skin divide

[mace-x]

i would liketo see a skin divition implemented, i mean:

Rider:
boots
jersey
pants
gloves
helmet
googles

Bike:
front end
metals
plastic
handlebars
or some sort of division between the customizable things that people likes the most

wheels:
hub
spokes
rims
tires

also be available to exchange model parts such as handlebars, pipes, etc.
that may cause some problems but is up to the modelators to set a standard to everyone´s models fit each other.

so we could make a pipe for the ktm as an example, or maybe some different boots for ddmx´s v2 model, that would be totally awesome! (instead of having 30 skins called thor xxx red no leat,thor xxx red leat thor xxx green no leat, etc. )

[JohnnyMac]

i would liketo see a skin divition implemented, i mean:

Rider: (6 textures)
boots
jersey
pants
gloves
helmet
googles

Bike: (4 textures)
front end
metals
plastic
handlebars

wheels: (4 textures)
hub
spokes
rims
tires

Good suggestion, but example is extreme. I would like to see some break up of textures, but some of what your asking is a bit overboard...like splitting up the wheel into 4 parts, thats too much! Wheels are fine as is. Your suggestion helps skinners, gives more options, and saves disk space. However it also reduces performance on graphics hardware.

Heres the problem, older graphics cards cant handle a lot of texture changes when rendering objects. Each object/texture gets sent to graphics card to be rendered, so example current version of game is bike, rider, helmet, and wheels = 4 calls to graphics card PER BIKE. (10 riders * 4 = 40 calls to graphics card)

Your version is 6 textures for rider, 4 textures for bike, 4 textures for wheels = 14 calls to graphics card PER BIKE. (10 riders * 14 = 140 calls to graphics card)

There are code techniques jlv could do if not already, like batching objects by textures, which would help the situation.

[mace-x]

aaaaaah, got it.
so would be a bitch in video cards with lower memory true?
altrought, jlv, is there any posibilities to do something like this?
i hate to have to look in my skins with hundreds of skins and names.

[jlv]

I'm not a fan of the idea. It makes more work for the GPU and the only upside is the ability to mismatch your gear.

[yFMX]

how about using different skins for gears and boots? Like 1024x1024px for gears and 512x512 for boots.

[wakestyle21]

Couldn't you have the textures merged into one image before it is applied to the model?

[Goardy]

woah, look who has risen from the dead

[jlv]

Couldn't you have the textures merged into one image before it is applied to the model?

If the UV maps don't overlap you could. But in that case you might as well just have everyone run their own custom skin.