Multiskin Light...?

[philip.ed]

I was thinking the other day that it would quite a nice idea to have a 'light' version of the multiskin. I was wondering about this beacuse when I am in the air, I can tell squadrons apart by the aircraft code, but the individual A/C code is not of much relevence to me. I nearly always fly Red-1 and so there are only a few skins that I actually use. Consequently, I was wondering if it would be possible to have a version of the multiskin that applies the red 1 skin to the red-1 A/C and then for the others in the squadron they can either use the same skin or the one for red-2. This would cut-down loading times considerably and could maybe improve fps as well. The same would be good for axis skins as well, because although I like to see the paintschemes used by the luftwaffe planes, the individual A/C code used by them is never really taken into avvount by me, apart from maybe if it's a bomber and has wing-markings.

Does anyone else think that this could be an idea for those of us who can run the multiskin but would maybe like to see reduced load-times or fps improvements?

I am sure that I could make the relevent changes manually, so could anyone tell me how to do this?

Also, going slightly off topic here, can someone please tell me how to give 66 squadron black-spinners? I used to know how to do this, but I have forgotten.

Thanks in advance

[Bader]

Take a look in the Multiskin folder, philip.

I am not convinced that removing Multiskin will boost fps much, but it will certainly shorten load times, especially on first load.

If you look at files such as SpitMainSkin, you'll see entries such as
use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Spit_none.DDS if unit == Sq"UO" or unit == Sq"AZ" # 266,234


it's probably fairly obvious what that one does...

The files are read until a match is made and then it stops reading any further, so if you transferred the line:
use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Spit_blue.DDS if 1 == 1 # if nothing matches.
to the very top SpitMainSkin.ms then it would only ever load Spit_blue skin.

Try it and see what effects it has...

If you want to remove a line, just delete it or add a # at the front and it'll be ignored. (Indeed anything after a # is ignored.)

[philip.ed]

Hello Bader, thankyou for this, I will take a look.

Could it be possible to have a lightened version of the multiskin in the future for those of us who may appreciate shorter load-times?

[Osram]

Sure. Also it would run on somewhat smaller gfx cards (texture RAM wise).
We would just need a volunteer to do it .

[PV]

I use the example Bader gave for the spit, an august skin for the Hurri, and the one from the bottom line for the 109; haven't gotten around to tweaking the other files yet (in the simplest procedure, just go through the Multiskin folder and for each mainskin.ms file, copy the last line and paste it at the top). This gives me 3 textures for the fighter skins, but it doesn't affect the ID code overlays, so every machine still has a different ID, with a much lighter texture impact on my old 256MB card. I don't think there's any point in trying to bypass the number coding. The thing is, I don't know how the system is arranged, but I believe in the default MS configuration a large number (all?) of skins are loaded whether the planes are going to be in the 3D or not. The skins take up vastly more memory than the ID characters, so that should be the only thing you need to bypass.

With the multiskin bypassed this way, I don't believe there is any way to arrange that you can also always get the correct historic skin loaded for only whatever sqd you're flying; that would require a considerable amount of coding, I don't think the current scripting system supports it, as the skins are all loaded only once, then used as required. At the time the skins are loaded the game doesn't know which ones are needed, and it won't go back and get one later.

[Bader]

PV, perhaps if you could post your fighter skin files maybe this will help and could be a test for people with weaker systems?

You could delete all skin entries apart from the single ones you prefer and this would decrease load times no doubt.

[philip.ed]

That would be great

[Toonsis]

If you have a weaker system why mess with skins at all ?

I had a weaker system, just turned things down and didnt run extras until I saved enough to upgrade. Its the price one pay's for gaming on a weak system.

I would not have been happy with "lite" skins. It just would have given me a taste of all the stuff I could not do.

[PV]

my hurri .ms file looks like this:

Code: Select all

use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Hurri_August1940.DDS if 1 == 1
use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Hurri_June1940.DDS if unit == Sq"YO" 	 	# No 1C  Squadron --Historical Missionsx1
use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Hurri_July1940.DDS if unit == Sq"YB" 	 	# No 17  Squadron --Historical Missionsx1
use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Hurri_July1940_2.DDS if unit == Sq"GZ" 	 	# No 32  Squadron --Historical Missionsx1
use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Hurri_September1940.DDS if unit == Sq"FT"  	# No 43  Squadron --Historical Missionsx1
use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Hurri_May1940_2.DDS if unit == Sq"US" 		# No 56 Squadron  --Historical Missionsx1
use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Hurri_July1940_2.DDS if unit == Sq"JU" 	 	# No 111 Squadron --Historical Missionsx3
use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Hurri_July1940_2.DDS if unit == Sq"SO" 	 	# No 145 Squadron --Historical Missionsx1  
use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Hurri_August1940.DDS if unit == Sq"DZ" 	 	# No 151 Squadron --Historical Missionsx1 + default 1B
use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Hurri_September1940.DDS if unit == Sq"AK" 	# No 213 Squadron --Historical Missionsx1
use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Hurri_June1940.DDS if unit == Sq"VK" 	 	# No 238 Squadron --Historical Missionsx2
use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Hurri_September1940.DDS if unit == Sq"LE"  	# No 242 Squadron --Historical Missionsx1
use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Hurri_September1940.DDS if unit == Sq"NN" 	# No 310 Squadron --Historical Missionsx1
use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Hurri_May1940.DDS if unit == Sq"SD" 	 	# No 501 Squadron --Historical Missionsx1 + default 1A
use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Hurri_July1940.DDS if unit == Sq"UF" 	 	# No 601 Squadron --Historical Missionsx3

use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Hurri_May1940.DDS if unit == Sq"SW" or unit == Sq"AF" or unit == Sq"KW" 			# 253,607,615
use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Hurri_May1940_2.DDS if unit == Sq"WX"    							# 302		
use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Hurri_June1940.DDS if unit == Sq"TP" or unit == Sq"KE" or unit == Sq"HE" or unit == Sq"TM"	# 73,229,263,504
use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Hurri_July1940.DDS if unit == Sq"LK" or unit == Sq"GN" 						# 87,249
use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Hurri_July1940_2.DDS if unit == Sq"UP" 								# 605
use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Hurri_August1940.DDS if unit == Sq"PO" or unit == Sq"NV" or unit == Sq"VY" or unit == Sq"RF"  	# 46,79,85,303
use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Hurri_September1940.DDS if unit == Sq"JX" or unit == Sq"QO" or unit == Sq"EF" or unit == Sq"DX"	# 1,3,232,245
use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Hurri_November1940.DDS if unit == Sq"DT" 							# 257

use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Hurri_May1940.DDS if date >= May1st1940   and date <Jul15th1940
use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Hurri_June1940.DDS if date >= Jul15th1940  and date <Aug5th1940
use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Hurri_July1940.DDS if date >= Aug5th1940   and date <Aug18th1940
use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Hurri_August1940.DDS if date >= Aug18th1940  and date <Sep1st1940
use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Hurri_September1940.DDS if date >= Sep1st1940   

use MultiSkin\MultiSkinTextures\Hurri_November1940.DDS if 1 == 1

#==============================================================================================================================================

# 1 Squadron  Hurri_May1940.DDS 	(plus date trigger)
# 2 Squadrons Hurri_May1940_2.DDS
# 6 Squadrons Hurri_June1940.DDS	(plus date trigger)
# 4 Squadrons Hurri_July1940.DDS	(plus date trigger)
# 4 Squadrons Hurri_July1940_2.DDS	 
# 2 Squadrons Hurri_August1940.DDS  	(plus date trigger)
# 8 Squadrons Hurri_September1940.DDS 	(plus date trigger)
# 1 Squadrons Hurri_November1940.DDS 	(plus fallback)

#Hurri_May1940.DDS		h	ggg
#Hurri_May1940_2.DDS		h	g
#Hurri_June1940.DDS 		hhhhh 	gggg
#Hurri_July1940.DDS 		hhhh 	gg
#Hurri_July1940_2.DDS		hhh	g
#Hurri_August1940.DDS		h	gggg
#Hurri_September1940.DDS	hhhh	gggg
#Hurri_November1940.DDS			g

I left all the stuff below the === line because I don't know what it's about. The rest I kept cuz
if I ever want to fiddle with it further, all the lines are available to me. The other files look similar,
although for the others I just took the last line, the one with "if 1 == 1" at the end, while for this one
I bothered to read it first and chose an august skin for the default.

If you have a weaker system why mess with skins at all ?

because I can if I want to. Without multiskin I don't get unique ID codes for each plane. I rather
prefer having them, and it is pretty much no impact for my vidcard, which otherwise can't cope with
all the skin textures.