Quote from keithano :

Sorry, but what's the point for blowing up a skin that is not originally created in 4096x4096? The file size is different, and also blowing up to 4096x4096 for this skin is just still crap. For Hi-Res skin ( I mean 4096 in this case), the image should be much more clearer, and thus using up much more space than just 566kb.

Cmon, I am a photographer, and I deal with Photoshop everyday. I think I have enough knowledge in terms of the related proportion of resolution size to file size.

what the heck man, i said i blew it up for a size example the file size not the quality.

read first.

and yes i know im a graphics designer so yes i do know how it works

Converting 1024 to 512 and then to dds again loses some quality so infact we're getting worse quality then we began with.

for comparison... you can really see it around the oval shape and the logo.

Quote from Jimmy_Lemon :

what the heck man, i said i blew it up for a size example the file size not the quality.

read first.

and yes i know im a graphics designer so yes i do know how it works

This is quite funny as you are really talking out your behind. Surely if you want this ultra high res stuff, then you already have your own skins that you've done in high res, yet you post a skin that was "blown up" from low res. Thus, it is of my opinion that you can't really run LFS as you claim you can and were only trolling on the test patch thread.

Let's see a real skin from yourself. Don't bother if it will take you a week to make one.....

Quote from Jimmy_Lemon :

what the heck man, i said i blew it up for a size example the file size not the quality.

read first.

and yes i know im a graphics designer so yes i do know how it works

no you dont otherwise youd know that blwoing up an image like that will result in a very low frequency jpeg that doesnt use up much space like a proper high res image would

took 20 mins was bored a few days ago nothin special, the skin is reduced from 4096 to 2048 btw

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=417178#post417178

Don't start harping on him now guys. He may have some different views on this... but it's nothing bad. He obviously just wants much higher quality... and well Jimmy I think you've explained your point, but it's not going to happen for a long time until we get a better graphics engine (or improved one at least).

And again, he blew up that skin (my skin actually ) to show the filesize difference of a 1024 skin compared to a huge 4068 sized skin. Originally though when I saved that skin in 1024, it was compressed slightly, and at full quality it would be somewhere around 500kb if I remember correctly. Regardless, what you did Jimmy to demonstrate the filesize difference isn't entirely accurate. If I take a resized high quality photo (1024x1024) and try to increase the quality, there is loads of interpolation and resampling, and you get very large smoothed out pixels... which results in a 'low quality' high resolution image. Now if I took that original photo and it was 4068x4068 to begin with, the filesize would be MUCH greater because of a larger count of different colored pixels.

EDIT: Shotglass put it in much simpler terms above :doh:

But anyways, the filesizes are the main part of this problem, because the devs don't have the resources or the cash to allow for such huge downloads of skins. Also, like I mentioned earlier, not many people even make their skins in 2048 or higher, the usual size is 1024. Most do this for the sake of uploading it to LFSW, but also knowing that LFS is very much a universal game in respects to performance on old systems. 1024 skins can eat up some memory on such systems, and even a single 2048 skin can cause significant FPS drops. Just learn that not everyone has a computer like you Jimmy, and at least support this idea of even getting 1024 sized skins from online, it is a much better alternative to 512 sized skins. HOWEVER, with the current compression and conversion from JPG to DDS, the 1024 DDS files are looking like utter crap compared to a 512 sized skin even. So once this can be fixed, the 1024 size should be WELL WORTH IT.

This is a test patch afterall..... Fixes fixes fixes, always.

Quote from Davo :

Converting 1024 to 512 and then to dds again loses some quality so infact we're getting worse quality then we began with.

for comparison... you can really see it around the oval shape and the logo.

[ snip image ]

Have you tried converting the skin manually Davo and saving as DXT3 or DXT5? I think you'll get better results (the image you posted looks like a poor quality DXT1 texture).

Granted, it'd be a bitch to do this for 3rd-party skins, but if it works (and I don't see why not), would at least work for your own skins



Regards,

Ian

EDIT: You'll always also get some artifacts when converting back from DDS to whatever format due to the original whatever->DDS compression.

i dont see why the devs couldnt simply charge 4£/2000 2048 skins though

Quote from XCNuse :

No one wants something they wont see, its like going to the US military and saying you want to buy an SR-71 Blackbird, even if you had all the money in the world they wouldn't sell one to you, it wouldn't do you any good if you had one anyways.. you'd have nothing to do with it but look at it in awe.

there goes my 1 1/2 hr london new york air line business plan

Quote from Ian.H :

Have you tried converting the skin manually Davo and saving as DXT3 or DXT5? I think you'll get better results (the image you posted looks like a poor quality DXT1 texture).

Granted, it'd be a bitch to do this for 3rd-party skins, but if it works (and I don't see why not), would at least work for your own skins



Regards,

Ian

EDIT: You'll always also get some artifacts when converting back from DDS to whatever format due to the original whatever->DDS compression.

The comparison I posted is a direct downloaded file from lfs using lfsworld not a conversion by me.

I've downloaded a freeware dds converter that does DXT3 and DXT5, should I try these? I only used DXT1 for my skins_x folder. The thing is now skins will taje up twice the space on the hardrive and still offer lower quality. If we could upload dds skins perhaps...

I'll get the converter out again, it took 30minutes to convert 3500 jpgs, of about 200 were 2048res ones. I'll try DXT5 and see if theres much difference.

Well there's not much difference between the lfsw dds and the one I just converted using DXT5, it's a little clearer but the file size is larger. I can put up with a larger file if it means better gameplay but I'd also like to see quality go up too.

Exactly how much easier for the system are DDS skins then compared to JPG? How significant the difference is? Good if DDS format helps but at the same time it seems to prevent using higher (2048) skin size because the file size seems to be the problem in the first place. Seems like this feature adds one but sacrifices one thing... I mean in the future 2048 (JPG) skins could have been very likely to happen.

In general nice that is area is getting some attention. Never really understood this low-res texture approach for everything (not only talking about skins now). People are crying for DX9/10 stuff already, while the easiest way to raise graphics quality would be to simply to double the textures sizes.

.

Quote from Tweaker :

If you want 2048, or even 4096, good luck finding someone that made a skin in that res

I thought everyone who skins even half-seriously makes them at 4096... I guess not then.

Quote from Jimmy_Lemon :

not one unsmoothe lag bump or anything for me.


and yeh yeh i kno im getting flamed here but im not botherd im just saying what i think im entitled to that.

the community is not U there are (ten)thousands members.
i really dont think the devs will put something in the game for the 5% of ppl who have enough power to use it.

Quote from Batterypark :

I thought everyone who skins even half-seriously makes them at 4096... I guess not then.

No-one I know of does, everyone on Master Skinnerz skins at 2048.

Not to get into the rather silly discussion of making the skins 104234329x143873247 resolution:


In the other thread, Gunn asked this question:
"So does that mean that when I want to put my mates', high res skins into LFS that I have to put them into my skins folder - meaning that anytime I want to choose a skin for myself I now have a huge list of skins to browse through, skins that I never use?"

I haven't seen an answer anywhere. Anyone?

If you want to choose a skin for yourself, you put it in your skins folder, like you always have. It really is no different than what we had before... except while you are playing the game it will temporarily make a DDS skin in the skins_dds folder... and that isn't something you'd need to worry about --- just leave that folder alone .

You should NOT be seeing skins from the skins_x or skins_y in your own browsable menu in the LFS garage.

If you are trying to put a high quality skin in the skins_x directory, that should work afaik. Just put them in there, and it should do the same... it will make a DDS file in the skins_dds folder. The skins_dds folder is like a sub storage area that is just used by LFS. It's all explained in Scawen's post.

Quote from Jimmy_Lemon :

took 20 mins was bored a few days ago nothin special, the skin is reduced from 4096 to 2048 btw

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=417178#post417178

Where's the point in the higher resolution if there's no detail? I mean, where are the shadows and stuff? If it's only to see a sweet logo (Momo, HKS, Dunlop, how original) in higher resolution, it's of no use.

Ok, I am one of the "low-end" gamers and I get less than 1 fps when putting 20 AI cars on the field. At least got, as I got a better graphics card a couple of days ago and I haven't had time to test it with LFS yet. I'm upgrading in 2 years from now according to my plan (because of studying abroad and stuff like that), so I hope I'll be able to play LFS until then on my comp, if not in multiplayer, in singleplayer then

Quote from Jimmy_Lemon :

1 pound for yet still low resolution textures.

1024x1024 is low resolution... i have 30,000 skins in my skin_x folder and if i wanted them all HighER it would cost 15 pounds, but yet they will still be low resolution.

i could understand if they was 2048x2048 (which in my case is still low resolution) but there not so i would be paying 15 pounds for them still being low.

i know they was low be for and it wont kill me using them low still but i run 2560x1600 resolution and there seems to be no graphical updates for higher resolution stuff for us high end users.

not every one has low resolution and old pc's you know.

how is a skin that is almost the whole resolution of your monitor "low res"

Jimmy, i cant tell the difference between 1024 and 2048 when racing, and i cant tell the difference between 2048 and 4096 when in shift u!

Quote from Jimmy_Lemon :

it should be 1 pound for 2048 textures and 1024 and 512 should be free cause there low >.<

yes, but think of the bandwidth requires

Look, you seem to like to brag about your 1337 PC, and how LFS should take advantage of it, but with 2048 textures, 32 Ai, lots of texture mods and 16xAA and 16xAF it looks bloody good

I think Jimmy is the type of guy who automatically thinks "bigger is better", "more is better" without actually having a clue of what he´s talking about, which is quite obvious if you read his posts.

Quote :

what the heck man, i said i blew it up for a size example the file size not the quality.

read first.

and yes i know im a graphics designer so yes i do know how it works

That´s like re-encoding a 128 kb/sec MP3 to a 320 kb/sec mp3 and saying the latter is of better quality.

Well I did some testing of patch W21 particularly to get my head around this skin file issue. Here is what I discovered, some of which has already been explained.

JPG files are no longer supported, any JPG's in your skin folder will get converted to DDS files when you start LFS TP (Test Patch) W21 and the DDS skin files are then placed into your skin_dds folder, which is where LFS loads & uses your skins from now.

The skin_x folder also requires the skins within it to be DDS files. It still handles all others skins (multiplayer / non-user specific skins) which are downloaded from LFSW. These will be derived from 512px skins unless you pay for the Hi-Res option. So no difference from what you get today if you don't pay.
Or you can still use Hi-Res skins which won't get overwritten as long as the file name matches that from LFSW.
So you can convert all you 2048px JPG's to have a Hi-Res DDS version in-game.

So what is different you ask well when you look at a converted DDS file and compare it against its JPG (same quality) the DDS is worse, especially the lower the quality JPG you converted from. When you look at them in Photoshop a 512px JPG converted to DDS has many jaggies etc, where as if you convert a higher Res JPG like a 1024 it is significantly better but still detectable and a Hi-Res JPG of 2048px it is hardly noticeable until around 200x magnification.

Saying all that I couldn't notice much difference in quality when viewing a replay from MNR last week whether it was using W17 (JPEG's) or W21 (DDS). There was also little effect on performance as FPS was pretty much identical even thought the DDS files are usually 1.75 to 2 times bigger file size than its JPG's.
BTW LFS converts them to DXT1 DDS files for the geeks out there, which if I am not mistaken means they don't have alpha channels.

At this stage I will not be using patch W21, it is just not worth the effort until we know what is going to happen with skins & file types and the improvements are not substantial enough to warrant it imho.
It will be interesting to see what Scawen has planned & why LFS now uses DDS files, I guess it really is just to keep up to the current standard for graphics handling and allows some scope for improvements like reflections etc.
Can't wait to see

Quote from Jimmy_Lemon :

what the heck man, i said i blew it up for a size example the file size not the quality.

read first.

and yes i know im a graphics designer so yes i do know how it works

SO, I am saying that does not make sense. Cmon', self-claimed graphic designer and still talking like this...

Password: harpydarpy

Has anyone thought that LFSworld actually only takes 1024 skins, with 400kb max limit? It isn't possible to upload bigger skins atm.. So there isn't really any reason to offer higher skins for download because there aren't any skins to download at that quality in the first place. And it would take quite a while to get to people to upload their 2048 skins anyway if such option was offered.

I haven't checked but can anyone even spot the difference between 2048 and 4096 skins in LFS? Not in skin viewer, but in LFS?

Quote from Tweaker :

I It really is no different than what we had before...

You should NOT be seeing skins from the skins_x or skins_y in your own browsable menu in the LFS garage.

Not really the same: We've been told by Scawen to leave all the other folders (other than "skins" that is) alone. Before, if I downloaded a skinpack for a "friend" team, I'd stick it in the "skins_x" folder. I saw the hi-res textures in the game, I didn't see them in my LFS garage menu.

But now, if I have to stick them in my "skins" folder (because as Scawen wrote - anything you'll put into "skins_x" manually will be ignored by LFS), I will have lots and lots of skins in my LFS garage menu which I won't PERSONALLY use.


Just claryfying my point

Quote from Jimmy_Lemon :

attached a file,

4096x4096 and its 566kb

used the skin MRT_Repsol_Hayden and blew it up to 4096x4096 for a quick example that resolution doesnt nessasery mean huge file size.

it could be compressed 50 times more to even half the size without loosing 1 pixel of image quality from what it currently is if you have the right tools.

ok im offline

This post alone confirms that Lemon (for that is what he is) doesn't know what he's attempting to talk about. I find him very amusing. Can we give him an award for being so.... sweet and innocent?

Quote from szyszek :

Not really the same: We've been told by Scawen to leave all the other folders (other than "skins" that is) alone. Before, if I downloaded a skinpack for a "friend" team, I'd stick it in the "skins_x" folder. I saw the hi-res textures in the game, I didn't see them in my LFS garage menu.

But now, if I have to stick them in my "skins" folder (because as Scawen wrote - anything you'll put into "skins_x" manually will be ignored by LFS), I will have lots and lots of skins in my LFS garage menu which I won't PERSONALLY use.


Just claryfying my point

Thats how I understand it.

ALL jpeg skins, regardless of weather you plan to use them personally, or are just for hi-res multiplayer skins, must go in the skins folder, and therefore you can see them in the garage.

Personally, I think this is wrong, there NEEDS to be some segregation between multiplayer skins, and the skins you plan to use.

Also, I am assuming that any and all jpeg files in either skins, or skins_x can be removed AFTER conversion, as they are no longer required?.

TBH, all this seems rather more complex and painfull than it need to be, is there really that many people who require higher res multiplayer skins, that don't already do it the way I do? (download hi-res skins and place them in skins_x), I just wonder how this got to be priority for a patch, as it offers nothing we can't already do, increases bandwith, and messes with an already working system, AND you have to pay for it.

Unless there is more planned for the added features DDS gives you, but this doesnt seem to be the case because the DDS files are of lower quality than the given size in jpeg, and are DXT1 with no alpha.

I am perplexed by all this personally......

@Jimmy_Lemon: didn't u read the devs comments? It is very expansive to provide bandwith, maintainance and co for 1024x1024 - how can u say they should go to 2048 or 4096? Who should pay this? Also LfS should run on low end systems - this is also why High end users can go to extrem resolutions with 8xAA, 16xAF, Supersampling and all the stuff and this is enough for now I think - try a demo of GTR2 or so, in LfS I can run at 1600x1200 with all the stuff listed above, in GTR2 demo I must go down very far and it looks very very bad and its a mainstream 2007 "simulation" - so LfS takes a very good way in graphics/perfomance weighting