LaGG3 Series 29 - 4K Template [WIP]

[IRRE_Storfyr]

Hello guys,

 

As the game now support 4K skins, I'm currently making the 4K template for the LaGG3 to make it available for the community.

Of course it realy takes time, I've just finished positionning the rivets and the panel lines, it still need some tweaking here and there (panel lines not perfectly align with the 3D model mostly and the apearence of the rivets).

 

I will update this topic whenever I make progress. Feel free to tell me if you see any mistake, ask me anything or if you have some info about particular details or stencils

 

Thanks

 

[Danziger]

This makes me happy. Keep up the good work. 4k skins are going to bring these planes up to a new level of realism

[=TBAS=Sshadow14]

Just curious what does IL2 Class as 4K Skins?

Textures that are 4096x4096
Or textures that are 8192x8192(4k)
 

??

[6./ZG26_5tuka]

Would be nice if you could make the lines thinner and replace the rivets with better looking ones but other than that gj so far. Good luck with this project!

Just curious what does IL2 Class as 4K Skins?

Textures that are 4096x4096
Or textures that are 8192x8192(4k)
 

??

4096x4096 it is.

Edited December 23, 2016 by 6./ZG26_5tuka

[=WH=PangolinWranglin]

I like the look of the planes without all the line and rivet work. So smooth. 

[IRRE_Storfyr]

I agree with you 5tuka, I will make the panel lines 1px large (actually they are 2px large) and make them darker. For the rivets I don't really know what to do, rivets are essentially small flat nails so theres not much more I van do to improve them :/

Edited December 23, 2016 by -IRRE-Storfyr

[Danziger]

I made my rivets less fuzzy and more sharp and defined. However since in real life they are barely visible I will make them more transparent so they don't stand out so much.

[BlackHellHound1]

In my research of most planes, the rivets are nearly impossible to see on most parts of the plane. 

I did notice that the places where they would become more visible are where the metal would warp a lot. For instance around the engine, flaps, radiators, and where the pilots and mechanics would step on the wings.

In these area's the metal plate would create a minute gap for dirt to collect. This dirt is then visible. (an effect that I will add to my 109 templates.)

Parts that did not warp a lot were less visible. And in some cases completely invisible.

 

 

BlackHellHound1

 

[6./ZG26_5tuka]

In my research of most planes, the rivets are nearly impossible to see on most parts of the plane.

It depends. Incase of the Luftwaffe for example a lot of filler was applied to fighter airframes to increase aerodynamics while on bombers rivets remained mostly untouched, which is why their rivets are more visible. It also depended on how production was going. If you are in the middle of a war and need fighters you'd do well pumping them out as quickly as possible insetad and leave the filler.

 

Take this picture as an example (random Yak):

 

I agree with you 5tuka, I will make the panel lines 1px large (actually they are 2px large) and make them darker. For the rivets I don't really know what to do, rivets are essentially small flat nails so theres not much more I van do to improve them :/

What I meant with the rovets is that whey're still white blobs with a black outline (like in the smaller template whith lower pixel density). Maybe giving them some texture and making them smaller could work out better than using the resized standard ones (there are great rivet brushes if you can't make your own rivet texture).

The good thing about soviet midwar aircraft is that they're mostly wooden and thus have less rivets. Won't take you as long as it did me replacing all the rivets (the Stuka has about 1000 of them).

Edited December 23, 2016 by 6./ZG26_5tuka

[IRRE_Storfyr]

In my research of most planes, the rivets are nearly impossible to see on most parts of the plane. 

I did notice that the places where they would become more visible are where the metal would warp a lot. For instance around the engine, flaps, radiators, and where the pilots and mechanics would step on the wings.

In these area's the metal plate would create a minute gap for dirt to collect. This dirt is then visible. (an effect that I will add to my 109 templates.)

Parts that did not warp a lot were less visible. And in some cases completely invisible.

 

 

BlackHellHound1

 

 

 

It depends. Incase of the Luftwaffe for example a lot of filler was applied to fighter airframes to increase aerodynamics while on bombers rivets remained mostly untouched, which is why their rivets are more visible. It also depended on how production was going. If you are in the middle of a war and need fighters you'd do well pumping them out as quickly as possible insetad and leave the filler.

 

Take this picture as an example (random Yak):

 

What I meant with the rovets is that whey're still white blobs with a black outline (like in the smaller template whith lower pixel density). Maybe giving them some texture and making them smaller could work out better than using the resized standard ones (there are great rivet brushes if you can't make your own rivet texture).

The good thing about soviet midwar aircraft is that they're mostly wooden and thus have less rivets. Won't take you as long as it did me replacing all the rivets (the Stuka has about 1000 of them).

 

In fact the rivets I used where my own re-creation, but I didn't gain a lot of details considering they where 8px wide with the 4K, and I use some photoshop effect after that to give them a small shadow and an inner glow effect to make them shine a bit. I think in the end the best way to reproduce fighters plane rivets will be just circles with the exact same paint as the rest of the plane, and a very very small shadow around it, because on real planes as BlackHellHound said you can't see them unless your very close to the aircraft. And the only thing that you see is the very tight shadow around them because they bend the panel a little bit. To be honest the only time you can really see them accurately is I think when the rivets catch the light (wich is controlled by the bumb map wich we don't have access to yet sadly :/ ). Finally there's a second case where they are pretty visible, it's where the paint is gone due to friction (where the pilot step to get in the cockpit and on the panels that are frequently removed by the mechanics to acces to the engine/guns) I find them to be a little bit more shiny than the background panel.

 

So I tried this before and went for the more visible ones and I think I'm going to go back to less visibles ones. Anyway I made them on a separate Illustrator file that I can change them whenever I want if the end result isn't satisfactory. After all the goal is to make the aircraft as realistic as possible ^^

 

 

Another thing that bother me is that theres some lines of rivets that are not aligned with the 3D model (for exemple on the piece of metal who links the front windshield to the airframe) and I want to try to change their position to match the model but the bump map will then be off, so there a choice to make here, do we change the rivets position and thus make the graphic accurate but loosing the correct light reflection or do we let them on their place...

 

Anyway thanks for the comments guys I really apreciate, things are slowed down here due to christmas and the obsolete laptop that I use to post ^^ But I will soon be back home and post updates. The next step when the panels and rivets are OK will be the aircraft parts (again huge work for us all :@ ).

 

Stay tuned

[SOLIDKREATE]

Do we have access to the 'Normal Maps'? If not positioning panel lines won't make a bit of difference. I'm hoping to Make the Bf-109E-7 in 4KHD.

[Picchio]

For now, no we don't. Which sucks. Also, we don't have access to damage decals textures either. Which sucks even more.

[IRRE_Storfyr]

Time will come eventually

[=EXPEND=CG_Justin]

One thing to take into account as well is, many of the servicing panels are installed with either screws or cam locks. Things like most engine cowlings get installed this way for easy access and servicing. I work around airplanes every night, and the only time I can really see individual rivets is when the paint is chipping away around them, they are excessively dirty, or the paint needs to be redone. Screws and cam locks appear different because they are. They generally do not get covered with paint so they "stick out" to the eye more, and they also have larger "heads" than most rivets. The thing that makes the rivets stand out the most when the paint is in good order is the gloss finish on our planes, something the bump map tries to simulate here. Usually WW2 combat aircraft were not as glossy as our CRJ's though.

 

Either way, I can see 4k skinning is in full swing and I am loving the work so far!

[IRRE_Storfyr]

Update : Home sweet home, scaled the panel lines down to 0,5px, finally happy with the look of the rivets, started working on aircraft parts. The normal map is still the vanilla one though, will be working on that at the very end.

When aircraft part will be done (inner flaps, grids, small stuff like that...) i'll do the wheathering.

 

Again any feedback will be apreciated

 

[6./ZG26_5tuka]

Nice progress, definetly looks better to me! Keep it up.

[Danziger]

That looks great! Are you using default colours?

[IRRE_Storfyr]

Nice progress, definetly looks better to me! Keep it up.

 

Thanks mate

 

That looks great! Are you using default colours?

 

Yes but only the green with a little contrast ajustement layer, wich I forgot to turn off on this version of the skin you see in the last screenshots. The actual green is a bit more "pale", and I will adjust it to fit with the panel line more precisely.

[IRRE_Storfyr]

Finished to redo all the aircraft parts. Next : weathering.

 

Feedback is welcome as always

 

[Danziger]

Excellent work! This is what I wanted to do also. Redraw all of the aircraft parts in higher detail as well. It is going to take forever lol.

[IRRE_Storfyr]

Thanks. Yeah it's a hell of a work, to gain only very little details sometimes ^^

[Yakdriver]

i would say
- check out the little round maintenance hatch next to the oil Rad, it is different from the others. It could be a normal thing, but i do not know...
- check the alignment of the panel lines in front of the Exhausts - pull them forward by a couple of pixels maybe?

- wheel cover fix on the alpha channel

big thumbs up!

[[TWB]kmac31]

This looks awesome can't wait until we can download appreciate the hard work S!

[IRRE_Storfyr]

It's been a long time since my last post, I'm still working on last few details, mostly plywood chips (which are really hard to reproduce) and some grime/dust here and there.

 

Hopefully the viewer now support 4K skin, which will make our life easier.

 

Screens incoming this afternoon

[IRRE_Storfyr]

Here's a couple of screenshots :

 

[szelljr]

Uhh...nice1.

[=TBAS=Sshadow14]

Looking nice.
Viewer now supports 4K skins.

Also add the viewer to Nvidia profile and turn on FXAA (No more jaggies in Viewer.exe while looking at those nice models.)
 

Edited February 1, 2017 by =r4t=Sshadow14

[IRRE_Storfyr]

Slowly seeing the end on this one

 

[Bullets]

Only thing I would say is maybe turn down the weathering a bit, its a bit intense in places 

[Zoltann]

Euuuh...stil WiP? 

[VBF-12_Stick-95]

Any update?

[VBF-12_Whitey-78]

No news?

[IRRE_Storfyr]

Hi guys, sorry for the lack of updates those last month I've been procrastinating hard :/

 

 

So far it's 99% finished, I still don't have the correct stencils so I use the legacy ones for the moment, any help on this subject will be greatly apreciated.

 

 

 

 

[A-E-Hartmann]

Nice .

[PatCartier]

Appétissant !

[IRRE_Storfyr]

Alright, here's the first release of this skin, some things still need tweaking, and I can't find those godamn stencils even after hours of research on the english and russian web...

 

But here it is anyway, tel me if you find bugs so I can eventually fix them. This template may be updated in the future.

 

http://www.mediafire.com/file/no6886swya8mayp/LaGG3s29_4K_template_full.7z

 

[A-E-Hartmann]

Thank you.

[Pierre64]

Hi Storfyr,

many thanks for your Template.

I can't find those godamn stencils even after hours of research on the english and russian web...

 

 

Did you see this, from the ICM 1/48 kit of the LaGG 3 ? Source : Massimo Tessitori's Sovietwarplanes forum.

 

[E69_julian57]

Hello Storfyr, download your template, and at the time of keeping it as dds. it appears that...?

 

 

 

PS: Reject multiple layers at startup in PS.

Edited May 26, 2017 by E69_julian57

[=RF=KLEPA]

Alright, here's the first release of this skin, some things still need tweaking, and I can't find those godamn stencils even after hours of research on the english and russian web...