F-5E-3 Remaster Skins

[Reflected]

4 hours ago, Mach3DS said:

No, I very much am NOT willing to do that. 

And once you try, you'll realize that it's not really practical to use for a substitute tool.  That's not even the biggest issue.  The issue is load times.  It takes me like 3-5 mins to load the sim each time.  Vs a single button press to reload a texture - 1 second..  at minimum that's 180 to 300x longer.  Just to see a change.  It's not worth the time.  I click that button at least 45x times a session while doing alignments or adjusting Roughmets or normals.  I don't think people understand what that actually means.  I spend up to 60 real hours on a high quality livery with custom everything, before it's complete.  Just clicking the button replacing it with opening the full sim --  If I did that 45x in a session that's 180 seconds x 45.  8100 seconds or 2.25 hours of straight waiting.  No thanks.   I have better things I could be doing with my life.   That's why this is such a big deal.  Now realistically I prob click that button way more than that.  But If I cut it down to like even 30x in a session.  That's way too much waiting; and it makes it impractical for me to paint with such slow progress.  

 

  

i’m 100% with you. Only if you ever made a skin can you really appreciate the effect of not having a model viewer. Making a skin is like completing a 1000 piece puzzle. Without the MV it’s like a 1000 piece puzzle with all pieces painted black. Is it possible to complete it? Sure. Am I going to do it? No way. 
 

look at this skin. Those camo lines are split by the UV map in over a hunderd places and alignment is done by trial and error, resaving the skin and refreshing the editor. Even seeing the immediate effect it’s beyond tedious. 
 

and we can’t call using the game itself the ‘old school way’ either. Old school skins were made of a single texture file that kept most parts together. Times have changed, we have 4-5 files with every panel scattered all over creation. 
 

I understand the need to protect 3d models but I definitely value my free time more than creating skins under such conditions. It’s a real pity.

 

[NineLine]

5 minutes ago, Reflected said:

Only if you ever made a skin can you really appreciate the effect of not having a model viewer.

With all due respect, I have made plenty of liveries, even doing it back when all I knew or was able to do was inside the game itself. So as I told you elsewhere, we are looking into it. Thanks. 

[NineLine]

This issue is reported, when we have more news we will share. Thanks. 

[NineLine]

Here is what I have so far:

 

Quote

Hi. Answers to questions:
1) We will soon prepare the instructions for writing an antenna kit. But it is not final (antenna kits) yet. We plan to make another set within a month.
2)The pilot is still in the works. Conditionally there will be two different pilot geometries: USAF and Swiss pilot. Helmets are already finalized. There will be three different geometries for the helmets. The helmet coloring template and instructions will also be prepared.
We plan to finish work on the pilot in February. A new ejector seat is also in the works.

As for the viewer, we are discussing some solutions right now. I will share when I have something firm on this. Thanks!

[PSV_Tango]

Thank you Nineline! Really appreciate !

[II.JG1_Vonrd]

Thanks 9! Would you please ask the team to work out something regarding being able to alter roughmets? It's essential especially regarding rendering of bare metal.

[SkateZilla]

Trust me, I'm aware of the limitations of not being able to use modelviewer for liveries.
I've prolly made more liveries than I can count, and unofficial templates for a while, I think in the last 5 years, I've launched modelviewer more than DCS itself.



 

Edited January 23 by SkateZilla

[Stackup]

One thing I will note to the people saying they have to restart DCS entirely every time they make a change, I have found that it is only necessary to restart DCS when you make a change to the description.lua file as it is only read once on first use while DCS is running.  Texture, roughmet, normal, etc. changes will usually update after a mission using the livery is loaded and then returned to the ME.  This is way shorter than a full restart although still not ideal in any way, but when you're someone like me who couldn't ever figure out the model viewer in the first place you do what you can.  Painting the newer assets like the B-52 and S-3 was painful, but not any harder than any other plane was for me to do.  Of course, people have figured out the majority of the description.lua for both of those planes while there isn't any way to get the F-5's currently so we can't even do that.

[thepod]

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          

Edited January 24 by thepod

[Mach3DS]

Thanks 9L!  What a pleasant surprise.  Can I ask that you make an additional request.  It was already mentioned but Roughmets AND Normals.  For normals all we need is the .dds files.  We can create addional geometry and apply it on top.  This is also essential for high end Livery/Texture work.  And for the one off requests that so many people make that lie outside of the standard military schemes.

[II.JG1_Vonrd]

3 hours ago, Mach3DS said:

AND Normals

Yes, emphatically!

[Magic Zach]

+1 for normals

[Night Owl]

I also have to agree with the absolute need for a module viewer to make liveries. 

Making liveries without a model viewer may work for the kind of simple standard liveries composed of simple colour shapes, but not at all for higher quality, more work-intensive liveries. 

I'd also add that given the rather poor quality or diversity of many of the default liveries, the work of community skinners is paramount to the DCS experience.  

[denissoliveira]

Wouldn't it be easier to create a model of the remaster just for painting? I would leave the model simple, with few polygons. Only what is necessary to do the paintings.

[Night Owl]

vor 4 Stunden schrieb denissoliveira:

Wouldn't it be easier to create a model of the remaster just for painting? I would leave the model simple, with few polygons. Only what is necessary to do the paintings.

The thing is you really need a 1 to 1 model for livery making, down to the position of each rivet. 

I don't see another option than to make the model viewer work with the encrypted edm files. 

Or simply keep things like they were for 15 years, working fine without encrypted models.

Edited January 28 by Night Owl

[II.JG1_Vonrd]

Would it be possible to have a "Beta Skinners" group sort of like the Beta Testers who would sign an NDA as part of the membership requirements and who would then have access to the encrypted files? Yeah, it would be somewhat elitist and would probably piss off a lot of people. Just spitballing ideas. I'm really worried about the future for the DCS skinning community.

[Night Owl]

vor einer Stunde schrieb II.JG1_Vonrd:

I'm really worried about the future for the DCS skinning community

I don't think you need to be too worried for the longer term future. 

From a programming point of view it would be very easy to make a model viewer that reads encrypted files. I am quite confident they will make one 

[Megalax]

6 hours ago, waterman said:

 

3 - DCS Select the designs they like and give a prize to the winners and then produce the encrypted skins using DCS employees who already have an NDA.

 

 

 

That would be a severe limitation to creation of content, and its not a solution I'm willing to be a part of.

Up until recently, skinners such as myself have had the freedom to change anything and apply the details that they saw fit to add to their textures. You see to most livery makers, its not just about slapping on some camo and some roundels and then calling it good, its about adding or fixing details that even the devs either got wrong or wouldn't necessarily think of adding. Again, this severely limits the creativity potential of livery makers.

Devs are currently way too busy on their own projects anyway to be making and maintaining a list of liveries that users submit and want. The fact they are busy is also the reason why they periodically reach out to the community of livery makers to help them, or why they run livery competitions in the first place.

All I would like is that some form of transparent discussion between livery makers and the dev team be open so we can come to a consensus on what either side needs to do what they do without hindering the other.

 

Edited January 30 by Megalax

[Wyvern]

7 hours ago, waterman said:

Maybe the new skinning method for the new encyrpted files will be -

1 - Have regular skinning competitions that any user can enter.

2 - Users submit their simple desired pictures and sketches of new DCS skin designs.

3 - DCS Select the designs they like and give a prize to the winners and then produce the encrypted skins using DCS employees who already have an NDA.

4 - Packs sold as addon skin packs to cover costs.

 

no

just no

[VZ_342]

Ok, so now we have a template, but apparently cannot use the MV. If I were to use the templates, where would I save them if I wanted to view or use them?

[Mach3DS]

14 hours ago, Night Owl said:

I don't think you need to be too worried for the longer term future. 

From a programming point of view it would be very easy to make a model viewer that reads encrypted files. I am quite confident they will make one 

Again this isn't the biggest issue.  The bigger issue is the encrypting of all the texture files.  

[Night Owl]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb Mach3DS:

Again this isn't the biggest issue.  The bigger issue is the encrypting of all the texture files.  

It was my understanding that with provided template, description lua and an adapted model viewer it would work. Is that not the case?

Edited January 30 by Night Owl

[Mach3DS]

It will "work" for the exterior.  If you want to do anything custom, I've been told that there are no roughmets or normals included.  THere's no pilot textures/roughmets/normals,  Helmet, patches etc.  If you want to do anything fully custom and have it look decent you will need all of those.  For it to work in basic terms we will also need a folder path structure which doesn't exist either.  Since it's currently encrypted.  Where do you put said new textures? 

9L has said they're working on it.  But we really do need all those things. 

So it kind of begs the question, if they were do give us all those things as say PSDs, what's the point in encrypting anything other than the model file at that point?  Just fix the model viewer to read the encrypted model file and open up the rest of the textures as usual.  Then you don't have to create PSDs or do any additional work.  We can all create templates from the DDS files.  To me, that makes the most sense.

Edited January 30 by Mach3DS

[Night Owl]

Thanks for the explanation. 

Yes indeed, it should be self-evident that roughmets, normals etc. are needed aswell. 

[VZ_342]

33 minutes ago, Mach3DS said:

 ....

 We can all create templates from the DDS files.  To me, that makes the most sense.

This is interesting, I did not know this. What's the process?