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Inaccuracies on the VF-154 NF101 F-14A Livery


BreaKKer

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Digital Combat Simulator  Black Shark Screenshot 2021.08.03 - 22.50.14.00.png

 

1. Stripe on the top of all VF-154 aircraft in 2003, including BuNo 161276 NF101 did not stop in a sharp end, and actually stayed the same width, starting from the heat exchanger exhaust duct.

2. Anti-slip material on the top of the intakes is missing a section
3. both wing modex numbers are too big, and are not aligned with the middle edge of the DLC spoiler. Both wing modex and USN roundel are too light on our current livery, and are darker (same as front fuselage roundel black)
4. VF-154 NF100 and NF101 jets were not Light Gull Grey FS 16440 as compared to their 1980's liveries. Instead, they abided by the mil-std-2161 that pushed for the Tactical Paint Schemes, which they have been since ~1988.

5. The starboard side rescue arrow does not intrude on the AAR door

6. The canopy jettison warning (below the RESCUE arrow) is all black with body color text.

7. Danger arrows are too far downward from the black canopy rail

8. The wing "airbags" are not as dirty as can be, and can be seen on a bunch of VF-154 jets at Atsugi to be cleaned up a bit.

9. Tail ECM antenna and fuel dump nozzle on the beaver tail aren't washed out with white paint. 

10. VF-154 jets of 2003 didn't have "Beware Of Blast" warnings on the rear engine access panels under the stabilator, as well as the BuNo not being in Futura font. 

11. USS Kitty Hawk missing aft of glove vane.

12. All ECM antennas were bright orange, and not the faded out brown we have.

13. VF-154 jets had a thin black line along the ventral fins.

14. VF-154 FPU-1/As did not have the black cradle arrows.

15. VF-154 spoilers and stabilators didn't have the "NO STEP" warning, nor did the intake spill door.

 

I can supply as many photos as needed to fix the livery. OR, I can take the liberty of recreating the livery. I have experience in 1:1 liveries with VF-154's 1986 NK101 jet, and I would be honored in making this livery what it should.


Edited by BreaKKer
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BreaKKer

CAG and Commanding Officer of:

Carrier Air Wing Five //  VF-154 Black Knights

 

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All of their skins realistically are off by quite some mark, if it weren't for some very talented artists in the community I wouldn't be aware of the many inaccuracies. I really don't know what any of Reflected's skins haven't been added yet,  

"I'm just a dude, playing a dude, disguised as another dude."

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Yeah, as well as the sidewinder rails not being white (adapted to the rest of the fuselage). I'm honestly fine with some inaccuracies and artistic liberties taken if it looks authentic. But I agree that some if not most of the A liveries seem rather rushed.

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Another pet peeve of mine, the 1980s F-14A liveries are close to matte, and don't have the proper gloss finish Roughmet that they should.

BreaKKer

CAG and Commanding Officer of:

Carrier Air Wing Five //  VF-154 Black Knights

 

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The problem with photos is that there are a LOT of factors that will impact how a color looks. Lighting, ISO, shutter speed, white balance. Add in film vs digital, and now you have the colors of the film itself, how it was processed. When people scan old Kodachrome slides they often don't take into the account how blue they were because they were intended to be shown with a tungsten bulb. And even when done right the color balance of Kodachrome is different than other brands and lines of Kodak film, meaning blue hues might be stronger than in reality.

 

Another problem is there are a few different resources listing and showing very different shades and hex/RGB values for the US standard colors. Some of them appear pretty close, other times you lay them side-by-side and they look nothing like what the paint on the jets do.

 

I believe the colors of our current jets were taken from scans and photogrammetry, and also may have been adjusted based on the DCS engine from 2.5.x to "look" right.

 

Another curve ball, fresh paint versus at sea can impact the brightness and saturation of the colors.

 

Further than that, any changes in production of the paint itself, as well as the mixture of the paint at the time it was painted are going to impact it as well.

 

Even MORE fun than that are squadrons that used a variation of the TPS, like VF-84's in the 80s/90s, or VF-41 around 1999 when they used overall Dark Ghost Gray.

 

I've spent some time trying to figure it out myself and share it with some of the other folks working on F-14 skins, there have been some decent photos and RGB values that I was able to tweak to get where I'm mostly happy with the look in the sim, but again it depends on the lighting in the SIM which can be tough to check because the model viewer no longer reflects how skins look in-game.

 

 

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All that said, I've made sure this was added to the skin/livery tracker to be redone whenever the model updates are completed, and tied to that the fixes to the base textures for the A and B models. When that stuff and the new pilot bodies are added, hopefully with HGU-55s, all of the skins will have to be reworked anyways and a wave of skin fixes should roll out afterwards. There's not much sense fixing and releasing something that will have to be completely re-done or at least re-saved within an updated template when there's already a limited pool of resources working them.

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Heatblur Rivet Counting Squad™

 

VF-11 and VF-31 1988 [WIP]

VF-201 & VF-202 [WIP]

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