aaronwhite

When will we get an update on the cloning of the real Jester voice actor so that mission makers can get their own 100% accurate voice for their missions?

haha, I think the name might be the same on there? Might be Actionhank, I can never remember. It's been a few weeks since I've been able to hop on and fly though!

It would definitely be a nice touch. Even if it was just something that was a toggle you could select in the options for "CPG calls out threats" or something like that. Similarly with the flares, it would be nice to have an option in the in-flight menu where you can say "Petro, launch flares for threats" and have Petrovich say something like "SAM launch, 4 o'clock!" and automatically dump the flares you had configured.

Thanks for the comments, Nineline! Great to see the work being done. One thing I was curious about, and apologies if it's been answered elsewhere, but is it possible that the Co-Pilots are going to get the ability to call out SAM/AAA fire as a bit of a RWR of sorts for the pilots? It would definitely be nice to have your co-pilot scanning (no idea if "CPG is looking at X-angle and only sees launches in this sector he can see" is possible) and call out something like "SAM launch, 5 O'clock!" just to give a little more situational awareness, especially being deep in the Hind's bathtub cockpit.

Haha, Aeria, I always think of you when I see Hind changes/improvements, purely because it feels like every time I hope on Rotorheads, I see you in the Hind just buzzing around and destroying things.

For anyone interested who finds this link, here they are: High-Visibility Skin and finally the Low-Visibility Skin. Definitely let me know if you find anything that was missed! I had planned to upload them as a 2-pack, but I still need to mess around with combining multiple skins into one smaller file by referencing the other textures separately.

Thanks! They finally got uploaded, so I'll throw the links in here once they are open on the site!

Well, I've got them wrapped up and ready to upload as soon as I can get my account unlocked. I forgot to transfer the MFA over from my old phone when I upgraded. Anyhow, here's a few screenshots until then:

It's a bit of a quick and "easy" skin, but I thought it would be cool to make a "what if" skin for the AH-64 in a world where Ukraine got into NATO years ago and was able to upgrade their fleet with AH-64's from the US. The markings are mostly fictional and based on how they mark their Mi-24's to an extent. I'm working on the pilots, and I'll tweak a few other things before releasing it. I also plan on doing a Lo-Vis version that's got toned down markings, similar to the way they look on the Dutch AH-64, but I thought the bright roundels would look pretty cool as well. I'm going to work on an actual camo variant that's based on the Mi-24's colors, modified for the AH-64 (maybe digital or splinter, we'll see) but for the time being, here's a quick WIP:

Agree with AeriaGloria. The good news is, once you get the autopilot on and then get it trimmed (I've really enjoyed having a trim hat in addition to the trim button itself) you can fine tune it to where your vertical velocity indicator is sitting at 0, showing that you're not gaining or losing altitude and you can be relatively hands off while you go heads down in the cockpit to find a switch or configure something.

I honestly haven't had any issues with it, with the right AP Channels on. If anything, I was surprised at the issues I was having with a smooth takeoff in the Apache, since I was thinking it was going to be a walk in the park by comparison to the Hind. I've got a Thrustmaster Warthog, so there's a bit of play in the middle, but even with that factor, I've found that with enough practice I haven't had any issues with smooth takeoffs in the Hind once I get it trimmed out and ready to go.

Yeah! I'll definitely be checking the patch notes today hoping to see some Hind love on the anti-icing in addition to the Apache goodness.

I would second that advice on the panel finder. I've done something similar on mine when trying to find parts. I'll essentially just grab the pen tool in photoshop and roughly outline entire panels on the template, then fill them with a set color. Usually I'm just working on one chunk of the model, so I'll use a handful of colors. When working on the Ka-50, it ended up looking like this: Then in terms of lining things up between two different parts of the template, one thing I would do was to draw a line on a separate layer to be deleted later. Then I would adjust the corresponding line on the other template until they matched up, and edit the camo patterns or lines after I knew where to cut things off. Another useful trick is to zoom in real close in the Model Viewer and see where you're at and where you want to be on the model using whatever visual references like rivets. I've lined up plenty of camo lines on the first try by going "Okay, I'm 4 rivets from the bottom line and need to actually be at the 6th rivet". It can be a painful process, but I always enjoy the work. I might get a little too obsessive about lining up things, but I guess as the skin creator, my eyes are drawn to any imperfections that I'm sure the average person flying with your skin won't even notice.

This is definitely one thing I hope is either patched out in terms of not being an issue until the heating is ready, or ideally, working in the next big update. I'm happy to wait while they fix things up, but it can definitely be a bit frustrating flying around on Rotorheads in winter conditions and icing up and not being able to prevent it.

Here's the link for anyone who stumbles on this and wants to download it: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3320918/

I appreciate it! Ukraine definitely has a ton of really unique paint jobs on their Mi-24 fleet, so I've got a handful more I would like to make. The biggest headache is lining up the camo across all of the panels, and worst of all, the little details like the bolts on the IR Suppressors.

Uploaded and waiting on approval! I'll post a link once it's up.

I figured I'd throw a thread up here, in case anyone was interested! I've been working on an interesting Gray Hind from the Ukrainian military. From the only picture I've found of it, it almost looks like the grey paint was quickly airbrushed over what might have been a White UN Hind. The gray paints are pretty heavily worn in places, and the whole thing definitely doesn't look as clean as other Hinds I've seen from their military. This one has been a fun switch from the Green one I did previously, and I'm hoping to finish it up this week. So far I've been lining up the various lines on the fuselage, which I'm sure plenty of you have experience the joy of. That and finding the random bolts scattered around the template. Once I wrap that up, I'll go through and give all of the darker gray stripes the distressed look to more accurately match the look of the real one, then figure out what kind of numbers to throw on it, since the placeholder ones from my other Ukrainian Hind don't really look good on it in my opinion. Anyhow, once it's done, I'll throw it up on the ED User files as usual.

Looks great! I'm going to have to replace the one I've got in there now!

This is definitely something I'd love to see once ED gets the DTC into the core of the game. It would be cool if the DTC was something in the F10 map where you could setup your waypoints, countermeasures and weapons specifications in all of the modules. Obviously that would make it way more complicated to implement, but it would be awesome for multiplayer, especially if you could save certain things like countermeasure settings.

Figured I'd post a little update. Finally got the various camo lines between panels lined up, so I can finally start the process of going back and making everything look airbrushed, weather the paint all around and make it all appear to fade to what looks to be a UN-white base that it was painted on, and dial up the general dirt and grime, since the real Hind from the nose shot looked to be filthy. I'll also try and see if I can find a base number that looks a little better. The crisp yellow/white numbers from my other livery definitely don't really fit on this one.

Working on the next skin. It's another Ukrainian Hind, since they've got so many interesting camo patterns. I'm still working on aligning all of the grey camo between the lines before I go back and start the weathering and look that will hopefully make it look more like the field spraypainted paintjob the original appears to be.

That's awesome! Thanks!

Agreed on the weapons. Since they're shared, I don't know that it makes a ton of sense to have them as paintable objects. The IR suppressors would be nice since they're sometimes painted to match, and definitely stand out when it's just the tan box plopped on the side (though in my searching for skins to make, I did see a handful with IR boxes clearly taken from another helicopter that didn't match). As an update, I did ask Bignewy on the DCS Discord, and he was kind enough to check with the team. They're planning on getting the IR Suppressor on the template at some point, but there's no ETA at the moment. Good news for us Hind skinners!

Thanks, Benom! I assume that same texture just gets used across all Mi-24's in that case? Edit: To update, I asked Bignewy on the forums, and he talked to the Hind texture person(s) and was told that they are planning to add the IR suppressor in the future, but that there's no current ETA on it.