GWX Skin Pack

[ichneumon]

GWX Skin Pack
By Ichneumon, Boris, and Fubar

This skin pack is for use only with GWX. It will not work with stock SHIII or any of the other supermods. The objective of this skin pack is to allow historically accurate changes in ship paint schemes with time. These skins and the changes in skins with time are based on photographs made during the war and other records. An excellent article on The Development of Naval Camouflage by Alan Raven is available online. This article describes the concepts as well as the general trends in color and style used by the Americans and British during the war. There were, however, exceptions to these general trends (especially with the British) which can be found in the records and photographs made during the war. There is also a short article on German paint schemes online.

This mod is more than just a chronologic ordering of the skins in GWX. Much new content was needed to achieve the objectives. Many improvements and additions were made during the course of this work. These include:

1) NEW BASE TEXTURES. Fubar provided excellent new base textures for some of the warships. Ichneumon also created new textures drawing on pieces of Fubar’s work for consistency. These new base textures were used to improve the look of some of the weaker skins in GWX as well as provide more variety for the merchants. Some of the merchants now vary not only in paint scheme but also in texture and simulated 3D details.

2) NEW PAINT SCHEMES. Gaps in the GWX skins for certain time periods meant new paint schemes needed to be made in order to have a variety of skins for any date. Boris created some of these skins when he started this project and Ichneumon added many more.

3) NEW WEATHERING EFFECTS. Fubar’s excellent weathering effects and some of Ichneumon's have been used to increase variety for certain dates and through time. During some periods there was little or no variety in paint schemes (1939 British warships and late war merchants for example). In these cases we used variable weathering effects so when two of the same ship are seen together they will look at least a little different. Also, some ships age with time and become more weathered and sometimes rusty.

4) NEW ALPHA CHANNELS. All the skins in this mod have improved alpha channels. The alpha channel controls how shiny a surface is. This is important because a lot of the 3D look of the ships comes from a 2D image painted on the flat surfaces of a model. The new alpha channels help provide the illusion of 3D detail by keeping seams between hull plates, portholes, rivets, rust, and other details from shining as much as the flat surfaces. You can only see this effect when sunlight reflects off a surface but it adds a lot when done well.

This skin pack is over 500MB so the download has been divided into four parts. To install you will need to unzip and copy all files into your \SH3 Commander\Date\ folder. When you launch SHIII from SH3 Commander the appropriate skins for your patrol date will be copied into your SHIII installation. See the SH3 Commander documentation for more information on installing and using this skin pack. Due to the large number of skins being replaced you can expect SH3 Commander to take several minutes to copy the files into the SHIII folders. You will not be able to view paint schemes changing with time by browsing the dates in the museum, in SHIII this only shows changes in weapons loadout. To view skins for a different date you will need to exit SHIII and launch the game from SH3 Commander for that date.



GWX Skin Pack – Capital Ships - 120MB http://files.filefront.com//;6859190;;/
GWX Skin Pack – Destroyers - 120MB http://files.filefront.com//;6859471;;/
GWX Skin Pack – Escorts - 130MB http://files.filefront.com//;6859780;;/
GWX Skin Pack – Merchants - 150MB http://files.filefront.com//;6860148;;/
GWX Skin Pack ReadMe.txt http://files.filefront.com//;6860162;;/


MD5 hashes:
f17000eebb30e8c58e3e99be6272e70c *GWXSkinPack_Merchants.7z
a76e59c70a3ce3607695a59581ae658a *GWXSkinPack_CapitalShips.7z
710efbe4817e25556d21b2613f88bdff *GWXSkinPack_Destroyers.7z
4234311f43784f8899f5f352f06875f9 *GWXSkinPack_Escorts.7z

Mirror 1:
Capital Ships - http://www.megaupload.com/?d=CQBP61SY
Destroyers - http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0LHOAMH0
Escorts - http://www.megaupload.com/?d=XSRV949H
Merchants - http://www.megaupload.com/?d=H8WMMC9H
Readme - http://www.megaupload.com/?d=FGJY6YB8

Mirror 2: Thanks to Danlisa for this smaller single file download version! It has much better compression and contains all four parts in one file only 164MB in size. This version starts with the Date folder so you just need to copy it into your SH3 Commander folder to install.

Combined GWX Skin Pack - 164MB
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=4HLEYMQQ
http://files.filefront.com/GWX___Com.../fileinfo.html

[ichneumon]

Here are screenshots of some of the new skins:

Dido (base texture by fubar, camo schemes by Boris and Ichneumon):



Fiji (base texture by fubar, camo schemes by Boris and Ichneumon):



1942 admirality disruptive schemes for the Black Swan (base texture by fubar, camo schemes by Ichneumon)

[ichneumon]

Here are a few screen shots to help you recognize and appreciate the new alpha channels. The first image of the freighter shows one of the new skins without the sunlight reflecting off the surfaces. The second image shows the same freighter from a different angle where the sunlight is being reflected by the flat surfaces. Notice that the portholes and weathering are not shiny like the clean flat surfaces on the hull. Also notice that the shine is variable on the hull and helps make the texture look more 3D



The next image shows an old alpha channel from GWX on a Hunt. Notice that the shine on the superstructure is the same regardless of whether it is a window, porthole, or flat metal plate. The alpha channel can not be seen all the time but when it can be seen the new ones really help improve the 3D illusion and give the models more "weight". The old alpha channels make the models look flat.

[mr chris]

TOTALY OUT OF THIS WORLD
TRUELY AMAZING WORK GUYS

[bigboywooly]

Nice one Ichy
Now I have to D\L again

[Iron Budokan]

Do these have sub skins in them as well?

[Sulikate]

Originally Posted by Iron Budokan

Do these have sub skins in them as well?

2

[leeclose]

Downloading the packs as we speak thank god for high speed broadband tho lol

[Jimbuna]

Disregard my post on the other thread matey

[robbo180265]

Thanks for the work guys

[JetSnake]

When I install these into the SHIII commander date dirtectory should I see the four folders labeled capital ships, merchants, escort, destroyers with a bunch of other folders with long numerical labels? Or do I need to move the files out of the four mentioned above and place them into the /date folder with the other numerical files?

[Boris]

Yep, everything needs to go directly over the SH3 Commnder date folder. No separate folders for ship types. Those numerical labels are dates, all folders such labelled must be in the date folder.

[melnibonian]

The best way to install them in SH3Cmd is to use JSGME. Just add JSGME into the C\Program Files\SH3Cmd directory and run it once. That will generate the MODS folder. Drop all the skins in there and enable them via JSGME. Clean, fast and simple

[ichneumon]

Originally Posted by Iron Budokan

Do these have sub skins in them as well?

Nope, and no aircraft either. This is just for surface ships. We had some discussion of including sub skins during the beta testing but I did not want that to delay the release. Also, I am not sure how much interest there would be in something like this for sub skins since I assume a lot of people prefer to choose which skin they use rather than have one assigned to them.

[LukeFF]

Excellent!