thepod

im not in charge, but i saw a comment asking this, and im sure it was nineline that replied with something like "all of our ED models will be encrypted, it is up to 3rd parties if the ychoose to or not" i cant see why ED would care in any way if someone stole one FlyingIron's models, im sure they would nto aprpove becuase it is clearly wrong, but it wont reduce ED's income. none of this IP theft argument stands up - stealing a model has ZERO effect on sales.

hello there, there will be no user skins for the fulcrum. ED decided to prevent people from making skins for new models. They had the competition for the new F5 and only one person tried to make a skin for it so ED had to swallow their pride and cancel the competition. Unless you know anyone senior in ED who can sort this, it wil laffect all modules from now on sadly

With all respect @NineLine is anyone at ED aware that the "protection" doesnt actually work ? If they have not figured it out yet, the encrypted models were cracked months ago so this does nothing to prevent the people who really interested in obtaining an effectvely useless 3D model, and just irritates the tens of thousands of people t hat make skins, campaign writers, content creators and 3rd party developers. We all appreciate that the chief coder / development manager in Minsk most probably does not spend much time on the forums listening to the people they write code for - which is why they have community managers - probably a frustrating and sometimes thankless task. We are trying to help, we all want to help ED fix the problem, but the problem is redundant. the decision to attempt to encrypt models must have been taken by the level of Kate Perederko not a middle level local coder, and any fix can be resolved very easily. As a project manager, you do not delay a 1 day task by a year because the bigger task is a priority, you delay the 12 month long task by 0.3% of its life by resolving other problems before they become more significant. This topic will be brought up EVERY SINGLE time it happens because the people that pay for it - the customers - do not want it and with BMS, Titan, Falcon5, Microprose and UE snapping at the heels of DCS, there wont be a monopoly on the genre and ED will not be able to afford to continue to dismiss their customers concerns. Thank you

it has nothing to do with asset protection. ED doesnt sell its 3d models and even stolen 3d models can only be used in very limited ways, adn none of those take revenue away away from DCS. Players who want to play DCS MUST have a module, so have to pay. If they want the 3d asset, they can get that online cheaply. If they want the model then they wont bother buying a game module. The end product is that ED spends time making a 3D model, puts it into the game and its stolen. but that is not stolen revenue, because the model was never a saleable item. the game module that is the saleable item continues to be sold. if there are 50,000 people who buy the F18, how many times do you think it is stolen, by people that would have ONLY bought the F18 module to access t he 3d model? its basically zero. ED may try to claim that the time spent building a model and losing it is a waste and it is, but the investment in the model was used to add comemrcia lvalue to the module....so there is no loss. you can dress it up as a loss to try and justify financial decisions but thats just not true. On a side topic, if the claims by RB that ED dont pay them were false, ED would have sued them imemdiatley. They didnt. so a company that is so keen to protect its assests and reputation is happy to be defamed ? No. so its highly likley that ED did not pay razbam at all. the point or agument is the reason ED is attmeping to use to justify it is that RB broke the terms of the contract, adn RB say they didnt. thats actually really easy to sort out. But this whole encryption farce is nothing to do with finances, thats for sure

Not at all making up anything so do not call me a liar in public thank you, so please show some respect. I do not insult you or any other individiual. You (ED) DO remove posts, lock threads and close down discussions, always when it gets challenging and ED are in a corner, or caught out being disingenuos. Its understandable, its human nature to be defensive, but it does not engender trust or cooperation and all of the most successful companies are ones that do.

i was going to comment, but I dont see the point. there is no right of freedom of expression in a privately owned forum, but removing posts, restricting discussion and gaslighting appears to be a common occurrence. Yes, nobody is happy all the time, yes there is im sure a never-ending list of gripes and complaints, but the reason people get worked up is simple - the whole of the ED media and community engagement machine seems to be an excercise in going against every single established corporate media communications practice. Sophistry, semantics, obfuscation and stonewalling. The simple fact that the communty's best skinners are refusing to enter speaks volumes but falls on deaf ears. We all appreciate that a community manager is a borderline thankless task and probably rather demoralising at times. but the system is broken and trundles along, not because of how it works, but in spite of it. Its simply astonishing. people keep asking the same question because they never get answered. Im pretty sure Sniper Elite V doesnt have this level of fiery debate between t he software firm and the players - but Sniper Elite doesnt trade on, and openly rely on its players to create essential free content. By actively encouraging not just facilitating a vast library of user generated content to flesh out the game, ED tacitly accept that players and creators are intertwined in the process and their views should be accepted more freely. Toodle pip, Cheers.

I hope that the engineers in ED sort this - its not insurmountable. But if its not addressed and the encryption of 3D models is extended to older models, not just newer ones, then missions and campaigns will become extinct. The majority of players/users have a keen and obsessive interest in a theatre, airframe or Squadron etc. They will not accept a campaign set in say, Bosnia that has to feature 1986 skins. If modules are encrypted, campaings will just wither and die while the included ED missions and campaigns are...lacking. The community and 3rd parties add so much more to the base package than ED provide. Wags and Nick ackowledge as much. Or they are dishonest? It cant be both. These skins were made for the benefit of the DCS community, for the love of the environment. Each one required countless hours of work. Literllyy hundreds of restarts and refreshes within MV2. They are without a doubt, impossible without access to a MV application. The JASDF Camo i think includes thousands of seperately applied 40x40 pixel squares. If ED decide that they would rather protect 3D models that they know are easily ripped but at the sacrifice of a rich and flourishing extended DCS library of playable resources, that is their prerogative but will severly diminish the depth and breadth of the envonment for no measurable benefit and skins liek these and hundreds of others will become impossible unless ED want to spend thousands of hours on a task that has no financial gain

I dont think leeh1y has heard of the phrase "people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones". I would be embarrassed to produce work like this amd get caught just using images I found on Wikipedia on my "expert official skins"

But.....you take others work and use it ? You use model aircraft decals on your skins. im confused. I dont understand what is ok and what is not now.

so someone is using a skin you published for public use? have they claimed it was all their own work or just used it in their squadron? have thy uploaded the files claiming it is theirs ? If they have used a skin that is available they can do what they want to it....unless they are caliming it to be theirs or re-uploading it to user files, they havnt done anythign wrong...

i made them as a special request im afraid

this is the kind of qualkityt ED are wantign to include ?! REALLY ?!

asking for people to contribute to a number of skins that Wags wanted in-game, then tellign everyone not to bother because they have picked someone who has been considered a controversial choice - who is for soem reason popular among a vocal minority but there are questions around their technical ability.

There has been some very odd activity around previous competitions - the Apche one asked for entries and had some amazinbg skins produced....and the winners were plain green with a different squadron badge. The B17 competion and the discussions around roughmets and PBR/Specular maps.....then the Mossie competiion that again, the winners were rather similar to what was available already. A competiion usually showcases the best and the most innovative, the most creative, a winner should be head and shoulders above the others. For @Wags to ask for entries and then a minute later say we are going with someone who in my view is surpassed in terms of creativity and innovation by many others seems again, unusual. Its also sad that the most talented livery creators out there dont even bother to enter the livery competions any more. They just dont see the point of putting days of work into a complex, custom 3 colour Apached camoflage pattern when the see winning entries are indistinguishable from t he default one. I produce skins for several prominent content creators, official campaign makers and third parties. i know many others pixel-pushers that do. We all would have liked the oppertunity to contribute to what we all spend countless hours on, day in, day out. You missed another opeprtunity, ED, another missed oppertunity. Sad times.

Hi, I have just uploaded my version of the Spirit of Goldsboro - it has all new hi-res decals in true 4K and is as accurate as i can get it i believe.

Some teasers.....progress is slow, but hoping it comes together and is something special...

Hey everyone, here is my AH64D (Royal Navy AH1) livery, "Wildcat" I hope you like it ! https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3322489/ null

Did you ever get this sorted mate? That's pretty slick!

Come on ED, do it!!

Hi MadMaxter, ive been working on some skins for the T45 - its a lovely little plane, wel ldone - but i cant seem to edit t he Roughmets - the default roughness maps in the textures folder cannot be edited, only replaced? Id like to be able to make changes to the roughmets on my liveries (RAF hawks were not very shiny!) but i can only replce the default texture, which will change every livery....is that correct? ive tried everything i cna think of....Thanks for your help!

I have done the Mig29 one it is on user files by "narked_fish" I will do more when I get time

I'm doing a totally new Killer Bee as as side project and might squeeze them in afterwards

You can drag and drop the shark mouth layers from the old model into the C2 with no problems. As the noseart is not copyrighted I would suggest that you trace the outline of the mouth you are looking for from an existing freeware skin and onto a new layer.

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3315610/ the Mirage!

Deffo, it cant be that much of a technical challenge?