I can see FD removing paid skins,because money is such an overrated commodity.
FD, pleast stop with the low effort art
- Thread starter DeathStroke
- Start date
I still don't know why the cetacean ships don't have skins that match the patterns of the actual creatures they're named after. A couple of the Dolphin skins are kind of close, but the Beluga needs an unadorned white paint job and the Orca is just crying out for an actual killer whale skin. It can't be the need for symmetry that's preventing this, because most of the flag skins are asymmetrical. Maybe it's because those large reflective canopies can only be black?
It might go down better if you came at it with a "here's a request for more detailed paint job designs" type thing, rather than a whine?
I agree with OP but it's up to me to buy them or not, money talks.
What bothers me waay more is the poor quility of the offered items in store, not their design but their glitchiness.
Take the new Corvette ship kit for example, at least half of the paintpacks aren't usable because they glitch on the different ship kit parts.
All 4 euro vibrant, tactical and military paintpacks are bugged on a 10 euro ship kit, that's a vanity item of at least 14 euro that looks poor.
ED looks beautiful but the addons are in no comparison to the quality of the game itself, vanity items are supposed to look extra cool not borked, looking good or at least not warped is a vanity item's only purpose.
Personally I think it's sloppy to sell vanity items that aren't checked well enough to make sure that the customer pays for something he can actually enjoy.
What bothers me waay more is the poor quility of the offered items in store, not their design but their glitchiness.
Take the new Corvette ship kit for example, at least half of the paintpacks aren't usable because they glitch on the different ship kit parts.
All 4 euro vibrant, tactical and military paintpacks are bugged on a 10 euro ship kit, that's a vanity item of at least 14 euro that looks poor.
ED looks beautiful but the addons are in no comparison to the quality of the game itself, vanity items are supposed to look extra cool not borked, looking good or at least not warped is a vanity item's only purpose.
Personally I think it's sloppy to sell vanity items that aren't checked well enough to make sure that the customer pays for something he can actually enjoy.
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I can't see any screenshots of the problem.
This is what I meant.....
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...aints-don-t-completely-cover-Corvette-shipkit
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/348909-Anaconda-paints-deforming-when-zooming-out
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/352546-Asp-Explorer-ID-plate-alignment-is-off
There are several others like the Asp ship kit overlapping nameplates etc.
Imho sloppy quality controll.
This may sound like whining but we pay for these things.
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On one hand, I'd love a "create your own look" Need for Speed style paintshop kinda thing.
On the other hand, I quite like some of the paintjobs for the Beluga.
On the other hand, I quite like some of the paintjobs for the Beluga.
Agreed, in principle - but CERTAINLY not beyond all of us! I'm pretty sure I'm not the only guy on these forums when handed a new computer is likely to have blender installed before I get around to the office suite.
None of that is particularly complicated even for an amateur.
Again, creating mipmaps is nothing particularly complicated. Most of the time it can even simply be automated.
The majority of skins in ED are just a simple paintover of the diffuse map, there's only a few exception (typically the metallic skins) which go beyond that.
Not difficult, just bothersome, but again that's something modders are used to. I have spent quite a few hours painting bright colors all overtextures to figure out how the artist unwrapped the model.
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They should ask me to make the paintjobs
Indeed. If Fdev released a Skin creation tool for ED ships.
And those skins can be submitted to Fdev for approval and sale... Maybe even sold at a discount because it cost them nothing to make.
Then this game could become very diverse and interesing and the community can get creative in the game they love.
'None of that is particularly complicated even for an amateur'
...and i would not say its particularly complicated, if you know the basics. but i think you can see i was pointing out its not just a single texture. You don't just make a skin and it magically looks good in game.
Still the problem of LOD brake down... if you don't have access to the full model and its LODs, you can't see who the textures works across them, so would need some skill there (and do fdeve want to 'lend out assets')... sometimes LODs need there own texture, especially at the lower end, then the Normal map really comes into play. (don't know if FD does that)
Also depends what you mean by amateur. That to mean mean a hobbyist, someone that is not paid for what they are doing. There will be amateur out there with skills sets i could only dream of.
i guess they could, but that would be a lot of work for them to create. More work 'i'd guess' that taking design submissions and working on them.
Still a well designed tool would be nice
i guess they could, but that would be a lot of work for them to create. More work 'i'd guess' that taking design submissions and working on them.
Still a well designed tool would be nice
Im not sure it would be that difficult. Over my decades of video gaming ive used plenty of game customisation and texture skin modding tools and the latter of which are usually some of the more basic and slapped together applications you can find.
If Fdev did design a robust and easy to use tool. Im sure it would in the long run save more and make money for them than it cost to make. The only expense that would carry forward is the time of the person who sits and vets the community submitted skins.
The normal map shouldn't ever need to change as the model LODs. If it does you've got a much bigger problem than you think in your UV unwrap.
As for the diffuse map, honestly that depends on how well the LODs were made and whether or not proper care has been taken to not distort the UV-mapping as the geometry degrades. If they are done at all well then by the time you get to significant distortion the model is rendering so small on the screen that you won't notice.
Like you, I've resisted the temptation to hook the render pathway and take a detailed look but it seems to me that they are done pretty well. Further evidence for that is provided by the fact that there isn't a fleet of ambulances permanently on standby at Frontier to ferry the modellers off to Addenbrookes so they can have various tools of the artistic trade removed from places into which they should never have been forcibly inserted....
i don't know about that. all depends on what they went for... on lower LODs, a different normal map maybe be used to simulate geometry, where it was not part of the main normal map. Also depends on how big the textures are, as most the time you can put it all on the same texture and just adjust the reference co-ord...
Its not that common, as it can be more work, and not all engines will let you do it(even less modding tools, i would guess), and i don't know if Fdeve do it.
using different Normal maps for lower lods can save polys and still keep things looking good.
True, but it doesn't give an indication as to why.
