Zephyr Net

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.



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.



New runway texture on deck




Night lights




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



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

The new airport texture are still in progress.

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

BEFORE


AFTER


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



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.

_________________
"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

Destroyed version of Nimitz class super aircraft carrier is now completed and successful:

_________________
"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

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.

_________________
Centurian

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

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.







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

Why is it when I did this 20 years ago you all said it was to pretty to be realistic?

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…

_________________
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...

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

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:









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

That old airbase texture was so hideous, the gray looks amazing.

_________________
Centurian

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…

_________________
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...

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

This is the desert one, recolored.

Hwangju Airbase

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

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

Hello everyone!

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

Oriignal Jane's fA:



New version with improved texture






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

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)







[/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





Destroyed version





Night lights on deck






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