Aircraft roster additions

[kapuhy]

Looking at (modded) SH5 roster, one area that could still use some additional units is air forces. Out of 53 countries in game, only 8 have any kind of aircraft, and out of those 3 are simply reusing British planes - I hope to add some more variation to available aircraft.

I began with simplest thing to do, ie retexturing models we already have in game that were also used by countries currently lacking air units. SH5 gr2 models can use multiple textures (thanks Gap and Vecko for showing me how), so this doesn't require any importing / modelling, just some GIMP work.

Here's what I have been able to repaint so far:

1. Bulgaria - Arado 196:

 

2. Brasil - PBY5 Catalina (camouflage based on "Arara" Catalina that sunk U199 in 1943):

 

3. Belgium: Hawker Hurricane (Belgian Air Force bought some of those in 1939 from Britain)

 

4. Free French - Avro Anson (camouflage based on unit based in Kongo, conducting ASW patrols over south Atlantic):

 

5. Finland - Me 109:

 

6. Greece - Avro Anson. Hellenic Air Force used a squadron of Ansons for maritime patrolling and escorting convoys:

 

7. Irish Avro Anson. Again, Ireland used small numbers of Ansons for patrolling its territorial waters. Neutral throughout the war, so mostly harmless unless it catches you shelling neutral ships:

 

8. Brasil - P 47: Besides a bug with number, this one is a bit ahistorical. While Brasil used P 47's, they were based in Italy in late WW2 and I'm not sure we could add Brasilian patrol from Italian base:

 

9. Spitfire - Portugal: these neutral fighters were based in Azores, supplied by Allies in exchange for permission to use bases there for Allied maritime patrols:

 

10. Turkish Spitfire: couldn't find any details on when and how they were used, sadly. Another harmless plane - unless one could create a fake "Free Turkey" nation for guarding passage into Black Sea

 

11. Yugoslavian Me 109 - Before it ended up in war with Germany, Yugoslavia purchased 73 Me 109 fighters in 1939. They were later fighting Luftwaffe over Belgrade:

 

12. Spain: Me 109 model repainted to act as HA 1109 fighter (which itself was Me 109 clone produced in Spain):

 

[Captain_AJ]

Awesome effort indeed !!

[vdr1981]

Looking good Kapuhy !

[Alfatester]

With What you are doing with SH5 after all these years i cant imagine what you do with Uboat once its finished what with Actual Campaign impact like your actions changing ammount of supplies in Britain Etcetera

[Sailor Steve]

Outstanding!

[XenonSurf]

Hi Kapuhi,
very nice aircraft textures


Alas, to contemplate these pictures in the game I would be dead soon because plane must be close and overflying my sub...
Strange thing: I never saw any bombs dropped from planes, I wonder if this is rendered in the SH5 grafics ?

[kapuhy]

Hey guys, thanks!

A small update from this weekend - it's Hurricane season:

Egypt:

Free French:

Portugal:

USSR:

Turkey:

Yugoslavia:

Originally Posted by XenonSurf

Alas, to contemplate these pictures in the game I would be dead soon because plane must be close and overflying my sub...

I'd hate for my last thought to be "Hey, these textures are all wro..."

Originally Posted by XenonSurf

Strange thing: I never saw any bombs dropped from planes, I wonder if this is rendered in the SH5 grafics ?

It is. In test mission I've created to take aircraft screenshots, I've seen them drop bombs on ships.


-------------------------
I am struggling to find a workaround for a problem - despite switching material name from "skin" to "cfg#TXRskin" as Gap suggested in this post, LOD file seems to ignore other textures. This happens to Catalina model as well (only aircraft I know to use multiple textures in stock game):



So far only way I found to work is to remove LOD file altogether. Even overwriting it with copy of full resolution GR2 file doesn't work, which suggests the issue is not with GR2 file but the game being configured to ignore additional textures with all LOD files. Another way that would probably work is creating a separate folder with main and LOD GR2 files for every texture version, but I suspect this might be quite taxing for game engine.

[gap]

Ehi, nice work kapuhi.

Probably you are already aware about that website, but I think that wings palette has the largest online collection of aircraft drawings, featuring most warplanes from WWI to modern and portraying them with the paint/camo schemes of various Air Forces and sometimes even Wings and Squadrons using them. A precious resource for scale and 3D modellers and for photoshop artists

[gap]

Originally Posted by kapuhy

I am struggling to find a workaround for a problem - despite switching material name from "skin" to "cfg#TXRskin" as Gap suggested in this post, LOD file seems to ignore other textures. This happens to Catalina model as well (only aircraft I know to use multiple textures in stock game):



So far only way I found to work is to remove LOD file altogether. Even overwriting it with copy of full resolution GR2 file doesn't work, which suggests the issue is not with GR2 file but the game being configured to ignore additional textures with all LOD files. Another way that would probably work is creating a separate folder with main and LOD GR2 files for every texture version, but I suspect this might be quite taxing for game engine.

That's odd. Which aircraft are you trying to fix?

[kapuhy]

Originally Posted by gap

That's odd. Which aircraft are you trying to fix?

As far as I can tell it happens with every single .gr2 plane. In clear TWoS only one to use 2 textures is Catalina, so perhaps it's the best plane for testing this issue.

[gap]

Originally Posted by kapuhy

As far as I can tell it happens with every single .gr2 plane. In clear TWoS only one to use 2 textures is Catalina, so perhaps it's the best plane for testing this issue.

Do you mean the generic flying boat that in SH5 stands in for the Catalina? IIRC TWoS uses a slightly modified version of that plane. Can you please send me a copy of both its GR2 files (main and LOD model)?

[gap]

@ kapuhy

I got your e-mail with the files I had asked for, and I must admit that after a first glance, the main material of both files seems to be configured correctly . In theory, the British (secondary) texture should be applied both to the main and the LOD model, and I remember having tested in the past the correctness of the above statement. Before I run some new tests, may I ask how did you set the float plane in the British roster?

[kapuhy]

Originally Posted by gap

Before I run some new tests, may I ask how did you set the float plane in the British roster?

Below, copy of the file from my British roster. As far as I remember I didn't change it, as I did no modifications to British version of this plane.

 

[UnitClass]
ClassName=SUSFloatEarlyWar
UnitType=304
AppearanceDate=19410201
DisappearanceDate=19480101
DisplayName=BR S Float Plane

[Texture 1]
TextureName=data/Air/AS_USFloatEarlyWar/FloatingPlane_T02.dds
LightmapTextureName=
NormalmapTextureName=
StartDate=19000101
EndDate=19991231
Frequency=1

[Unit 1]
Name=BR American Built Floatplane
DOC=19410201
DOD=19480101

[gap]

Originally Posted by kapuhy

Below, copy of the file from my British roster. As far as I remember I didn't change it, as I did no modifications to British version of this plane.

 

[UnitClass]
ClassName=SUSFloatEarlyWar
UnitType=304
AppearanceDate=19410201
DisappearanceDate=19480101
DisplayName=BR S Float Plane

[Texture 1]
TextureName=data/Air/AS_USFloatEarlyWar/FloatingPlane_T02.dds
LightmapTextureName=
NormalmapTextureName=
StartDate=19000101
EndDate=19991231
Frequency=1

[Unit 1]
Name=BR American Built Floatplane
DOC=19410201
DOD=19480101

Okay, when you get time, try if setting up the flying boat in the British roster as a completely new unit (i.e. a proxy clone of the SUSFloatEarlyWar unit) with its own texture, makes any difference.

[kapuhy]

Originally Posted by gap

Okay, when you get time, try if setting up the flying boat in the British roster as a completely new unit (i.e. a proxy clone of the SUSFloatEarlyWar unit) with its own texture, makes any difference.

Just tried it - sadly, without luck. Proxy clone exhibits the same behaviour unless it's given its own gr2 files.

Floating Plane's folder in TWoS contains some rather unusual files compared to other aircraft's folders:



Looks like two planes (dat and gr2) sharing single folder, but I haven't seen the dat version in game, nor any roster entry referencing it.