Graphic Artists / Skin Painters : IM CALLING YOU!!!

[Charlie_VFP]

For those that are the graphic artists whiz kids and skin painters.... here is a call to arms.

I do not know what G2I has in mind for skins and such for the aircraft, but I would persoinally like to be able to choose from any unit in the USAF / USN / USMC for my aircraft. Realistic of course... no F-14 squadron paint job on my F-16. :)

It would be great to see a lot of you setup a plan so that you are each modeling the paint scheme for certain squadrons. This way, we can ensure that every unit is represented for a very diverse field of choices for online squadrons and individuals.

Devs: Any info on what you guys are planning in this regard would be S-Hot.

[Katz]

now thats a brilliant idea






just need a kiwi squadron now :wink:

[spyro23]

I always want make my own skin but I never had enougth time to do this. In my opinion FO dev. should give community blank/void textures (with rivets ect.) I never make own Lomac skin because make whole this rivets, airframe parts is to time-consuming.
If I will have those blank skin I'll make skin in Paint shop or Corel

[Charlie_VFP]

That is one thing that I liked about IL-2:FB and not Lomac. The ability to paint and EASILY import skins. Not only that, but the developers release blank templates to help painters.....

[PKonsor]

They said they would release an SDK. My suggestion is to, within that kit, to include photoshop .psd files for each flyable aircraft. Have sepearte layers for rivets/lines, aircraft components (such as the engines), and a base layer wherein you would put your colors. Also, from working with lomac skin files, it would be nice to have a file as reference to tell the artist exactly what is what (for instance, this is the left wing..) because a lot of times there is just a mess of parts scattered around. What would be even nicer is if the skin image file was layed out as close to the end result as possible (so the wings aren't on the opposite sides or different files as the body of the plane, as in some other games..)

[Charlie_VFP]

Excellent suggestions.

Glad to see that we are coming up with some really good ideas here.

It can only get better from here!!

[shadow]

now thats a brilliant idea
just need a kiwi squadron now :wink:

Heya Katz, Love your sig. Looks terriffic.

shadow

[jethomasjr]

Being new to this forum I would like to say that I agree with Charlie. There shouldn't be any Navy paint schemes on USAF fighters. I would like to say up front I am not a painter nor do I know how to texture. I am a crewchief in the Air National Guard. There are many sites out there that shows what each viper units colors are to date and tail markings. In my opinion, there should be the option of choosing what unit a player wants his or her viper to be. As simple as point, click and save. With this option, it should be as easy as it can be for people like myself who has tried to implement unit colors into the game thinking when I start the game the colors I thought I inputed/downloaded were going to be there when in fact they were not. This process only made it harder and more frustrating. Also, if I go into a campaign, and I choose my units tail markings/unit colors, which is the 138 FW, Oklahoma Air National Guard, Osage Indian head on the tail, thats what I expect to see in the game. I have a list of what the tail codes are and what unit they belong to. That much I can help you with and what Block # they are flying. As for colors and tail markings I could try to find them. I know there are files in simviation with current units tail markings. For that matter most have already been implemented in Falcon 4.0. Also, with the point click and save option if it were to be implemented, I would like to ad that in conjunction with this option when you choose a tail/units colors it will put you in the correct block type of the aircraft the unit is using, i.e. as for my unit, Tulsa, tail marking OK, F-16C/D - Block 42's CG with P&W 229. If I didn't want to fly this units colors and say I chose Illinois, 183rd FW, tail markings SI, F-16C/D - Block 30 with GE engines. I hope the point I am trying to make is not complicated to understand. Just make it simple......point, click and save. I don't know who else to talk with or is working on modeling the viper. If I knew I would.

Thanks for reading,
Jack Thomas

[SUBS17]

I'd be happy to give it a go, I'd need to know what paint program to use and to be able to view the model with the skin on. Maybe also European and Middle Eastern aircraft markings could also be made for the appropriate aircraft. Thats sure to raise some interest and extra customers. Maybe an addon program like loman could be made to make addons a little simpler to implement. How about creating squadron folders for each skin type so we can go down to the serial numbers.

cheers
Subs

[WOPPA]

would be nice if skinning process was like IL2 just drop em in teh right folder and off you go + other peeps can see you individual skin

(proved to work cos there's 1,000's of different ones out there)

and i have 2gb of them :)

just my say

WOPPA

[Wipsnake]

I think their needs to be a section in the game interface to

1) build create design TE's
2) build create design campaigns
3) Build create design Skins
4) build create design personnal check lists for your knee pad which can be viewed in the cockpit.

5) build any thing else for the game maybe we could call this the "maintenance section" or "research and development"

any thoughts?

[jhook]

Hey Wipsnake,
We realy want our 3rd party skins and "add-ons" to go through G2I so we can properly adapt them into code. The reason we would like this done is to ensure proper add-on skins, ect. so there is no possibility of creating bugs. (oh crap... get out the fly swatter! :guns: ) There's also the code to consider. This code is tight! :bounce: but we want to make sure that everything dosn't get turned upside down either. Third party add-ons are welcome :hug: , but please, go through us so we can properly set them into the code! That's all I ask! :wink2:

[Wipsnake]

yes that is what i'm implying. put a function into FO (in the interface ) to create skins. make it part of the game. So we use the same code there no secondary skins. everyone is using the same program called fighter ops.

[jethomasjr]

Okay, after reading some of the feedback, I like the idea of calling this section the "Maintenance Section. Here is another thing I forgot to mention in my last suggestion. Along with the skins to each individual units and the different types of block version of the F-16, say I chose my units markings. In which, they are Oklahoma again. With that we know that my units aircraft are block 42's. Well we know that block 40-42 has the Wide Angle Raster(WAR) HUD. If I click in the maintenance section this units colors as I stated in my last passage that block aircraft should come up. Being it is a block 42 with the WAR HUD and PW 229 engines, this is what should show up when the game loads. Also, there should be the option to choose between a A/B/C/D model based on what unit you are wanting to fly. Being a crewchief in the air guard, all guard units are flying C models and most if not all guard units only have one D model. Unless if it's a training unit such as the 162 FW, Tucson, AZ or the 149th FW, San Antonio, TX, or the 178th training unit in Springfield, OH. Therefore, other countries that are flying A/B models should have the option of what to fly also.
On to the next suggestion. In training missions I think there should be the choice of what kind of faults you would like to have rather it be an engine failure or avionics failure. Give everyone a chance to see what it's like to have to fire off the emergency power unit (EPU) and only have 10 minutes to get the aircraft on the ground or lawn dart it.:thumb: Or how about a gear fault light. Is your gear really down and locked. Oh yeah how about the notorious hydraulics failure and land to catch the cable to include seeing the hook on the F-16 extended. If a person is flying in a campaign and his/her aircraft has battle damage (ABD), there may be no stopping the aircraft without catching the cable. This may sound a little far fetched, but I think it would give a more realistic view of the aircraft. They do break. If they didn't the crewchiefs and other maintenance personnel would be out of a job. :wink2: Any thougts?


JT

[robviper]

hmm.. there are some nice ideas... but personally I don't think we're gonna have blank skins. Our main goal will be to make the skins as realistic as possible. We're gonna have a sim where most of the planes look like the real ones, I mean it's gonna be nothing but PERFECT!!

[Buckshot]

On the subject of having different equipment in the various jets to reflect the real life situations that is certainly on my list, along with having the differing MTBF to reflect the different reliability of the various versions. You would be assigned an aircraft tail number for a mission and be able to check what equipment is installed in that jet, check the squawk sheets for problems that have occured recently, etc etc. Certainly have plans for arrestor systems, crash barriers etc.

On the skins there are also plans to allow some customisation especially little things like pilot names and patches. The idea for the campaign is that real squadrons be modelled and deployed to the conflict area, so I don't know about completely changing the squadron markings, but this is something we are still discussing.

[TigerShark]

On the skins there are also plans to allow some customisation especially little things like pilot names and patches. The idea for the campaign is that real squadrons be modelled and deployed to the conflict area, so I don't know about completely changing the squadron markings, but this is something we are still discussing.


But you'll still have fictional squadrons right?

hee hee... Maybe even custom ones?

TS

[Buckshot]

Haven't really thought about that too much, the main focus is to get the realistic squadrons into the campaign. Shouldn't be a problem to be able to create fictional squads for TE's etc

[robviper]

But you'll still have fictional squadrons right?

hee hee... Maybe even custom ones?

TS
I think it's not the right thing to do... to add fictional squadrons... I think our main goal is to make the sim as realistic as possible... so no fictional or custom squads IMO :tongue:

[jethomasjr]

Not sure of what you mean by adding fictional squadrons. Every guard unit out there has been to the middle east and I'm talking more than once. The air force doesn't send in just the active duty air force any more. In fact, all the deployments that I have been on we dropped more bombs than active duty units. Not downing the active duty or trying to cause any squabbles here. Not to mention we were called up for Bosnia in 1999. So see we all are called up to do the same job.:bigsmile:

JT

[robviper]

Not sure of what you mean by adding fictional squadrons. Every guard unit out there has been to the middle east and I'm talking more than once. The air force doesn't send in just the active duty air force any more. In fact, all the deployments that I have been on we dropped more bombs than active duty units. Not downing the active duty or trying to cause any squabbles here. Not to mention we were called up for Bosnia in 1999. So see we all are called up to do the same job.:bigsmile:

JT
I didn't say there ain't gonna be any ANG units. In fact I think there will be more ANG units than one can count. SC ANG, TX ANG, HI ANG just to name a few of 'em. ANG RULEZ!! :thumb:

[Dirty Dawg]

Non -Fictional or Fictional...
What about fictional units Outside the USA...I mean there are other people in the world aswell who like flying the US technology..I'm an Aussie but we dont have any F-16's so why not have a fictional SQN just so we can fly under our own colours like when our F/A 18's went to IRAQ.. be a part of the big picture
One of the depressing things about Falcon 4 (before being able to skin myself) was having to fly some jet I didn't know where it came from. There is something endearing about having the same jet throughout a campaign that is yours.
I suppose for you Guru's the easiest way to keep everyone happy is have a wide and varied tail art selection that can be changed in setup..realism in a sim is great in perfomance of AC and weapons and tactics. But it is still a game and must have a couple of quirks to keep the gamer happy.
So I say a mix of fictional and non-fictional SQN's to keep everybody happy. :smile:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v363/dirtydawgaustralia/dd.gif

[SUBS17]

I think it's not the right thing to do... to add fictional squadrons... I think our main goal is to make the sim as realistic as possible... so no fictional or custom squads IMO :tongue:
That'll be bad news for Katz and all those other Kiwis, no F-16s. Those darn Hippies for not buying them.
cheers
Subs

[Wipsnake]

Nice skin on that viper Dirty dawg.

If you want the 75 SQN graphic's for skin making let me know becuase i work there.

regards