ED's livery policy

[Aqil Huseynov]

Do not write any articles that will cause conflict or provocation under this subject, this is not a fight hall, we just think that some things need to be understood, that's why we are opening this topic.

Dear ED team and members,

I have been producing liveries here for a long time, also i took steps to make the textures look as good as possible and i know people who do the same.

The reason I'm bringing this topic up is that we want to know exactly what the ED team expects from livery producers. Because we agree that there is no respect for livery producers after the recent events, no one works for something that will be bad for the community here, everyone strives to be better. I understand that 3rd party DLC producers are free to add liveries of people they want to DCS. But I don't quite understand why some advanced liveries offered by ED are ignored, in addition, every livery ED adds takes up space in the files. Yes, we can delete them, but they are restored with every update. Many of these liveries are of unnecessarily poor quality and should not be there, or should be fixed. I'm sure some people had contacted the ED team before this about adding a livery, and the same response everyone got was that no livery would be added anymore, or not in the plan.

For example, our friend named @Texac remade the F-16 template as best as he could. It is a great effort to rearrange the rivets one by one, but I personally did not see any interest from ED. It's as if the template made by Texac is invisible, or maybe it is. Not just that, @Roughmaster, @wolfthrower ,@Kerbo 416, @2IAE-CrashBG, and people like that are too many.

These people do not get money from ED, there is no need, they do what they do because they love it, if ED gives them the impression that they do not respect them, of course these people will not do anything anymore, or they will do it but they will not share it with anyone, I don't know if ED will lose anything from this, but there is only one thing I know. It is necessary to establish proper relationships. Nobody here is saying that someone made a mistake or that someone's livery is bad, everyone makes mistakes, just ignoring the help shown is a big problem.

I don't want to play the role of a wise man, but I would like to ask the ED team or @Wags to please provide some information on this subject,

Thank you in advance, Have a nice day.

[Flаnker]

10 минут назад, Aqil Huseynov сказал:

Because we agree that there is no respect for livery producers after the recent events, no one works for something that will be bad for the community here, everyone strives to be better.

What are these events?

Edited February 13 by Flаnker

[Kerbo 416]

Agreed, the encryption of the recent AI model enhancements and the decisions of liveries included in game, while excluding others is very discouraging to some of the people who put in dozens, if not hundreds of hours of work into making this game more enjoyable for all of us. I hope ED can consider at the very least adding liveries that are created in excellent quality from users such as Texac, Roughmaster, and Crash among others.

3 minutes ago, Flаnker said:

What are these events?

 

Among others, not including roughmets in the B-17 competition, excluding excellent creators from inclusion in the game, encrypting the models which were recently released, issues in the templates and textures. ignoring requests for normals on older models.

 

[Neqva]

Just as an input I believe should be noted here. I enjoy seeing all the livery contests that makes people strive to make some amazing liveries.

Now, im norwegian and part of the largest DCS community of Norwegians in DCS, and lets just say that it did not go unnoticed when the 2024 and beyond trailer showcased F16s in Norwegian liveries. As such I was looking forward to seeing some great inputs for the Norwegian liveries, but (and I say this without critizing the artist that got chosen) I feel like ED missed out on an opportunity by cancelling the "contest" and just deciding to go for a specific artist from the start. Especially when the largest Norwegian DCS community uses the liveries of a different artist. 

Like I said, this is not a critism of the artist or artwork that was chosen, just a bit dissapointed by the choices to NOT make it a competition and allow users to vote. Would have been great to see all the different inputs as well as a great way to acknowledge the amazing work done by so many artists. 

 

I still look forward to the Norwegian Liveries beeing added though  

Edited February 14 by Neqva

[Roughmaster]

24 minutes ago, Aqil Huseynov said:

Do not write any articles that will cause conflict or provocation under this subject, this is not a fight hall, we just think that some things need to be understood, that's why we are opening this topic.

Dear ED team and members,

I have been producing liveries here for a long time, also i took steps to make the textures look as good as possible and i know people who do the same.

The reason I'm bringing this topic up is that we want to know exactly what the ED team expects from livery producers. Because we agree that there is no respect for livery producers after the recent events, no one works for something that will be bad for the community here, everyone strives to be better. I understand that 3rd party DLC producers are free to add liveries of people they want to DCS. But I don't quite understand why some advanced liveries offered by ED are ignored, in addition, every livery ED adds takes up space in the files. Yes, we can delete them, but they are restored with every update. Many of these liveries are of unnecessarily poor quality and should not be there, or should be fixed. I'm sure some people had contacted the ED team before this about adding a livery, and the same response everyone got was that no livery would be added anymore, or not in the plan.

For example, our friend named @Texac remade the F-16 template as best as he could. It is a great effort to rearrange the rivets one by one, but I personally did not see any interest from ED. It's as if the template made by Texac is invisible, or maybe it is. Not just that, @Roughmaster, @wolfthrower ,@Kerbo 416, @2IAE-CrashBG, and people like that are too many.

These people do not get money from ED, there is no need, they do what they do because they love it, if ED gives them the impression that they do not respect them, of course these people will not do anything anymore, or they will do it but they will not share it with anyone, I don't know if ED will lose anything from this, but there is only one thing I know. It is necessary to establish proper relationships. Nobody here is saying that someone made a mistake or that someone's livery is bad, everyone makes mistakes, just ignoring the help shown is a big problem.

I don't want to play the role of a wise man, but I would like to ask the ED team or @Wags to please provide some information on this subject,

Thank you in advance, Have a nice day.

Aqil, thank you very much for this post. 

Seeing one (talented for sure) creator be asked to create skins whilst they already exist from multiple other creators such as you mentioned was disheartening. 
I hope ED can reconsider their choice and add liveries from different Viper-loving creators, as we have all poured our hearts and souls into them, giving them extra details like rivets, reinforcement plates, nozzles, that make them so much more realistic.
 

[NineLine]

27 minutes ago, Aqil Huseynov said:

Because we agree that there is no respect for livery producers after the recent events

This is a frustrating comment as we always do livery contests and feel we award participants well. We also add other liveries from people who submit or request from time to time. Of course, we cannot add every livery due to things like install size. But in the same post, you disrespect other livery creators by suggesting their quality is poor, even if these were created within ED, you can make a point without insulting everyone. We respect all users the same no matter how you enjoy DCS. 

There is no "policy" about liveries, as I said we still accept custom liveries. The recent locking of some assets was not done to "disrespect" anyone, but rather limit the theft of assets that we create which has become more prevalent these days, sadly using the same tools and accesses that livery creators use. I hope that one day we will have a solution that will protect our assets and allow custom liveries, but we will need to figure that out first.

Thanks. 

[CoffeeDZN]

Fully agreed, Alot of the liveires we have ingame not just the F-16 are really low quality compared to whats on User files. People are putting days/weeks into making 1 skin for everyone. would be amazing to see liveires from people like Texac be added some day... because their derserve it for their hours of work for us to use it and enjoy their art.

[Kerbo 416]

2 minutes ago, NineLine said:

The recent locking of some assets was not done to "disrespect" anyone, but rather limit the theft of assets that we create which has become more prevalent these days, sadly using the same tools and accesses that livery creators use. I

I am not sure about ED's position as a company, or the rest of the community's opinion. However in my humble opinion custom liveries are an essential part of this game and locking them out for any reason is not a good idea. I know there were quite a few people who were excited to make liveries for the newly released models only to then be disapointed with the reality. if this is the future from now on then I'd be very disappointed in ED.

(I think that sometimes we as a community can be too hard on ED, however this time I think the criticism is fair, and while the wording may be harsh, I think that is coming from the language barrier present rather then any malicious intent)

I think in the future having an avenue of communication with the skinning community (weather that be through the Livery Art Group Discord or some other forum such as a channel on the official discord) would allow ED to incorporate the best of what people are creating for this game, while acknowledging the effort put in to such work.

[cahandar_alizade]

You are right, if it weren't you guys there would not be great liveries 

Edited February 13 by cahandar_alizade

[thepod]

54 minutes ago, NineLine said:

This is a frustrating comment as we always do livery contests and feel we award participants well. We also add other liveries from people who submit or request from time to time. Of course, we cannot add every livery due to things like install size. But in the same post, you disrespect other livery creators by suggesting their quality is poor, even if these were created within ED, you can make a point without insulting everyone. We respect all users the same no matter how you enjoy DCS. 

There is no "policy" about liveries, as I said we still accept custom liveries. The recent locking of some assets was not done to "disrespect" anyone, but rather limit the theft of assets that we create which has become more prevalent these days, sadly using the same tools and accesses that livery creators use. I hope that one day we will have a solution that will protect our assets and allow custom liveries, but we will need to figure that out first.

Thanks. 

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.      

 

Edited February 13 by thepod

[thepod]

1 hour ago, Flаnker said:

What are these events?

 

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. 

[thepod]

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

Edited February 13 by thepod

[wolfthrower]

Hey, so, kind of don't know how to approach this to be honest. 
I have been creating skins for over 5 years now I think and in that time period I got to work with some of the most amazing livery creators for DCS, even help some to learn ( while I learned myself ) and watch them grow as artists and become the best for the specific module they are working on. for me personally I love working on the viper, I enjoy painting it, researching for months about the panels and decals and trying to make each livery as real as possible down to the last detail, either by myself or as a Collab with other amazing artists such as my good friend @Roughmaster, all of us who are passionate about creating highly realistic liveries for the viper, do it not only for growing as artists but also to make the community better, to make DCS look amazing, and always appreciate the fact we have this platform to work on.

this is why this is difficult for us to understand, its a feeling of being unnoticed when clearly so many people put so much effort out of  their free time to create new content.
content that brings more people towards DCS (and the viper module specifically in this case), content that already exists in very high quality, so why did you chose to ignore it?

most of us don't want to annoy the ED staff with requests to put their specific skin in game so we wait, for opportunities like competitions, so when we pour our heart out into a livery knowing there wont ever be an opportunity...its kind of disappointing and honestly brings the wind out of our sails.
I think all of us would like ED to consider to use some of those user created liveries, and not just by one specific creator.

but ultimately we will of course respect any decision you guys make, I know there are a lot of things to consider also that we as livery creators are not aware of when implementing new skins in the sim. 

thank you.

[Neqva]

4 hours ago, NineLine said:

This is a frustrating comment as we always do livery contests and feel we award participants well. We also add other liveries from people who submit or request from time to time. Of course, we cannot add every livery due to things like install size. But in the same post, you disrespect other livery creators by suggesting their quality is poor, even if these were created within ED, you can make a point without insulting everyone. We respect all users the same no matter how you enjoy DCS. 

There is no "policy" about liveries, as I said we still accept custom liveries. The recent locking of some assets was not done to "disrespect" anyone, but rather limit the theft of assets that we create which has become more prevalent these days, sadly using the same tools and accesses that livery creators use. I hope that one day we will have a solution that will protect our assets and allow custom liveries, but we will need to figure that out first.

Thanks. 

I'm not sure you get the point of the post here. Not once did you reply to the case at hand, but instead you critize the OP for what you consider to be disrespecting other creaters. That's missing the point by a mile. 

You seem to have deleted the original post leading up to this thread, which is a shame tbh. However, I would just like to ask you one thing: Who made the Norwegian F16 Liveries used in the 2024 and beyond trailer? If your answer is someone else then the artist you chose over anyone else, I'd reconsider the previous decision and open up for other artists to participate and get some well deserved recognition for their work as well tbh.

[II.JG1_Vonrd]

8 hours ago, thepod said:

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.

As a winner in both the B-17 and Mosquito competitions, I must say that I take offense to this comment. I spent many, many hours on the skins that I submitted and am proud of what I produced. Yes, I would have preferred roughmets to be applied to the B-17 and @NineLine did push for them to be included, but the ED team decided not to do so. I assume that they did not want to allot the programming time to what is an AI only aircraft. I accepted that. @Warlord64 did come up with a good workaround by editing the B-17 json file. There were many stellar skins submitted in both these competitions by some talented skinners. 

EDIT:

It seems that the original post regarding all of this has been deleted. I'm not clear as to what the actual issue is but I hold all of those posting about "ED's livery policy" in the highest esteem. I just take exception to @thepod's statement about being "head and shoulders" above the lowest common denominator of skinners. 

Edited February 14 by II.JG1_Vonrd

[Urbi]

Nobody is forced to do their work. Either you do it or you leave it alone. Those who complain here about something where there is nothing to complain about basically only use the templates from ED. Ultimately, liveries created should have a practical and, above all, historical character. Works of art should be offered in art shops. The term Liverie Police is presumptuous and does not reflect the facts.

P.S. 

whether “Livery Policy” or “Livery Police”, the difference is not that far apart. Unfortunately there was a translation error.

 

Edited February 14 by Urbi

[Don Rudi]

I am not a skinner, just an average user. But when I saw the request for specific Viper skins, I thought "hey that is an easy one, except for the Danish one these are all available already in great quality".
Having them made from scratch instead of using what is available appears a strange approach. To pick just one example - it is ironic that we have one livery artist, who's BAF skins are so outstanding, that the Belgian Air Force (the real one) chose him to design a special livery for their milestone jet (a real flying F-16). A livery, that was shown in aviation magazines around the globe. A livery that meanwhile even is available as a decal sheet so his name will be on scale models worldwide. But his skins aren't good enough to be even considered by ED as default skins and have to be created new by someone else? (no offense to the guy who was chosen!)

@Roughmaster @wolfthrower @Kerbo 416 even if ED ignores your skins, be assured, we the users know who you are and WE do appreciate your work and we will continue to use your excellent skins!

4 hours ago, Urbi said:

Nobody is forced to do their work. Either you do it or you leave it alone. Those who complain here about something where there is nothing to complain about basically only use the templates from ED. Ultimately, liveries created should have a practical and, above all, historical character. Works of art should be offered in art shops. The term Liverie Police is presumptuous and does not reflect the facts.

 

The headline is "livery policy" not livery police!
Your comment is basically a slap in the face of everybody creating any form of content for DCS. 

Edited February 14 by Don Rudi

[Flаnker]

11 часов назад, Aqil Huseynov сказал:

Do not write any articles that will cause conflict or provocation under this subject, this is not a fight hall, we just think that some things need to be understood, that's why we are opening this topic.

Dear ED team and members,

I have been producing liveries here for a long time, also i took steps to make the textures look as good as possible and i know people who do the same.

The reason I'm bringing this topic up is that we want to know exactly what the ED team expects from livery producers. Because we agree that there is no respect for livery producers after the recent events, no one works for something that will be bad for the community here, everyone strives to be better. I understand that 3rd party DLC producers are free to add liveries of people they want to DCS. But I don't quite understand why some advanced liveries offered by ED are ignored, in addition, every livery ED adds takes up space in the files. Yes, we can delete them, but they are restored with every update. Many of these liveries are of unnecessarily poor quality and should not be there, or should be fixed. I'm sure some people had contacted the ED team before this about adding a livery, and the same response everyone got was that no livery would be added anymore, or not in the plan.

For example, our friend named @Texac remade the F-16 template as best as he could. It is a great effort to rearrange the rivets one by one, but I personally did not see any interest from ED. It's as if the template made by Texac is invisible, or maybe it is. Not just that, @Roughmaster, @wolfthrower ,@Kerbo 416, @2IAE-CrashBG, and people like that are too many.

These people do not get money from ED, there is no need, they do what they do because they love it, if ED gives them the impression that they do not respect them, of course these people will not do anything anymore, or they will do it but they will not share it with anyone, I don't know if ED will lose anything from this, but there is only one thing I know. It is necessary to establish proper relationships. Nobody here is saying that someone made a mistake or that someone's livery is bad, everyone makes mistakes, just ignoring the help shown is a big problem.

I don't want to play the role of a wise man, but I would like to ask the ED team or @Wags to please provide some information on this subject,

Thank you in advance, Have a nice day.

Hello again. I've been creating liveries for this simulator for 18 years (I painted the first liveries around 2006 for the flight simulator Lock On). I believe that your criticism is unfair in relation to ED - the developers of the flight simulator have always been as friendly as possible to the creators of liveries, and I know examples when liveries created by users were included in the game. Sorry for my bad English)

[Robert31178]

9 hours ago, Don Rudi said:

I am not a skinner, just an average user. But when I saw the request for specific Viper skins, I thought "hey that is an easy one, except for the Danish one these are all available already in great quality".
Having them made from scratch instead of using what is available appears a strange approach. To pick just one example - it is ironic that we have one livery artist, who's BAF skins are so outstanding, that the Belgian Air Force (the real one) chose him to design a special livery for their milestone jet (a real flying F-16). A livery, that was shown in aviation magazines around the globe. A livery that meanwhile even is available as a decal sheet so his name will be on scale models worldwide. But his skins aren't good enough to be even considered by ED as default skins and have to be created new by someone else? (no offense to the guy who was chosen!)

@Roughmaster @wolfthrower @Kerbo 416 even if ED ignores your skins, be assured, we the users know who you are and WE do appreciate your work and we will continue to use your excellent skins!

The headline is "livery policy" not livery police!
Your comment is basically a slap in the face of everybody creating any form of content for DCS. 

 

Also don't forget about ED themselves using his work as the main screenshot for a news update Sept 2023.

 

[Texac]

8 hours ago, Flаnker said:

Hello again. I've been creating liveries for this simulator for 18 years (I painted the first liveries around 2006 for the flight simulator Lock On). I believe that your criticism is unfair in relation to ED - the developers of the flight simulator have always been as friendly as possible to the creators of liveries, and I know examples when liveries created by users were included in the game. Sorry for my bad English)

The key issue this thread is supposed to translate is, that with the recent forum thread made by Wags for submitting F-16C community liveries for inclusion in the base game was short lived and ED's decision rather disappointing for other livery creators and parts of the community. The submission process went from a possible multiple entries from various talented users to the selection of only a single livery creator from the community in a week.

Whilst this is totally viable to do by ED it's also in my view additionally a massively missed opportunity in great potential from other artists and a significant loss in quality even.

 

I don't claim to be an expert 2d/3d graphics artist, and I only do this as a hobby/passion for free as well, but as you mentioned, I was able to implement a few liveries for the Hornet back in 2018 with the excellent help of Eagle Dynamics' 3d artist and you @Flаnker. During this process I learned to follow certain guidelines and rules for a uniform quality standard that would keep all skins at one level of quality. An example would be choosing the correct color values, checking for a good balance between quality and compression, correct export settings, file size, etc. Till today I have been trying to go by these standards as best as possible.

However years have passed and I don't know what technical level of quality is acceptable for Eagle Dynamics nowdays and what they are aiming for. But the level of detail, the default Viper textures bring to the table in comparison to other modules is IMO subpar. Hence that was something I wanted to tackle with my Viper Textures Overhaul.

I also don't intent to neg on anyone, or break the forum rules, but from my experience and from what I have learned in the past 7 years of 2d painting, I'm claiming that with the current selection of livery creator(s) they would fall short and not even meet this technical standard mentioned above. At all. 

Still a lot of users are showing great interest in that work so that is something none should dismiss and I fully respect their opinion. 

 

But again I personally don't believe the quality or detail would achieve a much better or higher level (if that were to be the goal?) with the latest selection in livery creator(s). Which I believe other artists would strongly surpass.

Edited February 14 by Texac

[Rudel_chw]

23 minutes ago, Texac said:

with the recent forum thread made by Wags for submitting F-16C community liveries for inclusion in the base game

I can’t find that thread anymore … it is really disappointing to see the way ED tackled this issue, hiding it under the rug is not a mature way to react. I can fully understand the frustration that the livery creators can feel when treated this way 

[fagulha]

As i wrote earlier im FB:

I use 0 DCS core liveries in my Viper and Hornet (and in any other aircraft or AI). I´m a Hornet guy but i like to fly and learn new procedures with the Viper and one of the main reasons i love to fly the Viper are the outstanding liveries created by the very talented Gunfighter06, Wolfthrower, Kerbo416, Texac or Lee1hy (if i am missing more names i´m sorry for that). I understand the disk size matter (some of the liveries i use have +1 gb) but that don´t explain ED position on this subject.

I´m just wanted to say thank you to all the liverie creators for enrich my flight experience with all your countless hours of work for the community. My thanks are the same towards ED. I just wish that we all walk in the same direction.

Edited February 14 by fagulha
Missing most important: Thank you

[Slippa]

It’s a difficult one.

Personally speaking, one of the things that improves DCS is the amount of skinners and modders bringing so much to the table all the time. They are the community and they’re giving, not necessarily selling things they’ve worked on with a real passion but giving, to the community. Silly to shut that community out, bar one. Especially when there’s clearly the talent ready, willing and able.

I wouldn’t mind skinning or modelling a bit myself but looking at the prices of some of the software alone makes my eyes water. Never mind the time spent learning how to use it all properly.

I’m grateful for all of it. Whether or not I’m using all of it so cheers to all of you that do all the bits and bobs anyway. Much appreciated.

Not handled well by the sound of it, nor in the spirit of things.

[Schlingel mit Kringel]

4 minutes ago, Rudel_chw said:

I can’t find that thread anymore … it is really disappointing to see the way ED tackled this issue, hiding it under the rug is not a mature way to react. I can fully understand the frustration that the livery creators can feel when treated this way 

I have to agree sadly. I followed the submissions thread remotely and it went "we would like to see your suggestions", then for a few days some submissions were posted, and then it was said "hey, we will get everything done by this guy (who was not even in the pot publicly afaik), thanks everyone" without any further explanation about the how and why. And a bit later the thread vanished when people complained.

Don't want to imply there is or isn't whatever, but as someone from outside (i do not know any livery creators at all and have no ties there) it definitely leaves a big impression of being fishy and i can understand people are not happy about. Definitely something ED should have a look at internally and discuss and communicate to the community then.

[Schlingel mit Kringel]

Some addition to my recent post:

(disclaimer: no accusations here at all, all theoretical thinking off my head, i do say it went this way or that way, just my very own impression i got as a bystander watching this and having my own thoughts about).

My very personal take on this is you did a submission and then maybe something has changed on short notice, maybe a deadline changed for an earlier date, and you had to get someone immediately - in such case it is absolutely okay to just take someone you maybe know and know he can do it quickly as needed. Just communicate it accordingly. Maybe apologize to those whose submissions were ignored in order to have a new deadline met. Such things happen. And maybe show your appreciation to all submissions by either offering a little compensation as a gesture, or feature them in the next newsletter, or whatever to show things were planned differently. But just pulling back and going defensive isn't a good way as it will always go like it currently goes.

Like said, above is only how i personally imagine things might have happened behinde the curtain. And how i think things could/should have been handled. Maybe i am completely wrong, then just ignore me.