Mach3DS

Uh...I'm not suggesting renaming any default texture folder. Make a new one. Or don't. Just keep everything in a single Base livery folder and call that one out in the lua file for the subsequent liveries that use any repeated file. It's been done already numerous times already. Really simple. And it doesn't mess with any core folders.

Do you mean they will not allow you to make "common" texture folders? That seems unlikely. Just create the common folders for all the types you want. If ROUGHMASTER is also working on these, than his paints already do this. You can create base textures that will be used for ALL your works. You can even create MULTIPLE common folders for different types for use across multiple types. Normals are a good use for this. create multiple sets then simply reference the correct one in the lua which is found in the common folder.

It's very possible to upgrade all the details without having them in every single livery folder. You just need to create a common folder. Sharing in the spirit of helping you make the stock F-16 better.

Uh...I'm not part of LAG. ?? My viper liveries are not public, they were made for the v57th FW. And will likely stay that way. I appreciate your interest in my work! Cheers!

Just curious if there is still time to request a texture layout more conducive to high detail and community repainting? I love the F-1, but IMHO the biggest draw back is that we are limited to very low detail liveries since the pixel allocated to the exterior is very minimal. Even though you used a 4K sheet. Would it be possible to request something like the attached image? This gives the greatest amount of pixel density devoted to the details of the exterior instead of trying to put as much of the exterior on a single sheet as possible. This is one of the MOST iconic century series aircraft and it would be a shame to miss this opportunity to devote as much texturing real estate as possible to the exterior detail. It would be great to have the Left and Right sides laid out identically and placed identically on separate texture sheets. This allows for doing any symmetrical work to only have to be done once. Then simply copied to the other sheet. Only text would need to be reversed. This method increases detail space and reduces work flow, IMHO. Thanks for your considerations! Apologies for the quick sketch.....using the phone! Obviously this same idea goes for the wings and tail as well. The idea being getting as much details as possible instead of using as few texture sheets as possible.

I'm not. It's the forum. It's not keeping the photos that are linked to Discord for some reason? I'm not sure why. I noticed the same thing in the F-16C thread. It's not showing my pics that I post. I don't know why. I didn't delete them though....strange. The livery is on User Files as seen in the pic. Forum is being weird.

The Tails number is BORT enabled, but we don't have the correct smaller size from ED (yet?). WIP.

Good luck dude. You're a one man show now. All the best.

There's absolutely no reason to lock this thread. We're all being civil/polite. You asked who the judge is? The colors are the judge. They are incorrect on your jets. Specifically, in the Hill 2 tone jets, the light grey is too dark. You have almost no contrast between the 2 colors. There are other things, but I'll just stick to this one major and IMHO show stopping item. This is what I meant in my previous comments about our "style" having nothing to do with making liveries once you start making them for official use. Accuracy matters more. To answer another question you asked, yes, many of us work on programs where we interact with the painted aircraft. Anyway, this isn't meant to be harsh personal criticism. It's meant as constructive -- to make the "official liveries" as good as they can be. Again this isn't about your "style" or my "style". I can't submit my liveries. No one can. You were selected. I didn't even know about the request until after Wags posted about just choosing you as the only artist. I think you're taking offense where none was intended. Saying that your color selection is incorrect is not the same as saying your work is terrible or that someone elses are better. Comparisons are for information sharing. Not boasting. If I came off that way I'm sorry. What I'm trying to share is that the correct Have Glass look can be achieved. Others have done it already, correctly. Just for some transparency, ask any of HB livery artists how may iterations of colors I went through for Tomcats. I got tons of feedback/constructive criticism. This isn't unique to you or your liveries. Everyone gets it. Where's @LanceCriminal86?

These should be included with the base game. They are impeccable.

Can someone point me to how I enable a modded Cockpit. I have the following that shows up in the Model Viewer but I can't get it show up in the sim? It's not working for me like the Sabre did....so I'm a little stumped....

As an example of HAVE GLASS V. You can see in the photo the grit in the finish. You can also see my replication of the surface grit in the DCS livery. Great care and time has been spent on getting the finished look correct not just in the diffuse color but also how the light interacts dynamically with the surface to get something close to how it changes look in different lighting.

Sorry, I don't read everything on the forums everyday. But I do understand what you mean. However, better late than never! Thanks for taking the constructive criticism to heart. The F-16 community thanks you.

I understand what you're saying. However, I don't think that excuses need to be made for why it's not accurate. This is something very simple to fix because of the way the paint kit is setup. The brightness and coloring should be fixed, and sounds like it is, so kudos to Lee1hy for taking that to heart. This is my rendition of Have Glass V. I felt like I got pretty close to the look. HG V isn't just a dark color it has a translucent/diffused finish in bright lighting. There is a common error of thinking that all the dark colored F-16s are HG. They are not. Some are just painted darker or lighter. Doesn't mean they have the HG treatment. You can also see the small amount of grit in the normal all over which adds to the effect. These were all made for the v57th. This is all the same HGV textures just in different lighting conditions or angles. 2 other people that have got the look right IMHO are Roughmaster and Texac.

I've uploaded these to the User Files

Right. That's my point. The photos are not a good source for color matching. Those that appear darker are not indicative of the correct color tone. Personally I feel like when you have an opportunity like we do, to affect the outcome and visuals of such a great sim and aircraft of major historical significance our personal "style" no longer matters when we're doing the stock paints. Accuracy matters more. F-16s are simply not that dark. Sorry, as a huge Viper fan, and detail oriented livery artist I'm concerned that all the stock F-16 paints will end up way too dark. Part of that might be the Roughmets being used, but however it's being done the final output is too dark. Ok I've said my piece! Thanks for listening.

Can I offer a suggestion to since you're now putting stock liveries into the game? Your grey colors for the standard line Vipers, both light and dark are too dark. Did you match these colors with the FS color counterparts? Either that or you're using reshade to take screenshots? If you're going to be making all the Viper liveries you should look up the gamma corrected color HEX values. Photos can be notoriously incorrect for color matching, since film has different exposures, tints and filters, and the film Processing can also have it's own color variations, same with the printed inks. Digital is even more notoriously bad since the inception of auto HDR (high dynamic range) which over and underexposes all the ranges of the image to make "hyper-details" pop. While a neat artistic expression, it's not accurate for true to life.

This is why I removed most of my works from User files. However that said, you're now part of the ED stock textures. So you're going to find that this happens more and more as people use your stock liveries for their own purposes. While I find this to be a "low brow" behavior, you're going to have to come to terms with it if you put your free,.un-licemsed offerings into the public domain. The only way to limit that is to not put them out there. Or provide them to specific groups only who you trust to keep your work.

I plan to release this Cockpit mod. It's a Dark Cockpit but with complete Roughmet overhaul, as best could be without completely redoing the textures. Unfortunately, the 86 doesn't use normals on the interior or the pilot. So some trickery had to be used to create some illusions as best as they could be.

If you try to change the specific Liveries to use "standard" Roughmets or other textures you will ruin the overall look of the aircraft. I can only speak for myself, but my liveries are custom made, with custom Roughmets, Normals and Diffuse. I made the VF-301 livery. If the Tail doesn't have MipMaps, that's just an error that I didn't catch, as my default export is to have MipMaps autogenerated. I think your premise is wrong. No offense intended. But many of the high quality liveries are because they DO NOT use standard cookie cutter textures. So custom textures which were added, may increase the size from default textures in order to introduce higher resolution imagery or new imagery )like normals that don't exist in the default for example), for increased detail over stock items. Not all liveries are like that. But some are. Generally the passion projects for the livery artists will have much more detail. If you were to replace all the RM from the liveries I made, for example, you would destroy the overall final finished look of the aircraft since mine were made with specific Roughmets that contains the additional details present in the normals and the albedo. Along with adjusted albedo colors to support the Roughmets that were created for them. For example, NONE of mine use generic CIC patterns or weathering patterns. All of them are unique and based on photos of the real aircraft with as similar weathering patterns as can be achieved from historic record.

Real Life got ultra busy....This was the final result. Custom weathering, and I added the options for All the AquilaEx Visor colors or Std USAF for Pilot or WSO. And option for Green or Tan flight bag.

WIP Combat weathering.