jocko417

Hi rick, yeah the PBR stuff sure gives easier results than the old spec files! :) Will be nice when the Sabre gets the upgrade too. Mojo, I just KNEW somebody was going to bring up that “checkerbird”...

Same goes for the F-86F model, and recently in-cockpit pilot textures have been added to some modules so you have another bunch of stuff to skin :)

That 916-starfighter site is a great resource, I prefer period photos over profiles like in the second link, artist renditions can sometimes be inaccurate. My CF-104 references, while not as extensive as my F-86 ones, include these books: Starfighter by David Bashow https://www.biblio.com/starfighter-by-bashow-david-l/work/2509204 RCAF Aircraft Finish and Markings books by Patrick Martin: http://www3.telus.net/m1729/books.htm Canadian Starfighters, also by Patrick Martin: https://www.amazon.com/ARDB003-AirDoc-Publications-Starfighters-1961-1968/dp/3935687982 Great book, has lots of high rez colour photos and some colour aircraft profiles by Richard J. Caruana that ARE accurate :) Also, 417 Squadron History book, out of print but you can find it on eBay. 417 was the CF-104 training squadron in Canada for a while. Your skin looks very nice and I almost had a heart attack when I saw the screenshot with those T-33s parked in the background (T-33s?! We have a T-33 model?!!?). Then I realized it was an actual photo! :)

When the lines in the lua end with “false” it tells the game to look for textures outside of the rar file. If the line ends with “true”, it uses the default textures in the rar file. So in Kobra’s example above, the game will use the default texture 6, the ejection seat, and the pilot texture from the rar file but everything else used would be your modified textures for the aircraft, located within your specific livery folder.

Beautiful! Sometimes the work can be tedious but it’s always worth it! :)

I'm certainly no expert but I've had good results so far with remembering rule #1 for natural metal finish... "Pink is your friend!" :D Here's a screen of the number 1 template. Painted surfaces are all about "Orange", as you probably know from using the default RoughMets. I've turned these layers off so we can focus on the metal finish. I use white, black and brown layers, with opacities from 5 to 20%, to give the tail section (and other panels) those different colours. Now, the RoughMet files seem to work like this for metal finish: Pink is a good start, you can lighten or darken certain areas to add or take away shine and reflectivity. Green and yellow are good colours for matte surfaces, like the fiberglass antenna areas on the forward fuselage. I'm still experimenting. Put them together and you get this (working on tip tanks now, compare with earlier shot above): Finally got around to doing the pitot tube stripes. In reality they were painted in a spiral, I'll see if I can do that later. This is how the airplane would have looked like during the early 1960s in Europe, only thing missing is a Mk.28 nuke on the center line pylon... BTW, I really like the model, but someone with a nasty sense of humour decided the Diffuse and RoughMet files should be different resolutions :huh: so have fun resizing various layers if you want to move them from one file to another to... "save time". :P I resized the RoughMet pictured above from the native 4096 down to 2048 to save space and make it easier to compare the two texture files. I vote to have the diffuse files upped to 4096 resolution to match the Roughmets. Would be really nice when working with small text like the maintenance stencils. Hope this helps.

Thanks Strut, couldn't find the latest stand-alone version, was trying the embedded one with no luck.

Hmm, MV2 in the bin folder is April 18th but doesn't have that feature, is there another version for DL somewhere? Thanks

Che bella!

LATEST VERSION HISTORY *NEW* March 25/2025: New bare metal skins for F-104C of the 479th FIW uploaded to ED User Files. See link at end of this post. Jan 30/2025: New/updated camo F-104C (Vietnam) skins. Updated Shared textures folder (Link below in post) to include updated textures for F-104C skins. Oct 22/2021: PSD Template available here https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3318995/ Oct 20/2021: Shared file updated with new textures. Oct 15/2021: "Starfighter Skins 2.0" for the re-release of the VSN F-104G mod Please delete any of my previously released F-104 skins from your hard drive before installing the new versions listed below! FIRST THING: GET THE NEW F-104 MOD To use the skins you will need the 3rd party add-on VSN F-104G model, located here: https://e.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=kZskhnZwioeCmgDRQuieiKYUdSfC84HFmhV SECOND THING: HOW TO INSTALL SKINS Very important: Skins should be placed in your Saved Games folder. Install path should look like this: C:\Users\<your user name here>\Saved Games\DCS\Liveries\VSN_F104G or C:\Users\<your user name here>\Saved Games\DCS\Liveries\VSN_F104C depending on model. STEP ONE: INSTALL THE SHARED FILE There is a "Shared" file that must be installed into the same directory path, like so: This file contains textures that are shared by all my skins. Stuff like pilot textures, pylons, tanks, normal maps, etc that don't need to be included with each new skin file. This will save a fair amount of storage space, as my skins are 4K resolution. Please install the Shared file first: Latest Shared version as of Jan 30/2025 https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3314166/ You only have to install the Shared file once and it will serve all skins. STEP TWO: GET THE SKINS Newly updated skins can be downloaded with the links below (as they become available): CF-104 12701, RCAF Station Cold Lake, early 1960s Get it here: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3314053/ F-104G FX47, Belgian Air Force Available here: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3318812/ F-104 FG-914, George AFB, USAF https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3318816/ F-104G 13690, Luke AFB Download here: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3318856/ Couple of overall green (late version) schemes with symmetrical markings as seen during the late 1970s in Europe: CF-104 #733 of No. 439 Squadron Download here https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3318857/ CF-104 #762, 1 Canadian Air Group Download here https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3318858/ Couple more Greens on the way (421, 441)... 421 Sqn 104779 available here: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3318864/ 441 Sqn 104706 available here: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3318866/ CF-104 62-751, Turkish Air Force https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3331852/ Royal Norwegian Air Force olive drab camo scheme here: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3337479/ *NEW* F-104C camo skins: F-104C 56-0892 "My Darlin' Dorothy" USAF https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3343045/ F-104C 56-0898 "Sex Machine" USAF https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3343046/ F-104C 56-0910 "Pussycat" USAF https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3343047/ F-104C 56-0938 "Show Me" USAF https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3343048/ F-104C 56-0891 "Snoopy Sniper" USAF https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3343049/ F-104C 57-0927 "Debbie Sue" USAF https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3343050/ F-104C 56-0929 Puerto Rico ANG https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3343051/ F-104C 57-0925 "Smoke II" USAF https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3343052/ F-104C 57-0923 "Hellooo Dolly" USAF https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3343053/ *NEW* Natural Metal finish F-104C skins now available, 479th TFW. Four stateside individual squadron markings, and fifth is as they appeared while stationed at Da Nang AB, South Vietnam. https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/filter/user-is-jocko417/apply/ *NOTE* Please make sure you also have the latest Shared file, as mentioned above.

Yes, I believe the original Luftwaffe livery (markings and all), was used to create the default RoughMet files for this model so they won’t really match other liveries.

Very nice!

CF-104 This aircraft will certainly be the cause of a lot of wide, skinny screenshots, at least the side view ;) Obviously very much a WIP. Just placeholders for now, but I'm planning natural metal finish and variegated camo schemes as well.

WHAAAAAAAT?????? Gimmie gimmie! :)

Well, I learned some new stuff anyway :) Thanks again for all the help, I've posted a request for new axes here: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=236778 Until we can get an axis for the Radio Compass tuner that behaves correctly, I'll probably just go back to using a rotary encoder for the tuning crank for the time being. Do you have any suggestions for a high pulse encoder that would work with Bodnar boards, the ones I have right now are 16 detents per 360 degrees of rotation, so it takes a fair amount of time (and turns) to go from one end to the other of the ARN-6 freq range.

Thanks Sokol, but I have already tried that, and numerous other combinations and curves. Pot always behaves the same way, center of range of travel of wiper is neutral point of the axis. Twisting the shaft away from neutral in either direction starts the frequency changing, but it speeds up the further from the neutral position you twist the shaft, like the steering wheel on a car. I need to have the axis behave like a volume knob or tuning knob on an old radio (or radio compass :))

Definite progress, it’s actually working now, thank you very much! You are right about the insane sensitivity, but the real problem is the axis is not behaving the way I expected. I need the axis to act like a volume knob, with a few turns to get from min to max value, and change of state pausing when the control is released. The axis is currently acting like an aircraft axis of movement, with the neutral position in the middle and change of value accelerating the further the control is held away from neutral in either direction. I guess what I’m trying to say is I need this axis to act like a volume knob, or a zoom control on a slider, not like a pitch/roll/yaw axis. Any ideas? Thanks again!

I think the double brace bracket is due to the two control category names listed one after the other?

Another question for the default.lua experts... Have been following this thread and have made progress with assigning an axis for the ADF Tuning Crank in the F-86 cockpit. I have added this line to the default.lua in the \Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World OpenBeta\Mods\aircraft\F-86\Input\F-86F\joystick folder: {action = radio_compass_commands.ARN6_TUNING_CRANK_AXIS, cockpit_device_id = devices.AN_ARN_6_RADIO_COMPASS, name = _('AN/ARN-6 Audio Tuning Crank'), category = {_('AN/ARN-6 Radio Compass'), _('Right Side Panel')}}, The pot I am using (10-turn) works in both the Windows control panel and in the DCS Control Assignment screen (white bar moves all the way left and right from center when winding multi-turn pot from one end of range to the other), but the cockpit control will not move in the game. Do I have the syntax correct in the lua code line? Does DCS need a different title for the tuning crank control? It is usually controlled by button commands (CCW or CW like button commands for controlling radio volume knobs, lighting rheostats, etc.) in the default settings. Thanks in advance :)

Ok, making progress, but still not completely there. Was able to add an axis line to the joystick default.lua file. I can assign the multi-turn pot to an axis in the control options page now and it works as far as I can tell (white line moves horizontally as I wind the pot back and forth), but it still won't actually work in the game. Turn the physical crank and the one in the game cockpit won't move... Any ideas? Line I added is here: {action = radio_compass_commands.ARN6_TUNING_CRANK_AXIS, cockpit_device_id = devices.AN_ARN_6_RADIO_COMPASS, name = _('AN/ARN-6 Audio Tuning Crank'), category = {_('AN/ARN-6 Radio Compass'), _('Right Side Panel')}}, Again, thanks so much for all your help!

Thanks for the heads up! I’ve given things a preliminary read through, once I get home tomorrow I’ll start experimenting. :)

Yeah, I’ve already installed a few encoders for other inputs and they work pretty well, but they aren’t good for something like this when there’s a large range of travel from one end to the other. Is there a way to get a larger change with each encoder pulse without getting into lines and lines of code? There’s a balance between speed and precision as well, too much of a change with each pulse and you can jump over the frequency/value are looking for. The pit is an Obutto Revolution, no major mods, just using the table top arms as button box mounts. Still a couple of boxes to add, but I’m running out of room :) I have a landing gear control box to add but I’m not sure how to attach it yet, leaning towards RAM mount hardware right now. The other thing is finally getting off my lazy butt and printing off the adhesive labels for all the switches. I have the correct font ;)

As title suggests, would it be possible to add an axis assignment for the tuning crank on the ARN-6 Radio Compass? Would be nice to connect a pot to it. I have a 10-turn pot that would work great. :) Please ensure that the axis behaves not like a control surfaces axis of movement with a center neutral position, but rather like a gain or volume control, with a min to max range. Also, would it be possible to assign an axis to the Rocket Depression Angle selector for use with typical pots? Thanks!

Thanks so much for the help, everything works perfectly in the Windows control panel! Now, just imagine my ecstacy (sarcasm) when I went to assign my new 10-turn pot to the ADF tuning crank in DCS and discovered THERE IS NO AXIS FOR THAT. :wallbash: So now I get to decide do I throw a rotary encoder in there or do I use a Momentary switch, left/right, spring loaded to center. Personal preference, I guess. Time for me to petition DCS to get that axis added for pit builders. Thanks again for your help! :D Button box in question is at lower right, waiting to be mounted in cockpit. Monitor shows radio panels I have simulated with the new box.

Thanks for the replies! Yeah, the F-86’s Radio Compass (ADF) was pretty archaic by today’s standards, you used a crank handle to change frequencies by tuning it like an old AM/FM radio (Nicknamed a “coffee grinder” ADF). This is why I think a multi-turn pot is the best choice, the usual pots (see below) have only a 270 degree travel which would be too coarse. The UHF radio, however, uses a channel selector for preset frequency selections so a rotary encoder works fine. I’ve used these pots from Bodnar’s site before and they work great: http://www.leobodnar.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=103_81&products_id=193 As you can see, there is a simple wiring diagram where the 3 pins are connected so the middle one is the input and the outers are ground and +5V. So, using the above diagram as guidance, you are saying that the multi-turn pot is basically the same where: Pin 1 = black wire - connect to ground Pin 2 = green wire - connect to input Pin 3 = red wire - connect to +5V I’m not too concerned about which way to turn to inc/decr voltage as I could just invert the axis in settings if the behaviour doesn’t match the direction of rotation in the cockpit... right? :music_whistling: Thanks again!