F14 Skinners thread (Paintkit in 1st post)

[LanceCriminal86]

The IRIAF/IIAF skins will come officially anyways with the module in the future, he has not left. He's provided our IIAF/IRIAF skins in the Phantom and once art is ready for the Tomcat he will no doubt be moving his work over, or creating fresh ones for it.

[aaronwhite]

50 minutes ago, LanceCriminal86 said:

The IRIAF/IIAF skins will come officially anyways with the module in the future, he has not left. He's provided our IIAF/IRIAF skins in the Phantom and once art is ready for the Tomcat he will no doubt be moving his work over, or creating fresh ones for it.

Oh nice. That's awesome to hear. 
I tried finding the F-14 IRIAF skins on the DCS user files and saw he had pulled all of his IRIAF skins down, so it's good to see he's getting some official work. 

[aaronwhite]

Plugging away for the fun of it still. I figure I might throw together a "cleaner" version, then do one with a few swapped panels and some dirt/mismatched paint. I'm experimenting with the wing glove area a bit, since it seems to be a bit lighter on the IRIAF references I'm able to find compared to the template, but we'll see. It's all a lot of experimentation and staring at pixels from blurry photos. I think I at least got the nosecone lined up, finally.

[aaronwhite]

Some light progress this morning during a meeting. I'm trying to nail down the markings a bit. The originals were way too lime green and bright red, so I've tried to get something a bit closer to the photo references I've managed to find. Finding the top camo has been a bit tough, so there's some "educated" guessing going on there. Hopefully I can finish it up sometime this week, time permitting, and then try my hand at the splinter camo for fun. null

[filthymanc]

Hi all,

A friend has asked me to create a skin for him on the F14. I don't have the module, so I've downloaded the texture template and and trying to figure it all out. It looks much more complicated than the hornet template 

So, do you have any tips before I spend days trying to figure out what every layer does. 

Also, I'm using GIMP. What are the best DDS settings I should be using?

Thanks

[aaronwhite]

11 hours ago, filthymanc said:

Hi all,

A friend has asked me to create a skin for him on the F14. I don't have the module, so I've downloaded the texture template and and trying to figure it all out. It looks much more complicated than the hornet template 

So, do you have any tips before I spend days trying to figure out what every layer does. 

Also, I'm using GIMP. What are the best DDS settings I should be using?

Thanks

The template is definitely sorted out a little differently from some of the others I have worked on, where everything was crammed into as much space as possible. 

I'm going off of memory from yesterday, but I believe f14-EXT_01 is the right side of the plane, mirrored, EXT_02 is the left side of the plane, and shows up as is. EXT_03 is the right side of the engine intake, top-right/lower side of the fuselage from the engines to the back of the wings, and some of the rear engine duct, and it is also mirrored. EXT_04 is the same as that, only unmirrored and on the left side of the fuselage. Outside of that, the rest are pretty easy to sort out from the name. 

The layers have pretty accurate description names, though they don't always match between various template files from what I've found. Fortunately, they appear to have left all of the in-game liveries they created in the template file, so you can always turn those on to see how things are arranged on the skin and get a better idea of what is wear. Alternatively, you can delete them all to save some space.

All in all, it shouldn't take too long to sort out what goes where. They have the base layers all marked in red with "Do Not Touch" to let you know to avoid them, which I go ahead and just lock in Photoshop when I start to make sure an errant click doesn't accidentally drag a base weathering layer off center without my noticing. Another easy way to help figure out what is where on the model that I usually do is just work a template at a time and color the large areas in with a solid color, export it, and then open the model in the DCS Model Viewer to see where things line up. You can always add different lines or markings at one end if you need to figure out which direction something is pointing. 

I've been saving my DDS files with the format: BC7 RGBA 8bpp | explicit alpha and it appears to be working as intended. I'm happy to get a correction on that one. 

Good luck!

[filthymanc]

1 hour ago, aaronwhite said:

The template is definitely sorted out a little differently from some of the others I have worked on, where everything was crammed into as much space as possible. 

I'm going off of memory from yesterday, but I believe f14-EXT_01 is the right side of the plane, mirrored, EXT_02 is the left side of the plane, and shows up as is. EXT_03 is the right side of the engine intake, top-right/lower side of the fuselage from the engines to the back of the wings, and some of the rear engine duct, and it is also mirrored. EXT_04 is the same as that, only unmirrored and on the left side of the fuselage. Outside of that, the rest are pretty easy to sort out from the name. 

The layers have pretty accurate description names, though they don't always match between various template files from what I've found. Fortunately, they appear to have left all of the in-game liveries they created in the template file, so you can always turn those on to see how things are arranged on the skin and get a better idea of what is wear. Alternatively, you can delete them all to save some space.

All in all, it shouldn't take too long to sort out what goes where. They have the base layers all marked in red with "Do Not Touch" to let you know to avoid them, which I go ahead and just lock in Photoshop when I start to make sure an errant click doesn't accidentally drag a base weathering layer off center without my noticing. Another easy way to help figure out what is where on the model that I usually do is just work a template at a time and color the large areas in with a solid color, export it, and then open the model in the DCS Model Viewer to see where things line up. You can always add different lines or markings at one end if you need to figure out which direction something is pointing. 

I've been saving my DDS files with the format: BC7 RGBA 8bpp | explicit alpha and it appears to be working as intended. I'm happy to get a correction on that one. 

Good luck!

Thanks for taking the time to explain. It sure is a bit confusing so I appreciate your help.

 

As I'm using GIMP I can't export to BC7, so if anyone has any advice on that front of be grateful.

[aaronwhite]

1 minute ago, filthymanc said:

Thanks for taking the time to explain. It sure is a bit confusing so I appreciate your help.

 

As I'm using GIMP I can't export to BC7, so if anyone has any advice on that front of be grateful.

Oddly in searching, I stumbled on a Reddit thread in a GIMP subreddit that referenced these very forums. They have a section on exporting that might be helpful. 

 

[LanceCriminal86]

You can convert from PNG to DDS BC7 using AMD Compressonator, which can be easy once you write up a script/.bat for it and just run it in the folder with the PNGs. It's what we've been doing with the F-4 as it lets you do the whole stack of textures at once. If you read the documentation you can figure out how to create the .bat so it looks for each filename and then knows what kind of DDS compression to do, ie BC7 for albedo and Roughmet, and BC5 for Normals.

 

[filthymanc]

2 hours ago, LanceCriminal86 said:

You can convert from PNG to DDS BC7 using AMD Compressonator, which can be easy once you write up a script/.bat for it and just run it in the folder with the PNGs. It's what we've been doing with the F-4 as it lets you do the whole stack of textures at once. If you read the documentation you can figure out how to create the .bat so it looks for each filename and then knows what kind of DDS compression to do, ie BC7 for albedo and Roughmet, and BC5 for Normals.

 

Great! Thanks for that. 

[aaronwhite]

20 hours ago, LanceCriminal86 said:

You can convert from PNG to DDS BC7 using AMD Compressonator, which can be easy once you write up a script/.bat for it and just run it in the folder with the PNGs. It's what we've been doing with the F-4 as it lets you do the whole stack of textures at once. If you read the documentation you can figure out how to create the .bat so it looks for each filename and then knows what kind of DDS compression to do, ie BC7 for albedo and Roughmet, and BC5 for Normals.

 

You may have just become my hero. I've been using the Photoshop plugin, which isn't awful, but being able to just convert a whole batch at once would be real nice. 

I took the F-14 out to test it out in game and see how things looked, and it's looking better. Still need to finish some spots up, but I'm hoping to wrap it up today or tomorrow and then start working on a more weathered version and some of the other camo variants. The splinter camo looks like it could be fun...and maddening. 
null

[LanceCriminal86]

I'll talk to Ben_Der and see if I can make a version of his .bat from the F-4E into an F-14 one and share the contents here. I might be needing it myself soon.

[aaronwhite]

12 minutes ago, LanceCriminal86 said:

I'll talk to Ben_Der and see if I can make a version of his .bat from the F-4E into an F-14 one and share the contents here. I might be needing it myself soon.

That would be awesome! And now, just what I needed, the F-4 to tempt me with some weathered skins on top of the JF-17, F-14 and Ka-50's I haven't finished...

[aaronwhite]

I think I might be finally ready to push this thing out the door. I made some custom pilots and tried to modify the flight suits and helmets a bit based on references I found online. I was thinking of doing some "generic" versions without a lot of wear or grime and no numbers, then maybe making some more specific skins based on one or two combined references with numbers to look a little more realistic. The skin definitely isn't perfect, and I'm sure someone with more expertise and better reference material will spot some errors, but it will hopefully fill a gap until the official Heatblur version is out with some better made skins than mine. 

[aaronwhite]

To continue spamming this thread myself, I went ahead and pushed out my blue camo F-14. Hopefully it's not the worst, but if anyone finds any glaring issues, let me know and I'll get it sorted. It's definitely not perfect, and doesn't represent any specific F-14 (hence why I left off the main registration numbers and everything to keep it as a nice generic skin) but I'm happy to address any of the problems people find. 
If you're interested, you can grab it here.

Now I'm going to give the splinter camo a try, which definitely is looking to be more interesting than the blue camo, since getting these lines all straight across some of these panel lines might get challenging. This is all early WIP with only about an hour of effort on there. I'm still trying out colors to see if I can get it to look right in game, so the colors here likely aren't final, nor are the patterns. As always, I'll endlessly update until it's done. 

Edited June 3, 2024 by aaronwhite

[sa63114200]

IIAF/IRIAF Tomcat skins have been available for a long time. See: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3320065/

[_YaeSakura_]

[Wyvern]

YAE STRIKES AGAIN! xD

Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk

[Jackjack171]

18 hours ago, _YaeSakura_ said:

Welcome back...you were missed. Nice work as usual!

[_YaeSakura_]

Apologies for my absence. VF-211 and VF-24 are nearly done. We'll then be moving onto VF-114(technically already done) and VF-213.

[McKronenberg]

29th of March 1991 14:00L, the Aircraft of CVW-17 were landing at NAS Oceana, and thus concluded VF-74s first F-14A+ deployment. Within 8 months VF-74 would deploy again this time to the Mediterranean sea.

Helmets were made by @_YaeSakura_- great thanks for those!

 

Now Available on userfiles:
https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3339161/

Edited June 23, 2024 by McKronenberg

[aaronwhite]

On 6/14/2024 at 4:26 PM, _YaeSakura_ said:

Apologies for my absence. VF-211 and VF-24 are nearly done. We'll then be moving onto VF-114(technically already done) and VF-213.

Awesome work!

Work continues on the splinter camo. I haven't quite decided if I like the colors or not, but I'll finish the camo pattern and worry about that after, since it will be a simple change at that point. 

[aaronwhite]

Getting closer to pushing this thing out the door. I've added some reflectivity to the leading edges for the tail surfaces, so they match the leading edge of the wing itself a bit better, and I'm messing around with the covering behind the wing fold joint that seems to be pretty light and collect some grease streaks on the real aircraft. 

I've got some alignment issues to touch up on the wings and a few other places, but I think it's getting to the "final touches" stage where I can line things up and then get it uploaded. 

[aaronwhite]

How it started vs how it's going: 

I swear I'm going insane now. But I do like the lessened weathering on the wing panels, and re-doing all of the NO STEP markings. 

Edited June 27, 2024 by aaronwhite

[aaronwhite]

Just need to finish up the pilot's helmets, and this thing will be good to go and uploaded tonight.