Some new official info from ubi forums

[Tacoma74]

Originally Posted by JG53Frankyboy

i have a lot of very weird and ugly skins in my cache folder from flying online in the VOW online war......................

anyway, could you imagine how big CoD quility skins would be for the network traffic ?!?!?!
so, "only" the colors have to be tranfered.
I belive its a good solution, even some crack skinners will not like it !

Yes, i've seen some terrible terrible looking skins. Oleg made a wise decision in my eyes. It should make skinning easier for the average user, thus giving us (the community) alot more quality skins to choose from for our own self-built campaigns and missions. All in all its going to be much more professional looking than 1946 is.

[Zorin]

Originally Posted by Tacoma74

Yes, i've seen some terrible terrible looking skins. Oleg made a wise decision in my eyes. It should make skinning easier for the average user, thus giving us (the community) alot more quality skins to choose from for our own self-built campaigns and missions. All in all its going to be much more professional looking than 1946 is.

You are aware that the colour layer is the one that actually turns a skin into an atrocious one, right? Just because you can't alter rivets and weathering doesn't mean people will stop putting Hello Kitty stickers on them or black flames or whatever nonsense floats their boat. So this decision will have no impact on this whatsoever.

[Tacoma74]

Originally Posted by Zorin

You are aware that the colour layer is the one that actually turns a skin into an atrocious one, right? Just because you can't alter rivets and weathering doesn't mean people will stop putting Hello Kitty stickers on them or black flames or whatever nonsense floats their boat. So this decision will have no impact on this whatsoever.

I disagree. Where the skinner doesn't have to go in and personally apply every rivet, and apply weathering by hand it's no doubt going to make the process alot easier. And, if people are really going to put hello kitty on their plane than thats just making them a big huge target. Not only for being shot at, but for being flamed as well. For those of us that actually take this sim more seriously, this decision by Oleg is a good one. This is my personal belief, i'm not necessarily sticking up for Oleg.

[Zorin]

Originally Posted by Tacoma74

I disagree. Where the skinner doesn't have to go in and personally apply every rivet, and apply weathering by hand it's no doubt going to make the process alot easier. And, if people are really going to put hello kitty on their plane than thats just making them a big huge target. Not only for being shot at, but for being flamed as well. For those of us that actually take this sim more seriously, this decision by Oleg is a good one. This is my personal belief, i'm not necessarily sticking up for Oleg.

The skinners actually enjoy this process, that is why they are skinners in the first place. Painting a simple camo pattern is kindergarten level and will certainly discourage the top skinners of our community.

[Tacoma74]

Originally Posted by Zorin

The skinners actually enjoy this process, that is why they are skinners in the first place. Painting a simple camo pattern is kindergarten level and will certainly discourage the top skinners of our community.

Well I'm sure they do, I'll agree with you on that one. But by taking alot of the guess work out of this it should allow for a better finished product. And besides, I was referring more towards the average user being able to make skins that they want, when they want them. Otherwise you have to go somewhere and make a skin request, and maybe it just doesn't turn out the way you want it. No offense to those who are skinners, but I would just rather do it myself instead of possibly getting "lost in translation" if you will. But I would expect the skinning community to stay alive. There are simply alot of users out there that just won't want to deal with making skins.

Another thing. With the insanely accurate and high detailed plane models, I would imagine that if the skinning process was the same as in previous versions of IL-2, than it would be a bit harder and alot more time consuming than it already can be. But of coarse, I'm no expert on this.

[philip.ed]

A bomber-formation of 21? I understand if the user can increase this, but that is just pathetic. I hope there is an easy way for the user to select formation sizes in order to increase them for the campaign.
I was hoping, with the improvement in technology, that it would be possible to have huge formation sizes like in BoB2. Of course, this could all change, but I was hoping for a larger size than this as a baseline.

[Zorin]

Originally Posted by philip.ed

A bomber-formation of 21? I understand if the user can increase this, but that is just pathetic. I hope there is an easy way for the user to select formation sizes in order to increase them for the campaign.
I was hoping, with the improvement in technology, that it would be possible to have huge formation sizes like in BoB2. Of course, this could all change, but I was hoping for a larger size than this as a baseline.

Indeed, especially with Oleg stating that the formation dynamics are scalable and that planes further away from the player are simplified in terms of mesh AND flight model.

Maybe another big improvement that was sent to the back burner?

[The Kraken]

Originally Posted by Zorin

Indeed, especially with Oleg stating that the formation dynamics are scalable and that planes further away from the player are simplified in terms of mesh AND flight model.

Maybe another big improvement that was sent to the back burner?

I was (actually for years now) waiting for official info on that aspect, but never found any word from the devs, so I don't consider this another "promised feature". If all planes on the map have the full flight, damage and AI models (with all the pros and cons of that approach) it's obvious that we won't get several hundred planes at once in a mission. A bit unfortunate that the Battle of Britain is the starting point for this new series, because some Eastern front scenarios wouldn't suffer much from such a restriction.

On the other hand it's nothing that raw CPU power won't fix on the long run.

[Stiboo]

I'm sure access will be granted to the weathering layers eventually and i'm also sure that we'll be able to ' mod' the weathering templates very very soon after release!

Sounds like a good idea for online play given the size of the skins, I don't think modded weathering templates will effect online play if it has the same file name?

Oleg and Ilya know what amazing skinners IL2 has.

[carl]

Originally Posted by philip.ed
A bomber-formation of 21? I understand if the user can increase this, but that is just pathetic

21 bombers on the screen at the same time, that is amazing, things just keep getting better, counting the days