Bump mapping the Kodiak

[bushpilot]

I'm sort of a bump map newbie and I've been tweaking the LHC Kodiak's bumpmaps to get out something a bit more coarse that the defaults are. The intention is not to make them look as realistic as possible but to give the bird a beaten bush plane look that goes well with some of the more weathered liveries.

Getting that kind of randomly bended metal look to the fuse is actually pretty hard. Also there is that "Orange skin" effect that I like to get rid off. Heavily WIP, any comments are welcome.

Here is a comparison between the default and what I've managed to get out:

Default bump



My tweaked bump

[Roger]

Looking pretty good so far!

[Cobra8472]

Good work! A few tips;

Keep the panellines sharper. A simple sharpen filter will do just fine, just on the panellines themselves.

To get the bent, indented rivet effect, apply a simple drop shadow to the rivet layer. Quite wide and not so strong. Works wonders. Remember to collapse your image in PS before using the nVidia normalmap plugin (if using it)- mine doesn't take into account effects and teh layers need to be rasterized.

My last tip would be to just tone down the rivets a tad. If they are too strong they tend to shimmer when zoomed out!

Excellent work so far, keep it up

[THibben]

I personally feel the rivets are overdone. If you do a google search on Kodiak pictures you won't see any sign of rivets anywhere. Certainly not round head ones. Also panel lines in the pictures are hard to see except for at the end of the engine cowl. You have done a good job but I just feel it doesn't represent the new modern design of the Kodiak.

Tom

[Nick C]

I too like what you're attempting Pekka, but Tom is correct.

Take a look at the following image.

http://www.airliners.net/photo/US-Fi...100/1386873/L/

Keep up the good work though.

[falcon409]

. . . . .Getting that kind of randomly bended metal look to the fuse is actually pretty hard. Also there is that "Orange skin" effect that I like to get rid off. Heavily WIP, any comments are welcome.

The "orange skin" you speak of is actually referred to as "orange peel" and is usually caused by either the paint not being mixed correctly or the mixture between air and paint being wrong in the gun. I ran into that when I painted the Velocity I finished last month. Luckily, the orange peel was in the Clear Coat and not the base color, so I was able to buff it out.

[bushpilot]

Hey thanks for the comments and tips, and I agree about the rivets and they are going to get toned down in the final version. On some photos rivets stand out though http://www.airliners.net/photo/Quest...dc5fbd276c36df

Bump mapping is difficult, (at least for me at this stage) because you can never know how they look in the FSX. But this is pretty interesting trial and error process. I actually ended up doing that bended metal by photographing a wall that has random paint/peeled paint patterns and editing it to the bump map. All other effects (glass ripple etc) looked fake.

[bushpilot]

You have done a good job but I just feel it doesn't represent the new modern design of the Kodiak.

I agree, but as I stated it's not for realistic, but rather a dramatic effect. But still they are overdone I admit that.

[bushpilot]

To get the bent, indented rivet effect, apply a simple drop shadow to the rivet layer. Quite wide and not so strong. Works wonders. Remember to collapse your image in PS before using the nVidia normalmap plugin (if using it)- mine doesn't take into account effects and teh layers need to be rasterized.
D

I will try that also. Thanks

[Lionheart]

Awesome work Pekka!

I wouldn't collapse the psd stack. Just burn a bmp from it and make the bumpmap from that.

Chris eagleskinner teaches how to do ths well on a webpage. I wish I could remember where. He uses pictures of water to replicate the waved metal.


Bill

[stiz]

right here bill

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...ead.php?t=4912

[Matt Wynn]

here you go:

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...ead.php?t=4912

beaten to it by Stiz LOL, must be a quicker typist than me

[stiz]

snap!!

[Piglet]

The default bump looks better. Not like 5 coats of latex house paint...

[bushpilot]

Thanks guys for the link. This is pretty interesting stuff.

[EgoR64]

:ernae:

I like it !!

Kodiak on Roids !!

[Lionheart]

Thanks Guys. I'll book mark that link. Chris did an awesome job on that tutorial. A must for people learning bump mapping and specular maps and doing rivets and wrinkled metal.




Bill

[CG_1976]

Very interesting. I would be interested to see how this turns out Pekka. Please keep us informed.

[bushpilot]

Very interesting. I would be interested to see how this turns out Pekka. Please keep us informed.

Hey I surely will. I'm doing this for fun and to learn some new tricks, but if this turns out to be something I like myself, I might put it out with my future paints

By the way, judging by this photo, Kodiak does not have bumps/rivets on the cowling: http://www.airliners.net/photo/Untitled-(United-States/Quest-Kodiak-100/1536377/L/&sid=87459cdf4e81ab19d454ebb7642bb181

I'll test how removing them affects the look in the sim...

[Lionheart]

Hey Pekka,

You are right on the rivets. I dug through my factory pictures they sent over and sure enough. They have rounded head bolts of some kind for the hinges, and thats about it.

The fuselage and wings have similar 'smaller' rivet heads, not flush mounted, but dome topped rivets.

Bill

[bushpilot]

Okay a little update....


Added some little details like indented door handles and pod hatches. Wrinkled metal sort of fades away when moving up the fuse. The lower parts have been beaten worse. Removed rivets from cowling and made it a bit smoother than the rest of the fuse. Also removed the rivets from the pod.





The belly of the beast is in worst condition I also enhanced panel lines in the wings and added rivets around wings' access hatches as seen in the photo posted by Bill.

[CG_1976]

Now thats looking excellent.

[Lionheart]

Awesome work Pekka!


You will notice some bump area's are reveresed. That is because 'mirrored' parts have a bug where the bump mapping (in Gmax) will go in the opposite direction on a part that is cloned and mirrored. Parts include the RH wing, half of the Fuselage, RH side of the rudder, etc.. So if you see on the bump maps that the bumps are 'innies' and not 'outies', that is why.

Sort of makes it difficult on painting these with bumpies. You have to set there and redo the opposite mirrored parts over and over to balance out the bumps to be the same size height.

By the way. These are not actually raised surfaces. They do not have height, its all done by shadow and highlights by the computer shading system. If you watch how the edges blend, you'll see they go flush but still hold their shading and reflections.. Wild technology.

[bushpilot]

Thanks guys.

Yep Bill, I noticed that. But I sort of reversed the reversing when doing these, to keep it more simple, so both side are same kind in my bumps. I noticed when I was testing these, that on some very rare occasions there were these "innies", depending on the viewing angle and light. I also tested if I want to reverse the another side quickly afterwards, I just need to rasterize the layer I want to reverse and invert it.

[Lionheart]

Hey Pekka,

Yep!

What I do is make the bumps seperate layers. My work flow is;
* Take the texture PSD file, rename it to 'textureblahblah_bump.PSD'
* Make a gray layer at the top of the stack
* Clone the rivets layer, raise to top of stack over the gray layer
* Clone the panels layer, raise also to the top.
* Clone Misc bumpings, raise also to the top
* Leave all layers 'seperate' and desaturate them. I usually remove (turn off the effect) of any shading on them so you dont have ins and outs on each thing. (The shaders will do that for you).
* Adjust lightness and darknesses of innies and outies
* Burn a BMP from it.
* Take BMP and run through the Photoshop nVidia Bump tool system, saving as a DDS, export to FSX and test.

I have had outies turn to innies sometimes when I would boot up FSX. I would change them back (reverse them) and in FSX, they were again backwards, so that makes me think the shading engine sometimes 'throws a wobbly' and reverses things. System comfusion? Curse of the 'X'? dont know.. But it happened several times...

Test several times, different times of day..



Bill