[F22-Raptor-2006]

Firstly I would like to thank PeterD for his fantastic model. As an amatuer skinner, I have found that the mapping is logical and user friendly. The inclusion of the UV layout is a great help and it would be so useful to include this in all templates. I intend no critism of the great work that he has done on this.

One of the problems with the current template as released is that the rivets are merged onto the metal finish layer. This is a problem for skinners as any markings sit on top of this detail and look wrong. It is also important to have control of the depth of rivets and lines. I have put up some RAAF painted skins (see skin section) with my own rivet/line layers to provide an interpretation the CA-27 Sabre Mk32. I am currently working on a dull alloy skin and bright metal skin but it takes some skill to get it to look "right" in the game. It is very much a "learning process" for me at the moment. I am also very much aware of some of the exellent work in this area and some of the brilliant skins done by some very talented people (the list is long and I know I will not do everybody justice if I tried to name them...)

Because of their work we are all "standing on the shoulders of giants" so to speak.


Regards

GJE52

Personally I see the rivet and line layers being stuck onto the metal as no difference. The way it's worked out is that if you make a folder for every skin and turn the opacity down (mine is always 75%) the rivets and lines will come out just fine. If you still think they are a bit dim although most skins that I can see lines and rivets very clearly from pictures just annoys me :S you can use the rivet and panel lines provided but again turn the opacity of that folder down to around 15% etc... Another way of solving this problem if you don't like the fact that you can't see it well on painted areas is to duplicate all the layers of that skin and merge them all into 1 layer. Then if you ctrl click on that layer you can select only everything you've painted on the skin. Now if you go highlight/select the rivets layer you can press Ctrl J and everything in the selected region (which we selected earlier on your skin layer) will be duplicated onto a new layer. So then you have a layer with the rivets on it for only the areas painted. You can do the same with the lines layer and so on...

Hope this helps.