Hires skins for VIIC wanted
 

OM has a very good VIIC skin, but unfortunately I don't like camo patterns on U-boats. And for some reason I couldn't find many replacements.

I would like the textures to be working with OM, and I would like them to be of higher resolution than stock [2048x2048 seems to be ideal].

The purpose of this thread is to collect download links to hires skins of Type VII U-Boats (or other boats) which can be used in Operation Monsun.

Please provide links to hires textures if available!

Thanks.

I. Available texture downloads

Jimbuna was so nice to upload most of Fubars excellent hires skins for SHIII. Special thanks goes to Fubar2Niner who had backupped some very rare plain versions, and was so kind to make them available to us.

Thanks to those 2 guys you can now download practically all Fubar SHIII skins that have ever been released:

Link one: http://www.filefront.com/16017891/Fu...Skins-Pt-1.7z/

Link two: http://www.filefront.com/16021927/Fu...Skins-Pt-2.7z/

Link three: http://www.filefront.com/16023781/Fu...Skins-Pt-3.7z/

Link four: http://www.filefront.com/16042883/Fu...Skins-Pt-4.7z/

Link five: http://www.filefront.com/16062371/Fu...-Skin-Pack.7z/

P.S. Since these were found after I had created this thread, I now have actually more skins than I could ever use. I have put some of Fubars excellent textures into a JSGME compatible skinpack for Typ VII boats, and for the download I would like to direct you to this thread: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=167404 . I have also removed all preliminary versions I had presented in this thread.

Same here, posted about it in the OM thread and Lurker said he would give a look at it for future releases. :yep: While tehre were many camoufalged boats, the standard flat pattern was still the most used, and I personally prefer it, together with some JSGME enabable custom camos :up:

From my attempts to download hires skins I have the impression there are but very few dedicated SH4 Uboat textures.

If this is so, who knows exactly what happens when I use SH3 skins in SH4?
Can I simply use them?

I just copyied one of my favorite SH3 skins (fubars u552) over SH4 and it seems everything is in the right place, and I saw no problems so so far.

I will upload pics later on if I have had more time to evaluate this. Looking extremely good so far.

It seems the SHIII texture looks fine on the VIIC.

http://global-explorer.de/20100402/1s.jpg http://www.global-explorer.de/20100302/2s.jpg
http://www.global-explorer.de/20100302/3s.jpg http://www.global-explorer.de/20100302/4s.jpg

However, when I use it on Tomis VIIC/41 the deck planking is gone (or better, replaced by metal plates or something). So it seems I have replaced the planking file.

In order to find and correct this mistake, here is the complete file list of fubars mod, hoping that someone in the knows can tell me which ones really need to be replaced and which not.

all files went in: Textures\TNormal\tex

conning_stuff.tga
mask_type7.tga
NSS_Uboat7c_coning.tga
NSS_Uboat7c_deck.tga
NSS_Uboat7c_hull.tga
Turm7c_1_deck.tga
Turm7c_2_deck.tga
Turm7c_3_deck.tga
UFlak_High.tga

That I suspected, since most SH4 german Uboat models are AFAIK the ones from SH3 converted and with the needed AO maps, etc added.

Did you convert the graphics to DDS, or did they work directly as TGA?

I'll look into doing the same for myself :up:

What are AO maps?

I did some testing and all that needs to be done is replace NSS_Uboat7c_hull.tga.

I compared the files and they can be swapped w/o problems. Luckily fubar has already made a highres versions so the files are the identical resolution as well.

http://www.global-explorer.de/201004...t7c_hull.1.jpg http://www.global-explorer.de/201004...t7c_hull.2.jpg

left: original in OM (2048x2048)
right: fubars SH3 skin (2048x2048)

The other files are not needed.

the result on Typ VIIC:

http://www.global-explorer.de/20100402/14s.jpg http://www.global-explorer.de/20100402/15s.jpg
http://www.global-explorer.de/20100402/16s.jpg http://www.global-explorer.de/20100402/17s.jpg

the skin looks great on Typ VIID, too:

http://www.global-explorer.de/20100402/11s.jpg http://www.global-explorer.de/20100402/12s.jpg

However, no wooden deck plates on the VIIC/41, is this a feature of the sub?

http://www.global-explorer.de/20100402/10s.jpg

If someone is interested in the texture, the mod is called "Fubars VIIC U552" and you should be able to locate the download without problems.

Or drop me a PM if you want it from me.

All credit goes to the fubar for making this marvellous stuff.

AO=Ambient Oclussion. This causes the parts to be darker when they do not receive direct light. It's not shadows, just the difference in lighting. In all SH4 3D objects there is an AO added, which causes the nice dark/light effects you see when moving the view around. But it is independent from the texture of the model, therefore you can swap them with no problems with the SH3 ones.

What I meant was that in order to port the model to SH4 an AO map had to be created, but of course once it's done you can swap textures as long as they belong to the same model (So everything goes where it is supposed to)

AO maps can also be added into SH3, with excellent results, look here: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=161762

No I think it results from the model actually being different, and with a different original texture. The wooden deck is probably on a different part of the TGA, hence it textures the deck with flat metal. Try the original texture from Tommy's sub for SH3, and it should be OK.

Ah, I see. So if I replace the tga only, the map is still stored somewhere else and the mapping should not be affected, right?

Yes, exactly :up:

BTW trying FUBAR's skin for the standard Type VIIC I still get the camo conning tower. Must try with U-552 one, which I also have. :hmmm:

I think some of the answers you guys are looking for may be found in the first post of this thread : http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...hlight=emblems.

Generally the confusion is that for a lot of the u-boat types, the model uses one skin for the hull and another for the conning tower. Some are event shared between different types or use embedded textures.

Hitman to change the conning tower for the VIIC, you need to edit or replace NSS_Uboat7c_hull.tga. My guess is that fubar's SH3 skin replaces the file that the VIIC in OM uses for the hull but the part that is supposed to be the conning tower is being replaced by NSS_Uboat7c_hull.tga.

I spend many hours of trial and error messing with those texture files to figure out what is used, what is not, etc. But it's been a while since I wrote it and I forgot most of what I learned :-?

All I had to replace was NSS_Uboat7c_hull.tga, the other files are original OM.

No, I just found the reason why the conning tower did not show the new skin: I was testing in a mission where the VII is equipped with the late war one. In the early/mid war conning tower there was no problem at all. Must look and find which is the texture of the late conning tower.

Sorry you are right, it's just that discussing if they would work OK after downloading seemed appropiate.

On the other hand, I did not offer my own stored FUBAR skins because all of them are low res. But if someone is interested, I can upload them.

The list of what I have (All low res) is:

VII: (All skins work for both VIIC and VIIB AFAIK)

-Standard VIIC (I think that's the default VIIC skin in GWX3)
-U83 (Mediterranean camo with green splotches)
-U552 (Already shown by Globalexplorer)
-U253 (Large dark grey triangles)
-U201 (Diagonal dark stripes)
-U997 (Type VIIC/41, very rare irregular dark triangles and plotched white background)

IX:

-U805 (Dark grey conning tower, light grey hull and one vertical dark stripe )
-IXB Plain
-IXC Plain
-IXC Camo

These last three ones unfortunately tweak some DAT files, so they will not be compatible with SH4 directly

XXI:

-XXI Plain