Some new official info from ubi forums

[The Kraken]

Originally Posted by Stiboo

Sounds like a good idea for online play given the size of the skins, I don't think modded weathering templates will effect online play if it has the same file name?

They could simply leave them out of the online skin transfer and keep it offline only. After all, online problems only affect people playing online

An unfortunate decision and I hope they reconsider it. Having the rivets/bump maps and the weathering layers available for skinners would open up completely new possibilities, especially if it was possible to increase the size over the default ones. I don't see what possible problem that could be for anyone.

[kendo65]

Originally Posted by Stiboo

I'm sure access will be granted to the weathering layers eventually and i'm also sure that we'll be able to ' mod' the weathering templates very very soon after release!

Sounds like a good idea for online play given the size of the skins, I don't think modded weathering templates will effect online play if it has the same file name?

Oleg and Ilya know what amazing skinners IL2 has.

Surely the skinners will still be able to weather their skins in the same way as before. All that we'll have to do is to turn the COD weathering off (ie set the slider to zero). Skinners could even release a 'clean' skin for use with the COD weathering and a pre-weathered skin.

Similar to producing il-2 skins with national markings or without - you had to make the apprpriate setting in il-2 to turn off or keep the built-in markings.

[The Kraken]

Originally Posted by kendo65

Surely the skinners will still be able to weather their skins in the same way as before. All that we'll have to do is to turn the COD weathering off (ie set the slider to zero). Skinners could even release a 'clean' skin for use with the COD weathering and a pre-weathered skin.

The weathering will also have a specular map (where the underlying metal is exposed), which may not be available to "normal" skinning. So this approach wouldn't provide the same options and quality as the built-in weathering system.

[Avimimus]

Originally Posted by The Kraken

The weathering will also have a specular map (where the underlying metal is exposed), which may not be available to "normal" skinning. So this approach wouldn't provide the same options and quality as the built-in weathering system.

But, if the plans for an SDK hold up, we should see entire new aircraft created (which requires this level of access).

[Stiboo]

Yes Kendo I agree

that sounds like a good idea to put weathering to zero. This would work best for user created missions and campaigns as the official missions/campaigns will already have the weathering levels set for all a.i. planes...but it wouldn't be too big a job to re-set all the official mission weathering to zero if the player wanted to use custom skins.

This will also help with unit emblems and nose art - in the screenshots i've seen so far these do not have any weathering/rivets/panel lines and look false against the otherwise great skins, with the greater detail/quality custome skins in COD we'll have better quality emblems/nose art as well for custom skins.

Templates for panels/rivets is another story !....we'll have to wait and see.

[Zorin]

Originally Posted by Stiboo

Yes Kendo I agree

that sounds like a good idea to put weathering to zero. This would work best for user created missions and campaigns as the official missions/campaigns will already have the weathering levels set for all a.i. planes...but it wouldn't be too big a job to re-set all the official mission weathering to zero if the player wanted to use custom skins.

This will also help with unit emblems and nose art - in the screenshots i've seen so far these do not have any weathering/rivets/panel lines and look false against the otherwise great skins, with the greater detail/quality custome skins in COD we'll have better quality emblems/nose art as well for custom skins.

Templates for panels/rivets is another story !....we'll have to wait and see.

Well, as the rivet layer will be placed over the colour layer pre weathered skins will look kinda odd. But lets wait and see.

[addman]

Originally Posted by philip.ed

A bomber-formation of 21? I understand if the user can increase this, but that is just pathetic. I hope there is an easy way for the user to select formation sizes in order to increase them for the campaign.
I was hoping, with the improvement in technology, that it would be possible to have huge formation sizes like in BoB2. Of course, this could all change, but I was hoping for a larger size than this as a baseline.

"We balanced our campaign missions for minimum spec machines"

[Sven]

Originally Posted by addman

"We balanced our campaign missions for minimum spec machines"

Exactly.

[philip.ed]

I understood that part; hence me feeling that as a base-line it was still quite low (IMHO), and that I hoped the user could easily increase this

[Blackdog_kt]

To let the user increase this in a scripted campaign, they would have to make each mission at least 3 times to account for a bare minimum of low/medium/high aircraft density settings.

There's nothing stopping me from creating my own scenarios with 100 bombers in the air, or flying online in a server with a few dozen people if my PC can handle it.

Nevertheless, when the dynamic campaign is ready it would be a cool feature to be able to select the desired aircraft density.