Future "SKINS" for SB2

[9erRed]

Greetings all.

While working on a few skins I've come to the conclusion that "8 bit" graphics...suck. That being said, i've now got a question for .... Ssnake.
Q: What will be the perameters for any "user" addins to the graphics. In ref. to a "skin"? Or will that function even be avail? Or will there be a design program included, to customize the skins or complete "Mods"?
Q: Will the image size still be 256x256, or will we be able to increase this for High Def. images? And will image size still be restricted to 65Kb?
Q: Will the colour palette increase to 16 mil. colours and/or 32bit?

Those questions being said, ...It may be advisable for the "skin" designers out there to "gather your skin colllection" for a future "tweaking" to smooth out the irregularities in colour and shape if the images are "straight converted" to a higher format.( if thats even avail.?) As the contours and shapes of most vehicles will change, older "skins" may no longer "fit". And a new and improved edition may be required.

All for now... 9erRed ..... out

[Ssnake]

Of course you are aware that you force me to speculate about certain items. So all statements that I will make in this message must be considered (in part) as plans, the development goal of eSim's, and not necessarily fact. This in particular for the description of more complex issues below.
Q: What will be the perameters for any "user" addins to the graphics. In ref. to a "skin"? Or will that function even be avail? Or will there be a design program included, to customize the skins or complete "Mods"?1) We have no intentions to include a paint program. There are better tools out there than we could develop.
2) SB2 will come with at least three different camo paint sets per vehicle, Summer, Winter, and Desert. That should eliminate the need for most skins.
3) I hope that we can design the file structure in a way that it will be easier to add alternative camo sets instead of swapping the files by batch copy/rename oberations. The final decision is Al's, and it will largely depend on whether there are "more important" things to work on.Q: Will the image size still be 256x256 ... And will image size still be restricted to 65Kb?No, of course not. While SB2 will remain comparatively moderate in its video RAM requirements (min: 16MByte, may: 64MByte), we do intend to take advantage of 3D accelerator hardware, and that includes higher resolutions for the textures.Q: Will the colour palette increase to 16 mil. colours and/or 32bit?Of course, although some cards may force the user to settle with 16 bit dithered rendering.


You should be aware that many things will be handeled differently in SB2. There's entirely new models for every vehicle, and potentially completely new mapping of the textures.
It won't make sense for you to develop skins "in advance".

[Brad_Edmondson]

Can we 'decal' those skins with unit markings?

[burner]

Will SB2 images retain the same .bmp file format as SB1?

Btw gameplay for me is more important than graphics. Case in point is MS CFS 3 which to run properly you need to have a P4 3Gb with all the bells & whistles. On my present P3 1Gb is not good enough....