Ability to choose skin in multiplayer.

Added a pole to get a better visual of what yall think.

I think this would be a great feature. but for the sake of realism there would have to be options regarding it. For example on the virtual aerobatics server the mission setting could be choose what ever plane texture you want. However on a server like the 104th they could choose to disable that feature so that all of the aircraft in a certain group have to be the same paint job.

+1 ;)

+1 OP. I would love to fly with my own custom skin and shoot at custom enemy airplanes. Especially in context of WW2

I'd vote for custom nose art over custom skins. Auto upload a client's nose art file from /Users/DCS/... of a specific file size limit and resolution. Livery/skin selection should be determined by the mission, at least in situations where people want things to appear realistic. We'd also need a decent selection of good non-marked skins that are included with the modules to eliminate all of the downloading and setup woes.

Added a pole to get a better visual of what yall think.

Ain't no flag on that pole? :D

On a serious note:

On one hand, I'm a skinner, and I would love to use my historical skins online.I worked a lot on them, I would love to see the benefit. On the other hand I'm sure glad there are no cheesy flames or skulls on any planes I encounter online. Tough question.

Nice to have. Falls under Wish list stuff though.

I'm a big fan of this idea, and I've advocated it in the past.

There are two ways to do this, and either one or both can be implemented.

The first way and simplest way is to allow personal decals on an existing skin, similar to what is done now with the F-15C and Su-27. You would use the existing F-15C skin/decal (e.g. 492nd FS) and have your own personal decal with the canopy name and nose art. This could even be implemented automatically without having to select your own skin in multiplayer, as the decal filename could be attached to your callsign and pulled in automatically based on the active callsign in multiplayer and the name of the existing decal file. For example, if the main decal file is F15_decol_492FS.dds (it's not, but this is just for example), then if there was a file called F15_decol_492FS|Home_Fries.dds, then this decal would be picked up automatically if "Home_Fries" was the active callsign in use by the client. Since decals are normally around 500kb, downloads wouldn't be a problem.

The second way would be to allow full selection as was originally desired. Downloads may be prohibitive considering some skins exceed 50Mb (e.g. MiG-21), but at least right now when somebody doesn't have a skin the default skin for that aircraft is selected. ED could take it a step further and allow skinners to apply one or two "fall back" skins, i.e. a common skin that would be selected if the particular custom skin wasn't on the client's system. For example, someone has a custom A-10C 104th skin with their name, nose art, and national roundels. Since there are no decals for the A-10, and since even decals might not cover custom roundels, the skinner could put in a line in description.lua to use the original 104th FS skin if the custom skin was unavailable.

Either one of these options could allow custom skinners to have their cake and eat it too, and implementing both of these options would provide us with a lot of cake!

I agree.

And as long as the Skins are nation based there is no real problem with it.

Maby you could make a Poll about getting the ability to change Controls while in MP since that is also something that is much needed.

Well another poll would be if one wants to be able to go into Controls/Options while in MP ^^.

We can go into controls in MP now in 2.0! :thumbup:

We can go into controls in MP now in 2.0! :thumbup:

Really? :)

I think an easy start for ED would be just to add a drop down on the arming screen with the default skins for each aircraft. I cant' see that being too hard to do.

If that works well then maybe consider allowing custom skins as well or have that option up to the Admin of the Server.

Really? :)

 

I think an easy start for ED would be just to add a drop down on the arming screen with the default skins for each aircraft. I cant' see that being too hard to do.

If that works well then maybe consider allowing custom skins as well or have that option up to the Admin of the Server.

Agreed

+1 FFS!

Where is this logic/ implementation?

This is A MUST for friends and groups flying together!

-I just spent days on creating skins for my group only to find out yesterday that its not supported in Multiplayer by DCS Devs!?... How come? WTF!? Cant be hard or time consuming to implement?

I guess the server could load skins locally on clients local PC and share among connected clients if the "server owner" appprove custom skins? Would be quite fun to see online as well :D

:megalol: :joystick: :pilotfly::noexpression:

Bump

Thanks ED for implementing this wish!

Thanks ED for implementing this wish!

Hear! Hear! :beer:

now the skins only need to be synced and then this feature is complete

now the skins only need to be synced and then this feature is complete

Be careful what you wish for: some skins approach 80Mb. :cry:

Be careful what you wish for: some skins approach 80Mb. :cry:

80Mb of what?

80Mb of what?

Texture files that would need to be synced using the server's upload bandwidth. For the Viggen, each of 5 main textures is 8Mb, then you have 8Mb specular files (3 of these), which puts you at 64Mb before you get to pylons, gear, and pilots.

ah well, it might be demanding, but it can be an advantage if the admin/mission creator forgot to set the skins and then you're flying with whatever camo or demo skin around...

It's also nicer if your squad has the same skins but different numbers or if you are a squad with goal to be as close to the real squad as possible so you can set your own skins and numbers.

That might also be an opportunity to get non-default skins showing up in MP for others

It's also nicer if your squad has the same skins but different numbers or if you are a squad with goal to be as close to the real squad as possible so you can set your own skins and numbers.

This is one of the reasons I really like the decal system on the F-15C and wish it was duplicated in more aircraft. Instead of a huge skin, you have a 512kb decal file with the number, canopy name, and nose art. This would be very easy to sync if it was standard on more aircraft.

This is one of the reasons I really like the decal system on the F-15C and wish it was duplicated in more aircraft. Instead of a huge skin, you have a 512kb decal file with the number, canopy name, and nose art. This would be very easy to sync if it was standard on more aircraft.

+1 :)

Syncing Liveries would be a huge bandwidth problem unless everyone already had them on their Harddisk.

Most of the Aircraft DO have a Single Decal Layer, the issue is, not all Liveries are simply decals...

Syncing Liveries would be a huge bandwidth problem unless everyone already had them on their Harddisk.

What about this:

IF (otherUser.HasChangedSkinNameOnHarddisk == true)

Show the changed skin

ELSE

Show the default skin of this plane (like it is when I join a plane in Multiplayer and I don't have the skin)

:smartass: