Mach3DS

No, I very much am NOT willing to do that. And once you try, you'll realize that it's not really practical to use for a substitute tool. That's not even the biggest issue. The issue is load times. It takes me like 3-5 mins to load the sim each time. Vs a single button press to reload a texture - 1 second.. at minimum that's 180 to 300x longer. Just to see a change. It's not worth the time. I click that button at least 45x times a session while doing alignments or adjusting Roughmets or normals. I don't think people understand what that actually means. I spend up to 60 real hours on a high quality livery with custom everything, before it's complete. Just clicking the button replacing it with opening the full sim -- If I did that 45x in a session that's 180 seconds x 45. 8100 seconds or 2.25 hours of straight waiting. No thanks. I have better things I could be doing with my life. That's why this is such a big deal. Now realistically I prob click that button way more than that. But If I cut it down to like even 30x in a session. That's way too much waiting; and it makes it impractical for me to paint with such slow progress.

9L, I think there's a misunderstanding here. It's not possible to paint the model at all. The file structure doesn't exist, and the LUA code is unavailable. That's the biggest issue. We can't make anything - not even the hard way, even if we wanted to.

Guys, the LUA is only one part of what we actually need. 1. Model Viewer for Work flow and LUA. 2. Textures unlocked - for custom things like flight suits helmets patches, cockpits etc. normals, Roughmets, glass. 3. We need them unlocked so that we have a file path that the game actually recognizes as where textures are stored. Currently we have no path (that I'm aware of). So like, what do you call the folder? Even if you have the LUA you don't have a folder/file path structure.

Negative the cockpit was just redone at I believe normal default size whatever that is. I think it's actually quite low like 2048. I just didn't recall off hand. Sorry. It might be 4096. I'm not at my PC. Thank you sir!

Here's what I'm hoping happens: 1. According to Skatezilla DRM isn't implemented in the current version of Model Viewer. So implement it and we can continue doing our thing. Or take a snap shot of our account and encrypt it with our install to verify our account from like the launcher. Then we can launch it stand alone and it just checks for our install and account file or something. Seems like there's got to be a way we could do this where we can continue to produce good user content and preserve ED's IP. 2. Make the Texture Files viewable. Since the model files are encrypted, then the textures are seemingly useless anyway and keeping them hidden is just overkill. And there are sneaky technical ways for people get stuff anyway (I recall someone did something like that with Apache to in order to make a crazy weathering job) and skin. Anyway, if the model is encrypted then textures should essentially be useless to most people anyway without the viewable model? 3. Barring no.2 at least make them useable and viewable for the those who purchased the content.

Regarding new F-5E Template -- Does it give you the normals? Pilot helmet? Flight suit? G suit? Glass textures? internal pilot textures? There's a whole host of reasons why encrypting the all the textures is bad for community morale. Especially if you've purchased it. I understand (somewhat) if you haven't.

I certainly hope not...I love making liveries and textures and custom things, and have been for decades in all flight sims...it's a major love I have of this hobby. IMHO This would be a 1000% misread of the room by ED if this was in fact the direction they were going. I would not buy single livery. No offense. And I would be just as put off if they somehow tied them to these "rewards" or like career mode or whatever, that you can earn as play as Wags eluded to in the recent QA video that they had in mind. No user liveries makes a stale product. Fast. Because you know that ED certainly won't be making any of those custom jobs everyone likes. It would be a LOSE/LOSE situation IMHO.

I didn't see this until after I i posted...so, DRM loads with DCS which explains why ME version works? But we still need access to core texture files for custom stuff like helmets suits, Roughmets, if we want to edit the Normals for custom things like stiffener plates etc. I find it reasonable to encrypt if you don't own the modules, but not if your own them. So to me this issue is more than just a model viewer problem.

A version of model viewer runs in DCS in the ME. The solution as I see it, for MV, is that we just need whatever version is running in the ME to be made into the stand alone. That way the 3D assets remain encrypted. But we can view our work. And create the Lua files etc as we've been doing for like a decade. The other thing we need access to are the default texture files. Without them you can't edit the Roughmets for example to create the quality skins. You want a change the flight suite or helmet? You need the default files. We can't be recreating every texture from scratch? You need to edit the RM for glossy paint vs matte camo or bare metal... for example. I don't think it's unreasonable to allow access to those. Ateast to paying customers. Who own the modules.

I've created a revised set of HGV textures with revised base colors roughmets and surface materials.

I was feeling under the weather for flying last few days, so I decided to spend some time remaking my Have Glass V effects. This involves changing the Roughmets and the base aircraft color and adjusting my normals effect. I feel like this is more representative of the iridescent look of the paint now. IRL the exterior of the skin is very rough. I've tried to simulate that as best I can without having to increase the resolution of the texture sheets.

Available in User Files. Enjoy!

Here's the generic version of the USAF Helmet. This the release version. I will upload asap.

I'll release it once it's ready. I'm still tweaking a few things.

I've redone the pilot with new roughmets and some edits to the textures for color correction and material color. A little trickery to fake normals since it doesn't have any.

Download Link: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3342757/

I was able to recover my Roughmet project for the Sabre Cockpit to make it a little more authentic Korean war with a black cockpit and adding Roughmets. I will make this available. It is not a redo of texture. It is just a refresh of the existing texture diffuse and I created Roughmets. This was a project where I didn't want to spend a crazy amount of time so these are a "what can I do to make it look as good as possible without having to remake anything" project. I think the results are actually quite good for what it is. Download here: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3342757/

Fixed! It's uploaded. Just waiting for it to go live.

I would love to upload the files but User Files is giving me Upload errors on every attempt for the past 2 days....

I was able to recover my Roughmet project for the Sabre Cockpit to make it a little more authentic Korean war with a black cockpit and adding Roughmets. I will make this available. It is not a redo of texture. It is just a refresh of the existing texture diffuse and I created Roughmets. This was a project where I didn't want to spend a crazy amount of time so these are a "what can I do to make it look as good as possible without having to remake anything" project. I think the results are actually quite good for what it is. Need to fix a couple of items and I will upload to UF.