VFA-204 River Rattler Aggressors Inbound

[Bananimal]

A'ight. Take another one off the "to do" list. This one is an Su-27 scheme as the others, but it has black insignia instead of the red star on the tail. It is also void of the elegant writing on the dorsal nose and tanks. I've found three of this type and will be painting all three. Two more and the aggressors will be done and packed for upload. Once again, this is an entirely different scheme. I know they all look the same, but when you get them next to each other in the sim you'll see the differences. My hope is that any of you that fly with squadrons can each have a differently painted aircraft. I would love to see some pictures/video of that once I release these.

 

There's an intersting story behind the driver of this particular aircraft. CDR. Williams and his wingman we're headed out over the Gulf of Mexico during inclement weather for ACM training a few years ago. They were both struck by lighting simultaneously. CDR. Williams got the worst of it as he was keying up his mic when the bolt of lightning struck his aircraft. It messed him up pretty bad and he almost didn't get home. The story is below. It's told from his wingman's perspective. An awesome read if you have about ten minutes.

 

LINK TO STORY:

https://fightersweep.com/1509/struck-lightning/

Edited July 16, 2018 by Bananimal

[MustangSally]

When do you think it will be released??

[DonJosh]

When do you think it will be released??

 

 

yeah release one as a teaser :P

[Bananimal]

Hopefully by next weekend. Once I complete these last two, there will be a total of nine in the pack. I've got to figure out how to do roughmets for the pilot skins. As well as how to put them in the description.lua.

Edited July 16, 2018 by Bananimal

[Bananimal]

Ok, I have been working on details and fine tuning the aircraft. Good news is, you will have a total of 12 aircraft. Bad news is, I still have one left to paint. I should be able to get that one done this weekend.

 

I've spent the last four days replacing the numbering, tweaking colors, setting up the fuel tanks to be unique for each aircraft skin and going over each aircraft. I also created a duplicate of each aircraft wearing the black lettering. Tonight I added the intake and exhaust covers as well as the seat and HUD covers. They came out nicer than thought they would. There's lot's more small things to get right. I've still got the pilots to do and that is going to be a learning process because I've never created roughmets before. Looks like a PITA.

 

Even though I was hoping to get them out this weekend, I'm not going to rush these to release. They need to be right. I'm figuring some time in the next week and all will be ready for upload. It depends on how many things I find that need to be corrected.

[Sport]

Amazing work bud! I can’t wait to feature one of these skins in a video I’m working on. If I had to choose ONE, which would it be?

[Bananimal]

That's a hard one. I've asked myself the same question numerous times while I've been working on them and it is part of the reason I keep adding more aircraft. They look so damn realistic I have to fight myself from taking them for a spin while i'm painting them. They are all cool in their own right.

 

After I paint this last one, I will be focusing on small details to further make each one unique. Things like the color and placement of the faux gun plate and gun port, trim color around the canopy and/or any other unique features I can pick out from the photos. It's worth the extra effort IMO. One of my pet peaves is downloading a skin pack and the camo or scheme is the same for all aircraft with the only difference being the BuNo/BORT numbers. To me, they should all be different.

Edited July 20, 2018 by Bananimal

[Bananimal]

Alright folks. On the final leg of this project. I'm 70 percent done painting the last skin. After that, I will be reworking the red nose numbers on all aircraft as the ones now are too thin and spaced slightly too far apart. It's bugging me. Then will be a final once over before moving to the pilots.

 

There are a lot of things that have changed since the images posted here. Some of the changes are:

 

Added striped arrestor hook to aircraft that had them in photos

Redid all the black on the aircraft. You can see in the last picture I posted, the black was washed out looking. I struggled with this. The photos show dark black but in the game, for whatever reason, I thought it made the text and decals look fake. I eventually acquiesced and coverted them all to dark black as in the photos.

Reduced the white border around all Russian insignia.

Added new nose cone that has a tan tip at the very end on several aircraft.

Added spine ladder to some of the aircraft.

Reworked CAG air brake.

Corrected colors on engine guards.

Added a VFA-204 Louisiana logo to the seat cover headrest

Reworked the rear engine guards to reduce the size of the gold strip and cocked them differently so they do not look symmetrical when parked.

Went over every hinge and painted them the correct colors.

Added dirty main gear wheels (almost black) to several aircraft.

Added fin stripes to the bombs on the tail logos.

Darkened the fake engine paint on the rear of each aircraft. I finally nailed this after trying repeatedly to lift the color off of the photos. The problem with doing that is each photo is different and the color was not a true match due to exposure and tint differences between photos. In the end darkening the grey by 25% hit the mark perfectly.

 

 

Still need to paint the pilots and would love to know how to add the BuNO to the panel.

 

 

What you will get in this pack is a set of semi-historical skins. It was impossible for me to read the name of the pilot and crew on some of the photos I have. Also, these schemes were painted on F/A-18A+ birds. But, other than that, they should be pretty close to the real thing.

 

This package has taken 6 weeks of all my spare time. And when I say all, I mean all. Just yesterday I spent 19 hours straight making corrections to all existing skins. Today, I've been at it from 9:45 AM until now. Just about 14 hours, only stopping for meals. I have no idea how many hours I have in this pack. It's got to be well over 250 easily. That's what I get for jumping head first into camo skins. With the detail of the F-18 model, it was time to do VFA-204 some justice.:thumbup: I hope that you guys like them. I know you will, as they are hella cool looking in the sim. No defects that I can see and very convincing.

Edited July 23, 2018 by Bananimal

[uscstaylor]

Hey Man

Looking forward to your release...Nice Work

[DonJosh]

 

 

Still need to paint the pilots and would love to know how to add the BuNO to the panel.

 

 

 

 

please contact CHSubZero (the guy who did these awesome swiss hornet skin packs). He helped me with these.

[Bananimal]

Thank, Don. Will do. I figure I've put this much effort into getting them as close to the real thing as possible, I might as well do the BuNo panels as well to finish the detail off.

[Bananimal]

Ok fellas, all skins are 100% done and the BuNo has been added to all cockpits. Only thing left is the pilots and this pack will be uploaded.

 

I can't wait to see your reaction to these skins. They are really awesome. I'm not saying that because I painted them and am biased. I'm saying it because it's true. I have a certain ability to balance colors and you can tell my repaints are a bit different. That's been the case since my repainting during the Strike Fighter days. My skins have a certain look. I don't know why. It just kinda happens that way. I guess I lucked out with a bit of talent and I'm grateful I am able to share that talent with you all. Never the less, I am really pleased with the way these came out. They just look awesome in the sim cruising along at 32,00 feet. You'll see. :-)

 

I'll be jumping on the CoNA scheme next and then the standard grey schemes. Those are going to get knocked out real quick compared to these. Once those are done, I'll do the CAGS for the grey schemes and then upload all of them as another pack. After that, the current scheme in camo. I just need a break from camo for now.

 

Off to research how to do roughmets and normals for the pilot skins.

[uscstaylor]

Sweet

[Bananimal]

Thought I'd share a few pics of the last reskin that was added to the pack. You'll note it's fully dressed with a partial spine ladder and seam putty/paint on the tails. Also of note is this one sports a yellow border around the strobes on the tails. And note the color used for the faux engine nacelle paint. It's pretty much spot on now. This was changed on all the aircraft.

 

Interestingly enough, the font they used on this particular scheme is straight up Arial. There's two in the pack that use this font. The AF on the tail is more horizontally compressed than the other schemes. This is not a mistake, but actually how the font was laid out on the real aircraft. In fact, you may see many things that look like mistakes. Trust they they are not. If the paint was a little mismatched in areas, that's how it was in the photos. Everything you see one these will be as close to the real thing as I could get them.

 

Working on the Pilot skins now.

Edited July 26, 2018 by Bananimal

[Bearfoot]

You have no idea how eagerly I am awaiting this!

[Bananimal]

I'm excited to be able to release them.

 

I'm still working on the pilot skins. I figured out the roughmet and the normals in Photoshop CC. So patches are done. No need for the nVidia plug-in. It doesn't install on my system anyway. Photoshop CC has built in 3D normals and bump map tools. I'm now in the process of painting the flight suits. I hope to pack it up and and upload it tomorrow so that it'll be on the downloads page for the weekend. .

[Bananimal]

I'm on the final stretch. All that's left to do now if finish generating the patch files for each pilot. I'm 1/3 of the way done with that. Should be done tonight. I then have to write instructions and they'll be uploaded tomorrow.

 

Check out the pilot skins. There will be two types with different squadron patches and rank patches. I custom made the snake wrapping around the Russian star on the helmet. On the original, this stretches across the back of the helmet with the pilots callsign beneath. Can't do that with the way the helmet is mapped, so the graphic will be on both sides. It's better than nothing at all I suppose. I also painted the suit tan and the g-suit brown along with the shoes. The life vest was painted grey. These were directly off of a picture I have of the CAG. Came out pretty good for a first attempt.

[Bananimal]

And the second Pilot.

Edited July 27, 2018 by Bananimal

[Bananimal]

Sorry guys. I planned on uploading tonight, but I ran into a pretty difficult snag with the F-18 template. It seems that they failed to extend the dirt layer to the edge of the fuselage. This results is the seam between the first template and the second template failing to match in tone where the front half of the fuselage connects to the back half. In other words, the seam between the two templates creates a hard line that is very noticeable and destroys the flow of the paint if you use heavy weathering.

 

I saw it while I was painting and figured it was my doing and I could go back and touch it up. No can do. How in the heck could they miss that? This is going to affect every single paint scheme out there that uses the dirt layer at high levels.

 

About the only option I have is to free transform the existing dirt and stretch it across the seam. This results in some undesirable effects. Been fighting this all night. It's on every one of my skins. :cry:

Edited July 28, 2018 by Bananimal

[Bananimal]

Ok guys. I'm building the packages now. The total package is just over the 300MB limit at 309MB. So, I've got to split it into two packages.

 

I spent a lot of time today and last night resolving the dirt layer issues. I then found some other issues that needed to be addressed. I think you all will be pleased with the quality of this pack. I went through it with a fine tooth comb, but there is always a chance I may have missed something. If so, please let me know.

 

Other than that, I'm going to generate some graphics to show everyone what they get when they download these packs. They are full featured packs. It's the way I roll! :-P

[uscstaylor]

Hey man no rush, take the time you need to get it right to your liking

[Bananimal]

The graphic for the first pack is complete. :thumbup:

[Bananimal]

Well gents, both packs have been uploaded. I will update the initial post with a link once the mods approve of the uploads. I would love to hear feedback once you grab them.

 

It's been a hell of a few months cranking these puppies out. Probably the most ambitious skin pack I have ever released. I truly hope you guys enjoy them and thank you all for your contributions to this sim. Together, we make DCS rock!

 

I'm going to take a week off and then I plan on cranking out the CoNa and legacy CAG schemes. Keep an eye out for that new thread once I get started on that project.

Edited July 29, 2018 by Bananimal

[uscstaylor]

Congrats bud, I know how hard it is to get skins done that are perfectly matched to their real life counter parts. I actually did a skin for Rise of flight a few years back, that a German author used one of my screenshots for his book about WWI Aces...Good Luck on your next batch.

[Bananimal]

Thanks!

 

These aren't perfect, but they are really close. This template is a beast to work with. I've seen worse, but this one has small parts all over it that you have to find using the mesh layer. It can take many hours trying to find the part that needs to be painted. Such is the tedium when you're doing camo versus one solid base color. Lots of hours go into these as a result. Just yesterday I cranked on these from 9:30 AM my time to 7:30 AM my time. Twenty-two hours straight. I'm not kidding. I have to have well over 400 hours in these. I've been working on them just about every day since just before I created this thread. That's how difficult this template can be.

 

The only other pack I did that took me some time was an A-4 aggressor pack for the Strike Fighter series. I think there were 11 or 9 skins in that one. USAFTML (site admin over at CombatAce) and I created a Red Flag campaign add-on for Strike Fighters. He did the missions and I did the skins. That went on to be published on CD and distributed with a computer gaming magazine, I forget the name, but I have a copy of the magazine and CD packed away somewhere.

 

He actually hit me up when I created this thread and wanted to know if I was the same guy that did that mod with him way back when. I've done some one-off skins for FSX, P3D, but nothing really substantial. I think the last skins I created for this series were for the Lock-On F/A18-C River Rattlers flyable mod I created back in 2006 or so. It's been a while since I dove in with both feet, per se'.

 

I bought Rise of Flight when it was first released. It was a great sim. I haven't looked at it in a while though. Perhaps I should, as I'm sure it's changed since the last time I fooled with it. Got a link to your work?

Edited July 29, 2018 by Bananimal