Doughguy

IV. / JG.3 Pattern Frankendora. These were most likely upgradedand refurbished Antons

Wrapped up the 301s. Packed. Off to my minions to do some last minute testing before i push this thing out! 12. Squadrons. 1 Squadronstaff. 3 Groupstaff. Some pics of the various versions youll get:

Nothing much happend lately. Progress is crawling as i work overhours since collegues are on sick leave... Good news is that ive tackled most bugs discovered so far and doing minor touchups here and there. Will call it a day in a few weeks tho so you guys can fondle the dora and i can get a broader feedback. It wont be as good as i want it to be but its sinply not doable with the canvas given by ed.

not working

Could make various fixes today and also redo the rear wheelhub and tire for which i created a new normal map. Unfortunately i couldnt recreate the original rear wheel hub since ED has 4 screws build into the model whereas the original only has 3... I also made a new normal map for the radiator. Details Details Details! Atm im reorganizing the JG 301 liveries. Staffel 1 - 12, then 4 Stabsstaffeln: Geschwader Stab, and 3 Gruppen Stabs Staffeln. JG3 liveries in the Pipeline, of which ill do a generic IV Gruppe and Stab. The smaller JG´s wont be a real problem since most only had one Group equipped with doras. The real trouble gonna be Jg 26.... so much varieties...I. Group JG301 liveries already weight about a gig... JG 301 has the advantage of the group marking placement and staffel colors not being all over the place. Its different with eg JG 26 and JG 2, where each staffel has a correspondung color of the bort number and color coded group marking.... Gonna think of something.

Done the tires today. Even they have skewed uvw´s... Im trying to wrap this up for the first stage before i create more patterns.

Im fixing small bugs here and there. not enough to show right now. Ive noticed that the font i use for the stencil work isnt quite right. does anyone know how the actual stenceling looked like or does have a premade font?

Some lazy slave labour worker might have sabotaged the screws and not properly aligned the jigs? No seriously. all pics ive seen had differntly arranged screws. See above. Yes.

Regarding zoom see peachmonkey. Ill defo redo the cockpit but later. Ill wrap this up soon. Exterior first. Then ill dish out the jg301 as a beta to gather feedback etc. for improvements. Once that is there ill update, do the interior parts like wheels, gearbay etc. And release the template so that its all neat and tidy. Then ill take care of the cockpit. As you could read on the last pages im really pressing this as i simply want to move on, knowing how i operate. Just dont wanna turn cold on it. Once the base stuff is done i can/will dish out more versions as a "defenders of the reich" pack. Just for the giggles. Thats the rough plan. Regarding id ed implements this idk. I dont mind on my end really . However some portions of the textures are made from samples of free texture pages of which im not so sure if they permit their textures bein "sold", even if these are cut up, streched, dyed et etc. But im no lawyer. Also filesize is a thing... it jumped from 2k per texture to 4k each. One diffuse map is 20mb. The rouhhmat textures 40mb each. Double that for the normals. The jg 301 pack stands at about 1.2 gig now. It puts me already in hard spot where i have to simply recombine textures for more variations. Real franken doras.

Yes no shtonks gonna be possible.

Been a bit sick lately, so no posty posty. Texture files are getting confusing.. forgot to flip normal map Y channel, now its poppin. Also forgot the surface scratch layer and the larger mud splotches. fixed some other things along the way. first test of the stressed skin on the normal map, albeit dont wanna overdo it as the skinl never looked too "bumpy" telling from pics. Madness.Really.

Schameless picture dump. Having a glas of wine and having some LUA fun... 12 Staffeln of JG.301 in combinations, subdivided into 3 groups. Each Group and Staffel has its corresponding color code. Plus 4 Stabs Gruppen. Not sure if overkill? y/n/delete? There´s some fixing that needs to be done on the patterns with some seams showing too much, or front and aft fuselage having mismatching colors on the rear wing filet (albeit small).. Also, i think ill scratch / dull down the serialnumber like on the stabs texture set, so its not as unique. 500 xxx production batch it is. last digits werent always readable on pics... so.. Need to fix some missmatching stencils and add bit more variety to each set, eg yellow circle on gun cowl, MW50 label variants and such.

Stab pattern done. Noticed some small errors ill fix in the coming days. Also changed the 9. Staffel textures a bit and added leading edge touch ups.

Variations variations Made basetextures for I, II and II Gruppe JG.301. Stab will follow soon. Textures are made in such way, that each Staffel will look different. Contrary to my previous post, it indeed is possible to reference other liveries via lua. Albeit im a bit restricted by my color choices due to how the textures / uvw´s are layed out. Oh well... cant have everyything.. Atm the JG 301 hast 12. Staffeln. Mix and Match will take place once Stab is done. There is a IV Group, with a blue bar on the tailband, but that group only sported 109s afaik.

Another interesting image ive come across. It appears the leading edge was painted in the same color as the drop tank, right to the feet of the man standing infront of the dora. it appears to be darker compared to a RLM 75. RLM 81 perhaps?

Did the ETC 504 rack and external fuel tank today. Not sure about colors tho atm. The ETC 504 rack was supposedly painted primarily in RLM 76 light blue, but theres instances or grey violet RLM75, or even RLM 66 interior grey, which i chose. Your call.

Adjusted the roughness. Added a camo variation for jg2. And had a first shot at the normal map. I noticed that i totally forgot about plyons and fueltank..... gotta work on those..

Cheers guys. Ive tweaked the roughness a bit. Struggled with the normal map today but turned out to be just a spelling mistake in lua... thx to @Magic Zach lending a helping hand. Ill try to take care of the normal map now and finally get on with the skin stressing ive been pushing around for a while... Atm, i kinda lack luster taking care of the gearwells as that whole part is such a mess to tangle with and theres not enough ref i have atm. Ill save that for future update, cause i notice like motivation is deminishing and i really wanna get this done. A contributing factor is the fact that theres some unforseeable cutbacks i didnt thought about when i planned out my jg26 project. Well, it looks like i cant really do what i wanted due to dcs´ limitations on how it handles files. Namely, i cant eg. reference a texture from another livery, so id have to copy said texture and put it in another livery.... if wanted to do every staffel of jg26, filesize of the whole pack would be gargantuan and one end up with 15x the same normal map (Well 60, as theres four of them), when all that would be necessary would be to change the bort numbers colors, as each staffel basically is identified by just that. Bummer... So... what now? I guess ill just finish the template first and then retex the original dcs liveries for the dora. The one thing i wanna do is make one generic staffel of each jg then. Ill still end up with alot of double textures eventually... but well it is what it is... But if anyone knows a way around said problem im all ears!

Yup, as said above. i also believe it was brushed/dull, alluminium compound of some sort. Was just a quick test to try how the PBR in DCS works. The metal will be adjusted accordingly.

PBR Material Set Up Test. Not sure how matte RLM paints were and also think the metal used was of a brushed type rather than high gloss polish like on the e.g. Mustang. Makes it pop nicely tho. Making the paints more matte will help make the oil and fluid spills pop more.

Small test i did today: Numerical System for the Doras flown by Members of the Stab. Was a bit fussy work adjusting the size of the digits and finding the right spot the the chevron. Had to copy paste screens from the model viewer and do some alignments. But works like a charm! Of course, only if you use single digits. If you get higher than 9, it´ll throw of the effect and one digit will be displayed over the chevron. JG.26 Stab didnt use the chevron but only the beams. Easy.

Cleaned and fixed the exhaust residue so theres no seams... Also forgot about the radiator flaps. Dirties them up and gave em some abuse

German La$$es wiv drrrty A$$e$ Bit the bullet and made the downwash texture seamless and fluid. Just to realize ive produce a large seam on a dumb place cause i forgot a mask. Also fixed the group beams as the outline is cut off at the tailband. Reduced chipping considerably in not overly exposed areas and added a paint-up around gun ports as an option. Redid the top camo parts for a late war demarcation line. Ive paid attention on the lowering and rising curves imitating the different angles a spraygun would be held when paintin the surface. Means, downcurves have a sharp edge as the gun is held 0°. The up strokes are angled and thus result in a smooth curve. The effect is subtle but visible. Snippet of the actual texture. About an 8th of its size.

Added the Leading Edge and Panel Gap Filler / Putty similar to ME 262 pics in RLM 99 It also breaks up the overal metal chipping a bit that i still need to tone down a bit. Small test of JG.4 tailband and insignia. Started to block out of the inside parts like flaps, gearwells, scoops, intakes, cabels etc. Bit tedious since i have to locate where they are on the map and some parts simply are overlapping.... which causes some inconvenient oddities... Added wood texture for some access panels as an option. However, i hope i can start workin on the roughmats soon.

oh lawd he commeth... think i just settle on RLM 02 for anything inside... Ah yes... and also ive wasted a good hour repainting the very same disruptive pattern on the wings, instead of the opposite pattern.. cause i´m an idiot. Anyway.... some small update.. The effect of the layerd chipped paint is subtle but its there. Ill reduce the ammount of bare metal chips tho. Bit too much if i look at rl pics. Redid the fuel labels hand painted the letter (cause ...) The Auf Zu markings on the hatches seem to be embossed telling from real world examples, so i´ll have to take this into account for the normal map later on. Also adjusted the dirt /grime color to a pale-grey-ish muddy tan. Looks quite good without havin to adjust opacity or do blending with layer styles in ps. Late war flaps color block-out.