Skins and Bits and Colors... Oh My!

[Tolwyn]

Just for quick reference.

We know that the skins can be 1024 x 1024. This patch does not change the canvas size of the skins in use.

The new feature is bits per pixel.

I'm anal retentive, it's a character flaw. But can we not refer to the skins by size and instead by bit-depth?

Both 8bit and 24bit are supported. This refers to the color information PER PIXEL. The size comes from Bit depth x width (in pixels) x height (in pixels) divided by (8 x 1024 - for Kilobytes).

What is the difference?

8 bit images (also called "paletted" images) share a palette of 256 possible colors only. So, you have a color table made up of ONLY 256 colors. Each pixel can ONLY pull its color value from that table.

8 bit palletted image (only 256 colors possible):
1024 x 1024 (size) x 8 (bits per pixel) / (8 x 1024) = 1,024KB.

24 bit image (16.7 million colors PER PIXEL possible):
1024 x 1024 (size) x 24 (bits per pixel) / (8 x 1024) = 3,072KB.

When making skins, most of us, if not all, work in a layered image with many pieces and parts of the skin. Then we flatten that image, maybe resize it to 1024x1024, and then save it as an 8 bit image. Up until this latest patch, we go from 16.7 million colors down to just 256 colors. Whoa!

The beauty of the new feature is that all we have to do now is flatten the image and save as a 24-bit bitmap; retaining all of the wonderful colors we wanted to share in the first place.

The cost of this difference is only 2MB of data for 16.7 million more colors! Not bad! And in testing in multiplayer, there was very little noticeable time delay in all the skins transferring to each client. It has to be there, but my guess is it is already throttled via packet-priority and not noticeable.

Where you might see a difference is in the size of NTRK files recorded when 8 people are all using custom 24 bit skins. That NTRK file will grow by 2,048 KB x 'n' number of players).

So. Color table = any combination of 256 colors ONLY. (8 bit)

24 bit is: 256 combinations of Red, 256 combinations of Green, and 256 combinations of Blue for each pixel in the image itself. (256 x 256 x 256 = 16,777,216 possible colors PER PIXEL!).

My new question is:

Can pilot skins now be 24 bit as well?

Noseart can NOT be because RGB value 129,129,129 (#818181 in hex) is reserved for transparency. We'd need to introduce 32bit images in the future for alpha transparency. I'll save that for a different day.