Page 1 of 1
Reason for multiple insignia.
Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2025 5:16 pm
by Patrick Ward
I've just been asked to answer this though I can't now find the question.
So the question was why do aircraft (specifically ) have lots of identical insignia. Thats easy.
Because of the sheer number involved and the time it takes to build them, the unit models had to be started long before we were ready to implement them. So we had to plan as best we could ( 18 months before we had a game we could test them in ) and have them built to cover all the features we hoped to implement.
So one of the plans was for the aircraft to have unique insignia on the upper and lower wings, fuselage and tail, where appropriate. Purely a decorative, historical nicety and so it was continually dropped down the list. Because the insignia is dynamic, it added a significant level of complexity and graphical overhead and it was eventually just abandoned. Can you imagine trying to handle 4 or 5 unique insignia on each aircraft?
However the locators for the insignia are still there in every model, which is why you get a British Roundel on the Spitfire tail, a German Cross on a ME109 tail etc.. Unless a coder figures a way to remove them programatically, the only other way would be for me to edit every model and remove the extraneous locators.
Pat
Re: Reason for multiple insignia.
Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2025 9:17 pm
by BarbarianHunter
The query is on the STEAM board
.
Re: Reason for multiple insignia.
Posted: Thu May 01, 2025 7:55 am
by Tassadar
I don't browse the game's Steam forums, so I appreciate this information. Always interesting to hear some little things from development that had an impact on the final product, out of pure curiosity.
Patrick Ward wrote: ↑Wed Apr 30, 2025 5:16 pm
Can you imagine trying to handle 4 or 5 unique insignia on each aircraft?
That's things I hope AI can help with one day. Not designing things, but rather managing large amounts of human-produced data and helping to organize in the final product. So certainly not possible now, but in the future, who knows?
Re: Reason for multiple insignia.
Posted: Thu May 01, 2025 1:54 pm
by Simone70
Patrick Ward wrote: ↑Wed Apr 30, 2025 5:16 pm
I've just been asked to answer this though I can't now find the question.
So the question was why do aircraft (specifically ) have lots of identical insignia. Thats easy.
Because of the sheer number involved and the time it takes to build them, the unit models had to be started long before we were ready to implement them. So we had to plan as best we could ( 18 months before we had a game we could test them in ) and have them built to cover all the features we hoped to implement.
So one of the plans was for the aircraft to have unique insignia on the upper and lower wings, fuselage and tail, where appropriate. Purely a decorative, historical nicety and so it was continually dropped down the list. Because the insignia is dynamic, it added a significant level of complexity and graphical overhead and it was eventually just abandoned. Can you imagine trying to handle 4 or 5 unique insignia on each aircraft?
However the locators for the insignia are still there in every model, which is why you get a British Roundel on the Spitfire tail, a German Cross on a ME109 tail etc.. Unless a coder figures a way to remove them programatically, the only other way would be for me to edit every model and remove the extraneous locators.
Pat
If possible, you can write us here - how we can change / modified the special textures for some planes coming with the new DLC - for example the CR42Falco - its possible to add an own texture to UE4 to modified the signa on the Tail - in the DLC it looks possible. That would certainly interest some people here...
Re: Reason for multiple insignia.
Posted: Thu May 01, 2025 3:00 pm
by Patrick Ward
So it was only 2 planes, the Me109k and the He162e. Both had sockets for nose art. They've been removed.
P
Re: Reason for multiple insignia.
Posted: Thu May 01, 2025 3:09 pm
by Patrick Ward
Simone70 wrote: ↑Thu May 01, 2025 1:54 pm
Patrick Ward wrote: ↑Wed Apr 30, 2025 5:16 pm
I've just been asked to answer this though I can't now find the question.
So the question was why do aircraft (specifically ) have lots of identical insignia. Thats easy.
Because of the sheer number involved and the time it takes to build them, the unit models had to be started long before we were ready to implement them. So we had to plan as best we could ( 18 months before we had a game we could test them in ) and have them built to cover all the features we hoped to implement.
So one of the plans was for the aircraft to have unique insignia on the upper and lower wings, fuselage and tail, where appropriate. Purely a decorative, historical nicety and so it was continually dropped down the list. Because the insignia is dynamic, it added a significant level of complexity and graphical overhead and it was eventually just abandoned. Can you imagine trying to handle 4 or 5 unique insignia on each aircraft?
However the locators for the insignia are still there in every model, which is why you get a British Roundel on the Spitfire tail, a German Cross on a ME109 tail etc.. Unless a coder figures a way to remove them programatically, the only other way would be for me to edit every model and remove the extraneous locators.
Pat
If possible, you can write us here - how we can change / modified the special textures for some planes coming with the new DLC - for example the CR42Falco - its possible to add an own texture to UE4 to modified the signa on the Tail - in the DLC it looks possible. That would certainly interest some people here...
I know how I do it using our tools, but I've no idea what the player has access to. I don't know how my dev install of Unreal differs from yours. However I know there are modders who have done just that so maybe they can help ..
In theory, if you're just changing a texture .. you'll need to export that texture from the native uasset format to a tga. Edit it, and then drop it back into Unreal. Provided the name is maintained it should automatically compress it with all the correct settings.
If you want to start adding your own unique assets then you need to create unique materials in the factions material folder, create an icon and then edit the skins data file so it appears in the camo list. This needs to be done inside Unreal and I can almost guarantee your work will be undone as soon as a DLC is released because the skins file gets updated almost every time.
P
Re: Reason for multiple insignia.
Posted: Thu May 01, 2025 7:39 pm
by Simone70
I post some screens - than if possible you can see the wrong things:
New texture to set an italien Falco to an chinese national tail: (in UE)
The name of the UE set:
The new skin name in skin editor:
´
It dont work - look like its hard coded from the game engine - so skins arent moddable I think!
Re: Reason for multiple insignia.
Posted: Thu May 01, 2025 8:03 pm
by Grondel
Simone70 wrote: ↑Thu May 01, 2025 7:39 pm
I post some screens - than if possible you can see the wrong things:
the "unreal engine" coming with the game is lacking essential tables needed to open and change the modell uassets that come with the game. It is possible to reengineer them, but thats a shit ton of guesswork.
I doubt the resources needed will ever be released, same for the tools promised in the early days of PC2.
sers,
Thomas