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Re: Making Paint Dull/Flat?....
Hi Billfish,
I'll assume you are doing a skin for IL2? The easiest way I've found to reduce 'shine' on a skin, is to add a 'noise layer' and reduce it's opacity until it's not obvious on the finished work, yet still enough to give a slightly weathered appearance, thus serving a two-fold purpose of reducing shine. Basically;
1. Create a new layer above the 'paint and markings layers'.
2. Fill the new layer with color, i.e.; medium gray.. something neutral.
3. Look into you program's arsenal of effects, and you should find a filter for adding noise; you'll need to experiment a bit until you achieve a pleasing degree of 'pixelation'. Then reduce the opacity until it gives a 'weathered look'.. you'll know it when you see it.
4. Using your selection tool, select the areas of your new 'pixelation layer' that cover areas of your template, such a parts, and clear them out.. you only want this effect on your painted areas for the most part. That's it, finished. Now save your work, run it through 'Bright' and fly your new creation in-sim and see the difference.
Of course you could simply add noise to, or 'pixelate', your paint layer/s directly, but I don't recommend that approach as it can start a perpetual chain of adjustments that will often end in frustration and abandonment of hours of work. Better to confine the noise / pixelation to a single layer.
Okay, that was the 'easy way'. If you really want to get down in the weeds, you can start messing with patterns of textures, rather than a uniform layer of pixelation. This gets tricky, because to do this technique effectively, you'll need to locate the 'merge points' along the seams of the 3D model and ensure that these patterns are aligned seamlessly when viewed in the sim. You'll need a precision panel-finder tool to do this, preferably a gridline-color combination that allows for adjustments down to the 'single pixel level'. It can be very painstaking work, perhaps the skinning equivalent of assembling a 100,000 piece jigsaw puzzle of the Milkyway. So best to give the "easy way" a go first, as it usually does not require all those meticulous mapping efforts.. one size fits all.
Oh, one last note; be aware that reducing the opacity of a 'paint layer' to achieve a certain / lesser degree of color saturation, will also produce a 'shiny' or 'metalic' effect. So to adjust color intensity while maintaining the 'thickness' of your paint, and thus avoiding the 'shiny' effect, use your paint proggie's 'desaturation' option instead. This also applies to markings.
Of course, this is just my method; would be cool to see some other ideas. Also, I couldn't get too program specific, as I use PSP7.. but the basic concepts should be similar.
I hope this helps, and Good Luck with your project. ~ Rudi
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