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PostPosted: Wed Jan 03, 2024 10:06 am 
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Hello everyone,

I have been shaving a lot of projects for Jane's FA / IAF / USAF. For this thread, it is focused on my work on the improvement of Jane's FA texture and shapes.

I have been working on improving an existing Nimitz class super aircraft carrier. I do realize that CAG Hotshot have done excellent jobs with new textures for Jane's FA. I have big respect for his masterpieces he created for FA Future LIBs.

I still want to work on it, in order, to improve my skills and explore the unknown terrority. Therefore, I accept the challednges and go on with it.

What I have learned is that, Nimitz and Kitty super aircraft carrier have very different mapping for textures. Nimitz have odd vertexes and mapped texture. That was the hardest part and I wanted to see if I could fix it.

Image

It took me many hours but at least, managed to get it fixed. The second CAT, right side of main CAT always bothered me and I wanted to give them straight texture, and it is somehow achieved. At the same time, also figured out how to use 'bugs' of polygon when working with YAK-141 shape, in order, to simulate "landing lights" on deck.

here are screenshot of Nimitz with new texture and edited SH file. It is all possible due to excellent Terrence OpenFA tools that allows me to go from PIC to png, then back to it. Same thing with SH to .yaml file and back to SH.

Image

New runway texture on deck


Image

Night lights
Image

Image

With the recent updates, bridge and towers have new textures as well.

Image

The damaged version of ships and bridge / towers are being worked on.

_________________
"Great pilots are made not born... A man may possess good eyesight, sensitive hands, and perfect coordination, but the end product is only fashioned by steady coaching, much practice, and experience."
Air Vice-Marshall J.E. "Johnnie" Johnson, RAF


Last edited by Eagle114th on Wed Jan 03, 2024 10:45 am, edited 4 times in total.

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PostPosted: Wed Jan 03, 2024 10:11 am 
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The new airport texture are still in progress.

The 'wrapping' / wonky effects on specific runway are now fixed

BEFORE
Image

AFTER
Image

New terxture for one of airport
NOTE: I plan on improving it further

Image

New texture for one of desert airbase

NOTE: Figured out how to disable the 'polygon' runway marks on top of runway. However, there is one odd issues; When flying default missions, the texture shows up fine. But if I load created misisons by pro mission builder, the texture changes to 'rough looking' textures. I am still trying to find out what is causing it.
Image

_________________
"Great pilots are made not born... A man may possess good eyesight, sensitive hands, and perfect coordination, but the end product is only fashioned by steady coaching, much practice, and experience."
Air Vice-Marshall J.E. "Johnnie" Johnson, RAF


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PostPosted: Wed Jan 03, 2024 21:35 pm 
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Destroyed version of Nimitz class super aircraft carrier is now completed and successful:

Image

Image

_________________
"Great pilots are made not born... A man may possess good eyesight, sensitive hands, and perfect coordination, but the end product is only fashioned by steady coaching, much practice, and experience."
Air Vice-Marshall J.E. "Johnnie" Johnson, RAF


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PostPosted: Thu Jan 04, 2024 10:19 am 
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Posts: 2153
Watching the development of this in Discord has been eye opening to just how much painstaking detail is required. Just having one cat go straight and then the other be all crooked shows there's nothing simple about this level of FA modding. Great work.

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PostPosted: Sun Jan 14, 2024 21:29 pm 
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Centurian,

Thank you for the kind words, they meant a lot to us modders.

Cheers!

_________________
"Great pilots are made not born... A man may possess good eyesight, sensitive hands, and perfect coordination, but the end product is only fashioned by steady coaching, much practice, and experience."
Air Vice-Marshall J.E. "Johnnie" Johnson, RAF


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 14, 2024 21:35 pm 
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Hello everyone!

The new texture for airbase (RUNWAY 3 and 3A) is now completed, along with .SH files that removes the white polygon on top of it, in order, for runway to have their own textures.

Image

Image

Image

The downloads can be found in our discord


Cheers!

_________________
"Great pilots are made not born... A man may possess good eyesight, sensitive hands, and perfect coordination, but the end product is only fashioned by steady coaching, much practice, and experience."
Air Vice-Marshall J.E. "Johnnie" Johnson, RAF


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PostPosted: Mon Jan 15, 2024 01:01 am 
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Why is it when I did this 20 years ago you all said it was to pretty to be realistic? :lol:

And Im curious Eagle how did you alter the shape file and skin layout to remove the default layout white lines on the runways? The white lines were separate of the shape file on some runways. I had to do to alter the shape file on some runway files, but cant remember exactly which ones…

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"FAF Shape Meister"
FAF/FA-2 Design team
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FA Futures/FA-2 is Still Being Worked On and Will Be Released...


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PostPosted: Mon Jan 15, 2024 08:56 am 
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Hello CAG!

Yes, your work is very pretty and a truly masterpiece! It is what fuels me into doing this projects, so I thank you!

About SH files and how polygon on top of runway was removed, I used the useful Terrence OpenFA tools to convert SH into .yaml file. After that, I edit the following codes, after finding the specific codes that generates the seperated polygon on top of runway:

name: Face
layout_flags:
unk0: false
unk_use_byte_face_center: false
content_flags:
unk1: false
unk2: false
unk3: true
unk4: false
unk5: true <------------ set to false

Then the .ymal was converted back to .SH. This is what caused polygon on top of runway to disappear.


Eagle114th

_________________
"Great pilots are made not born... A man may possess good eyesight, sensitive hands, and perfect coordination, but the end product is only fashioned by steady coaching, much practice, and experience."
Air Vice-Marshall J.E. "Johnnie" Johnson, RAF


Last edited by Eagle114th on Mon Jan 15, 2024 09:06 am, edited 4 times in total.

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PostPosted: Mon Jan 15, 2024 08:58 am 
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Posts: 377
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Hello everyone!

The new texture with improved SH file is now available for the file RUNWAY

I am happy with the result and here is screenshot:

Image

Image

Image

Image

The file is available in our discord.


Cheers!

_________________
"Great pilots are made not born... A man may possess good eyesight, sensitive hands, and perfect coordination, but the end product is only fashioned by steady coaching, much practice, and experience."
Air Vice-Marshall J.E. "Johnnie" Johnson, RAF


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PostPosted: Mon Jan 15, 2024 11:38 am 
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That old airbase texture was so hideous, the gray looks amazing.

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PostPosted: Mon Jan 15, 2024 23:44 pm 
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Eagle114th wrote:
Hello CAG!

Yes, your work is very pretty and a truly masterpiece! It is what fuels me into doing this projects, so I thank you!

About SH files and how polygon on top of runway was removed, I used the useful Terrence OpenFA tools to convert SH into .yaml file. After that, I edit the following codes, after finding the specific codes that generates the seperated polygon on top of runway:

name: Face
layout_flags:
unk0: false
unk_use_byte_face_center: false
content_flags:
unk1: false
unk2: false
unk3: true
unk4: false
unk5: true <------------ set to false

Then the .ymal was converted back to .SH. This is what caused polygon on top of runway to disappear.


Eagle114th


Thanks! That's a very different (and much simpler) solution than I used… I overwrote the polygons to remove them from the shape entirely… Have you tried your new texture colors at night and in fog? I had a problem with the pallet colors conflicting…

PS - Airbases in the desert in the middle east do indeed have desert coloring added to the concrete to help camouflage the runways…

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Hotshot
"FAF Shape Meister"
FAF/FA-2 Design team
TSH Member/Developer
VNFAWING.com Forum Administrator

VNFAWING Forums
VNFAWING Website

FA Futures/FA-2 is Still Being Worked On and Will Be Released...


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 16, 2024 04:15 am 
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Joined: Sun May 23, 2004 18:24 pm
Posts: 613
Location: Indiana
Here's a couple I recently created for the Korean campaign. In order
to cover the runway lines, I used another texture item (taxiway) to
cover over them.

Osan Airbase
Image
This is the desert one, recolored.

Hwangju Airbase
Image
This is strip 5 (?), with the inactive runway recolored, covered by a
taxi strip, and runway markers colored yellow for taxi.


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 16, 2024 07:03 am 
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CAG Hotshot wrote:

Thanks! That's a very different (and much simpler) solution than I used… I overwrote the polygons to remove them from the shape entirely… Have you tried your new texture colors at night and in fog? I had a problem with the pallet colors conflicting…

PS - Airbases in the desert in the middle east do indeed have desert coloring added to the concrete to help camouflage the runways…


Hello CAG,

I am glad my methods can help making everything simpler for you.

About the new texture and night, I have no idea. I have to give it a try. I plan on adding the 'trick' to give runway the light like I did with aircraft carrier.


Eagle114th

_________________
"Great pilots are made not born... A man may possess good eyesight, sensitive hands, and perfect coordination, but the end product is only fashioned by steady coaching, much practice, and experience."
Air Vice-Marshall J.E. "Johnnie" Johnson, RAF


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 16, 2024 09:30 am 
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Posts: 377
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Hello everyone!

The texture overhaul for dirt short runway is being worked on.

Oriignal Jane's fA:

Image

New version with improved texture

Image

Image


Eagle114th

_________________
"Great pilots are made not born... A man may possess good eyesight, sensitive hands, and perfect coordination, but the end product is only fashioned by steady coaching, much practice, and experience."
Air Vice-Marshall J.E. "Johnnie" Johnson, RAF


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PostPosted: Thu Feb 08, 2024 09:11 am 
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Posts: 377
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Hello everyone!

I am currenlty polishing and testing the final version of USS Kitty Hawk new texture overhaul before releasing them. Herea are older screenshot posted in discord:

Contains new texture for deck, hull, tower, including destroyed version, as well landing lights for night ops.

Here is new deck and hull (the new bridge / tower texture will be shown in the next screenshots)

Image

Image

Image

[/img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/404090955088658442/1205038003295223838/FA_2024-02-08_15-29-54.png?ex=65d6ea18&is=65c47518&hm=98ed2399ecf2cf9fa2eab81f92435677e0e52977fe2412adba51af6c3942aafa&=&format=webp&quality=lossless&width=1246&height=701[/img]

New colors and number (textures) for bridge / tower

Image

Image

Destroyed version

Image

Image

Night lights on deck

Image

Image


I am planning on working Nimitz class version based on .SH and texture mapping from USS Kitty Hawk.


Eagle114th

_________________
"Great pilots are made not born... A man may possess good eyesight, sensitive hands, and perfect coordination, but the end product is only fashioned by steady coaching, much practice, and experience."
Air Vice-Marshall J.E. "Johnnie" Johnson, RAF


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