And I'm sure if some of us could, we would too.

Bare metal skins would be cool.

We already have PnG skins, you might find some here: http://pinknotgay.awardspace.info/


(I know...sorry )

Why bother, the actual gains are NOT worth it.

Physics physics physics.

PNG skins is a WASTE OF TIME. If we really want more eye candy then we need real time lighting so we can have day/night races. Who cares is a sticker drawn on a skin is more or less reflective that the rest of the car. This is the sort of thing that should happen after real changes are in place.

Quote :

Sure it can, and it would be in fact very easy (with a very simple pixel shader, might also be possible with the static pipeline).

I did make an error earlier, the environment map is using vertice normals not UV data to do the mapping. With regards shaders LFS is DX8 so isn't that only shader 1.3? I dont know enough about shaders to know what's possible with that, only that using shaders is a sure fire way to make incompatabilities in games like LFS which has users with a broad hardware base.

Quote from Becky Rose :

With regards shaders LFS is DX8 so isn't that only shader 1.3? ...

1.4, but something this simple is possible even with 1.1 shaders with a single instruction. For example some thing like:

Where t0 is the skin texture sample with the glossmap in the alpha channel, and t1 is the environment map sample should do the trick fine. The pixel shader or the static multitexturing pipeline do not know or care how the texture is mapped, all they get is already mapped and sampled pixels.

PNG's do not have any compresion meaning they would be much larger than .jpg but then again with png you dont loose the quality like in jpg.

I'd rather have less quality than a 5 minute skin DLing period.

I'm all for the less reflective bits. It's nice to be able to have like matt bumpers when you want to have a car to look like another one. But that's kinda the only reason why it would be usefull. I don't think it's worth the extra filesizes.

Quote from Becky Rose :

I dont know enough about shaders to know what's possible with that, only that using shaders is a sure fire way to make incompatabilities in games like LFS which has users with a broad hardware base.

LFS is gonna have to make a move to newer shaders and DX sooner or later. With the loss of most users with old systems, hopefully LFS can make DX8 still compatible in the future, but I think there would be so many possibilities for LFS if it upgrades soon. The inevitable "S3" is coming I guess

Quote from QuickSilver :

PNG's do not have any compresion meaning they would be much larger than .jpg but then again with png you dont loose the quality like in jpg.

compression is not the same as quality loss!
PNG has actually an excellent compression in many situations, specially simple shapes.

i think that if we want improvements about skins, there's so many things that would bring much more to quality and variation rather than changing simply format.
first of all rather than png (open format, lossless...but huge!), it would be better to have still jpg, but also the possibility of svg (scalable vector graphics): that format is the best for non-photographic skins because you can do stripes, flames, "triblas", writings and much more, all at the perfect quality...perfect means that since they are "vectors" the images are perfect at any resolution!
also one biggest addition imo, is a skinning like nfsu: 4 layers to mix base skin patterns available within the lfs "installation" that means, much less downloads for skins, much easier and quicker to make cute skins without being a photoshop or gimp geek and without the need to learn how to work with the weird skin mapping -> that's the main reason imo why people steal skins.

Quote from Woz :

Why bother, the actual gains are NOT worth it.

Physics physics physics.

PNG skins is a WASTE OF TIME. If we really want more eye candy then we need real time lighting so we can have day/night races. Who cares is a sticker drawn on a skin is more or less reflective that the rest of the car. This is the sort of thing that should happen after real changes are in place.

Details makes games great, LFS has a lot of details not related with physics that makes it a great piece of software. Things like tyre sidewalls are completely useless, but they look great ingame, the same goes for turn indicators, or ingame setup sharing, F9, F10 and shift+L views (ok, these are useful but not imprescindible).

+1 for small details that makes LFS someting different from the typical sim. And +1 for the alpha layer suggestion (as long as the time to develop it makes sense).

PNG Files huge? No that's simply not true. JPG Files can get big, PNG Files can get big. Real world photos are where you really see any advantage in JPGs where as most skin files would benefit from a PNG compressed file. Most skin files are solid color for quite a while and that would allow the PNG lossless compression to kick in and do it's magic. Could we not say PNG files are larger then JPG files, they both have their place and use. PNG files would and should be alot better for skins. So I do ask that the devs please add it to the next version. The client should be able to select what file format take priority. Or we could get it from the horse's mouth Devs, would PNG files cause more lag, loading times, or overall more CPU / GPU useage then JPG files. I'd like you all to consider something for a moment. What if we used the transparency in png files to give a chrome effect? Think of a proper MP4-21 BF1 skin! Think of Chrome (J Trulli Style) Helmets!

I agree and support PNG's so long at it improves the over-all sim.

If you use the alpha channel to do something useful then people will use png when jpg would give better compression.

+1

+1

needless in my opinion.. people whinge about jpg being a lossy format, but who really gives a toss?

when join a lfs server with the current 512x512 skin downloads it can be downloading for 5-15seconds depending how many skins are being used that i currently don't have.

i just did a test of a skin i have made, 1024 one. JPG saved at 224kb, PNG was 464kb. and from what i can see, PNG has no real variation in available quality settings, seeing as it's not "lossy".

JPG is simple and with a small / flexible file size. PNG won't happen guys, but nice thinking.

should read the thread first. plz someone delete this post.

Quote from Dygear :

I'd like you all to consider something for a moment. What if we used the transparency in png files to give a chrome effect? Think of a proper MP4-21 BF1 skin! Think of Chrome (J Trulli Style) Helmets!

and I'd like you to consider for a moment when someone uploads a skin which is 100% transparent with nothing else on it. we'd end up with bling bling cars and all they'd be missing is the 20inch wheels. for my eyes (and cpu)'s sake, it's a no from me

Quote from joen :

jpg uses lossy compression, PNG uses lossless compression
png supports transparency, jpg does not

There is also JNG, which is lossy, and supports transparency.

Quote from Becky Rose :

People who dont want higher res textures are either using older hardware - which is fine, you dont have to enable a 1024^2 download option - or racing the BF1 and never see another cars rear wing close up.

i am completely in your opinien except that part about the rear wing of a BF1... (Use bumpdrafting to your advantage) )

We need 8bit tiff skin Just kidding but the idee with PNg in skins folder sound good, Some who do HQ renders have saved their skins in PNG

Quote from Takumi_Project.d :

and I'd like you to consider for a moment when someone uploads a skin which is 100% transparent with nothing else on it. we'd end up with bling bling cars and all they'd be missing is the 20inch wheels. for my eyes (and cpu)'s sake, it's a no from me

Wow would the demo racers love that.