Don't see what the fuss is about really - when you actually play the game, you very, very rarely get close enough to another plane to appreciate even the detail that's available now.

Greater colour depth is OK when viewing skinning as an artform/hobby in itself (which I don't, btw), but from an in-game point of view, the chunky differences in the LOD's (the stepped increase in the crudeness of the model to represent increasing distance) is far more noticeable.

I also don't understand why anyone would be using an extensive palate to skin a military aircraft - the point is to best represent a three-dimensional object (i.e. bring out the play of light on surfaces), not show how great a painter you are.

"you very, very rarely get close enough" so is this close enough for you?
http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l116/305th/256.jpg

Perhaps you may have missed the emphasis of my post, I'm not talking about the other aircraft, I'm talking about the one I'm sitting in.

[QUOTE=Phil_K;447282]Greater colour depth is OK when viewing skinning as an artform/hobby in itself (which I don't, btw), but from an in-game point of view, the chunky differences in the LOD's (the stepped increase in the crudeness of the model to represent increasing distance) is far more noticeable.

Sure if your focus is mainly beyond your own aircraft then maybe you do not have the opportunity to admire your own wings, engines, etc. but if you’re flying long bomber or fighter bomber missions you can have plenty of time to look over your wings, and with some German aircraft it is somewhat necessary to do so as the engine related instruments are on the cowls.

Most military paintwork is applied with an airgun and thus there are smooth graduations between differing colours and when you add other details like panel lines, rivet detail, stencilling, weathering, etc. then the limitation of 256 colours is simply just that a limitation that is usually resolved by harsh and dithering.

If the entire environment is so un-important then we might as well still be flying Aces over Europe or Air War Over Europe with better FMs.

So skinning isnt a hobby & artform in your opinion? Wow :rolleyes:

Yeah, but the point I would make is that at this close distance, it is the limitations of the model that is more of an immersion killer than the limitations of the skin - i.e. the best skin in the world won't make up for a model that just hasn't been built for 2048 x 2048 skins.

Not for myself personally, no.

As you know, I make loads of skins and loads of missions and campaigns, and for me the skins are purely there to augment the missions I write.

For yourself and others the emphasis may be different, and that's fair enough, but as a player of the game there are an enormous amount of things that I would request prior to improved skin definition.

Improved landscape textures for a start!