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Will Skin/camo Templates Be Made Available ?

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Will Skin/camo Templates Be Made Available ?

#5
OK, here's the scoop on the camo. First, notice I said camo and not skin. The ships in Engima actually have three layers. The first is the base layer and color of the ship. This include most of the detail. The second layer is the camo. There's actually two png files that make up a single ships camo. The ship itself and the guns. Then there's the third layer which is the shadow map that adds the depth.

Of the three layers, the only one we will be able to modify is the camo layer. Currently, the template we saw at Enigmacon was laid out in blocks, and labeled with text. However, Bobby Wolfe was considering giving us a wireframe template to more precisely lay out our patterns. (Possibly in .psd format)

It is possible to place your own logos and such on the camo layer, but because the way it's laid out there could be stretching, etc. At this time, custom camos are only usable in the single player game. For multiplayer, they do have a decal system in the works (or at least in consideration), that would be an opaque section for placing your logos etc. Also mentioned was the ability to have your unique identifier (i.e. U-571) and name on the ship. If/when custom camo becomes available for the multiplayer you would need to have the files installed on your computer in order see the changes. It was mentioned that maybe Tesseraction might screen submissions for skins for an official pak, but it's not confirmed and certainly would be for the future. (They've got a ton on their plate already).

If I remember correctly, the ship camo pngs were 1024 x 1024, and the gun pngs were 128 x 128. If you wanted to increase the res on the templates you could, as long as you keep the aspect ratio the same. (For example, create a gun png that was 512 x 512). Keep in mind for performance reasons, that every time you double the size of a texture, you quadruple the requirements to run it.

Now, before anyone can run out there and start making fabulous creations... We'll need to wait for the tool... Expect to hear more on that later from the Tesseraction team.

Will Skin/camo Templates Be Made Available ?

#7
Thanks for the detailed info. wehrwolf. Hope they get the camo modding sorted for multiplayer as there isn't much point doing a good camo unless someone else can see it - modding camo's for single player seems a bit pointless by comparison although it will allow us to practice on the templates before multiplayer is up and running. Working with a single wireframe template sounds a lot less fiddly than lots of separate blocks. What is the .pst format - will Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop be able to use it ?

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