Feel free to build your own 2048x2048 skin, it works
But it isn´t recommended and not used by default, because the bigger the skin file is, the more the performance drops.
I have 2048 jpgs (at no compression) fitted to a lot of my AI cars. There IS a noticable frame rate penalty compared to a full field with 1024 or 512 skins, and there isn't much benefit to show in terms of visual quality when you watch them going round in 'tv-mode'. Where the 2048 skins make a real difference is a hi-res close up of a render, not in-game during the heat of a race. Personally I don't think increased res skins are worth the frame rate impact, 1024 is a good compromise, unless you want a car parade instead of a racing game.
Even non-square skins show properly, like 1280x1024 (to get the proportions of door decals correct).
You could only use it privately though because if you upload it to LFSWorls, you still have the maximum of 1024x1024 and allt he others will get a version which is downscaled to 512x512
I'm sure everyone would appreciate a 3Mb download per skin during races.
JPG is good enough, just tweak the compression for the optimal in clarity vs. filesize and use a black mask for the non-painted areas of the car.
Although it's better to resize them in an image editing program to get the quality better (proper resampling instead of simple stretching that would occur in LFS) before using them in-game.
I doesnt make much sense to use uncompressed bitmaps in games, simply because the filesize would be enormous, and the GPU compresses the textures anyway (usually).
yep; i made a 2048x version of my new team's skin, and the only thing that changed .. were things you dont even see in the cockpit!
you dont see your skin anyways, so what difference would it really make? i mean do you think people want to see your skin up that close?
even the 512x skins i get when online really arent that bad at all, you arent up that close to look at every detail, hence the fact that LFS is a racing simulator not a car show
plus, you dont have to compress jpeg all that much, i dont compress any of my skins at all.. in cmx they look fine, but in LFS it downsizes them to what 512x? not sure, it puts some compression, but its not noticeable until your about 2 ft from it, all you would be doing here is just sucking up power that doesnt really matter in the first place
Seriously, To make a car skin "readable" in LFS you're gonna want things somewhat big. Making a skin at 2000whatever is not going to make a skin look any better in the game....But from reading the above posts, I figure you get that point.
LOL I do my skins to scale uh well to "a" scale which is 1/2" = 1'
so my skins are about 10' x 10'
But if you can, try to work with vector images instead of pasting bmps or whatever raster type images. That right there will make things cleaner
when you export the the skin to the skins folder.
Another thing you could do, if you have Corel or Photoshop, is re-edit the finished skin by messing with the overall hue, contrast and saturation.
I haven't tried that on a skin, but it's worked wonders on photos (also jpegs)
So you join a server with 20 cars each with their own 2048*2048 skin. This results in you downloading 240Mb of skins because you want them all uncompressed. Even on a high speed DSL you will be waiting ages before you can join the race proper.
Now for the real killer of you ill thought out idea... You video card now needs 240Mb of ram just to hold the car skins before it even thinks about the world + car poly's its about to render and all the textures for the world. Then you need your frame buffers blah blah.
The guy just wants to make himself a high res skin I don't see anything unusual about his post. It has been explained that he can already make a high res skin if he wishes. His suggestion about file compression has also been covered. There is no such thing as a stupid question.
chucknorris, here is a potential solution for you:
Make yourself a high resolution skin, keeping in mind that this larger texture effect your game performance (frame rate or lag).
Make a 2nd copy of your skin at 1024 x 1024 and ensure that it is less than 400KB. Keep the filenames of these two versions identical. Upload the 1024 version to LFS World, this is what people will download when they see you online. Use your high res copy in your LFS/data/skins folder, this is what you will see in your game, everyone else will have the low res version.
1 And lo, after two years did Chuck Norris return from the wilderness to gloat; 2 and he didst feast upon the lambs, and the sloths, and the fruit bats; 3 and Chuck Norris did laugh and laugh and laugh and think to himself: "3y3 pWo4n3d j00z n00bz0rgz"; 4 and the people who had gathered to hear his words were all like: "d00d ssly, w/eva".
