I’ve always loved the F7F. A wonderful machine that was always displayed superbly every time I saw the ex Fighter Collections, G-RUMT, example.
It’s a real shame this aeroplane just doesn’t look good enough, it just has such a plastic look. I really hope it doesn’t put off another developer from making it, I was hoping Flying Iron might take a swing at it.
When you say plastic do you mean the skin of the aircraft is too pristine, and shiny? Maybe some small wear, and tear in suitable places would make it look more lived in, and not a museum piece.
It’s difficult to explain it just doesn’t look as “real” as I would like. I do understand it’s a lot cheaper than a lot of other products so you can’t compare it to them but even for the price, it just doesn’t look how I would expect a product of MS2020 to look.
Again, that plastic look is the quality of the PBR _Comp file mostly.
I’m sure people with skills can improve that. Maybe make a better normals file as well.
Good to voice your concern, though. Maybe reserve any further judgement until some quality repaints are released… Except for those on Xbox, which you are… Sorry. The freeware store can’t come soon enough.
Despite the comments this actually looks to be better than Virtavia/Alphasim’s usual quality, and it sounds like perhaps some talented repainters can improve the existing liveries, if there is enough interest in the model.
The Virtavia owner has a history of not taking kindly to critical feedback, but we can hope for some forthcoming improvements at least to more significant issues if there is enough pressure applied and enough people contact them directly. Don’t just post issues here - email them to Virtavia!
Greatly appreciate the critical analysis of this one as I’m sure more people may consider it now that the Local Legend was confirmed to be yet another old flying boat. There’s another forum that takes a biased “if they are a member here they get praise” approach, with critical analysis criticized as “rivet-counting”, so the more balanced and realistic perspective here from those who hold devs to higher standards is appreciated.
I could not resist…
Screenshot (1850) by JanKees Blom, on Flickr
Screenshot (1845) by JanKees Blom, on Flickr
Mr. Blom - if you can add the sought after fine details to the existing textures and continue pumping out additional for this model, that’s definitely a strong motivator to purchse it for many here. Looking forward to more!
@Editer I’m glad to hear you did not encounter the flight model issue. I think I’ll try a reinstall. I don’t have this issue with other planes, so I don’t think it is something joystick related.
In terms of it being priced appropriate compared to Flying Irons birds I can’t agree. The Spitfire and the Tigercat are priced very similarly. And the Stirling is similar to the other Flying Iron releases. Having said that I purchased the Tigercat knowing it will not be a study level aircraft and that the visual model won’t be at the quality of some other releases in this price range.
However, I did not expect the external model to have less detail than the FSX freeware version, especially in terms of missing rivets, dimples and panels. And the very nice virtual cockpit, landing gear and wing folding mechanisms are proof that the developer is very capable of fantastic modeling. I really hope that some nice textures will fix the missing details.
I’m sure with a bit of tweaking to the flight model, sound and a few updates to the external model it will be very enjoyable!
So I picked it up and tried it out tonight. I was able to get the glossier look I was going for, but, it needs more work I think with the ambient occlusion, which I haven’t a clue how to do properly, and the normals I think are a little underdone and need to be a little deeper, at least in a few places where the fuselage and wings are a little too smooth and need a harder edge at panel lines. Not those silly bumps you see on plastic models, proper panel edges.
I also can’t for the life of me figure out how to rotate the knobs backwards. A lot of the rotary knobs like the fuel tank selector and engine selector are click instruments rather than spinny wheel knobs. And I can’t get them to go in the reverse direction. Anyone know what I’m doing wrong? I do it sometimes, and usually when I don’t mean to. But I can’t figure it out.
For the person thinking the plane looks short, another factor is this is the single seat model as opposed to the two seat night fighter. I don’t think that fuselage is actually longer, but I think the second cockpit makes it look a little longer. In any event, as noted previously, the plane certainly looks the correct proportions in the sim.
Oh, and it’s the flap labels that are reversed. Easy enough to fix, I’ll do that next.
Here’s some pics of my updated comp files. I started with the comp files from the “racer” and then updated them further using Rob Richardson’s F9F comp files as a template for these.
Ok, I figured out the reverse direction, hold down lmb, and click rmb.
The more I check out the model, the more I like it with the glossier look, I don’t know that the normals file needs to be edited, maybe.
I’m sure some really talented painter can improve it a lot more.
Fun little plane. I have a lot to learn to be able to operate it, especially because not many of the buttons are labeled when you hover. I hope he figures that one out over time. But it seems he’s not really interested in such details (from the manual: “The panel is mostly self-explanatory” No it’s not, and I’m a pilot, though not of these).
This would be a nice one…
This glossy look is awesome, can you share the details of how to do this?
That looks very nice. I’m edging ever closer to purchase.
F7F 003 by JanKees Blom, on Flickr
F7F 004 by JanKees Blom, on Flickr
F7F 009 by JanKees Blom, on Flickr
F7F 006 by JanKees Blom, on Flickr
https://flightsim.to/file/59998/grumman-f7f-3-tigercat-us-marines-az-10
I can’t share the files at the moment, I’m at work, but, essentially,
I always forget how this works, but, per the SDK, on a scale of gray from 0 to 255 as 0 to 1 below for each RGB channel
Detail Occlusion(R) Roughness(G) Metallic(B)
When no blend mask is specified, the detail occlusion-roughness-metallic texture is treated as a linear texture with values ranging between 0 and 1. The values will be added to the primary Occlusion(R), Roughness(G), Metallic(B) in a linear fashion: a value of 0.5 will produce no changes, values below 0.5 will decrease the primary values and values above 0.5 will increase them. Painting the vertex alpha channel allows to define how the map impacts the occlusion-roughness-metallic texture.
IOW, White on the blue channel is more metallic, black is least, Green channel, white is roughest, black is smoothest. Please somebody correct me if I’ve got it backwards here. So…
I know there’s a specific format required for the Normal map, that’s why people have trouble with that file. I forget at the moment what format that is.
Hope that helps. I’m in the middle of creating the livery above, and my files will be in that.
BTW, this is what we’re eventually going for…
I think I’m close, looking for feedback.. especially from people who understand PBR as I’m just a novice bumbling my way through.
Hmm, gonna have to research the Navy blues (and blacks) for from 1946 - 1956.
That black version looks fantastic, would be good to see it realised. Good luck!
I’m gonna make the green one… don’t know about the black one, I was just posting examples of what the finish should look like.
None of the examples in the photos posted above are black. They’re all different interpretations of glossy sea blue, which can appear quite dark, especially in late hours of the day. “Big Bossman”, especially, is a very dark shade of glossy sea blue,where as the first example pictured (which is no longer painted like that), had an inaccurately-light shade of glossy sea blue.
With Complete map files (PBR), just remember that the Green channel controls roughness: black being completely smooth (darker values for glossy paint and polished metal), and white being the most rough surface (lighter values for matte paint and dull metal). It always helps to have a lot of detail in the Green channel to reflect scratches and swirl marks, dirt/grime around rivets and panel lines, exhaust and oil stains, etc. The Blue channel controls how metallic the surface of the texture will be: white being absolute metal, and black being absolutely not metal (with the whole grey scale of variations between).
Being a night fighter, they were painted black.
A lot of discussion about the black F7F’s here
Of course, the civilian plane above is likely incorrectly glossy, as all the black night fighter Tigercats seem to have been painted matte black over their glossy blue delivery color.
I made this one a bit glossier
bk (0003) by JanKees Blom, on Flickr
bk (0002) by JanKees Blom, on Flickr
bk (0004) by JanKees Blom, on Flickr
bk (0005) by JanKees Blom, on Flickr
