PRISM — an aircraft and livery viewer for IL-2

[Haluter]

2 hours ago, jocko417 said:

Looking good. Is it possible to add the helmet/helmet art to the pilot figure in the cockpit? 

It appears to be possible, I've added it to the roadmap.

[jocko417]

One other thing, unless I’m doing something wrong, right now the airplane does not contain a seat for the pilot. 

F-86. Seat rails are there but no seat.

Edited September 16 by jocko417

[VonStalhein]

Geez Haluter, this is terrific. 

Also, so good for self-discipline as I will now resist wasting (spending valuable) time fiddling with skins 😇

(Narrator: He didn't.)

Edited September 16 by VonStalhein

[Haluter]

8 hours ago, jocko417 said:

One other thing, unless I’m doing something wrong, right now the airplane does not contain a seat for the pilot. 

I did a quick check for the F-51D and it has the pilot seat. Which aircraft misses the seat(s)?

13 minutes ago, VonStalhein said:

Geez Haluter, this is terrific. 

Also, so good for self-discipline as I will now resist wasting (spending valuable) time fiddling with skins 😇

(Narrator: He didn't.)

This is a clever ploy by me to get more skins on HSD 😜

[jocko417]

Just checked, none of the aircraft with ejection seats (ie: jets) have the seats in the cockpit. The prop aircraft do, most likely because the seat is fixed and is part of the 3D aircraft model. Perhaps the ejection seats are seen as separate models by the game, like the helmets?

[Haluter]

47 minutes ago, jocko417 said:

Just checked, none of the aircraft with ejection seats (ie: jets) have the seats in the cockpit. The prop aircraft do, most likely because the seat is fixed and is part of the 3D aircraft model. Perhaps the ejection seats are seen as separate models by the game, like the helmets?

Ah, that's a good observation, thanks.

[jocko417]

VERY MUCH STILL a work in progress...

 

The sole Canadair Sabre Mk.1, serial 191-010, was essentially a North American F-86A that was assembled from parts and used for assembly line jig testing before Canadair Limited eventually built 1815 Sabres under licence in Montreal during the 1950s. These Sabres saw active service with many NATO countries besides Canada, like the UK, Italy, West Germany, Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey, to name a few. 191-010 spent it's entire service life as a test bed aircraft, never seeing operational flying at the squadron level.

Skin is really just for personal interest and to get "aquainted" with the locations of all the various "bits". Once we get the F-86E in Korea I'll be able to make a few "RCAF" skins, as Canada supplied the USAF with 60 Sabre Mk.2 aircraft which saw service in Korea, some flown by WW2-era RCAF fighter pilots who were seconded to the USAF in order to get jet combat experience/MiG kills. These aircraft were given US serials and were known as model F-86E-6-CAN.

Edited September 19 by jocko417

[Mysticpuma]

I did mention it on the Discord Channel about a Green/Blue screen background and animated features. Thinking further about that suggestion, could the 3D model be exported as an Alpha channel for perfect cutouts?

Edited September 17 by Mysticpuma

[Haluter]

3 hours ago, Mysticpuma said:

I did mention it on the Discord Channel about a Green/Blue screen background and animated features. Thinking further about that suggestion, could the 3D model be exported as an Alpha channel for perfect cutouts?

That is on the roadmap.

[Haluter]

PRISM v0.1.74 — FORUM CHANGELOG

Since the previous public GitHub release, v0.1.34, PRISM has grown from an aircraft livery viewer into a broader IL-2 presentation tool. This update covers work through v0.1.74.

HIGHLIGHTS

TANK CREW SUPPORT

• Added an initial Tank Crew library for the 16 player-controlled Great Battles ground vehicles, including the Tiger I. PRISM now imports their hulls, turrets, guns, wheels, tracks and original materials for the viewport, Quick PNG and Blender/Cycles exports.
• Reconstructed the games' procedural track meshes for all supported tracked vehicles and corrected their surface orientation, eliminating the missing tracks and pale, inside-out-looking tread reflections.
• Restored the special tire meshes used by the Sd.Kfz.10-5 and GAZ-MM 72-K.
• Added Open crew hatches for 14 tanks and assault guns with authored hatch animations. The open/closed state is saved in projects and carried into both export paths.
• Corrected the M4A2 commander's roof machine gun so it uses its proper idle mount rather than the deployed anti-aircraft preview pose.

IMPROVED LIBRARY ORGANISATION

• Added dedicated Tank Crew and Flying Circus cards alongside Great Battles and Korea. Great Battles now shows WWII aircraft, Tank Crew shows ground vehicles, and Flying Circus shows WWI aircraft from the same installed game data.
• The shared inspector is now called Vehicle, which makes the interface and project/export wording work naturally for both aircraft and ground vehicles.

AIRCRAFT LOADOUTS AND ANIMATED DETAILS

• Aircraft → Loadout now exposes every resolved static authored loadout in the installed Great Battles and Korea libraries: 2,015 renderable configurations across 126 aircraft in the development catalogue. This includes tanks, bombs, rockets, mixed stores and armament variants.
• Loadouts are retained in projects, restored sessions and batch work, and are included in viewport, Quick PNG and Blender/Cycles output.
• Clean configurations now use the games' authored empty-hardpoint pose, removing unwanted default racks and pylons, including on the P-47D-22 and P-47D-28.
• Added Bomb bay doors open for 13 verified Great Battles aircraft. It works with compatible clean and internal-bay loadouts in both export paths, including both door rows on the He 111 H-16.
• Loadout cache management prevents repeated configuration changes from filling the drive; recently used configurations remain quick to revisit.

MORE FAITHFUL AIRCRAFT PRESENTATION

• PRISM now loads the authored detailed cockpits and Korea jet ejection seats where available, with improved canopy behaviour and no duplicate gunner canopy/station geometry.
• Korea pilots now include the helmet, goggles and packed parachute their models specify. A Winter gear option is available on aircraft with seasonal crew assets and is saved with projects and preferences.
• Blender/Cycles spinning-propeller renders use a swept disc when the shutter would blur a blade through a full circle, removing the former grainy prop blur.
• Softbox shadows in the live viewport are substantially smoother. Blender/Cycles shadow rendering is unchanged.
• Korea's original hangar now responds to the existing Daylight control: lamps fade as sunlight rises, and the visible sky brightens with the setting.

NEW COMPOSITION AND SKIN TOOLS

• Added Transparent cutout backgrounds for true-alpha Quick PNG and Blender/Cycles PNG exports, with an optional soft ground shadow.
• Added professional Green screen and Blue screen backgrounds for compositing.
• Korea surface-finish tools can selectively restore the metallic, roughness or reflectivity channel from the original MRR map. Dedicated MRR viewing modes make those channels easier to inspect without affecting exports or saved skins.
• Fixed Blender/Cycles aircraft-shadow artefacts from inward-facing duplicate shells.

BETTER EVERYDAY WORKFLOW

• PRISM reopens the aircraft, livery and scene it was viewing when it was last closed; this is separate from, and does not replace, normal project saves.
• Restored-project startup avoids a first-load shader compilation pause that could previously hold the UI for around 35 seconds.
• The updater window now matches PRISM's light and dark themes more closely.

TERRAIN NOTE

The experimental muddy terrain surface was introduced and then deliberately removed while its visual treatment is revised. Existing saved muddy-terrain choices safely fall back to diamond plate; it is not being presented as a finished feature in this release.

Thank you to everyone testing PRISM and reporting aircraft, vehicle, livery and export edge cases. As ever, PRISM reads assets from your own IL-2 installation; game assets are not bundled with the application.

 

 

Edited September 19 by Haluter

[SundownerVF111]

Haluter,

 

This just keeps getting better and better. However, the C-47 and the P-51 from Great Battles skins don't populate properly.

[Haluter]

6 hours ago, SundownerVF111 said:

Haluter,

 

This just keeps getting better and better. However, the C-47 and the P-51 from Great Battles skins don't populate properly.

Thanks! I'll investigate the C-47 and P-51 skins.

 

Edited September 20 by Haluter

[gabuzomeu]

This is incredibly useful, notably the tool to find location of details on the Korea skins where UV mapping is less than intuitive.

And obviously , the rendering are perfect!

Many thanks

[Haluter]

26 minutes ago, gabuzomeu said:

This is incredibly useful, notably the tool to find location of details on the Korea skins where UV mapping is less than intuitive.

And obviously , the rendering are perfect!

Many thanks

Happy that you find it helpful. If there's any other ideas you have to help skin artists don't hesitate to let me know.

[jocko417]

Excellent, thanks!

 

 

Coming along...

Edited September 21 by jocko417

[actionhank]

This is awesome! It's going to be so much nicer using this compared to having to open Il-2 every time.

Edit: Awesome doesn't do this justice. Being able to just automatically refresh when I save the skin is incredible. This is probably better than the DCS model viewer.

Edited September 24 by actionhank

[Haluter]

3 hours ago, actionhank said:

This is awesome! It's going to be so much nicer using this compared to having to open Il-2 every time.

Edit: Awesome doesn't do this justice. Being able to just automatically refresh when I save the skin is incredible. This is probably better than the DCS model viewer.

Thank you 🙂 I plan on releasing a significant update soon which enables full skin editing in PRISM.

 

Edited September 24 by Haluter

[actionhank]

2 hours ago, Haluter said:

Thank you 🙂 I plan on releasing a significant update soon which enables full skin editing in PRISM.

 

 

That's going to be incredible. The biggest pain point at times is trying to line things up. Even if it's not as advanced as something like Substance, just being able to draw a basic shape to help me line things up in Photoshop would be so useful.

Can you work this magic on DCS? I'm still recovering from PTSD from trying to paint the Apache and having to locate and color about 300 bolts and rivets that were separately mapped in the template files when I stupidly decided to make a Czech skin for the AH-64.

[Haluter]

2 hours ago, actionhank said:

That's going to be incredible. The biggest pain point at times is trying to line things up. Even if it's not as advanced as something like Substance, just being able to draw a basic shape to help me line things up in Photoshop would be so useful.

Can you work this magic on DCS? I'm still recovering from PTSD from trying to paint the Apache and having to locate and color about 300 bolts and rivets that were separately mapped in the template files when I stupidly decided to make a Czech skin for the AH-64.

DCS in PRISM? That's an interesting idea...

[actionhank]

Just now, Haluter said:

DCS in PRISM? That's an interesting idea...

You've already implemented a lot of the features that DCS' model viewer has that are useful when I'm making skins (the ability to view the skin without lighting, view certain parts of the texture like the reflectivity and everything) but PRISM seems to have a lot of other features that are just such a big improvment.

If there was the ability to actively paint on the 3D model in PRISM, even just marking things to find in the template, that would be wild!

[Haluter]

7 hours ago, actionhank said:

You've already implemented a lot of the features that DCS' model viewer has that are useful when I'm making skins (the ability to view the skin without lighting, view certain parts of the texture like the reflectivity and everything) but PRISM seems to have a lot of other features that are just such a big improvment.

If there was the ability to actively paint on the 3D model in PRISM, even just marking things to find in the template, that would be wild!

PRISM already has an inspection mode where you can click anywhere on the 3D model and it will highlight the exact spot on the flat DDS file.

Edited September 25 by Haluter

[JollyJack]

Terrific, much easier than the IL2 viewer ! 

Me dumbo does not get what Blender has to do with it. Got some not found error message at first start. Blender 5 is installed  on a different drive, maybe some portable version. PS i will buy you coffee soon !

PS Indeed there's something wrong with loading c47a skins via browse liveries, seems only a US default body is loaded when selecting a particular one. It looks like only the *** &1#1.dds file is loaded and  the  ***&1.dds not recognized. 

Edited September 25 by JollyJack

[Haluter]

2 hours ago, JollyJack said:

Terrific, much easier than the IL2 viewer ! 

Me dumbo does not get what Blender has to do with it. Got some not found error message at first start. Blender 5 is installed  on a different drive, maybe some portable version. PS i will buy you coffee soon !

PS Indeed there's something wrong with loading c47a skins via browse liveries, seems only a US default body is loaded when selecting a particular one. It looks like only the *** &1#1.dds file is loaded and  the  ***&1.dds not recognized. 

Blender is optional, and its only use is for rendering the absolute highest quality final image that PRISM can deliver. Blender uses your GPU to render the scene using path tracing, which is an improved version of ray tracing. This produces realistic colours, glass, reflections, and true shadows. I exported the same scene through a quick PNG export and through Blender as comparison (ps, looking forward to that coffee! 😋)

The issue with the C-47 liveries has already been resolved in the current dev version.

Edited September 25 by Haluter

[JollyJack]

I have v0.1.74 ... thought that was the latest?

[Haluter]

8 minutes ago, JollyJack said:

I have v0.1.74 ... thought that was the latest?

You have the latest public release, the dev version is up to v0.1.174