Bright skins filtering or blocking

[Brahma]

AC allows the players to substitute any texture in client side. But a special substitution brought some controversy in the last months: the bright skins.

Note that the low res textures, i.e., reducing the resolution of the map textures really produces a gain of FPS, but as some people may argue in their defense, changing only the skin of the players do not produce a better FPS.

The only reason to use bright skins is to make the other players better visible no matter if the graphics become horrible. In this fashion it is very useful in competitions, and imo, all players should have a built-in button: "turn on bright skins".

Since it is not default, only some "modders" use this tool, completely substituting the default skin textures. Some other players which do not want to remove the higher quality skin textures, avoid to use it, and unfortunately stay in disadvantage. More complex than this, the bright skin is an unexpected advantage which in some way affect the skill level (and innevitably the game play), and as many "unexpected advantages" that appeared in the past, the dev's choice was to rip it off the game.

Anyway, "AC allows the players to substitute any texture in client side", and the dev's team never bothered in trying to fix this unexpected advantage or giving it to all players.

One of the suggestions inside the dev's team is to create a good quality bright skin, but in fact, it already exist: try "teamdisplaymode 2" and the colored vests will take the body, use "teamdisplaymode 1" to use only in the chest, and "teamdisplaymode 0" for no colored vests (real man use this last one, because makes the team game incredible more difficult).

Besides all controversy and redundancy, we produced a filter tool, managed to reduce the brightness of the skins. This filter caused controversy because I wrongly named it as "bright skin blocker", and people got against it without know what was really this tool.

This filter works in the following way: it puts the brightness of the skin in the same level of the official map textures. So, its effect *is not* to block the texture (which would be against the modding guidelines), but to fix its weirdness, which is in very accord to the AC politics of high quality standards and against the nasty advantage some players manage to have using any tool in client side (officially allowed or not).

Here are the examples of: No bright skins, bright skins filtered and bright skins not filtered:
no bright skins

filtered

not filtered

filtered

not filtered

In the same way we produced a filter, we also can really produce a blocker. The idea of this blocker would be force the client to use acceptable textures (better quality, not only concerning brightness but also texture details). The point is that a blocker would be against the modding guidelines.

So, I am creating a pool to make sure the overall opinion of the community. This pool has the simple and obvious rule: You must justify your vote. So, be honest and reasonable.

[Luc@s]

I failed my vote :p
I think filter is a good solution, cause everybody should be able to use the skins/textures he want. But, it's better if it doesn't give a very big advantage imho :)
EDIT : thanks for making a poll, and not decide alone. You are not obliged to do that, it shows you are listening to the community and not acting alone.

[Lightning]

Brahma, I think they should not be touched. But I do not agree with the 'let the people play with the tools they want, found and are able to produce'. Please try to edit that.

EDIT: Also, I do not use playerskin brightskins, but only wepaon ones so I can adjust my strategy according to what weapon the enemy is using.

[Brett]

What about the players that use a way too high /gamma ? doesn't make it easier to see the ennemies ?
Brightskins doesn't modify the gameplay, it doesn't aim for you, it doesn't make you fly, neither give you unlimited ammos or whatever...
They exist in all fps games (their detractors too), some games got them in their official packages.
Of course it isn't made to make your video game looks nice, but in a competitive way, it make you concentrate on your target easier (by removing the useless informations/details the player can see without modifying the map).
And no one can deny that it can help the really old computer users running the game fluidly (the textures used are really smaller than the default ones).
In my opinion, saying that using the brightskins is cheating or make the game that uneven indicate a lack of good faith. Textures and skins doesn't make the skills of a player, if he is a really bad aimer, he'll continue to die a lot (it is lying to say that it make a new becomer a pro gamer).

PS: what about locking the scope.png ? this is way more lame to use one without the black borders imo.

[Mr.Floppy]

The filter approach seems to be a fair compromise.

Some mappers keep map areas rather dark on purpose, for various reasons and also in order to allow for a certain gameplay. Extremely bright skins will give unfair advantage to their users, since no matter how dark, they will be able to see players in those spot.

This is where such skins begin to be an unfair advantage. And this is where regulations (e.g. filter) are needed.

Anything else should be everbody's personal choice. Completely blocking won't be a good solution, in my opinion.


____________________
Some addintional words:

There are particular players which focus on becoming the world's best AC players, always searching for ways to gain advantage above any other player. To some degree this is absolutely fine, but keep in mind there is something called sportsmanship.

If you find a bug, script, extraordinary method or whatever which may help to play better, share it with the community. (We are NOT talking about tactics here!)
After all, this game is not about finding the best colours for playerskins in order to make them as easy recogniseable as possible or to code the fanciest weapon-change script. The competition is to improve your hand-eye coordination, to know your pickup locations, to know when to relaod, to develop certain tactics for certain maps/modes and so on...

I hope we all can agree on this one.

__________________
Edit:

What about the players that use a way too high /gamma ? doesn't make it easier to see the ennemies ?

The answer is no. By gaining gamma the map will be brighter as a whole. At some level it will be even harder to see at all. Keyword: Contrast. This is actually what makes it easier to recognise. Very bright skins are always brighter then the rest of the environment. That's the advantage. That's what needs to be evened.

[pakit]

vote is cool :) but maybe only 2 choice was better :)
did the first and second category will be count together? because someone who's ok to block will be ok to filter more than let it be?

ps:filter for me :) floppy for president

[kaz]

Brightskins doesn't modify the gameplay, it doesn't aim for you, it doesn't make you fly, neither give you unlimited ammos or whatever...

Don't touch it , it is for those who don't have such a good computer and need to increase his fps, i used to play with 40 fps now i can play with 90-120 fps it is better now ....
who does not like bright skins do not use it then .... but let people use it.

[Brahma]

Some mappers keep map areas rather dark on purpose, for various reasons and also in order to allow for a certain gameplay. Extremely bright skins will give unfair advantage to their users, since no matter how dark, they will be able to see players in those spot.

This is the reason I play this game. Ty, Mr.Floppy!

I do not agree with the 'let the people play with the tools they want, found and are able to produce'.

Allow the bright skin as it is, but do not allow people to use any tool they find is not reasonable, Lightning... even more you arguing you *do not use* it... If you do not use, why care? Are you just flaming?
Formulate better your arguments, please.

What about the players that use a way too high /gamma ?

Mr.Floppy already replied to this question in a high level... but I will reproduce what it was said on IRC too:
"Gamma has nothing to do with this issue... i guess you still did not understand the bright skin effect
the point is the relative brightness"

the contrast between things is the significant part
if you make everything brighter, it'll all be brighter
but if you make only one bit brighter, then only that bit will be brighter, and so make it easier to difference out

Brightskins doesn't modify the gameplay

Any unexpected advantage changes the gameplay... some of them cannot be fixed, like a good hardware versus a bad hardware, but all software related advantages must be checked by the devs.

And no one can deny that it can help the really old computer users running the game fluidly

I can. I tested to change only the player skins, and my FPS (which is around 75 in ac_complex) did not changed a single point. You are intentionally ignoring my first argument in this thread: "Note that the low res textures, i.e., reducing the resolution of the map textures really produces a gain of FPS, but as some people may argue in their defense, changing only the skin of the players do not produce a better FPS."

vote is cool :) but maybe only 2 choice was better :)
did the first and second category will be count together? because someone who's ok to block will be ok to filter more than let it be?

You are right up to some extent, pakit. Two options would be better... but as far there are people that would really vote for a blocker, I thought this would be important to check.
Anyway, the result of the poll will take into account the not only this, but also the arguments people are posting.

[Lightning]

Brahma, as good as your argument is, it's invalid. I do use it. Read properly next time please.

Also, I am not flaming, I believe in brightskins and think that you shouldn't ban them, brightskins aren't going to make your accuracy better they just give you something to focus on. I use weapon brightskins because of reason in my first post, and it gives you something to shoot at. If you think brightskins give such an advantage why do you have full colour option for team modes in the first place?

EDIT: How about a 'Nobody cares' option? Because I'm pretty sure you're just escalating the hype. You see how many votes that'll get compared to the current ones.

[jamz]

Sadly, I want option 4. I hate the bright/one-colour/cartoon skins as I feel they destroy the beauty of the game.
They are, of course, an advantage. As harps stated in IRC, the skins remove the chance of error - you simply can't miss your opponent (visually). I don't hope to ever play at as competitive a level as the most successful individual or team-players, but I understand those whose sole purpose in playing is to be the best. However, taking advantage of the inner workings of the game to hold an advantage over less experienced players is horrible. Soooo...
I'd like to see, if possible, some default (but still editable) bright skins available from a tick box, which are only available in match mode. Nothing is hidden away, newbs in pubs aren't being laughed at for not reading the docs fully and future-pros can start as they mean to go on.
My ultimate dream would be for the bright skin users to be portrayed with a large target on their back to anyone using normal skins, but I think I'm asking too much here...

[makkE]

"Every game has it" - this is simply wrong. Every old-fashioned, unrealistic game has it - the more you move towards a simulation-fps ("tactical") the less you see them.

We used to favour the game as an old-school fps, so brightskins we're a thing of "of course, why not" - but many players seem to disagree, or see the game in a diffrent angle. This does not mean we want to turn this into a tactical shooter, don't worry. Just want to know how the majority feels about this, hence this poll.

Besides, you can't even have "real" brightskins in AC (only "brighterskins"), because every skin is lit according to the map's lightning. Games that sport real brightskins usually display them with little or no regard to the ambience light, more like light or full glowmaps.

I highly doubt that changing to brightskins (very small texture size, usually) gives you such a huge fps advantage, kaz - unless you have a 8mb graphics card or something.

The limiter would still allow people to use small textures or custom colours (for the colourblind, red and blue are often a bad thing), they just won't be displayed overly bright.

The biggest problem is simply: Someone modding his skins/textures should not have an advantage that is not granted to players who just start playing and have not touched any media files (and probably don't even know about the possibilities to do so). This could be fixed by giving everyone the same options.
This also goes for world texture downscaling, wich could be allowed to go really low in the future (making low-res texture packs redundant and giving everyone the choice in the menus). Atm, I doubt many players are aware of the mild downscaling provided by the "texreduce" command...

[Brahma]

You are missing Drakas's argument Lightning:
" the contrast between things is the significant part
if you make everything brighter, it'll all be brighter
but if you make only one bit brighter, then only that bit will be brighter, and so make it easier to difference out"

These skins have too much bright... and the filter fix it (put in a reasonable level).

[N0CU]

I can say that it takes away the amusement of the play, but it is a personal opinion. The important thing is that produces undeniable advantage and must be blockaded. Use the command of the game "/gamma", more than that is unfair (good-sense). In time, I would not like seeing any more cut screenshots. That never smelt me well, because are thousands of programs to leave his screenshot with a low resolution and with the best quality! You do not need to cut it....

[Mael]

None of those images are loading for me. Anyone else having trouble?

[Bukz]

If you're using an IP block list such as "PeerBlock" you will have to disable it temporarily - it was getting blocked for me.

[Tolga]

I can say that those brightskins are quite handy only on my dad's old PC. The PC's CRT monitor directly faces the window which welcomes lots of sunlight. In some parts of the day it is very hard even to surf the net. In AC, mines was mostly like a creepy horror movie. So I put the gamma 180 or something and tried the brightskins. I can play AC now with about 60 fps.

In usual, on my own PC, I don't think there is need for them. Full color skins are quite enough for spotting enemies and better than some red or blue shadowy people running around.

Edit: @Brahma: I wrote that 60 fps to mention how shitty my dad's PC is, I don't think brightskins improve fps, too.

[Brahma]

Please... try to use the bright skins *without* the low res pack, and tell me how much your FPS decreases.... seriously.

[Mael]

Just how are the skins filtered? Are the brightskins replaced with a "less bright" skin, or is there some funky system in place that just changes the appearance of the brightskins?

I'll vote for filtering as long as the filtered skins more closely match the default skins. In the examples above there is still a considerable difference between the two.

[Alien]

It should be option of server, there are 2 kinds of people, players and creators, we should satisfy both of them. Players want to play AC and not some bright shit what i see on some screenshots. But there should be at least few servers where you can test your mods and edits in action. (Custom servers).

[Brahma]

@Mael, we can make it more filtered.

The way it is working is very simple too. It simply scan the pixels and calculate the brightness... if it is more than (about) twice the brightness of the default skin textures, the filter reduce its brightness by half. Since we learned to read the pixels, we can do all sort of checks.


@Alien... all this discussion is only in client side... no server side here.

[Zarjio]

I like the filter idea. It's simple to implement and will really keep things more balance for people who wish to use the 'poor man's cheats'. It will also probably be helpful for people who make very poor quality (and overly bright) skins and need them to be darkened a little.
As for those people complaining that being able to change your gamma is also unfair:
The ability to change your gamma is something that comes packaged with the game by default. You don't need to modify any files or download anything to get that ability. Brightskins, on the other hand, are not so readily available to everyone. As well, some people are playing on monitors that are just darker by default, punishing them for having a poor computer by taking away the ability to change gamma is hardly fair.

[SplatZ]

Should not be touched, its open to everyone. Its like knowing to run diagonallly, if you know how to do it, you use it. Just because noobs dont run diagonally, it doesnt mean that we should ban running diagonally. The same goes with bright-skins.

[Lightning]

What SplatZ said. Your argument will be 'but running Diagonally comes with the game' then why not put weapon brightskins inot the game?

[tempest]

If people want to use brightskins, that's fine to me.
However, I don't use them because...

• I don't think it's such a difference between all-colored skins (official and built-in!) and brightskins.
  
• they look horrible.
  
• I don't really need the 0.01 percent those would maybe add to my k/d.
  

...which are also the reasons why I don't care if others use them.

[iOD|Habluka]

I'm just wondering, if it were filtered or blocked, would people still be able to use the /maxtexsize command in game to essentially have the same effect?

[Mr.Floppy]

I'm just wondering, if it were filtered or blocked, would people still be able to use the /maxtexsize command in game to essentially have the same effect?

Please read through the given arguements 'against' brightskins again. There are multiple explanations about the different nature of brightskins compared to other functions (keyword: contrast). Low resolution textures/derivates aren't at all relevant here...

[Takkunen]

I have no problem with this as it's obeying the rules but yet giving the person an advantage.
It's just a legal ("AC allows the players to substitute any texture in client side") mod that gives the player that slight advantage, although some people may find this unfair because they don't have it.

You find things like this everywhere in the gaming world, whether it's hardware i.e top quality headphones/mice to software like macro's and scripts.
It's really the individuals choice on how they want to play the game.

But then again it's also the Developers decision if they want their game to be as equal as possible client side or let the players have the chance to customize their client (within the legal boundaries) to fit their play style.

-EDIT- If the decision is not to disable bright skins, maybe have an option to enable it through the menu? this way those who have just started can still get a chance without having to do some h/w on the game.

[Matasar]

There are 3 modes for how the player should look like.
There are no need to have more options.
Everyone that has used brightskin can verify that the game gets a tiny bit easier in some situations.
And i think we all can live without that ingame.

[Lightning]

So tell me, do you plan on banning scripts too? I mean, not everyone can make a script. What about us Noobs? Sure we can obtain scripts from the forms, but if you can obtain scripts I see absolutely no reason you can't obtain brightskins. Even better to package them with the game.

Even after all this, at the end of the day, the game is to have fun. You can't have fun if you ragequit all the time, so brightskins increases your skill by what, 0.5%?

EDIT: The game is to challenge yourself too. Once you improve you can stop playing using brightskins.

[Sacerockin']

Pathetic, how people can use them? there's just a reason.. -get advantage-

F2.