homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation Wings: Over The Reich UV maping

I think that UV maping should be inrtoduced in WoTR ...it would add much more to realism.
Here are some examples of uv maping in CSF3

Very nice!

I'm not sure what UV mapping is, but it looks very very realistic. I'm assuming it's a mod, and since it's for CFS3, couldn't you also install it as a mod into WOTR...?

Sorry...what?
I was drooling over the Spitfire.

I'm with them. UV mapping looks great. Can it be modded into WOTR and WOFF UE?

Why not?
These are CFS3 examples...

It is called "normal map" (or "bump map", but it is an older term, describing slightly inferior technology).
This is additional texture which enables adding small dents and bumps to otherwise flat surfaces which greatly enhances details at relatively minor FPS cost.
It has been supported in my DX9 shaders for more than 3 years now, and some recent CFS3 aircrafts created by the community use it.

The Spitfire screenshot also displays "specular map" effect which has been supported by CFS3 since the beginning ("_s" textures) and which is also enhanced by my shaders. Specular maps provide a way to add small details to show different materials - like bare metal being more shiny than painted surface.

The result looks fantastic as you can see. I believe hi-res "skin" textures are less important that detailed specular and normal maps. And, by the way, these additional maps can be used for cockpit interior as well.
Finally, my shaders allow adding these textures for any existing aircraft - just name the file accordingly and my shaders will automatically pick it up.

I wonder why nobody tried it for WOFF.
When normal/specular maps are not present my shaders try to guess them from ordinary textures, sometimes it works, sometimes it is ugly (I recall someone saying than lozenge camo in WOFF looks like it was made with spatula, because my shaders incorrectly try to add bumps between differently colored diamond shapes).

PS: I've discovered yesterday that WOTR DX9 shaders currently have a bug that breaks the support for specular and normal maps in certain conditions. I'm going to fix it soon, but WOTR doesn't have them to begin with, so you are not missing anything.

These pics are from CFS3!?!?!
I have been bad-mouthing it for many a year.
Apparently undeservedly so...

I wonder if people know how to.

Stache, well, I didn't advertised it much, but I recall creating a thread in "mods" subforum here, asking if anybody can help me making normal maps (I'm a programmer, not an artist), but there weren't many responses. Probably it wasn't clear back then what could be achieved. If I had screenshots like these, I guess people would have been more interested

Ankor, what would be required to implememt their use in WOFF UE? Does it require all new textures or is it something far less time intensive to enable?

This one?

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.p...elp-for-bump-mapping-feature#Post4057236

p.s. I am not an artist either.

Perhaps OVS would be interested? He has certainly done some incredible work in the past

Problem is WOTR uses custom damage skins and extra specular, UV whatever etc doesn't apply to the damage parts. But if it's possible to get that to work, then I don't mind making a test texture or two.

Stache, yes.
The picture doesn't load now, but I think it was stock CFS3 Spitfire with wings looking like their surface has waves. I still have that normal map applied on my CFS3 install


One of possible ways to create these textures is to use the original texture, make it grayscale, and then edit it to add bumps/dents (brighter areas - bumps, darker - dents) for bump map or shiny/dull areas for specular map. Grayscale bump map then has to be run through a tool to create an actual normal map (it usually shows in magenta-cyan colors if viewed as an image).

What is important is than it is NOT necessary to create distinct maps for every skin. It is ok to just have one normal map per aircraft. I recall there's even a wildcard support for texture names to allow sharing single map for multiple similar aircrafts (which is very handy for WOFF which relies on "cloned" aircrafts to support multiple skins at once).
Bumps, dents, rivet placement etc represent aircraft structure and doesn't have to change with different skins, which usually (though not always) are just a "paint" layer. And specular map should be created from the most generic skin (without any insignia or letters/numbers) so that it can suit all of them.

I'm sure glad you guys can get your heads around this!! Hopefully some good will come of it.

Best Regards;

So, if i read that right Ankor, we are basically just 80ish normal mapped planes away from having this implemented into WOFF UE? Maybe even less with shared parts, such as between say an EII and an EIII?

Yes, with the help of AnKor and a handful of dedicated modders we've accomplished many great things over there in the last few years.

These kinds of enhancements can be done in WOFF, but generally I've felt that the doped and painted canvas really looked good enough as it was so didn't take the time away from CFS3 to work on it.

Couldn't this guy, Bravo/4 that made those skins and normal maps (I guess) I've reposted from SimOuthouse, be contacted by OBD?