Seems alpha channel cannot be edited by custom side

[III/JG2Gustav05]

Seems the custom skin's alpha channel is not used by game. Game just uses itselfs, I remember it is not like this at the begining of the 1.008 released, they changed it by a minor update after the first released.

[TG-55Panthercules]

Seems the custom skin's alpha channel is not used by game. Game just uses itselfs, I remember it is not like this at the begining of the 1.008 released, they changed it by a minor update after the first released.

 

That's not the case in my experience.  I've been running several tests over the last couple of days (after the latest updates) and the alpha channels I tweak are definitely being used by the game.  They aren't displaying the same degree of differentiation as they do in RoF, but they're definitely being used.

[III/JG2Gustav05]

That's not the case in my experience.  I've been running several tests over the last couple of days (after the latest updates) and the alpha channels I tweak are definitely being used by the game.  They aren't displaying the same degree of differentiation as they do in RoF, but they're definitely being used.

for example, if you want to remove some riverts on certain part of plane, you need to edit it in both RGB channel and alpha channel, but you will find that the riverts you removed are still there if observed by certian angle depends on the refection of the light source.

[6./ZG26_5tuka]

Alpha channel editing works perfectly for me. I can change things to be matt or transparent no matter what part it is (using Gimp). I've recently begone customizing the official alpha channels with matt parts and I really like the results so far.

[SOLIDKREATE]

Is full black 'Matte'?

[Yakdriver]

full black is invisible.
almost full black is in my experience "matte"

[6./ZG26_5tuka]

White is full matt. Low brightness Black is close to matt though not entirely.

[79_vRAF_Friendly_flyer]

It seems someone with the time and skill will have to sit down and go through the whole spectrum from black to white to see what shade does what.

[SOLIDKREATE]

All you have to do is lay a gradient rectangle over the skin from black to white then take a picture of in the sun at an oblique angle.

[Jaws2002]

It does work.Compare the reflection on the wing. (click on it for full resolution)

 

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Edited January 12, 2015 by Jaws2002

[samson]

Yeah, it does! Detailed description of how it works you can find at "Custom_skin_creation_Manual.pdf"
Though, yesterday this link was dead:
http://www.filefront.com/15671211/Custom-skin-creation-manual

[BlackBadger]

I was looking for this! Is it possible to use custom skins in SP campaign and any online server?

[Yakdriver]

Hi!

 

no,
on "unranked" servers (the ones without the rank and star symbol - at the moment 80% of all servers)

[III/JG2Gustav05]

Yeah, it does! Detailed description of how it works you can find at "Custom_skin_creation_Manual.pdf"

Though, yesterday this link was dead:

http://www.filefront.com/15671211/Custom-skin-creation-manual

I know it works well in this way, but please try to remove the rivert effect on the canopy frame of BF109G2 in Alpha channel, you will understand what I am talking about after tried it.

[TG-55Panthercules]

I know it works well in this way, but please try to remove the rivert effect on the canopy frame of BF109G2 in Alpha channel, you will understand what I am talking about after tried it.

 

Yeah - there are some things that just aren't handled by the skin template itself (including the alpha channel), so no matter what you do to the alpha channel or any of the several layers that relate to rivets on the BG109G2 you can't get rid of a residual, underlying bit of reflection/outline of where they used to be.   This looks very much like what I saw in RoF when I was trying to alter some of the engine vents (particularly on the Fokker D.VIIs) - no matter how well you played with the skin templates to simulate the appearance of vents in different places, you couldn't get rid of traces of the old vents that would still show up under certain lighting and viewing angle conditions.  I guess they must somehow be built into some sort of 3D model or bump-mapping file or layers somewhere other than the skin templates.

 

That doesn't mean the game isn't using the tweaked alpha channels as postulated by the OP - it just means that there are some aspects of the planes' appearance that are not controlled by the skin template and thus you cannot affect them by tweaking the skin template.  In RoF, besides the FD7's vents there were a few other instances (e.g., engines on the Gotha, and engines and landing gear on the Muromet, IIRC) where I guess they couldn't fit them into the skin templates so we couldn't paint them.

 

As you can see from the screenshot below, there are a few such aspects of the BF109G2 in BoS as well (note landing gear struts and one of the unlock bomb mounts or whatever that gray thing is):

 

 

It's easy to spot them by just flooding the entire skin template with a solid color and saving it down, and then checking the viewer to see what parts of the plane aren't that color.

[Wolfram-Harms]

for example, if you want to remove some riverts on certain part of plane, you need to edit it in both RGB channel and alpha channel, but you will find that the riverts you removed are still there if observed by certian angle depends on the refection of the light source.

 

There is another DDS file, which does not belong to the skin directly.

That file generates the three-dimensionality of the plane's surface. It had light dents and the rivets and edges and stuff.

So, if the rivets are modelled there, they will still show at certain angles of the lighting.

 

This is how it looks.

 

 

 

Edited December 21, 2017 by Wolfram-Harms