Wellenmuster/Mäandertarn Techniques

[flak_catcher]

Hello everyone,

Novice skinner here, wondering if anyone has any tips or tricks for replicating the Luftwaffe's Wellenmuster/Mäandertarn camouflage pattern, specifically a means of making sure the squiggles line up to look continuous as they pass over the top of the fuselage and over the wing roots, between the points where the separate sections of the skin template meet.

[migmadmarine]

Been a load for trial and error on my skins, so I hope there is a smarter way...

[FAW-Tromplamort]

There is no magic technique. Trial and errors and re-doing is the key.

 

[migmadmarine]

Wish there was a substance painter type system for this or the next sim.

[actionhank1786]

On 8/3/2024 at 4:36 AM, FAW-Tromplamort said:

There is no magic technique. Trial and errors and re-doing is the key.

 

Yep. This is the way you're usually stuck with. I will offer some advice for how I usually do it, especially when dealing with camo patterns that have the feathered edge on the camo to look like field sprayed camo patterns.

Here's how I've started doing my camo patterns for aircraft in DCS and Il-2. The Yak-7B I'm working on now has 4 colors. The base blue, the overall upper camouflage color of green, then fatter black stripes with yellow airbrushed lines around the edges. 

My layers are stacked like this:
- Yellow - With Layer Mask (Hide All)
- Black - With Layer Mask (Hide All)
- Green - With Layer Mask (Hide All)
- Underside Blue

 

I use the paint bucket to cover the entire template in that color. So the bottom layer is the underside blue, making the entire thing blue. With each of the following layers I also use the paint tool to color the entire template, but then I apply a layer mask that "hides all" making the color disappear. After that, you can click on the layer mask that is black, and use the white color to essentially "cut out" that part of the mask, causing the color to appear that was hidden. 
Here's what the chunk of the layers looks like. I take the 3 upper camo colors (Yellow, Black and Green) and add them into a Layer Group and then create a mask that is set to Reveal All that lets me use the layer mask to hide the underside camo revealing the upper layers. This means I can paint everything I want on the upper fuselage and wing parts and hide all 3 of the colors on the topside revealing the underside camo. So if I suddenly wanted to make the fuselage color come half way up the side of the fuselage I can easily paint on the layer mask for the group and it paints over all of the upper camo. This makes it easy to alter the bottom camo, or if you need to, blur the line between the upper and lower camo. 
 

This makes it a lot easier to handle camo since you don't have to worry about forgetting to save the right color and not having your colors match between sessions and also letting you easily work in a non-destructive manner that applies the color.

Then with the alignment part, the easiest way I've found is to not start with a brush that has lower hardness that gives the fuzzy edges on the line. I've found it's easiest to line up using sharp lines that are set to 100% hardness so you can more easily align the segments of the 3D model and template. After you get those lines connected you can then go back and manually blur the edges with the blur tool on the layer mask, or just blur the entire layer with the blur settings under the filter option of Photoshop. 

The last thing that can help, but may not be on every template is to look for the "wireframe" which shows the lines of the 3D model, but more importantly, also shows you the parts where the model cuts off. Here's an example from that Yak-7B template where the color can extend past the actual part applied to the 3D model itself. The stuff that on the Yak-7B template that I've highlighted in red is the green line that marks the edge of where that portion of the template actually applies to the model, but if you look at the template art, some of it goes beyond that green line which might make you think that part needs to be colored in to appear and causing you to not actually edit the seams on the 3D model where the parts of the template actually merge:
 

 

The layer mask method also makes it much easier to do winter camo if you want to. You can create an entire layer of an off white base that you apply to the top of your skin and then create a layer mask for the layer as Hide All. After that you can come back and "paint" on that layer mask revealing the winter paint on that layer. This will allow you to change your opacity and use different brushes to fade and add/remove the white paint color which can lead to realistic WWII winter camo that looks faded and scratched off, while fading and revealing the original skin color underneath it. 

Edited October 3, 2024 by actionhank1786