Danziger's 4k MiG Condition(Updated 20190227)

[E69_julian57]

Courage, very good job

[Danziger]

Well I think I am finally finished with panel lines, rivets and screws. I have added them everywhere. There were tons missing from the engine cowling area, radiator fairing, wheel wells, flaps and other places. I have relocated rivets and screws to fit new panel lines locations. I have redrawn panel lines following scale drawings and wartime photographs. A lot of panels of our stock MiG are based on restored aircraft with Allison engine that has different panels, exhaust and other things. I have corrected the tyres tread pattern and added some detail to wheels. I have erased a lot of unnecessary shadows and redrawn some necessary shadows. Next I want to complete weathering. I have already dabbled a bit by adding to the gun smoke. It should not only be on the muzzle of the nose guns but I have added to cooling vents, ejection ports and the under-wing gun pods as well. I like the weathering for the most part but some of it no longer lines up with new panel lines locations so I will do what I can to either correct or make new. The metal chips I want to remake. I like the big streaks on the wing roots foot paths but the other parts I am not so happy with and want to draw new. I am a beginner and not good with this so probably it will take some time. Once I finish with the weathering I will make two separate alpha templates for gloss and matt versions. I personally like matt finish but after watching some wartime video footage, I see most MiGs were high gloss or semigloss. After I finish with alphas I will start on the normal map. I want to have everything complete before starting the normal map. Right now I am just using a blank matt alpha and plain blank normal map while I work on the textures. 

 

[EAF19_Marsh]

Beautiful.

[Danziger]

Ok I apologise in advance for spamming so many pictures but to show the reflections I need a lot of the same from slightly different angles. So I think I finished up with the weathering and I have started on alphas. The matt alpha is still not to my liking but with my more glossy version I think I have finally found a great balance. It all depends on how the light is hitting the surface and at what angle as to how matt or glossy it appears. Just like in the wartime video footage I have been using as reference. I have actually been working on this alpha for about a year but I have been having to remake it as I made corrections to my template. So next comes the difficult part with learning how to make the normal map. 

 

[Danziger]

A bit more progress. First I think I have my matt alpha template where I want it. I have also been normal mapping. It is a strange new experience. I have the rivets sunken in. Maybe a bit too much. I still may have to do some twerking on it. I have also sunken the screws and locks as well as panel lines. The panel lines are not sunken very  much but I like it better to be not too deep. I make the lines also completely matt in the alpha so they are not reflective and try to add some realism. I also did some aircraft parts such as wheels, tyres, radiator and oil cooler grilles that I think turned out well. The mesh grilles in the oil cooling tunnels have a nice 3d look to them now. My main problem at the moment is trying to figure out how to put some warping and dents in the metal panels and to make some panels raised above the surface. Also there is a ver early WIP of a skin I wanted to make for a long time the Red 27 "chameleon".

 

[Danziger]

The only things I can't get done is painting the landing gear struts to match the underside paint like it's supposed to and put some matt gun smoke on the 12.7mm wing gun barrels. Those parts are separate from the template and coded in the game.

[szelljr]

love that camo (no.27)

[THERION]

Yes, the camo is great - but the winter camo is even better! Lovely work, mate.

[Danziger]

16 minutes ago, -IRRE-Therion said:

Yes, the camo is great - but the winter camo is even better! Lovely work, mate.

Yes I should have started with the winter one. It has exposed some flaws I need to correct.

[Pict]

Love your work ?

 

makes me want to go and strap on a MiG ?

[Danziger]

So thanks to the help of @LizLemon I have got to work painting the rest of the undercarriage parts. This is going to be a lot of work as there are a lot of other parts in the cockpit interior as well. The image was 1024x1024 so I am upsizing it to 4k and going to improve the textures. Long and slow work but hopefully worth it. When finished I will release as a mod to compliment the whole MiG package I am working on. 

 

[Danziger]

A bit of horrible news. There are several parts that share the exact same texture. That would not be a problem if they all needed to be a similar colour. However, the texture for the landing gear motor/pump is also for the oil cooling tunnel flap arms and the throttle and mixture levers in the cockpit. The levers in the cockpit are no big deal they are very small and I doubt anyone would notice. The oil cooling tunnel flap arms stick out like a bright blue sore thumb when I color this texture. So I am not sure what to do. What is less noticeable? A bright blue flap arm (was very noticeable for me) or a "field replacement" set of different coloured gear motor/pumps? Would this be a texture mapping issue? Would it be possible for the dev artist to map those parts to different places in the template? There is plenty of empty space between parts. I do not understand why it was not done that way to begin with.

 

[BOO]

2 hours ago, Danziger said:

A bit of horrible news. There are several parts that share the exact same texture. That would not be a problem if they all needed to be a similar colour. However, the texture for the landing gear motor/pump is also for the oil cooling tunnel flap arms and the throttle and mixture levers in the cockpit. The levers in the cockpit are no big deal they are very small and I doubt anyone would notice. The oil cooling tunnel flap arms stick out like a bright blue sore thumb when I color this texture. So I am not sure what to do. What is less noticeable? A bright blue flap arm (was very noticeable for me) or a "field replacement" set of different coloured gear motor/pumps? Would this be a texture mapping issue? Would it be possible for the dev artist to map those parts to different places in the template? There is plenty of empty space between parts. I do not understand why it was not done that way to begin with.

 

I guess they are a few ways to look at:

 

What is a cockpit view likely to see more?

or

How many times do you  look underneath the aircraft with the U/C down when taking screenies?

or

Is there a neutral colour that wouldn't be a jarring (a silver or grey of some description) 

 

Personally i'd settle for the best colour for the flap arms and reason away the rest

 

Good luck and great work

[LizLemon]

8 hours ago, Danziger said:

A bit of horrible news. There are several parts that share the exact same texture. That would not be a problem if they all needed to be a similar colour. However, the texture for the landing gear motor/pump is also for the oil cooling tunnel flap arms and the throttle and mixture levers in the cockpit. The levers in the cockpit are no big deal they are very small and I doubt anyone would notice. The oil cooling tunnel flap arms stick out like a bright blue sore thumb when I color this texture. So I am not sure what to do. What is less noticeable? A bright blue flap arm (was very noticeable for me) or a "field replacement" set of different coloured gear motor/pumps? Would this be a texture mapping issue? Would it be possible for the dev artist to map those parts to different places in the template? There is plenty of empty space between parts. I do not understand why it was not done that way to begin with.

 

 

Which texture is causing the problem?

 

Also what textures are you upscaling?

[Danziger]

 

10 hours ago, LizLemon said:

 

Which texture is causing the problem?

 

Also what textures are you upscaling?

I am upscaling the extra parts textures. The offending piece is outlined in red.

 

[LizLemon]

The Mig-3 model isn't broken down in the same way as the BoS aircraft are, which means there is really no way to fix that. Unless one of the developers decides to spend a few minutes changing the UV map.....

 

Here is a scaled version of that texture you might want to take a look at or even use. One is without noise reduction, one is with and the last one is the spec channel. I dont think this texture is really worth upscaling to 4k, 2048x2048 should be good enough.

https://mega.nz/#!KL5FQKRb!U4815rBF1IIl_u-IsHqoBlK67B3YOLWQxl0SBnVGfos

 

 

 

 

[Danziger]

14 hours ago, LizLemon said:

The Mig-3 model isn't broken down in the same way as the BoS aircraft are, which means there is really no way to fix that. Unless one of the developers decides to spend a few minutes changing the UV map.....

 

Here is a scaled version of that texture you might want to take a look at or even use. One is without noise reduction, one is with and the last one is the spec channel. I dont think this texture is really worth upscaling to 4k, 2048x2048 should be good enough.

https://mega.nz/#!KL5FQKRb!U4815rBF1IIl_u-IsHqoBlK67B3YOLWQxl0SBnVGfos

 

 

 

 

I was thinking 4k could add a lot more detail to the inside bulkheads and damage decals as well. 

[Danziger]

So I think this is about as good as the undercarriage is going to get. I have also covered the wing pod gun muzzles in smoke. However, in fannying about with the undercarriage, I have somehow lost the green and red tint of the wingtip light covers. Anyone have any ideas?

 

 

[Psyrion]

That looks great! 

[Danziger]

I'm just wondering if @LizLemon has any idea how I managed to mess up those light covers and how to fix them? 

[Danziger]

Ok so the painting is done. Thanks to @KpgQuop I learned how to make normal map. I was doing it wrong. I started again and get better results. I just need to finish up with metal panel deformities that are a real pain in the ass. So I also had to do some twerking with my alpha. So now all that is keeping me from sweet release is finishing the normal map and fixing those light covers. I think that has something to do with the specular map of the parts template. I think I am saving it wrong. 

[KpgQuop]

Hi Danziger,

 

I had a look at your normalmap. It looks fine to me. Whatever you did to get that texture on the headrest, apply the same approach to your pannel work.

 

-snip-

 

Hey! It's Tuesday night. Guess who forgot to press "submit reply" on Sunday.

 

The processes you used to get the MiG main gear looking so good are directly applicable to the work you want to do with the pannels. Experimenting with filters like ripple, with shade , layer opacity and contrast will help achieve results.

 

I'm no expert in normalmaps, trust me. I fluffed the HS129 preview release by uploading a normalmap corrupted somewhere in the flattening/saving process. So, in a literal sense, the progress you/ve made has had little to do with me.

 

Great work!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[LizLemon]

I'm not seeing anywhere that stands out as being the nav lights. I'll have to do some testing to narrow it down. Would you like 4k textures for the cockpit?

[Danziger]

28 minutes ago, LizLemon said:

I'm not seeing anywhere that stands out as being the nav lights. I'll have to do some testing to narrow it down. Would you like 4k textures for the cockpit?

The only thing I see that looks possible is a small strip of red, white and green squares in the regular plane skinning template. However, when I began messing around with the extra parts and undercarriage texture, I lost the tinting of the "glass" texture for the nav lights. The tinting isn't completely gone but  only barely visible when zoomed in. I've also noticed an artifact in the canopy glass. 

 

I'm sure it has to do with how I'm exporting the parts texture. I just flatten the image, add layer mask from custom alpha I made, export as dds with dxt5 compression and box filter. The same as I do with aircraft skins.

 

I would love a 4k cockpit!

Edited October 17, 2018 by Danziger

[LizLemon]

The way I do it is copying the alpha layer, then flatten image. After that select the alpha channel and paste into it.

 

The alpha for the nav lights might be pulling the alpha from the other texture, that is the only thing I can guess at.

 

Here is the cockpit textures in .psd - https://mega.nz/#F!vOQXhIoQ!AaPL5DWXww9VZmlZXJl-Rg

[Danziger]

How is everyone exporting their normal maps? I export like a skin with BC3/DXT5 compression and Box filter. The problem is the results are pretty pixelated and I don't like it. I have been trying to use the cloud noise trick with panel deformities. I haven't been able to get it working to my satisfaction so I think I will just draw it by hand.

[KpgQuop]

Hi Danziger,

 

here's a couple of points that may be of service. For caveat, see above.

 

Have you enabled MipMaps in your saving routine? If not, try turning them on. They certainly increase the file size and I remember being satisified with the result. This is hardly a scientific recommendation as I don't really know what mipmaps do but perhaps give it a go.

 

The assumption is that, prior to rendering your normalmap, a neutral shade of grey RGB 128,128,128 represents your surface with no peaks or troughs. I found that, especialy in the case of peaks, the lighter shades of grey needed to be sufficiently distinct from their neutral surroundings. For instance RGB 130, 130, 130 created for me what sound like the same issues you're having. Try using lighter and deeper shades +/- 128 and then tone down the resulting rugged appearence by reducing the layer opacity.

 

See Black Hell Hound's post in the Hs129 WIP thread covering merging normalmap layers. It's gold!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 17, 2018 by KpgQuop

[6./ZG26_5tuka]

DXT1 does the job and makes the file smaller improving loading times.

[LizLemon]

19 hours ago, KpgQuop said:

Hi Danziger,

Have you enabled MipMaps in your saving routine? If not, try turning them on. They certainly increase the file size and I remember being satisified with the result. This is hardly a scientific recommendation as I don't really know what mipmaps do but perhaps give it a go.

 

Mips should always be enabled, they are used by the game for rendering the models at a distance.

 

16 hours ago, 6./ZG26_5tuka said:

DXT1 does the job and makes the file smaller improving loading times.

 

DXT1 should never be used.

 

16 hours ago, Danziger said:

Also, I disabled my mod folder which held my 4k normal maps. It did not load my normal map. It did not load the default normal map as the panel lines won't match so I would definitely notice. However there are ripples in the metal parts that were not there when I started making my normal map using a blank flat surface. I have no idea where it's coming from.

 

Its from compression artifacts. Try different settings when you  export the dds.

[6./ZG26_5tuka]

2 minutes ago, LizLemon said:

DXT1 should never be used.

Not trying to dirve off topic but since the OP asked about it: Why is that?

 

Been using it for all my normals and seen other people doing so too. Since it doesn't need an alpha texture it also saves memory.

[BlackHellHound1]

16 hours ago, 6./ZG26_5tuka said:

Since it doesn't need an alpha texture it also saves memory.

 

That is not quite true. On some planes, the alpha on the normal map is used as part of the damage mapping. It is true that you can remove it on some planes but not all.

On top of that, I have noticed differences between the settings. Especially when comparing the detail on the alpha channel.

 

BlackHellHound1

 

Edited October 19, 2018 by BlackHellHound1

[Danziger]

Ok so I think I am getting the idea of this normal mapping and can actually start to draw the effects I want. I still need to do a lot of twerking before I am satisfied though...

 

[Danziger]

The normal mapping is coming along nicely now that I understand the concept and have a little technique nailed down. I am hoping to be ready for release by the end of the week. 

 

Also, does someone have a nice 4096x4096 cloud texture I can use for random dents in the metal panels? I cannot find a decent one online anywhere and the cloud rendering in gimp is not adjustable. It produces a pattern far too large to be useful.

[Danziger]

Almost ready. Still a few more details left to iron out. I am really starting to like the result. 

 

[6./ZG26_5tuka]

Nice work. I like your NM treatment to the metal parts, looks more materialistic.

[Danziger]

37 minutes ago, 6./ZG26_5tuka said:

Nice work. I like your NM treatment to the metal parts, looks more materialistic.

I'm not sure what NM treatment means?

[6./ZG26_5tuka]

I meant the way you worked in the rivets and panel dents ect. Makes the metal skin look apart from the wooden parts.

[=FEW=ayamoth89]

Impressive!

[THERION]

It's looking great, mate - beautiful work! You are an artist...

[Danziger]

1 hour ago, 6./ZG26_5tuka said:

I meant the way you worked in the rivets and panel dents ect. Makes the metal skin look apart from the wooden parts.

Thanks, it's taken a lot of trial and error. Mostly error.