@ Mr.Floppy & tempest, I guess you will need to see the revised package to fully grab the simplicity of the whole process and the benefits.
We now have a 'skins' folder in the mapmodels folder, images are no longer named as 'skin.jpg' but by the model's name like for example 'bench.jpg'...
All there is to do now is adding in the model's cfg "md3skin bench ../skins/bench".
Now just imagine I want to make a broken bench model I can use that same skin just by adding the command "md3skin broken_bench ../skins/bench" in it's cfg, simple as that.
See also the particularity of this system, one could even create mapmodels using textures from several image files in the 'skins' folder, or even the gastank's base using bridge.jpg, in brief the possibilities are vast.
About packaging zipped files will only have an extra 'skins' folder so I don't think that will create such a mess and in the case of a re-used skin the zip file will be even lighter.
I suppose that explaining this in the docs won't be to complicated.
All I know is that so far only the devs and I are allowed to commit material for auto download, I have asked Luc@s to put it on hold for a bit just in case some of the packaging propositions I've offered are agreed (or not).
If agreed and if the auto download issue is resolved I don't mind taking care of double checking all material to be committed for optimisation.
I agree that it is quite a bit of a shake up but I seriously think that if it can be implemented it will definitely be a nice improvement and maps will have a lot more details and less repetitions in mapmodels.
If issue cannot be resolved well, at least I did have tried.
We now have a 'skins' folder in the mapmodels folder, images are no longer named as 'skin.jpg' but by the model's name like for example 'bench.jpg'...
All there is to do now is adding in the model's cfg "md3skin bench ../skins/bench".
Now just imagine I want to make a broken bench model I can use that same skin just by adding the command "md3skin broken_bench ../skins/bench" in it's cfg, simple as that.
See also the particularity of this system, one could even create mapmodels using textures from several image files in the 'skins' folder, or even the gastank's base using bridge.jpg, in brief the possibilities are vast.
About packaging zipped files will only have an extra 'skins' folder so I don't think that will create such a mess and in the case of a re-used skin the zip file will be even lighter.
I suppose that explaining this in the docs won't be to complicated.
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Now regarding the auto download feature you guys certainly have pointed out a serious question but I don't know how it actually works so right now I cannot come up with a solution for this but I will get in touch with Luc@s to work on this (it works with other games so...).All I know is that so far only the devs and I are allowed to commit material for auto download, I have asked Luc@s to put it on hold for a bit just in case some of the packaging propositions I've offered are agreed (or not).
If agreed and if the auto download issue is resolved I don't mind taking care of double checking all material to be committed for optimisation.
I agree that it is quite a bit of a shake up but I seriously think that if it can be implemented it will definitely be a nice improvement and maps will have a lot more details and less repetitions in mapmodels.
If issue cannot be resolved well, at least I did have tried.