A neues Gwand für die Dora! - Hi Res Textures for the Dora

[Doughguy]

Hey there, correct as intented.

By pilots accounts, and some photographic evidence the wings, and sometimes also the whole plane, were polished with simoniz carwax.

If you look at attached pictures, youll notice the darker areas on the front part of the wing, which after some conclusion, is waxpolish.
that respective area is riveted and exposed to the airflow more, contrary to the aft portion behind the wing spar.
it appears that only that portion of the wing was waxed, due to the situation in 44/45, namely supply shortages.
also, the wings of the dora were most likely puttied in that very area. if you have a close look at my doras wings, this is also represented.
instead of full blown rivets one has subdued dimples. and a layer of wax.
im no aero enginieer, but i guess you understand what i mean.

With the lua files, you could basically make your own chopped up versions.

All dora variants reference 1/JG301 for their normals. you can keep these in their resective folder, or copy and rename them in your "own".
I dont mind if you do this for private use.

Not much mumbo jumbo really.

{"FW-190_01", 0 ,"FW-190D9_14_SL_JG26_1_d",false};

"FW-190_01" = material name (material for aft section indicated by 01. 02 is front section. 03 and 04 are wings. this is predetermined in the model)

0 tells you , that this is for the diffuse (color)

"FW-190D9_14_SL_JG26_1_d"  name of the texturefile, which is situated in the folder the lua is located. here it would be FW-190D9_14_SL for convenience.
the _1 suffix ive added so it is clear that it corresponds with FW-190_01  = aft section material.
the _d suffix means that its the diffuse map, as we also have the _r suffix, which is the roughmat

Now, if you want to reference a texture from another folder the line goes like this:

{"FW-190_01", 0 ,"../FW-190D9_1_JG301/FW-190D9_1_d",false};

The trick is the   ../  which tells the lua, to go one folder up, out of its native folder, and into /FW-190D9_1_JG301/ from which it picks "FW-190D9_1_d" as a diffuse map.

However, if you copy all your wanted textures for one livery in one "new" older, it doesnt matter, since the lua will always load the textures from its native folder.
you just have to be consistent with naming! file name and the name in the lua must match.

Edited May 24, 2023 by Doughguy

[Art-J]

Thanks very much for the explanation about putty and waxing. I do have some aero engineering background and understand that part, just ain't knowledgeable enough about German birds. That's a nice extra touch for historic detail and all I needed to know then.

The .lua part just burns my eyes by looking at it, but I'll save it as a precious reference and get back to it when dealing with any custom skins shenanigans I encounter every now and then in DCS.

[Nealius]

I noticed the instructions say to install textures to root DCS install, not Saved Games. Will they not work from the Saved Games folder?

[Doughguy]

They should work in both.

[Doughguy]

Back at it again after a longer period of only flying.

Next pack gonna include jg4, 6, 300, jv44 and EKG(J).
Jg 4 and 6 will include a generic staffel plane and a stabs bird like the other packs. 300 jv44 and ekg(j) will be one offs.

Once these are done, ill be lookin into redoing the cockpit.

[Doughguy]

FW 190 D9 Focke-Wulf Made Werksnummer 211 164.

Pretty much of an Oddball, nowhere to be placed correctly.

As a 2nd batch of the Focke-Wulf run, this thing is quite a mystery and a whole internetgroup around JG.300 contributed to identify this plane.

In DCS we have this plane als Black 4 of Stab II./JG6, just as its depicted in Crandall and JaPo books, or scalemodel resources like Eduard.

Telling from war time fotos, it is definately a FW build. Apart from the Werksnummer, it also has the correct wings of a FW bird of said series.
Bottom Crosses are open, and the center portion of the fuselage and wings are painted and cover upto half of the flaps. This is commonly refered to W3 FW paint scheme by JaPo, and can clearly be seen in some photographs. Something JaPo and Crandall didnt seem to see.

Also, coloring is very interesting on this Lawnmower of death.
Apart from the wings, which in regulation with the 211xxx series would be painted in a RLM75 base color, the rest is pretty much speculative.
One interesting aspect is centered around the tail.
Our DCS version has the extension plug and parts of the tailsection mottled in a brown RLM81 variant. This goes along with JaPo, not so Crandall, that has the whole upper portion in greenish colors.
Now, if you observe war time pictures, you get different colorations of the very same bird and section. This could be due to lightconditions, paint deterioration and camerafilm used.
However, some pictures clearly indicate, that the plug is colored in a different, lighter color, than the rear rest of the tail section, unlike what JaPo depicts.
Moreover, the plug section isnt mottled in a "standard" fashion, as only this very plug would be mottled, after an existing A8 would have been upgraded to a D9.
However... what is very interesting is tho, that theres a few pictures, that indicate, that this specimen had a very bright but unusually placed tailband in a single color.
The Tailbands on the D9 usually had the whole extension plug painted plus the paint extending forward upto the center of the lifting holes.
In this particular Dora, its the total opposite! The tailband extends to the rear, and, as said above, is mottled with another color.

By historical accounts, it is confirmed that JG.11, wearing a yellow tailband, did receive a few doras. These never saw action and soon after delivery, JG.11 was disbanded and some of the doras were forwarded to JG.301.
However, by accounts and suggestions also JG.300 received some of them. Even Günther Rall is said to have flown it in the last days.

This plane was accounted for JG.6 initially however, as JG.6 was based in that area, where this bird was found, however, in the hasty last days of the WW2 units scattered to save planes.

Also, initially Doras had  a tailband painted indicating the JG, however, many planes, and even JG´s did not paint them, as war progressed.
JG300 hat blue white blue tailbands, yet no photos of Doras sporting them exist. Just like JG6 or some of JG54 or others.

Its a very controversial topic, and above things arent set and are subject to change.

 

 

 

 

 

[Doughguy]

So, contrary to given info, ive decided to leave above bird open and declared it either JG300 or JG6 for sheer convenience and file size purposes.
That way, JG6 would have a Stabs-Maschine and a regular Squadron.

 

 

 

 

[Doughguy]

Next skins ahead!

The FW190  D9 was also used with Schlachtengeschwader, which primarily used 190 F´s or G´s, albeit the D9s were used in little numbers and apparently only 4 photos of II./SG10 D9s exist. I could only uncover one..

Itll be a bit of speculative work, but interesting nevertheless.

Funfact, the attached pic of the <- + - Dora is actually Rudel´s bird. Always thought he flew the 87...

 

Also, bit of a blunder, but seems like the undersurfaces of the elevator were also left in bare metal just like the wings...

*pain*

Im gonna change this for the future versions, but not really wanna fix this now...

I have to wrap my head around on how to implement this and make a dirty fix later...

[Doughguy]

2. /SG.10  and some roughmat tweaks and underside elevater fix

 

[Tinman]

Wow! Just wow.

Kudos to you. Not only for the result (these screenshots do look amazing) but also for putting in the effort researching all this and making the skins not only pretty but also authentic.

[Doughguy]

On 11/24/2023 at 12:27 AM, Tinman said:

Wow! Just wow.

Kudos to you. Not only for the result (these screenshots do look amazing) but also for putting in the effort researching all this and making the skins not only pretty but also authentic.

Thanks

JV44´s Dora WIP

 

Love the colors on this. Itll also serve als the last base pattern iterration for the JG4 Dora´s as theyll also be based on Fieseler 600xxx series.
The red overpaint was applied unevenly so the base color shines through here and there, and was most likely applied with a paint gun.
The white stripes were all unevenly spaced not were of different width. Not sure how these were applied but it was the most logical to me that therese were painted with a brush.

[Doughguy]

Roughmets for the JV44 done. Small fixes to be made and some shtonk version of it.

[Doughguy]

2. / JG.4

 

Gruppenstab of JG.4 and 16./EKG(J) next as a final!

[Doughguy]

Gruppestab of JG4 WIP

[Doughguy]

Gruppenstab of JG4 done.

Ill skip the EKG(J) livery for now, as theres some discrepancies in the color of markings. Ill release that one at a later point, so you can enjoy the new pack faster.

Packing and some screenshots to be done!

[Doughguy]

Pt. 3 submitted! Hold on to your butts!

[Doughguy]

Part 3 now live! See first Post!

Thanks to MigCap1 for his superb screenshots!

Edited December 17, 2023 by Doughguy

[Art-J]

Awww.... the yellow-striped 2/SG10 didn't make it to part 3 it seems. I was looking forward to that one. Will wait for it.

[Doughguy]

Huh?? 

The SG10 ones are on my drive and were downloaded already?

 

Just checked. File and link is all there. It´s 6./SG.10 tho. Made a mistake with the Sqn.

Edited December 23, 2023 by Doughguy

[Doughguy]

Incidentally, started lookin into fixing things i either found were wrong or i didnt like as much, parallel to starting the cockpit rework..
The latter is going to take some time as i need to see what is where etc... time consuming. Also ref has to gathered. So atm its just boring work.

I gave the air scoop another go with the welding seam... its horrid  UVW´s are skewed and overlapping... Not too sure if i wanna keep it..

Also fixed the rivets on the normal. Due the generation process all rivets turned out round. I noticed this prior, but simply forgot to fix this in the process...
So i capped them. Theyre not that pronounced anymore. Nice flat rivets, like on the real deal.

Im gonna try to fix more things and see that i can do a revised version of the dora´s so far, as theres inaccuracies now that i got more ref...

 

[Art-J]

1 hour ago, Doughguy said:

Huh?? 

The SG10 ones are on my drive and were downloaded already?

 

Just checked. File and link is all there. It´s 6./SG.10 tho. Made a mistake with the Sqn.

 

Ah, yes, there it is allright! I didn't plan to install all of them so was only checking the unit number. 

Just have to figure out now which livery it takes tailwheel and wing textures from, cause they're missing - I use only a couple of skins chosen from each pack. But I know that description.lua will give me relevant clues.

[Doughguy]

The Wings are from FW-190D9_GrSt_JG51 of Pt.1

You might get away with others, but them bottom part of the fuselage intersects with the wing textures and will cause discoloration if you choose different colored wings.
Base color must be grey RLM75

[Doughguy]

Also something i missed. Mud obviously dries.. And some splatter streaks were missing on the fuselage...

[Art-J]

2 hours ago, Doughguy said:

The Wings are from FW-190D9_GrSt_JG51 of Pt.1

You might get away with others, but them bottom part of the fuselage intersects with the wing textures and will cause discoloration if you choose different colored wings.
Base color must be grey RLM75

Pt.1 it is then!

Oh, no worries, I plan to use them as intended  .

[Doughguy]

Happy new year, hope everyones swell!

Work is crawling.

Found new unexpected reference pics that neeeed to be evaluated. My inner Sheldon Cooper is bouncin, but time´s limited..

By the looks of it, the undersides of the horizontal stabs were display variations just as the wing-undersides.... (YAY! Not)

It appears that at some point FW build Doras also switched to all metal undersides  after the 210xxx series . So all 211xxx series had partially metal undersides overall.
212xxx and 213xxx bein some odd shots...
Now, the Interesting one is White 100, a Fieseler 600xxx series build. It´s evident its a Fieseler series, due to the very distinctive underwing painting around the thick balkenkreuz.
The horizontal stabs appear to be very dark, even compared to the control surfaces which are RLM 76 shaded, just like the fuselage.
It appears, the color of choise for this section is a either a green or brown RLM 81.

Now, i dont have any 500xxx or 400xxx series pics at hand, but i could imagine them being also produced in a similar fashion.
More over, the tail sections were created by subcontractors, which leads to believe that there is some sort of "uniformity" sub-parts wise at least, as all components usually came pre painted and were then just assembled, which led to some pretty well known frankendoras.

One more for the fixlist...

Edited January 3 by Doughguy