How do skins work in MP?

[SharpeXB]

If you want to be able to see another players custom skin, Do you have to have it downloaded to your drive?

[Nirvi]

If you want to be able to see another players custom skin, Do you have to have it downloaded to your drive?

 

Exactly.

[Slipp]

Exactly.

 

I hope they fix this in DCS2. It's such an important feature.

[Shmick]

I hope they fix this in DCS2. It's such an important feature.

 

It'd have to be optional or skins limited in detail, coz I don't wanna have to download 200 meg of fresh skins every time I join a server :-P

[Flagrum]

It'd have to be optional or skins limited in detail, coz I don't wanna have to download 200 meg of fresh skins every time I join a server :-P

I was about to write something similar (and 200 MB could be even on the lower side of things if a single livery is already 50-80 MB).

 

But what if ED would introduce a feature which would allow just a single, customized layer to be shared between MP clients for their already existing and installed skins. So that everyone could use one of the standard skins, but could customize it with some sort of decal layer.

[=Pedro=]

I was about to write something similar (and 200 MB could be even on the lower side of things if a single livery is already 50-80 MB).

 

But what if ED would introduce a feature which would allow just a single, customized layer to be shared between MP clients for their already existing and installed skins. So that everyone could use one of the standard skins, but could customize it with some sort of decal layer.

 

And that would be a great feature, wouldn't it. :music_whistling:

[Shmick]

But what if ED would introduce a feature which would allow just a single, customized layer to be shared between MP clients for their already existing and installed skins. So that everyone could use one of the standard skins, but could customize it with some sort of decal layer.

 

Yeah, I like that.

 

It'd still potentially be a bunch of info though and whether you'd transfer it peer-to-peer (which could be very slow and would be a bit error prone methinks) or have your client upload it to the server would be an interesting one.

 

Sounds like the kind of thing that would perhaps best be done by mods? Presumably when I'm connected to a server with you and you've got a custom skin, my client gets the skin (file?) name... Could a mod tell that my install doesn't have that skin and attempt to fetch it from http://awesomedcsskinsmod.com/, where you've uploaded it?

 

Just riffin'... :-P

[112th_Rossi]

IL2 did this well. It would trickle load the skins over time while in MP and stored them as MD5 hashes in the games cache files.

[Slipp]

IL2 did this well. It would trickle load the skins over time while in MP and stored them as MD5 hashes in the games cache files.

 

And if your net couldn't support it, you could always turn it off. This was a great way of handling the skins in MP.

[Davis0079]

I loved how IL-2 1946 did this so well. But still, at the end of a year of online play I would have 2000 skins and pilot faces in my cache. Not a problem back then at 1kb a piece.

 

 

42.1mb is the size of my Black F-15 skin.

[112th_Rossi]

I loved how IL-2 1946 did this so well. But still, at the end of a year of online play I would have 2000 skins and pilot faces in my cache. Not a problem back then at 1kb a piece.

 

 

42.1mb is the size of my Black F-15 skin.

 

You could potentially set a limit on the size of the cache.

[BitMaster]

If ED would cooperate, one could make a separate installer for skins, with check marks for each AC, and from time to time you start that downloader, set the hooks, and download all the new skins people UPLOADED before to that specific skin-server. It would also somehow make sure that you don't DL stuff that might be harmful to your computer as you not always know from whom you would be downloading what from them. ED in the middle I think is a good way of centralising things and have a hub for people uploading their arts.

 

If not ED, this could also be done by some smart developer(s) and a decent dl server.

 

Bit

[112th_Rossi]

Theres an alternative method. Half Life servers can have content hosted on a separate http server. So when you connect it will download maps and content from that server rather than the game server.

 

This way DCS servers could have missions and skins hosted 'offsite', users would download from there when they connect so as not to slow down or lag existing players.

[SharpeXB]

Some form of automatic skin updating is necessary for sure. As more plane get added to the DCS lineup it's going to get prohibitably time consuming to stay updated.

[Home Fries]

My suggestion is to have "decal" files similar to the F-15C and Su-27, and have personalized skins that use an existing "base skin" have that somewhere in the folder name. This way people could see others' personalized skins by only downloading a 512kb decal file instead of a 48Mb skin.

 

For the full skins, I agree that a separate service should be implemented for synchronization. Even if it were 3rd party (something like "Curse" for DCS) that would be fine so long as there were hooks in the MP code to download from it.

[BitMaster]

I forgot to add, I gave up on installing skins. I ended up having like 50 skins for the Mustang alone plus others, and their numbers are increasing rapidly with new aircraft.

 

Felt like Sisyphus.

[Davis0079]

For the F-15c, this file here is what you speak of. It controls how the game uses your skin folder.

 

 

 

 

Normally all these values are set to true. And they are the correct name of one of the stock skins in the core game. When you set this to false it tell the game that the file is no longer in the core install. The game now search the skin folder instead.

 

So if a server did open up custom skins. Only thing they have to do is enforce a rule that you can only change the name of, and set to false the pilot, patches, helmet, numbers and decal file. this will keep the skin downloading small.

 

 

The PTB is the pylons and drop tanks. I do not recommend setting this to false or changing this because I have problems in single player when my modified version and a stock version are in the same game. ????

 

 

Now that i think of it, the numbers.dds can just stay stock too. Thats just a list from 0-9 in what color and font you what used in different spots on the plane. It can stay stock with stock skin.

 

The decal file looks like this(but normally not grey).

but most of the writing happens in the alpha channel that will look like this (always black)

 

This is your licence plate, pilot name, squad patches on the side of the plane, and tail feathers. Most ppl will feel happy just by customizing this file. And you most definitely can make a custom skin folder with just the Description.lua (above text file) and this decal.dds. You dont need every layer in the new skin folder if you leave the values set to TRUE.

 

This decal file is used by the 4 entrys in the description.lua that have the middle valve set to "3" instead of "0". You would need to set these four to false and change them to the correct name of the file in the skin folder with it. (in the example description.lua above the file name is "f15_decol_FL_Black")

 

 

Edit. I made one, its 1.33mb. thats the lua file and the one .dds

125th Fighter Wing (FL).rar (install to C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World\Bazar\Liveries\F-15C)

Stock DCS color, Florida F-15 squad (not 100% historically accurate, but close) With my pilot name of coarse. But anyone here should now get how easy it is to change just the Pilot name and licences plate.

Edited March 24, 2015 by Davis0079

[Home Fries]

So if a server did open up custom skins. Only thing they have to do is enforce a rule that you can only change the name of, and set to false the pilot, patches, helmet, numbers and decal file. this will keep the skin downloading small.

Great Idea, and something that could be tweaked on a server-by-server basis.

 

This discussion also reminds me of a post I made a while back where I proposed logic that would automatically add personalization to an existing skin in a mission that uses a default skin. This would be great if implemented in conjunction with the ideas in this topic. At this point, I would recommend that the desc.lua be set up more like a diff.lua, which is to say point to the original skin and identify changes. This would prevent incompatibilities when the developer changes default desc.lua files.

 

The PTB is the pylons and drop tanks. I do not recommend setting this to false or changing this because I have problems in single player when my modified version and a stock version are in the same game. ????

Hopefully, ED will tweak the EDM or code so that the order of entries in desc.lua doesn't screw things up for multiple 3rd party skins. It's a pet peeve of mine because I tend to update pilot and helmet textures when I do a skin.

Edited March 25, 2015 by Home Fries