Paint Shop

FatzDomingo · May 22, 2019

Do you Think its time to include a Paint Shop Add On to Frontier?
A Place where you can design your own skins/paint jobs for your Ships? It could be a separate Program (£10.00 a pop) that loads wire frame or plain grey ships and lets you run amok!
Skins could ONLY be distributed to your Guild/Group (prevents mini-businesses starting up)

Just a thought!

rootsrat · May 22, 2019

And then next thing we get is a subscription for playing.

No tha... Oh wait, I'm a LEP holder. Yeah, go for it then

GonzTheMalificent · May 22, 2019

Yeah.

I've wanted an evil clown face on my Cutter for ages now. Just look at the Cutter, she's made for an evil clown face...

dm06 · May 22, 2019

Current approach of generic skins solves one pain which is easy to forget: distribution of custom images between clients. I assume that you expect your skin should be visible for other players. I guess that currently several bytes is enough to make your ship visible for other player, like: model, age, weapon types, skin type and so on, with the information any client is able to build your ship locally for rendering. Adding bitmaps here will increase traffic definitely and could, for example, slow down entering instances.

Rubbernuke · May 22, 2019

Like this:

RolloTreadway · May 22, 2019

Somewhere along the line, FD decided that they don't want hundreds of ships painted to look like genitals, and that's probably not about to change.

[Diplomacy] Carnegie · May 22, 2019

RolloTreadway said:
Somewhere along the line, FD decided that they don't want hundreds of ships painted to look like genitals, and that's probably not about to change.

They probably shouldn't have named them after snakes then.

Rubbernuke · May 22, 2019

The other I suppose is that in a multiplayer context you have to transmit your paint to other hosts for them to see it.

K M Butler · May 22, 2019

The Forza games managed it, so it's doable. Would need to cost a pretty penny to offset lost sales in cosmetics, though. Maybe a realcash fee to keep it from vanishing when leaving starport vicinity?

GlitchedVision0101 · May 25, 2019

why not follow the method of skin+paint regions+color. wouldn't be hard to say for example skin c region 1 blue, region 2 green, region 3 red. this way they can still make money from paint packs and skin style packs and we have more customization options.

znôrt · May 25, 2019

frontier is pretty strict about the aesthetics they want their game to have. since that's actually one of the few things they do well ... i would just let them at it.

also, a secret: the only person in this world who cares about your paint jobs is you.

LynxAwakening · May 25, 2019

i don't know how apologists can defend the current micro-transaction system (commonly seen in freemium games) as a way to reward developers, that's the equivalent of rewarding them for installing a cash register for content that doesn't warrant a cash value.

thanks for selling me this dry hamburger, i'll reward you by purchasing some sauce!

Soron Silin · Jul 13, 2019

RolloTreadway said:
Somewhere along the line, FD decided that they don't want hundreds of ships painted to look like genitals, and that's probably not about to change.

That's a good point, and probably the reason this couldn't happen.

It would, however make money for FD.

Charge the same for the design program as for Horizons et al.
Make that the sole way of uploading a design to the FD servers.
Charge the same for uploading each design as for buying a single new skin.
Allow people to sell/give-away design files.

FD earns the same profit for each new skin as they do currently.
The skins are held centrally and produce negligible loading delays.
Obscene skins could be reported and removed, with repeat offenders getting banned.
There are more skins to choose from, without FD paying for them to be produced.

There is at least one person who isn't interested in any stock paint-job, who would shell out for a bespoke design.

WaveRider · Aug 4, 2019

Great idea; I approve of any kind of customisation to make your experience in game something unique to you. Last metallic paint job was for the Phantom back in Feb/Mar 19. Just missed it before looking to start exploring - D'OH!

Due to the lack of option for buying the paint job I haven't bothered playing since then - other games have allowed me to become more invested. Shame, did enjoy the game, but it is time the game allowed me to become more invested and pimp my ride!

Tunstan · Aug 4, 2019

Soron Silin said:
Charge the same for the design program as for Horizons et al.
Make that the sole way of uploading a design to the FD servers.
Charge the same for uploading each design as for buying a single new skin.
Allow people to sell/give-away design files.

FD earns the same profit for each new skin as they do currently.
The skins are held centrally and produce negligible loading delays.
Obscene skins could be reported and removed, with repeat offenders getting banned.
There are more skins to choose from, without FD paying for them to be produced.

There is at least one person who isn't interested in any stock paint-job, who would shell out for a bespoke design.

That's a really good idea.

WaveRider said:
Great idea; I approve of any kind of customisation to make your experience in game something unique to you. Last metallic paint job was for the Phantom back in Feb/Mar 19. Just missed it before looking to start exploring - D'OH!

Due to the lack of option for buying the paint job I haven't bothered playing since then - other games have allowed me to become more invested. Shame, did enjoy the game, but it is time the game allowed me to become more invested and pimp my ride!

They'll come back again. The black paint jobs come back every Black Friday, and the chrome, gold and wireframe paintjobs (at least some) come back during the Festive Countdown around Christmas/New Year and sometimes for the February Sale. Also the Iridescent paint jobs are likely to return at some point as well. There's typically another sale around the end of August - September.

Livery

Livery consists of cosmetic items for Ships, Ship-Launched Fighters, and SRVs. Livery items can be purchased with ARX from the in-game Elite Dangerous Store, and added or removed via the Livery menu, which can be accessed from the game's main menu or at any Station with Outfitting services...

elite-dangerous.fandom.com

posthy · Aug 4, 2019

I don't play warframe but i heard there's a pretty good system there. Community gets the tools for free to create custom character skins, and creators can submit their skins. Developers will review them rigorously and which passes gets into the game officially as purchasable skin, and the creator even gets a share from the income. Something like this could be great for elite too and probably easier to implement then an ingame paintjob editor.

Soron Silin · Aug 4, 2019

posthy said:
I don't play warframe but i heard there's a pretty good system there. Community gets the tools for free to create custom character skins, and creators can submit their skins. Developers will review them rigorously and which passes gets into the game officially as purchasable skin, and the creator even gets a share from the income. Something like this could be great for elite too and probably easier to implement then an ingame paintjob editor.

But you'd need someone at FD looking at new skins and only the one's good enough for them to put their name on would be approved. So it would take a long time and you'd have to be a good artist.

As for ease, I imagine the tool that FD sold would only be the uploader and a set of templates. People would paint over the templates in Paintshop or The Gimp and then upload them. IIUC, that's how it's done for character skins. It takes a bit of practice but it's easy enough to get the hang of. It looks something like this, with all the faces flattened and arranged beside each other:
Source: https://i.imgur.com/ekwS8wE.jpg

The uploader would show the skin applied to a ship in 3d and if you liked it you could pay to upload it into your account.
So the uploader only has to have a 3d rotatable model of each ship and a connection to the FD store. They already have the templates for their own artists to use.

If a third party wanted to make an application that let you paint your ship in 3d then nothing is stopping them, but I imagine most 3d artists would prefer working on the flat template because that's what they are used to.

posthy · Aug 5, 2019

Soron Silin said:
But you'd need someone at FD looking at new skins and only the one's good enough for them to put their name on would be approved. So it would take a long time and you'd have to be a good artist.

That's necessary to keep away the flying penises and stuff.

Soron Silin said:
The uploader would show the skin applied to a ship in 3d and if you liked it you could pay to upload it into your account.

So you think a 3d artist will work for free to create new paint jobs and even pay to upload it on FD store? Yeah right...

Soron Silin · Aug 5, 2019

posthy said:
That's necessary to keep away the flying penises and stuff.

But "is this obscene" is a lower bar compared to "is this something we want to put our name on". The first is a job for an intern, the second requires someone far more experienced and maybe even a focus team.

Added to which, ships are seen so rarely that I would allow everything and institute a report mechanism.

posthy said:
So you think a 3d artist will work for free to create new paint jobs and even pay to upload it on FD store? Yeah right...

They do. That happens. Not professional artists maybe, but certainly people who know their way around Blender. This game is a hobby for a lot of people who have day-jobs. Such people often apply their experience and knowledge to the game and give it away free. Just look at EDSC etc. They wouldn't upload to FDev, because that would cost money but they would give away their design files for individuals to upload.

But it is more likely that you could buy a paint-job from an artist for a few pounds/dollars/euros. That happens now too; take a look at the Unity Asset Store. Or, if you are a cheap-skate like me, you would spend eight hours splashing paint at a template and come up with something half-way good.

So I expect you would get five types of paintjob:

Good but boring stock skins from FDev.
Amazing, unique, bespoke designs by professional artists working on commission for $100 or more.
Brilliant skins that cost maybe $1-10 by professional artists.
Competent skins by semi-professional artists for free.
Laughably horrible or barely adequate skins by DIYers including amazing, unique, bespoke designs by DIYers who just happen to be professional artists.

znôrt · Aug 5, 2019

Soron Silin said:
IIUC, that's how it's done for character skins.

planet coaster supports custom objects, created in blender and conforming to specs. frontier has even a service to verify and package these objects so they can be uploaded and shared by all users. it looks like an automated process (not really sure) so i doubt there is any 'profanity' check, but i guess they can always take down problematic content.
https://thememakers-toolkit.planetcoaster.com/login