CoD disappointing in skinning matters!

[Kikuchiyo]

Originally Posted by HEERDT

This is the most ridiculous fanboi post yet.

Lets reflect back a few years shall we? The former state of aircraft release skins of many planes by Maddox and 1C was WRONG! The adjustments of skins and the true historical corrections made by the people in this community have perpetuated IL2 for many years. Skinning, Modding and non official patches have kept alive what we so cherish. The ignorance of some of the posts here is amazing to say the least.Sure you can pull the so called "Gay Disco" paint scheme card from your hat and walk away like you said something intelligent or even relevant to this conversation... but its not. Along with the few kid/amateur paint schemes out there ,there are 100's of historical recreations and corrections done for free by history lovers and IL2 enthusiats.

All Armin is trying to say here is that the system that 1C and Maddox has introduced , has taken away from the owners and enthusiast of IL2 the ablility to expand upon it. Just as we have so done for many years in the past. One of the reasons IL2 is still alive and 1C has made money on it still to this day is because of US!!! The Skinners and Modders. I will say with profound respect to the people who have given back to this community by developing FREE add on and upgrades to us for our enjoyment.... Thank You. You leg humpers thats have posted here probably have never given one thing back. As most of you who have bashed this thread,I have never seen your names anywhere for contributing to our community. And it shows by your posts and lack of respect to those who have kept this Sim moving forward years after its release.

I'd say that "historically correct skinning" kept the game alive is an extreme exaggeration. That is a inflated sense of self talking right there. I don't give a XXXX if the skin is 100% correct to some specific squad. I fly full ******* switch and don't give two shits if the panels lines are slightly wrong, or the cammo is off. You are too full of yourself. The reasoning behind not having panel lines customizable is simple: a) too many skinners didn't pay any attention to panel lines, b) the in game panel lines match up with the collapsible panels of the game. If you re-panel them then you end up with unrealistic damage that falls between your so-called historically accurate panels and the panels the devs used.

Edit: Apologies if this post offends, but I've grown really sick of the arguments regarding skinning. From what I can tell most players (even full switch) don't really worry that much about the historical accuracy of exact panel lines and paint schemes. In the end I think what 1C Maddox went with (providing accurate damage of panels) out weighs the desire of a few for 100% historical accuracy. I respect the quality skinners of this community, but rivets and panel lines do not a quality skin make.

[Chivas]

When the aircraft was ready to paint, did the aircraft painter have the aircraft panels replaced if he didn't like the location and size of the panel lines. The panels are accurately placed and I don't see any reason why you can't do a creative paint job over historically correct aircraft panels.

[VH-Rock]

Hi Guys,

This is my first post here but I have been a long time lurker.

I am a founder of the Axis and Allies Paintworks website. We pride our selves on making historically accurate skins to the best of our ability within the limitations of the virtual world. Il-2 has, for many years, provided us with the best platform to make historically correct skins and this is purely because of it's fully customizable (in most cases) templates.

Some people posting in this thread seem to take offence that we are questioning the means of skinning in this new game and say that we are elitist and "big headed" just for worrying about the future integrity of our hobby. Are we suddenly wrong for wanting and aiming for perfection? For years, people have downloaded our work because of this historical accuracy, the time, effort and research we put into our skins. To then be dismissed by the company which we have supported for the past 10 years is deeply offending and disheartening.

In principal, the idea of having multi layered skins with the panel lines in a separate file is an excellent idea to help new people coming into skinning, BUT, If Il-2 is anything to go by, we have seen that skinning is not a high priority on the list of things to do as some of the original release skins were truly dreadful... Many of you have been saying that "well, the skins have improved over time, look at the 4.09 release". Yes, I agree, but that is because many of them have been done by us. Members of the community who have spent months building these templates to get them as accurate as possible, hours researching colours (Just recently Myself and a friend spent 3 days messing with colours trying to get the most accurate match for the photographs of the aircraft in question), and months researching, reading and searching for information on particular aircraft.

I am not against having the panel lines as being none editable, BUT, as it is possible to turn off the weathering in game if we want, why not make it possible to turn these off? People here are saying that "These panel lines and rivets are 100% accurate, why would you want to change it!?!" Well, that's simple, I can guarantee you that they are not. That is not to say that ours would be 100% either (Perfection is, as they say, something you spend 99% of the time chasing and rarely achieve) however not having these layers as editable means that we would not be able to change opacity of the lines or rivets which in itself can be a major downfall of an otherwise great skin.

As I said, I am not here to say "this sucks, that sucks" and get into a pointless argument over X,Y and Z but surely you can see from the sheer number of downloads of skins over the last 10 years, that skinning is a huge part of Il-2 and really does add to the game... I am all for helping new people get into skinning, the more the merrier, but for us old hands who've been at it for a while, this is a severely limiting factor.

Please do not take this as an offensive post to Oleg, 1C, Ubisoft or any other single individual, myself and my friends here such as Cheruskerarmin who started this thread are merely trying to ensure that our hobby is here for the long term. I realise that many of you out there say that "Most people dont care about 100% accuracy" but the fact is that there are some people that do. I've never heard of anybody complaining about something being too accurate but ofcourse I have heard of the reverse. Remember the old days of Il-2 when people complained of aircraft having porked FM's? This is just as bigger deal as that to us. For all our time, effort and dedication which we put into skinning, to be dismissed as "Horrible 10 minute hack jobs" was extremely wrong.

All the best,

Rob.

www.axis-and-allies-paintworks.com

[Jarink]

It's been a long time since I've posted on this forum and from the vitriol being spewed by some of the posters here one can understand why. Geez, and I thought the Zoo was bad.

To those of you who are saying ""I don't care about the skins", "Who cares about 100% accuracy", "Accurate panels and rivets don't make a good skin" I ask YOU this:

Would allowing those of us who DO care about being able to edit these layers break the game?

Would it completely ruin your enjoyment of CoD if a skinner came up with a better set of lines or better looking weathering? Is asking for the ability to fully edit the appearance of the skins unreasonable? Would allowing this change gameplay or allow cheating?

The answer to all of those questions is "No, allowing these changes would have ABSOLUTELY NO EFFECT on you." It does make a lot of difference to some of us, however, and as we are all potential customers of the game, all of our opinions should matter.

[cheruskerarmin]

@CharveL

Go back to your first post, you started jeering at me ('Hello Kitty Skin') and not viceversa. So don't turn things upside down here now.

Not easy posting here, i never felt disliked and offended in any forum that way.

I again have to repeat i was not offending anyone here! I just started this post to discuss my point of view regarding the fixed rivet/lines. Nothing else.
Many forum members did post their own point of view with some good points - and without any offending or jeering remarkings. THX a lot to those of you, and especially those who did and still do a lot of work themselves for the Il-2 community.

I agree to those who are saying IL-2 is a flight sim in the first place. Many skinners are members in online squadrons too. But there are a lot of offline players too. Amongst these are again a lot who are caring for historical accurateness of paintschemes or even just like to have their missions fitted with matching beautiful skins - for the eye candy. You can choose what you like, don't choose bad or ugly ones. There are enough first class skins available for free, all made with a lot of enthusiasm and time spent, no money earned with.
Download numbers of skins are speaking for themselves.
We just want to have an excellent sim looking very best fitted with excellent skins. And the selfmade ones will look much better than any game generated - if you choose these wellmade ones.

I don't think there is any harm for anyone the developers would make the panel lines/rivets a selectable option. Skinners would be happy - and those who wish to have them game generated too. For a minium effort. So what is the developers problem? I assume it has to do with modding, can't say this for sure because i am not using mods.

@chivas, winny
I explained some posts before that i. e. paint chipping or exhaust smoke, shading, lighting effect has to be on top of the rivets/lines. This isn't possible with a game generated fixed rivet/lines layer, which will always be on top of the selfmade skin. No problem if you use the ingame weathering but skinners are usually making their own weathering effects. The ingame weathering is a selectable option, the ingame rivets/lines unfortunately aren't.

@Kikuchiyo
Making own panel lines/rivets with well looking 3d and lighting/shadow effects were there aren't any on the 3D a/c models is the 'highest art' of skinning - and most difficult like well looking weathering effects.
It's a challenge.
So they cut away our 'highest level' in skinning from the game. You can't make own panel lines and most likely have to use the ingame weathering to get it on top of the lines/rivets. You are reduced to make a camo and some
markings, that's all.
Surely you have to be a skinner yourself to see it that way.

@Jarink, Heerdt, VH-Rock
Thank you very much for supporting my point of views here.

[Chivas]

Originally Posted by cheruskerarmin

@CharveL

Go back to your first post, you started jeering at me ('Hello Kitty Skin') and not viceversa. So don't turn things upside down here now.

Not easy posting here, i never felt disliked and offended in any forum that way.

I again have to repeat i was not offending anyone here! I just started this post to discuss my point of view regarding the fixed rivet/lines. Nothing else.
Many forum members did post their own point of view with some good points - and without any offending or jeering remarkings. THX a lot to those of you, and especially those who did and still do a lot of work themselves for the Il-2 community.

I agree to those who are saying IL-2 is a flight sim in the first place. Many skinners are members in online squadrons too. But there are a lot of offline players too. Amongst these are again a lot who are caring for historical accurateness of paintschemes or even just like to have their missions fitted with matching beautiful skins - for the eye candy. You can choose what you like, don't choose bad or ugly ones. There are enough first class skins available for free, all made with a lot of enthusiasm and time spent, no money earned with.
Download numbers of skins are speaking for themselves.
We just want to have an excellent sim looking very best fitted with excellent skins. And the selfmade ones will look much better than any game generated - if you choose these wellmade ones.

I don't think there is any harm for anyone the developers would make the panel lines/rivets a selectable option. Skinners would be happy - and those who wish to have them game generated too. For a minium effort. So what is the developers problem? I assume it has to do with modding, can't say this for sure because i am not using mods.

@chivas, winny
I explained some posts before that i. e. paint chipping or exhaust smoke, shading, lighting effect has to be on top of the rivets/lines. This isn't possible with a game generated fixed rivet/lines layer, which will always be on top of the selfmade skin. No problem if you use the ingame weathering but skinners are usually making their own weathering effects. The ingame weathering is a selectable option, the ingame rivets/lines unfortunately aren't.

@Kikuchiyo
Making own panel lines/rivets with well looking 3d and lighting/shadow effects were there aren't any on the 3D a/c models is the 'highest art' of skinning - and most difficult like well looking weathering effects.
It's a challenge.
So they cut away our 'highest level' in skinning from the game. You can't make own panel lines and most likely have to use the ingame weathering to get it on top of the lines/rivets. You are reduced to make a camo and some
markings, that's all.
Surely you have to be a skinner yourself to see it that way.

@Jarink, Heerdt, VH-Rock
Thank you very much for supporting my point of views here.

This doesn't make any sense to me. Can't you paint over the rivet, but the rivet should obviously still be visible under your new paint job.

[Kikuchiyo]

Originally Posted by Jarink

It's been a long time since I've posted on this forum and from the vitriol being spewed by some of the posters here one can understand why. Geez, and I thought the Zoo was bad.

To those of you who are saying ""I don't care about the skins", "Who cares about 100% accuracy", "Accurate panels and rivets don't make a good skin" I ask YOU this:

Would allowing those of us who DO care about being able to edit these layers break the game?

Would it completely ruin your enjoyment of CoD if a skinner came up with a better set of lines or better looking weathering? Is asking for the ability to fully edit the appearance of the skins unreasonable? Would allowing this change gameplay or allow cheating?

The answer to all of those questions is "No, allowing these changes would have ABSOLUTELY NO EFFECT on you." It does make a lot of difference to some of us, however, and as we are all potential customers of the game, all of our opinions should matter.

Actually yes changing the panel/rivet layer would as I pointed out. The game is designed so that you end up with accurate weathering and damage along the established panel lines. How accurate would your skin look if a panel was half collapsed as if two separate panels exist, or if the weathering was following a panel line that didn't exsit?

I can understand your sentiments, but the only reason I chimed in was someone claiming that skinning was more or less the sole reason that Il-2:Sturmovik experienced such a long life. I can see how the new state of things may be disappointing for you, and I can empathize, but making such bold and erroneous claims irks me a great deal. I did edit in an apology to my rather harsh post almost immediately after posting. I was worked up, and realized it soon after.

Again I apologize for being overly harsh, but I also hope that you can see how/why editing panel lines in this new sim may actually dimish both the quality and accuracy of both your skinning and the sims attention to detail.

[Lucas_From_Hell]

Originally Posted by Jarink

Would allowing those of us who DO care about being able to edit these layers break the game?

Would it completely ruin your enjoyment of CoD if a skinner came up with a better set of lines or better looking weathering? Is asking for the ability to fully edit the appearance of the skins unreasonable? Would allowing this change gameplay or allow cheating?

The answer to all of those questions is "No, allowing these changes would have ABSOLUTELY NO EFFECT on you." It does make a lot of difference to some of us, however, and as we are all potential customers of the game, all of our opinions should matter.

It is indeed a fair point. I, and I guess everyone here, would like to have as much realism as possible, if available.

But: one thing most people are ignoring is the new DAMAGE MODEL.

In our beloved Il-2 1946 and previous titles, the visual damage served, roughly, as just a vague way to tell you (both targeted and attacking a/c) what's going on. But that was about it really. So having a new, enhanced set or rivets and panel lines - and yes, those do make it prettier and more enjoyable - was always something incredibly welcome, and kept us flying for a few more minutes and possibly hours, contemplating the masterpieces offered by the community.

In this particular case, however, any damaged caused upon an aircraft causes a reaction that accords to the structure of the victim. No problem so far. So, the panel covering the ammunition belts on your left wing is blown off by some 20mm shell fired by that B'n'Z'ing MoFo that won't let go of you at all. Great, realistic damage, woohoo!

The big issue with changing it is, the lines presented by default are made according to the structure model. Unlike in the "classic" Il-2, rivets, panels and whatnot are brought to us as PHYSICAL parts of the aircraft, instead of the VISUAL importance they held back then.

They have become part of the aircraft itself instead of the pain scheme.

The point where I'm trying to get to is that, basically: by repositioning a rivet/panel-line (or anything implemented in similar fashion), as soon as the aircraft is damaged, it'll be obvious that it was edited, since the lines and the actual panels won't match, and this, as far as I'm concerned, is a way bigger and more noticeable immersion breaker than a slightly mispositioned rivet.

You're less likely to notice the mistakes (and in this case, I'd dare to say they're barely present, if at all in some cases) when the whole simulation around it is coherent than when one issue is addressed but all the surrounding factors are still wrongly depicted.

When everything is according, there is no contrast or whatsoever, whereas when you don't fully fix the problem, all issues are highlighted.

If there's anything to address, I'd suggest letting the developers know so that it can be completely solved in future patches. That'd include any related change to the structure, damage and even flight model that may be needed, and thus everyone would be happy - both skinners and players in general.

Happy flying and skinning everyone

[Pierre@]

I slightly modified "JG53_2.jpg" stock texture:

[ElAurens]

Very nice.