Doughguy

I cant. Maverick did. Its really just about the plot...

"Hard Deck is 10.000 feet". (lol)

Cause air force reguleshuns? Me dont know. Ask the director. They have to create suspense.

In case of Top Gun, what would the movie goer see? F-14 firing Phoenix Missiles against "MiG28s" and those exploding in 40 miles distance. /Movie. Yay. Movies are entertainment compressed into 2 hrs. You cannot portray realism. Realism is rather boring. In Fact, many veterans say the same about war. Rather dull and boring. With few seconds of sheer terror sprinkled in between. It´s like Rambo4. If youve seen the trailer, youve seen the whole movie..

Yeah colors are a subject of debates mainly due to charts bein lost. And b/w pics can be deceiving. Im no expert on that topic so im open to suggestions. However since i plan on doing several if not all staffeln of jg.26 i sure can pic color variations of. RLM 81 etc as colors did change over time. However i wont be doing very specific models /profiles as resources arent exact enough to my liking. In case of the black 14 i didnt aim to reproduce that particular machine but that specific style for the stabs doras Which innterms of colors alls seem to have a very clean standart "unfrankensteined" look. Franz götzs dora bein the exception. In the end you cant please everyone.

Some more work on the diffuse mape whilest doing research.Amazing what one can find on ebay... Quite happy with the exhaust residue. Just need to do some touch ups and dirty the wing root more. UVW´s are a mess in places... particular area has definately some wonky seams i need to adress... Worked on the leading edge. Again.. seams, but this was the first pass... had to do some copy paste trickery that worked well... i just forgot i need brushes set up with the same values.. More seams and faulty colored areas (stabilizer wingroot) More seams.... ugh... And masks are the default ED ones.. not really touched them! Added more masking variety and more labels / markings. Paint layers have received an initial "scratch" mask, where only the paint chipped of. Subject to be adjusted. More wonky UV´s....it hurts.. An area (MG hood) i have to avoid regarding any detailin.

God that sob cost me so many kills... just formalities... but no...

Bear in mind that monitors and gamma need to be set right. Also, for physical based rendering, colors might vary in perception from what you see because the surrounding. The surrounding color bleeds into the textures color. Eg, if you put a red object next to a grey one, the red object will "tint" the grey object into a pinkish grey. Aside from that, RLM66 -like many other RLM Colors- had variations. Eg:

Nah couldnt source the Crandall and Japo Books, i have a few others, but they dont really seem to cover that part much. But your info is good enough! can fix the camo masks of the wings that way. The colored bottom of the front wing part seems to be bit of dispute aswell.. Seen sources stating its either an interior grey RLM 66 or brown RLM 81 or a darker green, but nothing to put the foot down regarding that matter. Yea the bare metal doesnt pop, as ive just been doing the diffuse map and not touched normal and metalic/roughness map so far. Blocking out things etc.

Some more work. Added few field repair paintovers with various scrap paint as seen in several ref pics. Wont be present in all versions. Merely a library atm. Tweaked some layersand toned down effects. Redone the gun residue. Still not too convincing. Worked on the exhaust residue. Wing section needs matchin as well as this long streched part above the wing root.. Added general paint chipping to the paint layers. Nothing down to bare metal, as this usually indicates hard abuse andn usually occures on specific prominent areas only. Added footprints to the walking areas based on luftwaffe boot soles. Just for giggles, but totally plausible. The leading edge of the wings camo is giving me a headache... if i omit the colored bottom part, theres a paint edge covering the leading edge of the wing... which looks odd... Have to figure out how to fix this best. Seen some german fighters had wavy painted leading edges, which would be tooo hard to recreat in this oldskewl way of texturing. Im no Dora expert, but it appears most had a straight painted leading edge, so my tendency is to push the paint bit up. Gonna have to do some trickery with the Stabschwarm version, as part of the Stab insignia would interfere with the DCS Bortnumber placement. Measure is rather simple tho, even it doesnt result "100% accurate" results: move the Balkenkreuzt toward the tail. That way, the insignia around the Balkenkreuz will have enough roomand the Numbers will work. It appears in general that ED made the "mistake" to place the 2nd digit too close to the balkenkreuz. Ill have to move the balkenkreuz and size it down a tad and also shorten the 2nd Gruppe insignia, so that theres enough space. Not 100% accurate again, but a trade-off. Maybe Devs can fix this in the future. So it should look like:

Yeah noticed that some metal/roughness maps dont match on some models. Ill wrap my head around that one once i´m happy with the diffuse map. Tweaking things on the go and working on things here and there. Been thinkin about on how to approach linework and riveting. Decided to create actual panels instead of just lines. Has some advantages: Simple selection posibilities to create discolorated panels from repairs and such, more random "nooks and crannies" between the panels, and bettercontrol of normal map output. Its the next best thing apart from having a high res model and baking that info down. I COULD create a low and high res model to match the DCS UVW´s, but thats rather quite a bunch of work i´m not as inclined to do. Maybe at a later stage. But itd definately would yield the best result.

Cheers. Itll be a road but not too bumpy imho. Ill try a cockpit retex once the shell is done but thats rather on the bottom of the list. Cant help with sounds.

Still you fly from a to b and back to a. Or fly from a patrol zone x and fly back to a. Yes, a f16 i quite different than an fw190 in many aspects ... but still...you take off in a f16, fly /patrol the target zone, chit chat in between some fancy codes, barrel roll *great balls off fire*, go home. For what it is, its quite the same... just some different flavors.

#################################### DOWNLOADS ########################################## Links deleted Some things are overdone and need to be toned down, others have ugly seams that need fixing. Wish i had the 3d model as i could do more trickery and seamless painting in substance painter... *oh well* For now ive only touched the color/diffuse map, as ill build the roughness,metalic and normal from that one. Its the same layout as with the current Dora texture sets but each texture is 4096 * 4096. I´m doing research on the panel and riveting patterns so not touched that yet, but its just that much i can do as ive noticed differences between the model and various other blueprints that i tend to go along with the native DCS patterns and just "redo" them. More research is to be made for the appearance of paint chipping etc...research is half the deal.. Work Work Work. The current livery is nothing specific, but i plan on doing each of the 15 Staffeln of JG.26, with each having its own unique color scheme plus Stab (madness), but generating these, once the base texture is set up, its only a matter of a weekend. Cheerio

I cant see this applyin to ww2 only? Most things we do are repetative in its core... and yet you have eg formula 1 where 20ish overpaid 1d1ots drive around in circles. How you apply planes and how mission looks is what adds the difference.. but in its core its still fly from a to b blow sh1t up and fly back to a. May it be in an f16 or fw190. Doesnt matter. Also it doesnt matter if you have a rio or youre going single.

The current b17s dont seem to fire from all positions atm... So its rather easy to attack a larger formation of b17s if you dont just attack them from the 6. Bremspropeller basically said everything, even the example of the 4 bomber kill streak. Dcs isnt real life. Flights are more reckless. You can restart. And often you just had one go at the bombers when vectored in as fighters werent as powerful as later models. Fun fact : different JG groups preffered different attack patterns. Some only attacked from the front. Others only from the back. If vectored in from vantage point youd have a go at one group (?) of b17s with a head on and go and the next one and the next one thats comin your way etc and head home if theres no mustang on your six. Turning around one group for steady head on attack is just to costly fuel wise and makes you an excellent target for the little friends. Best pattern tho is to attack from the bombers 2 or 10 o clock high swoop down and give a chosen bomber a good deflected burst or even multiple bombers. This is extremely deadly when a whole rotte is performing this attack pattern simultaniously. If you just manage to aim with your revi sights horizontal line across the b17s main fuselage and let the bomber fly right through a stream of 20mm shells its gonna kill vital crew. But it required a fair amount of skill handling your machine flying against a hailstorm of .50 cal bullets from 20+ b17s. in formation. Weaving through a stream lf bombers spouting lead at you. It was nerve wrecking for many pilots. Let alone the whole process of holding steady aim in a shaking cockpit... Dcs in that respect is very down washed experience. You cannot really simulate that. If dcs could, people would have ptsd. It was an murderous ordeal theyve endured. And for this pilots of any side have my utmost respect.

My gripe is with the inconsistency between dora and anton in that respect.. the anton has the rack mounted by default. The dora not. Same shenanigans with the saftey cover of the guns... dora lifts it automatically... anton you have to do it on your own..

Its always the same..... Gun cam footage that show explosions all the time? You dont think thats only handpicked cause it looks impressive? Theres plenty of footage that does not show secondary explosions... also tearin wings etc... it only looks like this because its the most common footage found on the web... Plus it was stated by ed that secondary explosion sources eg gun belts etc arent modelled yet. And yes.. a single 1 to 2 second burst can bring down an anton. Easily. You just have to hit the right spot....

Theres a template floating about albeit an old one. I´m currently doing a high res make over.

You mean you already hear the whine of come people? Id serve cheese to the whine

Hm. The Mustang can turn better tho. And the higher you go, the better the mustang will perform. Way i fly it by now is to retain as much energy as possible whilst positioning yourself. The dora bleeds airspeed quite fast and stalls like hell if youre going slow and w/o flaps. Try to get height advantage, attack from above. During turns i rather to yo yo maneuvers during the mustangs turn if i cant get a good angle or the mustang turns to hard. So eg. if i see the mustang turns too hard instead of following it, i climb, roll and go down on him. Depending on the angle i either turn straight into him or in the opposite direction so i can get a tighter angle (eg if his direction is alread past my 3 or 9 o clock). Rinse and repeat. Throughout the whole attack, i try to maintain 500kmh. If i cant get a good solution i break of the attack, climb,evaluate and reengage. The AI likes to engange endless loops. It helped me a lot do deploy start flaps just before entering the peak. Youll lose speed but will retain more stable and hence a better shooting platform. If you follow to long you might end up in a stall and uncontrolable downward spiral. Defense wise i still suck. The AI is just relentless, even at low AI settings for me. Only way to fend of attackers is to extend, or dive and barrelroll above ground. The Mustangs will rather pull out in order not to snap of wings etc. Doesnt always work. Flat scissors rarely work for me... i usually end up stalling the dora being a dinnerplate for the ponies to feast on.

As usual, the AI is the culprit, not the Plane.

Whilest this looks all nice, i sincerly hope this will get proper LOD´s... and stay within perspective. This level of detail is certainly nice, but dcs is a flight sim.... not a FPS... how often does one get so close to groud objects? At 400+ kph you not gonna see that much detail.

Yes. Wonked up smoothing groups.

And how high is that probability? Based on what? Your gut feeling? The sheer statement that fighter x can turn better/worse than fighter y is very one/two dimensional in a 3 dimensional environment... What speed? What altitude? This is what also matters alot! A turn fight up high with a mustang is pretty much your death sentence. The wings dont produce enough lift compared to the mustang. Hence you had the t152 h which was essentially a glider on roid rage. Now fighting below the mustangs supercharger stage height will give different results... the dora can outrun mustangs and extend rather easily. In my observations below 5k meters the dora can also out turn the mustang with enough speed or flaps down. Albeit one has to be careful as the 190s bleed speed fast and youll be going slow fast and end up hitting the deck flying treetop level which is not always a good position to be in. Lag pursuit is your friend with the occasional lead persuits in the vertical turns. Imagine the dora bein a stalking wolf that runs down its prey. And wolfs usually fight in packs. However in my experience flying the mustang and dora the mustang has some problems flying slow and manouvering even with flaps out compared to the dora. The mustang gets instable and stalls quite a bit faster compared to the 190s.that can go slow a bit better. Im not a good 190 pilot but she can do alot. Certainly turn. Even if its just momentarily which often is enough to shred a pony to pieces. But youre better off fighting in the vertical using yo yos and dives. Especially if you fight on your own. If you dogfight and theres a wingman youre gonna be dead rather quick. I have my fair share of disputes with the dora myself as shes bit more unstable compared to the anton (and the revi is just whack..) but if you try to maintain energy and set your speed parameters as limits youll always be on top, given you can act from favourable pos. If you cant cause youre being jumped on run. Fast. If you cant do that go idle and use barrelrolls or flat scissors to shake of the attacker and run. Yes b&z only can be dull. War usually was. With seconds of terror on between. Pilots often flew sorties w/o any contact at all. And aces were shot down. German aces even 2 3 4 times.