SCREENSHOTS

Battle of Britain "Wings of Victory"
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rogeroger
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Re: SCREENSHOTS

Post by rogeroger »

A new Bob2 terrain that I'm currently working on.

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FRENCH FARMLAND TEXTURE
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33lima3
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Re: SCREENSHOTS

Post by 33lima3 »

Interesting! Although I am sort-of wedded now to the stock (BDG1.23, normal gamma) hues and tones, as I like its more yellow cast, suggestive of clear summer skies and strong sunshine, compared to either a more blue-ish cast or darker/stronger greens.

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SimHQ Battle of Britain II screenshots thread: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4481941/1
CombatAce Mission Reports: https://combatace.com/forums/forum/307-mission-reports/

Boreas
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Re: SCREENSHOTS

Post by Boreas »

Later versions of the stock terrain after 2.13 were heading further in the general direction of your top pic 3Lima33 but I think somehow it can be tricky introducing more natural colours and getting them to look right. Also adding more colour and variation in the terrain made the stock RAF aircraft textures look relatively too drab, although we now have many moded aircraft skins so that might not be a problem with them any longer.

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33lima3
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Re: SCREENSHOTS

Post by 33lima3 »

That last shot looks good (to me anyway) for a sunlit summer landscape, maybe better if the colour saturation, intensity or whatever you'd call it was dialled back a bit, say half-way between that and stock.

At the risk of sounding like an unappreciative, right old stick-in-the-mud, I think the BDG 2.13 Spit and Hurri textures are much the best I have seen in any sim. Ditto the Luftwaffe textures, although the Heinkels could je just a little darker, like the Dorniers. If I was still making plastic kits, that is how I would like them to look, for an in-service, not factory- or Civil Repair Unit-fresh finish - in the words of Michael JF Bowyer (who saw and recorded these things first-hand, from before till after the Battle) writing in the Airfix Magazine Guide on RAF WW2 camouflage, '...very rough when touched, thick and very matt so that the aeroplanes gave the impression of being very badly finished, this always seemed to be more true of bombers than fighters'. So this is how I like them, although more 'greasy brown' exhaust (stub, not fuselage stain) textures might be better...

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SimHQ Battle of Britain II screenshots thread: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4481941/1
CombatAce Mission Reports: https://combatace.com/forums/forum/307-mission-reports/

Boreas
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Re: SCREENSHOTS

Post by Boreas »

Interesting points 3Lima33. I havn’t thought much about how mat paint should look (although for example mat back should presumably range from near full reflection or nearly white through to grey and all the way to near completely black) but anyway I suppose if done well maybe using the latest techniques (and with rain for example) it could look much more impressive than the great looking idealised aircraft renditions now widely available. But I’m now thinking In BoBii (although the lighting seems locked to a cockpit viewpoint) maybe a combination of tweaks to the terrain and aircraft (I can't seem to help wanting the stock camo colours to be a least a shade out as they could look better to my eye ) textures could through contrast bring out more of the rough and ready workhorse elements of the aircraft artwork.

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33lima3
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Re: SCREENSHOTS

Post by 33lima3 »

FWIW, one thing I found convincing on a 1/72 model was a coat of brushed matt varnish on top of Hannants' gloss WW2 camouflage colours. Which were gloss of course so the carrier film of waterslide decals would pretty well disappear, since trimming it close only worked so far (eg not really feasible around 1/72 RAF aircraft serials). I don't know if and to what extent Hannants' range was modified to take account of scale effect, but the final coat of matt varnish, applied carefully but by brush, seemed to achieve the triple effect, on a 1/72 model anyway, of (i) toning down the intensity of the colours just a tad; (ii) reducing the apparent contrast between different upper surface colours to more lifelike levels, so you 'saw the shape rather more than the camouflage pattern', and at the same time (iii) recreating the faded appearance of an in-service machine. The CloD Bf109E is especially 'guilty' to my mind of presenting a 'carefully cared-for Warbird' appearance, however authentic its 71/02/65 colours may actually be. Conversely, I think the BDG 2.13 aircraft textures somehow achieve the same sort of effects as 'brushed matt varnish over Hannants gloss colour' which is I suppose why I find them so convincing!

Apart from dynamic shadows (and in the coding field, a fix for the occasional 'unresponsive escorts' behaviour) I think the thing that would make the biggest difference to BoB2 is more detail and/or polygons in the canopy framing, like adding the Spitfire canopy release handle, and the emergency break-out panel in the Hurricane's . 3D modelling issues of course, but as far as textures are concerned, maybe the current RAF interior green of the canopy frames could be a little darker and duller, to account for the fact that even when illuminated by direct sunlight, there are generally seen in semi-silhouette, against the much lighter background, of the sky often. This shot from CloD illustrates what I'm trying to describe here...

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...compared to this one from BoB2...

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More polygons/better curves, more detail in the 3d model, but also the same interior colour represented by a darker, duller texture. Even if the latter is a poorer match for RAF interior green, comparing colour chips sitting flat under rather than against the light source, on the desk in front of you, a bit of artistic licence produces a more realistic appearance...I think so anyway!
SimHQ Battle of Britain II screenshots thread: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4481941/1
CombatAce Mission Reports: https://combatace.com/forums/forum/307-mission-reports/

Boreas
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Re: SCREENSHOTS

Post by Boreas »

It should be doable. I have a templates for the cockpit paintwork in the spitfire, hurricane and BF109 so it should be easy to darken them or change the shade. Also maybe as I have seen in some spitfire photos with a bit more investigation the interior surfaces of the forward window surrounds and the bolts could be converted to black and white.

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33lima3
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Re: SCREENSHOTS

Post by 33lima3 »

I think that would be a good mod to add to the arsenal! To an extent it's a matter of taste, but even allowing for CloD's extra detail, I for one find the duller, darker effect of its frame textures more convincing. As far as black framing and nuts and bolts are concerned, in some online pics of real Spits of different Marks, the fames and nuts seem to be painted either all Interior Green (with some wear on threads and/or nuts), or all black, or a mix of interior green and black, like in CloD.
SimHQ Battle of Britain II screenshots thread: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4481941/1
CombatAce Mission Reports: https://combatace.com/forums/forum/307-mission-reports/

Boreas
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Re: SCREENSHOTS

Post by Boreas »

A first attempt at darkening the spitfire canopy frames https://www.mediafire.com/file/nc9sb9cm ... 1.zip/file. Should be easy enough to change it although blending in the darker areas would probably be more difficult. To start off, I matched the cockpit paint colour to interior green but it seems to change depending how much light or dark is added and then how much you compensate with saturation and maybe hue.

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33lima3
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Re: SCREENSHOTS

Post by 33lima3 »

I think that looks a LOT better than stock, Boreas. Stock reminds me of...I dunno, EAW or BoB(1) canopies, good tho they were, in their heyday, but they look a tad cartoon-ey now. Beneficial side-effect is that it tends to make the canopy frames less prominent, as if you are looking past rather than at them - faking a sense of depth perhaps. Detail being somewhat less prominent is no biggie - anybody who likes to while away the idle moments admiring nuts and bolts deserves everything he gets :)

Good choice of colour too - looks like Interior Green in shade or silhouette, not dark green. Better than the CloD equivalent, as your version retains more of the shade, where on my set-up anyway, CloD's frames have a blue-ish tint, suggesting a different base colour to Interior Green.

Only suggestion would be to darken adjacent areas similarly, like the canopy rails - perhaps all the Interior Green in the cockpit. Cockpits as a whole look unreal if rendered like there was a strong cockpit light left permanently on (eg OFF, fixed in WoFF) or like they were based on a photo taken with amateur or professional flash, or an f-stop or so of additional exposure, as I suspect many pics of warbirds were.

What do others think?
SimHQ Battle of Britain II screenshots thread: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4481941/1
CombatAce Mission Reports: https://combatace.com/forums/forum/307-mission-reports/

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33lima3
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Re: SCREENSHOTS

Post by 33lima3 »

PS replaced the stock Spit3.dds with the one in the link and it consistently locks up the mission on loading, needing Alt+X to get out. Reverted to the previous file and back to normal. Am not doing something right. Is there something about having to delete the folder's Dir.dir and let it be rebuilt?

EDIT - think I've worked it out - I kept the renamed old file in the folder, which probably confused the dir.dir file - will try again with JSGME or the backups stored somewhere else!

EDIT again - this one's a keeper - using it now in my RAF campaign, thank you!

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PPS - bare-faced cheek I know, but would you mind doing one of these for the Hurricane too, please?
SimHQ Battle of Britain II screenshots thread: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4481941/1
CombatAce Mission Reports: https://combatace.com/forums/forum/307-mission-reports/

Boreas
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Re: SCREENSHOTS

Post by Boreas »

Good that it looks all right. Although I've made a second version now taking account of some of the feedback, which maybe falls short of the focus of the original. Anyway, it could be blended with first one.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/mccndwyck ... 2.zip/file

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33lima3
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Re: SCREENSHOTS

Post by 33lima3 »

Thank you Boreas, I'll give that new version a try - it looks pretty good to me!
SimHQ Battle of Britain II screenshots thread: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4481941/1
CombatAce Mission Reports: https://combatace.com/forums/forum/307-mission-reports/

Boreas
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Re: SCREENSHOTS

Post by Boreas »

I'm looking at the terrain textures at the moment. The latest spitfire cockpit might be a bit dark as I was trying to avoid an obvious join, but I will resume with it after posting the tarrain and hopefully then look at the Hurricane cockpit.

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33lima3
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Re: SCREENSHOTS

Post by 33lima3 »

That looks pretty good to me! Good news on the cockpits, too! Marvellous!

BTW I noticed that the Spit camo pattern is wrong on the RH rear fuselage. It's a pretty decent representation of the B Scheme, but the rearmost Dark Green band is swept back...

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...but the Dark Green should be swept forward, and extend to the top of the fin, as on the bottom two Spits, here...

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Unless it's that way because the textures in that area are mirrored from the left side, would you be able to fix this? While you're in the mood... :)
SimHQ Battle of Britain II screenshots thread: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4481941/1
CombatAce Mission Reports: https://combatace.com/forums/forum/307-mission-reports/

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