***Mick*** · January 26th, 2010, 09:49

Originally Posted by falcon409

One thing. . .I noticed this when I loaded the airplane the first time, the engine nacelles aren't textured. On one of the repaints they are, the other two aren't. . .is that by design?

Yep, it's by design; they aren't untextured, they're black. Many Providers had black nacelles to disguise stains from oil blowing back from the engines.

I'm not surprised that you had to alter the reflectivity on your copies to make it look right, but I don't know if it's due to the different sims. I think it might just be different enviro bitmaps. Even in FS9, reflective finishes can look radically different on different computers depending on what enviro bitmap is installed. Different video cards and different sim settings probably affect it as well.

I try not to do much with reflective textures any more, now that I understand that. But some paints just have to be reflective, like these three. All I can do is make them look good on my 'puter and hope they look OK on others, or if not, that the users know what to do about it, like you did.

***MaddogK*** · January 26th, 2010, 10:54

A VC ? Hmm, that would be nice, Air America reborn.

Nice paints.

**ceechow** · January 26th, 2010, 18:55

My dad flew for Air America,and I lived in Laos when I was 10-12 years old. Too bad you didn't know the Lao word for 5 sounds like Ha.We would eat at the Air America greasy spoon at the airport which had windows that looked out on the tarmac.As children,we always would have a laugh when C-123K,number 555,rolled up to the parking space outside the restaurant.

BTW..where Can I get this aircraft?

***falcon409*** · January 26th, 2010, 19:23

I found it on flightsim.com

***Mick*** · January 27th, 2010, 07:12

Originally Posted by falcon409

Only problem I had was that the shine was too much, I just lightened the alpha's quite a bit and it looks great. Nice job Mick!!

Another thought...

The SAC and TAC planes should be shiny, but the Air America bird should be super-shiny, an almost-mirror finish that you could see your face in, at least when it was new.

***aeromed202*** · January 27th, 2010, 07:18

These look great. Is this the model by Vladimir Zhyhulskiy?

***Mick*** · January 27th, 2010, 07:19

Originally Posted by ceechow

My dad flew for Air America,and I lived in Laos when I was 10-12 years old. Too bad you didn't know the Lao word for 5 sounds like Ha.We would eat at the Air America greasy spoon at the airport which had windows that looked out on the tarmac.As children,we always would have a laugh when C-123K,number 555,rolled up to the parking space outside the restaurant.

BTW..where Can I get this aircraft?

I trust you've found the plane by now...

It wouldn't be hard to change the aircraft number to 555; just copy one of the 5s and paste it over the 4 in both the main texture file and the alpha channel. I could do that for you if you don't have the software for it. (PM me if I don't remember to check back in this thread.)

***falcon409*** · January 27th, 2010, 07:56

Originally Posted by aeromed202

These look great. Is this the model by Vladimir Zhyhulskiy?

Yes it is

**SteveB** · January 27th, 2010, 13:49

Good ones Mick. Them there Alpha channels do make a difference on bare metal schemes.

Steve

***Mick*** · January 27th, 2010, 18:21

Thanks Steve!

They're based on your work.

I first released these skins back when you were doing all your paints of this plane, but in those days I didn't know how to make the texures reflective without also making the VC panel reflective. The paints haven't changed; only the included reflective model file is different.

Now they're suitable for use on piloted aircraft; before they were just good for AI.