ICDP wrote:whiic wrote:All the screencaps are of specular highlight / semi-gloss paints. There used to be a mirror-shining model of P-51D that has made it's appearance in some of the early development videos. Are there mirror-shine paints for the craft, in the condition of the product as it was released? Because Spitfire and P-40 don't support mirroring (even for unofficial repaints) (I think the mirror effect must be enabled on the 3D model level, thus just playing with the bitmaps cannot create mirror effect on a plane that doesn't support it) and seeing all these screencaps to be of specular highlight / medium gloss / semi-matte finish...
Thanks for the compliment, that was the effect I was going for.
The bare metal effect is still there on our skins, but it is subtle due to the fact that these aircraft were very dirty and rarely polished. When viewed in motion, rather than from a static screenshot it is easily possible to see the bare metal effect under all that dirt and grime.
ICDP wrote:whiic wrote:All the screencaps are of specular highlight / semi-gloss paints.Anyway, if there's a polished aluminum skin that comes with P-51D, I'd like to see a screencap of it.
Having said that, yes it is possible to create highly polished relfective skins.
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b58/I ... _Metal.jpg [turned image embed to link to save space]
When I meant "mirroring" effect, I didn't mean that. (Or at least from that perpective it looks like diffuse reflection instead of mirror reflection.)
That looks realistic aluminum of non-overly polished yet non-dirty variety. It's not mirroring in "it doesn't produce an intact mirror image that is recognizable" meaning. It has diffuse reflectivity of high reflectivity value plus "specular highlights" rather than mirroring reflection of FSX that uses mirrored pseudo-sky on top surfaces and reflection of pseudo-landscape on lower surfaces. (And I use word "pseudo", since for performance considerations, FSX doesn't render reflections from real-time in-game landscape and sky, but using a static panoramic landscape image. In some cases, you may see a tannish reflection of a desert landscape when you fly over green pastures... (which is one reason why FSX mirroring might actually be inferior to diffuse reflectivity used in Spitfire and P-40)
Example of mirroring I meant:
http://sapdaube.free.fr/fsx/daube_image1817.jpg
And yes, diffuse reflectivity looks better than it. But unless the model supports "super-smooth surfaces" that produce non-diffused, mirrored image of pseudo-landscape, you cannot reproduce for example Moonbeam McSwine to FSX world:
A2A P-51D Mustang (Moonbeam McSwine) Walk Around (YouTube)
Whether the real Moonbeam McSwine looks RIDICULOUS being fine-polished that way is a different question. I don't wish to insult the owner of otherwise such a magnificent plane so lets dodge the topic... I'm just curious:
can it be done?