High Res - Normal Res

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

Thought I would start a new topic on the various options re:- Resolution for skins

 

Here are some screens I have taken.....the first thing I noticed, was Allied Green..'tends' to be less noticeable..see what you think?...and please post some high res - Low res shots of your own....as I often wonder if it's hardware related too?

 

Also, of course..a lot depends on the angle of shot..sunlight, weather conditions can make a big difference in screenshots..as i'm sure you're aware

 

 

 

 

Edited June 22, 2011 by UK_Widowmaker

[xclusiv8 35]

I only see a difference on the first one. The wings look a little sharper on the right one.

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

Well spotted Xclusive...I just noticed that the right sided one was taken with Anti-Alias turned up

[DukeIronHand 8]

I very much appreciate this thread UK_Widowmaker!

 

I was kicking around goofing with high rez skins in my campaigns but I frankly do not see a huge difference - at least in the screen shots.

 

What is your opinion of the comparisons in-game?

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

I very much appreciate this thread UK_Widowmaker!

 

I was kicking around goofing with high rez skins in my campaigns but I frankly do not see a huge difference - at least in the screen shots.

 

What is your opinion of the comparisons in-game?

 

Well Duke...Looking at Olham's amazing screenshot, would suggest that there is a big difference...But, from my personal experience 'so far'....I haven't seen a vast difference, and am even beginning to suspect that Anti Alias settings have more effect on a normal skin..than lower AA with a high res one...but I'm shooting in the dark to be honest!...I'm sure that some other, more clued-up guys will jump in

[Olham 164]

The difference is very noticable to me (ATI HD 4870) when I look at the wing from my cockpit, or when I go close in an outside view.

The detail in my Lozenge fabric is stunning. I may show pics later.

[RAF_Louvert 101]

.

 

I have played around with the AA and hi rez settings as well and will say that, with my nVidia card, I also find a much bigger difference is seen by adjusting the AA settings than I have ever been able to achieve with the hi rez settings. But I imagine there are a lot of system variables at play here so there is likely not a one-size-fits-all configuration that will yield best results.

 

.

[Olham 164]

It may be more visible with Lozenge fabric, but here is a comparison.

I must say though, that Lou is perfectly right - it depends much more on AA and other "fine-tuning"

of your graphic card, how the overall result will look.

 

 

[Macklroy 2]

perfect pic for this discusion right there Olham. The normal res skins just look fuzzy compared to the highres. You can even easily read any and all lettering on highres skins. Not always true with the normal. Just small details in the overall scheme. But isn't OFF all about the small details.

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

I think Lou may be onto something..I have a Nvidia card too...but I ain't ever seen anything Like Olham's shot! (good job I don't like crispy clean skins..but that shot IS amazing!)

[Olham 164]

Before anyone gets anything in the wrong throat here: the skin I used for this comparison

is one I made - so please don't search for the writing on the wing; it is not there in OFF skins.

[DukeIronHand 8]

I wonder if part of the difference is, kind of related to what Olham said, in that he is using his own skins.

 

Some of Olhams skins unzip to, IIRC, about 12 MB of beauty compared to 2.5 MB for stock skins.

 

Is that one of your 12 MB ones Olham?

 

That, and perhaps his super duper ATI card, may explain his obviously great results.. I run Nvidia and its a fairly old one.

[Olham 164]

Duke, all skins in OFF are dds-files with a size of 2048 x 2048 pixels.

They have 12 MB as long as they are in Photoshop or another program, but the final .dds file has 2.731 KB;

mine as well as the stock ones.

 

And my ATI card is a HD4870 (1 GB), a card which came up 2008 I think.

 

What I recommend to everybody, is to check the control panel of your graphic cards.

For the ATI cards that is called "ATI Catalyst Control Center".

 

You get there by right-clicking on your desktop.

In there you find a button "Gaming", there are the "3D Application Settings".

In there you can set up all the fine tuning with Anti-Aliasing and such.

 

Anti-Aliasing will smoothen edges and wires, and the most cards should be able to run at least AA set to 8x.

You should experiment with it to find out, how far you can go.

 

I'll start a new thread to demonstatrate it.

Edited June 23, 2011 by Olham

[DukeIronHand 8]

Alrighty then.

 

I thought you were using your latest DV Jasta 2 Basic skin as a template there.

[DukeIronHand 8]

Double post

Edited June 23, 2011 by DukeIronHand

[Olham 164]

Damn, Duke, now I got it!

I had made a bad mistake - instead of uploading a skin in the correct .dds format,

I had uploaded a .BMP file in that case. Gawd, my scrambled eggs, which I use

instead of a brain failed me again!

 

I corrected that, and soon there should be the correct format file available.

[+Polovski 460]

High res skins are definitely much better, if you don't see it make sure the skin is sharp (importing and re-exporting dds makes them go much fuzzier (DDS is compressed then you are re-compressing again). Also maybe make sure you have the Aircraft slider high too.

[DukeIronHand 8]

Damn, Duke, now I got it!

I had made a bad mistake - instead of uploading a skin in the correct .dds format,

I had uploaded a .BMP file in that case. Gawd, my scrambled eggs, which I use

instead of a brain failed me again!

 

I corrected that, and soon there should be the correct format file available.

 

Doh! I didn't even notice it was a .bmp file...hehe

[DukeIronHand 8]

High res skins are definitely much better, if you don't see it make sure the skin is sharp (importing and re-exporting dds makes them go much fuzzier (DDS is compressed then you are re-compressing again). Also maybe make sure you have the Aircraft slider high too.

 

So if I take a skin and edit it in a graphics program, i.e., re-skinning a stock skin, the more I save it the worse it gets?

 

In my latest skin job I must have opened it, made fixes or corrections, then re-saved it probably 15-20 times.

 

So this skin is 15-20 times "worse" than the stock skin it is based on?

 

Edit: Grammar

Edited June 23, 2011 by DukeIronHand

[+Polovski 460]

Yes Duke. Open the DDS once, save as BMP or PSD or whatever first. Then you can tweak clarify details that you want then save as DDS. Keep the BMP or original always to do more work on later, never reimport the dds. Not a lot of people know that ;)

 

 

When you save it compresses. Open, save (now you have a doubly compressed file now). Not the same for other formats but for DDS is so.

[RAF_Louvert 101]

.

 

Yuppers, that's how I do it. I just posted the following up in the 'Screenshots' thread, which shows a Pup I've worked on and saved as a BMP in my Paint.NET program at least 20 different times, with no degrading of the details. I simply pull the base skin up with DXTBmp, save it as a BMP, then open it in my Paint.NET and immediately save it in that format for working on, then resave it as a BMP each time I am done with the changes and tweaks. Open the 'new' BMP with DXTBmp and save it back as a DDS file in my OFF 'skins' folder, and Bob's your Uncle!

 

 

 

 

Cheers!

 

Lou

 

.

[DukeIronHand 8]

Yes Duke. Open the DDS once, save as BMP or PSD or whatever first. Then you can tweak clarify details that you want then save as DDS. Keep the BMP or original always to do more work on later, never reimport the dds. Not a lot of people know that ;)

 

 

When you save it compresses. Open, save (now you have a doubly compressed file now). Not the same for other formats but for DDS is so.

 

 

Well scheisse! (Did I spell that right Olham?)

 

Thank you for the info gentleman. Got to go back and re-do (from scratch!) a personal skin or two. Lucky I have not had a lot of free time or it would be more than two!

 

And that is a beautiful skin RAF_Louvert.

[Lewie 7]

Yes Duke. Open the DDS once, save as BMP or PSD or whatever first. Then you can tweak clarify details that you want then save as DDS. Keep the BMP or original always to do more work on later, never reimport the dds. Not a lot of people know that ;)

 

 

When you save it compresses. Open, save (now you have a doubly compressed file now). Not the same for other formats but for DDS is so.

 

 

This is true also of .bmp to .jpg's to a lesser degree. Always save your first importation as a file that can be edited in an image editer, either a .bmp or .tga. In PSP you have the option of "sharpen" for images that may have softened their detail. It's not without some risk of image corruption, but if used early and infrequently it will help images that have 'softened' due to 're-importation'.

[+Polovski 460]

This is true also of .bmp to .jpg's to a lesser degree. Always save your first importation as a file that can be edited in an image editer, either a .bmp or .tga. In PSP you have the option of "sharpen" for images that may have softened their detail. It's not without some risk of image corruption, but if used early and infrequently it will help images that have 'softened' due to 're-importation'.

 

Yes for sure, always use a pure original where possible to resave from - just DDS is particularly bad gets noticeable worse as you go quickly.

[vonOben 55]

Hi

 

The Ground Crew Design Parameter settings for 2048x2048 textures might be worth testing in OFF:

 

http://www.regshange...%20settings.php

 

Cheers

 

vonOben