How to significantly save space with no qualityor performance loss ;)

[+Brain32 265]

Hey guys, I've been messing around with my install for a few days and being a bit obsessed with efficiency I managed to pull out some pretty interesting stuff.

 

Did you notice that paint schemes for some planes are pretty generic, for example F-16 with the gunship gray/light gray, many navy planes, but even some planes with repeating camo schemes like Jaguar basically have the same skin repeating over and over again with differences being either made with decals or only exist on one map?

It can take a wagonload of space, especially if you don't use jpg or dds, but there is a kinda cool solution to that.

 

a) If differences between skins are made by decals ONLY

 

Now this is a really simple thing, just move the entire skin into the root folder of the aircraft mod, the only files that should be left in individual skin folders are:

decals.ini

numbers.lst

Patch.bmp(optional)

textureset.ini

 

And that's it, the game will read the generic skin from the root folder and apply decals to various skins as you select them in game accordingly.

Perfect example for this(as I tested this on it) is the excellent F-15J skinpack as it uses the same skin for every unit the only difference being in decals, so instead of 8 repeating skins I only have one in the root folder and it works!

 

b) If differences are painted on some maps but not all of them (I actually prefer this as decals can be huge)

 

Best example for this are the new F-16's, especially blk25/30

 

Those skins are mostly repeating over and over again BUT map "F16-004.xxx" contains a difference because it has unit letters and colors applied to the tail.(note: sometimes differences can be find on other maps so check it out first before deleting!!!)

The solution here is also very simple, move one of the skins entirely into the root folder like in the first example and you can also delete the skins in each individual skin folder but leave each unique "F16-004.xxx" in it's folder.

 

The game will only use the parts of the skin in the root folder when it does not find files in the individual folder that's the point of all this.

 

So if you have say 8 generic repeating skins but also say a desert camo or some anniversary cammo you just move the generic one into the root and delete the other generic one but leave the different ones entirely.

 

I repeat this is only usefull for planes that use repeating skins, if each skin is unique then you will have no use of all this.

 

Also the crucial thing in this principle is that the game will use only skins of the format that are written in the LOD file so if you find that your planes are black you will have to hack into the lod to change the file format(jpg,bmp.dds) to what you use for the skin files.

 

So that's it hope it wasn't too long and that I didn't over-complicate it as it's really simple.

Edited October 14, 2012 by Brain32

[Wrench 9,801]

that could shave off a lot of space, expeciall for things like late 40/early 50s, when all navy planes were Dark Gloss Blue, with the only differences (in most cases) squadron color tag on the top of the vert fin

[+Brain32 265]

Yeah especially when the skins are very high res, what used to be a say 300MB mod turns into 50MB with no quality loss whatsoever...

[JediMaster 451]

I don't know, I see no loss when converting the BMPs to JPGs. BMPs are just plain inefficient.

[+Brain32 265]

True but this works regardless of the skins file format, it's based on removing repeating maps

[+ianh755 196]

Anything which helps save space is much needed for my poor SSD - SF2:E alone is 36GB

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

I do the same with cockpits, put all cockpits outside the game and share many of them...still need a dedicated cockpit folder for radar bmp though, but that's all. SF-1 2008 of course.

 

MiG-17F...

 

^COCKPIT^.ini

:

:

Directory=D:\ A \ MiG-15 \ Cockpit

 

Don't know if this works in SF-2. The nice thing about it is when making regular backups to the game, I avoid copying all the cockpit folders...unless I need to back them up to.

 

What is a backup?

 

Never mind.

[+Dels 619]

Holy crap that is awesome information! Time to start deleting...

 

Dels

[+Stary 2,427]

could be handy for all the repeating MF Vipers we have, one skin for helluva variants and squadrons

[+Gunrunner 314]

I wouldn't bet too hard on that particular technique to work in the long term, it seems to be a bug as it should only work within CAT files, not outside.

 

A more labor intensive method and not available to modders packing their mods is the use of symlinks or hard links (and in some case, junction points), however the game engine seems to be prone to crash on exit when some directories called are using a junction.

Edited October 15, 2012 by Gunrunner

[+Brain32 265]

Hmm I doubt it's a bug, spec and bump maps I knew already to work like that and that's exactly why I tried it with skin maps, I don't think TK could "fix" this without messing up the spec and bump maps too...

[+Gunrunner 314]

Good point, that's probably why it works that way now, because he doesn't make a distinction between the various elements and he needs it to work that way for normal maps.