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View Full Version : When airplanes are taken down to the local carwash....



kelticheart
November 20th, 2010, 02:38
....this is what happens!

Apart from jokes: many times in these pages the topic was discussed about how DXTmbp, the extended bitmap utility necessary to save texture formats compatible with CFS2, tends to "dirt up" textures with every save, including the tendency to "bleed" the red colour into other tints, particularly light ones.
This is what happened with almost all of the repaints for stock aircrafts using as a base their original textures, since their files came already saved in DXT1 format, with every new change, and related save, they got worse.

Following the splendid final release of the Pearl Harbour scenery, aircraft packs and Talon's missions, this is what I noticed most when I opened up PHP2's historical aircraft texture files: their Kate and Val fleet needed badly, in my opinion, a nice washup to get rid of the above problem.

Besides, some of them needed extra details to make them work with The B24Guy's stock overhauls demirroring, like exhaust stubs left out from the Kate textures.

I decided for the overhauled stockers to use the original stock textures and "copy" the historical insignias over, save them in uncompressed extended bmp, add some stencil details from other nice models, most notably Akemi's D3A1 Val, and this is what I got.

First thing first, I demirrored very nice Daniel Leahy's three VAL textures I found ages ago at the Pacific Ghosts website, sadly not available anynmore (oh, I wish I had downloaded them all back then!).

Aichi D3A1 Val "BI-230", carrier Soryu; "9-222", carrier Shokaku and "AI-207", carrier Akagi....


...more

kelticheart
November 20th, 2010, 02:48
... then I liked the results and started working on PHP2's Val fleet;

"EII-238", carrier Zuikaku; "EI-201", carrier Shokaku; "BII-213", carrier Hiryu.......

...more

kelticheart
November 20th, 2010, 02:57
... I made a new skin for the Kaga Val, used the good green livery created by Pen32Win for historical Ltnt. Cdr. Egusa's mount and turned the Akagi Val skin into the historical Val flown by Ltnt. Abe. Abe's repaint idea comes from Talos2005's repaints of Akemi's same model;

"AII-251", carrier Kaga; "BI-231", Ltnt.Cdr. Egusa, carrier Soryu; "AI-201", Ltnt. Abe, carrier Akagi;

...more

kelticheart
November 20th, 2010, 03:06
.. I am in the process of demirroring Smashing Time's Val skin, carrier Zuikaku and I demirrored his repaint (attached below) for stock B5N2 Kate, flown on Dec. 7th, 1941 by Commander Shimazaki, just to see how PHP2's Kate fleet might look after a "plane wash".

Well, how about them folks?

I am planning to upload all of them as my personal Christmas gift, with my props and exh effects, including PHP2's dp files with Thicko's better looking payloads in place of the stock ones. I didn't touch anything else to avoid compromising AI's performance during Talon's Pearl attack missions. I wonder if the Flight Model and dp file work done to the stock planes could be applied to very nice Akemi Mizoguchi's Val and Thicko's B5N2 Kate. Probably, Talon, who worked on the stockers files, could kindly take it into consideration.

It'll take some time, since each uncompressed extended bmp file weighs almost 3Mb each and I only have wide band access at work.

Cheers!
KH :ernae:

SgtT
November 20th, 2010, 04:38
Looks great! Looking forward to downloading.

Thanks,

T.

mariereid
November 20th, 2010, 05:09
Beautiful! :salute::ernae:

sc7500
November 20th, 2010, 06:01
NOW I know where you've been hiding out all these weeks ! :wavey:

Good on ye, Stefano - looks like a beaut !

SC
:kilroy:

UncleTgt
November 20th, 2010, 06:27
:medals: Just superb!

A lot of thought put into this Kelti, I'm sure it will be very much appreciated:ernae:

Fibber
November 20th, 2010, 06:54
Kelti;
The planes may not be available, but his textures still are. They are at Simviation.

Here are some; http://www.simviation.com/cfs2aircraft84.htm
I did a search using Leahy.*.* and they all came up for the re-paint of the stock planes.

kelticheart
November 29th, 2010, 02:45
Kelti;
The planes may not be available, but his textures still are. They are at Simviation.

Here are some; http://www.simviation.com/cfs2aircraft84.htm
I did a search using Leahy.*.* and they all came up for the re-paint of the stock planes.

Thank you Fibber!

I found more nice skins produced by Daniel Leahy, but the Pacific Ghost website had more than what can still be downloaded over at Simviation.

Thank you anyway and thanks to everybody else for your kind comments. I should start uploading my first cleaned up skins shortly.

I am tempted to use 7zip instead of the regular WinZip for its capability to shrink originals better. 7zip is free software. Would that create problems to upload and/or to potential downloaders?

Cheers!
KH :ernae:

PomBee
November 29th, 2010, 03:15
These are beautiful, Kelti. You are a true artist.

Thank you,

PomBee.:salute::salute::salute:

kelticheart
November 29th, 2010, 03:25
These are beautiful, Kelti. You are a true artist.

Thank you,

PomBee.:salute::salute::salute:

I am moved by your comment, PomBee!

But, in truth, the true artist is the unknown Microsoft painter who did the original skins!

I only copied and applied "decals" to them, the only true repaint job I did was blending all insignias, markings, serials and such into the stock skins.

Cheers!
KH :ernae:

Hurricane91
November 29th, 2010, 04:42
I only copied and applied "decals" to them, the only true repaint job I did was blending all insignias, markings, serials and such into the stock skins.

...and that is the work of an artist. They all look excellent Kelticheart.