Right Skinners, You've got some eplaining to do!

[Clint Mitchell]

Hi Gents

I am a complete and utter noob and I know absolutely nothing about skinning. I see these great looking 3D renders of dogfights (Outclimbed by Bader) etc and would very much like to know how you create them? I have created and posted some profiles but would also like to have a go at these 3D Renders. I basically need an image/shot of a BF110 at a certain angle, with my own markings on it. I have photoshop but what else do I need? Also I am on a Mac but a Windows PC could be arranged but would prefer the Mac.

Please any help would be appreciated. Pointing me in the right direction of some tutorials as I dont know what ones to look at here would also be a help.

Thanks in advance

Clint

[Goodwood]

All those "3D renders" you see are actually extremely modified screenshots, or bits of screenshots sown together (airplane from one shot onto the background of another, etc.). So basically, all you need to do is figure out what sim you want to use, which is often dictated by what plane(s) you want to depict and where.

I recommend IL-2 1946, because of the relative simplicity of skinning for that sim.

That said, Simmers' has a lot of good templates for the more commonly-skinned aircraft in that sim, most of which were provided by Jesters-Ink. If you're already familiar with profiling then, by using those templates, you're already 2/3rds of the way there in regards to learning how to skin. All the techniques of the former discipline will come into play in the latter, and vice versa.

Now, getting your shots in-game is more difficult...

[Clint Mitchell]

Thanks for the reply Goodwood

So would I be correct in thinking that to get the actual shot I want, I would have to be playing the game with my skinned aircraft and when I think its in the right position quickly take a screen shot? IL2 looks cool, I have already found a template of the aircraft req for IL2.

Clint

[Goodwood]

Basically, yes, that's it.

Liberal use of the pause button helps, though (may even want to map that to your joystick, heh). You'll also discover that you can, with a bit of time and some careful mouse/stylus handling, you can import your aircraft onto a different background.

[Clint Mitchell]

Is their not an option in the game where I can preview my plane and spin round, zoom in etc? and take the shot then? I only need a basic small section of it. Seems like a lot of hassle doing it in game.

Thanks

Clint

[Supah]

Alternatively you could try FSX with addon aircraft, the aircraft models in that game have a much higher polygon count and often the small details look better.

[Clint Mitchell]

Any for Mac OSX?

[Supah]

Hmm well there will be very few if any Mac OSX flight sims as Mac's aren't that popular amongst gamers. You could have a dual install with windows if you want or, I believe Mac OSX is based on *nix so perhaps Wine is a option to run windows apps under OSX. Running programs under wine does however give a small FPS hit.

[Serval]

I did see a flightsim for Moc some years ago. People were also skinning for it. But don't ask me what sim it is or where to find it.

[Clint Mitchell]

Thanks

Clint