Late war grey painting:
https://i.imgur.com/2TbFJ2W.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/PWmrkfM.jpg

:Kaleun_Applaud:

I think that a black hull would not have been repainted in grey. Only superstructures and funnel... https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/sho...4&postcount=37

As in the case of tacos, why not have both? Adding a variant with black hull and grey superstructure will be easy, and then it's even more varied.

Yes, ok. Maybe your could add different shades of grey. I think a lighter grey would be more appropriate.

Waiting for your war skins to release the SH3 conversion of Armora tramp steamer. :) :up:

The answer is probably obvious, but I guess that this class of ship was only sailing near the coast, and never into atlantic/arctic/med convoys...

Really like how one of them is a Long Bridge Deck type merchant ... great eye for detail. They were pretty common for companies that needed to ship high volume/low density cargo like cotton or grain....until postwar designs made them obsolete.

Also like that they are low tonnage, unlike the big Liberty & C2 ships you always see in the Silent Hunter series - ships as small as 1,000 GRT were pressed into service in Atlantic convoys, bc every cargo ship was valuable in wartime. This is good to counteract "tonnage inflation". :up:

Yes, the most common merchant ships which were sailing into convoys are never modeled...

Kapuhy's merchants are around 2000 tons of displacement. But that's different than GRT !!!

Here - grey skin from screenshots above and AO map with some rust (unlike first version I sent you before which was too clean for such old ship).

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bOc...ew?usp=sharing

In arctic or atlantic, probably pretty rare but med and gibraltar convoys did include a lot of similar ships:

https://uboat.net/allies/merchants/ship/687.html
https://uboat.net/allies/merchants/ship/704.html
https://uboat.net/allies/merchants/ship/1121.html
https://uboat.net/allies/merchants/ship/1120.html

Small Freighter is modeled after SS Aslaug (1599 GRT, built in 1927) and Small Tramp Steamer after SS Armora (1903 GRT, built in 1911).

That's one of reasons I started this mod - ship roster in stock SH5 looks like trying to simulate road transport network by using only 18-wheelers.

Thank you ! Unfortunately, SH3 uses the AO map only to apply "shadows" on surfaces, not anything else, like rust or dirt... :-?

With your new AO texture (rust) :hmmm: :

https://nsm09.casimages.com/img/2022...9017801329.png

Texture
 

New texture :

https://nsm09.casimages.com/img/2022...9017804635.png

https://nsm09.casimages.com/img/2022...9017804636.png

----------

Note :

If I open your dds files with Paint.net, the full transparent dark pixels are deleted : when I change transparency to have no transparency at all, this is what I get (I added a purple background so you can see the deleted pixels) :

https://nsm09.casimages.com/img/2022...9017804650.png

This is why I prefer that you send me .tga files without transparent pixels.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't remember a single SHIII ship using an AO map. If memory serves, in SHIII you can have either an AO map or a normal map assigned to each material, and most if not all the ships (both stock and custom-made) have materials using the later map. This is not an insurmountable problem, as the AO map could be blended with the diffuse map (most stock SH5 aircraft use this method), but to be able to use this workaround every single unit would require its UV mapping redone, and the new textures would need to be bigger indeed.

Correct.

Correct.

You mean a SPECULAR map. And the specular effect of SH3 ships is not correctly set, so the effect doesn't work in game, even if it's possible to make it work. But S3D doesn't enable to modifiy the proper parameter. But you can make it work by copy-paste of the fake propeller texture of the Stuka for example, this material will handle transparent pixels. Remember, this is the same problem as for semi-transparent textures, when we worked on your super realistic flags textures. BTW, haven't you released this mod yet ?

Yes, this can be done with World of warships' models, since the AO map has exactly the same coordinates as the diffuse texture. So, you just have to blend diffuse with AO, and then apply transparency (transforming the black & white texture into alpha channel) of the specular mask.

Yes.

How goes it? Taken a look at this thread and got to say, your models look mighty fine! Cant wait to see more in game!

I had to take a break from modding in February because we have moved into new house and there was an endless list of things that needed to be done, leaving me with no time or energy for hobbies. I hope to return to this and other unfinished projects by the end of this month.

As for status, six new ships I was working on are all ready and imported into game, but there's still some work remaining in order for them to appear properly in campaign. More specifically:

- Two new ships are minesweepers, and they need minesweeping patrol spawns and nodes to be added to campaign in order to appear in game.
- Some coasters appear very rarely because most countries that use them do not have coastal traffic added to campaign.
- I'm still stuck on texture problems - I wanted ships to change textures and maybe even use navigation lights reflecting their status (neutral/belligerent) during the war, but way SH5 handles textures leads to constant problems with ships "borrowing" wrong texture from another vessel using the same model. There's also an unresolved bug that prevents minesweepers from using varying camouflages.

I hope to fix all the above and relase new ships sometime in August (provided real life doesn't throw a new wrench into my plans).