WIP: New ship skins and deck cargo

[iambecomelife]

While examining several merchant photos I noticed that paint schemes on ships were less uniform than they seemed. Therefore I've decided to try to give the ship hulls more of a textured feel. I redid the semi-transparent rust layer that I apply to my ships and added new features - stains, blistering, and varied paint thickness (to represent where the crew painted over rusted spots, old lettering, etc). I also have some high-contrast plate textures that are overlaid on the hull to keep it from looking like a single solid object. This particular skin was designed for a bulk freighter that will be in the Merchant Fleet Mod; however, I would like to try using the new skins on the default SH3 ships, too. I've been thinking about which types of weathering are appropriate for which vessels:

Liners - Clean, Moderate Weathering.
Merchantmen - Some Clean, mostly Moderate or Heavy Weathering
Bulk Freighters - Moderate and Heavy Weathering, plus Cargo Stains
Major Warships - Clean, Moderate Weathering
Escorts - Mostly Moderate and Heavy Weathering, especially as the war drags on.

I've also begun working on the deck cargo; here's a new skin for the truck:


I would really like to find out how to add new cargos to the game, as well as multiple skins for the cargos, even if it is difficult - does anyone have an idea how to do this?

[rascal101]

As always your work is 110% fantastic, and a welcome relief from the SH4 fiasco.
I'll start by getting my traditional question out of the way first, i.e. When will you release these skins. I can’t help but think it’s going to breathe new life into SH3

Re your weathering and paint effects, at last I understand why my own attempts at this never succeeded. I always tried to paint the effect onto the skin, whereas you are building the affect up in successive layers. Your examples below are great and I hope you do apply your secret arts to the stock skins as well. We have to remember they were a little less environmentally aware in those days so things would be pretty messy

Re deck cargo. One thing I have always found a bit weird in SH3 is the number of ships with shipping containers. Now I don’t pretend to be a world authority on matters nautical but I don’t think the concept of cargo containers was developed until the 60s. I have often marvelled at the number of ships with containers on their decks, I'm talking steel containers not wooden crates, as well as the dockside equipment i.e. cranes that are clearly taken from a modern container port rather than a 40's era dock.

So re the deck cargo go for it with all sorts of planes, trucks, cars, crates and other junk, but I hope you leave off with the containers.

Regards
Rascal




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Originally Posted by iambecomelife

While examining several merchant photos I noticed that paint schemes on ships were less uniform than they seemed. Therefore I've decided to try to give the ship hulls more of a textured feel. I redid the semi-transparent rust layer that I apply to my ships and added new features - stains, blistering, and varied paint thickness (to represent where the crew painted over rusted spots, old lettering, etc). I also have some high-contrast plate textures that are overlaid on the hull to keep it from looking like a single solid object. This particular skin was designed for a bulk freighter that will be in the Merchant Fleet Mod; however, I would like to try using the new skins on the default SH3 ships, too. I've been thinking about which types of weathering are appropriate for which vessels:

Liners - Clean, Moderate Weathering.
Merchantmen - Some Clean, mostly Moderate or Heavy Weathering
Bulk Freighters - Moderate and Heavy Weathering, plus Cargo Stains
Major Warships - Clean, Moderate Weathering
Escorts - Mostly Moderate and Heavy Weathering, especially as the war drags on.

I've also begun working on the deck cargo; here's a new skin for the truck:


I would really like to find out how to add new cargos to the game, as well as multiple skins for the cargos, even if it is difficult - does anyone have an idea how to do this?

[bigboywooly]

Hi Iambecome

Forget more work release the merchants

:rotfl:

For the cargo have a look in C:\Program Files\Ubisoft\SilentHunterIII\data\Library

Look for incarcatura.dat

In GWX there are 3

incarcatura US skins
incarcaturb Ge Skins
incarcaturc Ru Skins

[iambecomelife]

You're right about the containers Rascal. The SH3 containers are even larger than the containers of today. While I have seen some shots of liberty ships with crates that seem to be larger than 40 feet, I doubt they would have been common cargo.

As for the release date I found that several ships Iwas going to include needed to be rebuilt - for instance, the ore freighter above has been rebuilt at least twice over the course of the mod. By now I've weeded out all the vessels that I wasn't satisfied with. They're not perfect but IMO the design features are much more realistic than they were before.

@ BBW - How did you guys manage to get skins for different countries?! I've always wanted to do that. Did you need to edit the DAT files?

[bigboywooly]

Ah ha
The original dat (incarcatura.dat ) was cloned and renamed and the skins within altered
The original Ge cargo mod was done by Rowi58
Dowly repainted the Opel for GWX

After that he and Ref did the Ru cargo by again cloning the dat and reskinning

In the mission ed when adding cargo you get a long list of choices - original plus 3 Ge cargos and 3 Ru ones

The aircraft werent reskinned as the models would be wrong

[Dowly]

[rascal101]

Dear Mr IBCLIFE,
I have no problem waiting for your mechant skins mod just as long as it takes, I cant play SH4 until they clean up the mess so I've been having tremendous fun with Stalker which I bought on a whim at the same time as SH4, frankly I'm blown away by it.

Please take your time and by the time you do release I'll be a little more enthused re sub simming which I must say has worn a bit thin for me in the last couple of weeks

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

You're right about the containers Rascal. The SH3 containers are even larger than the containers of today. While I have seen some shots of liberty ships with crates that seem to be larger than 40 feet, I doubt they would have been common cargo.

As for the release date I found that several ships Iwas going to include needed to be rebuilt - for instance, the ore freighter above has been rebuilt at least twice over the course of the mod. By now I've weeded out all the vessels that I wasn't satisfied with. They're not perfect but IMO the design features are much more realistic than they were before.

@ BBW - How did you guys manage to get skins for different countries?! I've always wanted to do that. Did you need to edit the DAT files?

[Sailor Steve]

Oowww! Excellent!