Friday 2010-11-12 Dev. update and Discussion

[322Sqn_Dusty]

Can the weathering layer be altered slightly to get varations on the skins or must those be added to the scheme layer?

[luthier]

Originally Posted by 322Sqn_Dusty

Can the weathering layer be altered slightly to get varations on the skins or must those be added to the scheme layer?

I don't know yet what we'll give the user access to. I don't see the need to alter the weathering per se, and the disadvantages probably outweigh the benefits.

We just got really tired of seeing the offensive or the really, really ugly user skins on Il-2 servers. And if we open up the riveting and the weathering and all the rest, then we doom the rest of the community to the same.

[Tte. Costa]

Originally Posted by luthier

So the user texture can actually be a smaller resolution, 512, even 64x64 and still look all right-ish since the riveting and the weathering on top of it are 2048x2048.

Does it means that it is going to be more bandwich friendly, and we can play online easily with custom skins?
I hope the cuestion is understandable, sorry for my poor English.

[Flanker35M]

S!

Nice videos. That Bf109E cockpit and Bf110C just stole the show

[luthier]

Originally Posted by Tte. Costa

Does it means that it is going to be more bandwich friendly, and we can play online easily with custom skins?
I hope the cuestion is understandable, sorry for my poor English.

Yes that's precisely the idea.

Something simple like "green plane with red wings" can really be 64x64 with almost no difference visually from a 2048x2048. You really only need higher resolutions for smaller details like fine mottling or something like that.

Even with that, I'm hard pressed to imagine any paintscheme that really needs 2048x2048, if you delete the rivets and all the other details. Most paintschemes don't have anything near the detail the size of a rivet.

[Foo'bar]

Originally Posted by luthier

So the user texture can actually be a smaller resolution, 512, even 64x64 and still look all right-ish since the riveting and the weathering on top of it are 2048x2048.

Wow, that really is a good way to allow individual paint schemes while decreasing dramatically the mass of files to be spreaded by server. Bravo!

[Oleg Maddox]

Originally Posted by luthier

2048x2048.

But, it's complicated.

We have split up the paintscheme, the actual colors, from the rest of the texture - the rivets, the panel lines, the weathering, etc. The user texture is just the colors, i.e. your experience as a texturer is like simply coming up to the finished plane with some paint and a paintbrush, not actually re-riveting it or moving panels around.

So the user texture can actually be a smaller resolution, 512, even 64x64 and still look all right-ish since the riveting and the weathering on top of it are 2048x2048.

You was telling too many secrets already in this post. stop please Ilya.

Originally Posted by Oleg Maddox

You was telling too many secrets already in this post. stop please Ilya.

Are you just kidding, Oleg?
Don't you have some private adress to tell him that?

[Friendly_flyer]

Originally Posted by luthier

So the user texture can actually be a smaller resolution, 512, even 64x64 and still look all right-ish since the riveting and the weathering on top of it are 2048x2048.

I hope you are going to allow for the regular size skin too though. Markings are not going to look good in 64 x 64.

[dflion]

Thanks Oleg,
Very good video demo - the Stuka looks fantastic in HD.
The 'Cliffs of Dover' demo was excellent showing us the high aircraft detail, good framerate, cockpit sounds/voices, (I particularly like the cannon sounds) shadows and lighting and the great music score by Grigory Landman. All I wanted at the end was the Hurricane to land at one of the English airfields?
Can you give us a report on the Games Exhibition?
DFLion