[WIP] ShipReskin and Rec Man V3.0

[reaper7]

Ok, started to rethink this one in order to get the random skins working.

I have a solution but it will a lot more work to skin the models.
The current method of editing the Hull texture works be tiling the models like wallpaper so only basic texturing can be applied.

The stock method of re skinning is to place a shadow map offer the texture to create a darker colour over the original - ok for camo effect etc.

So I tried an experiment and it works:
By converting the Hull texture to an overall white texture (I did a light Grey for the test), it will allow the Shadow mask to retain its full colour.
Now the shadow mask can be repainted how ever we like.
So curved lines, camo etc can be created and will now retain its full colour.
So now white can be created in the texture. Stock hulls prevented this - everything was a mix of the shadow colours with the blues and Grey's etc of the hull.

Now this is a slow process as the Shadow mask has to be worked out what applies to where on the model.
As can be seen in the following pic - its not straight forward - The hull is not on e perfect straight section, but is made up from a few pieces.





This process will have to be done for each ship type also.

But once done it should be a relatively easy task to create a more textures, allowing multiple skins to be created for each ship type.
Also diff skins can be assigned via the roster for diff countries etc.

May need some help with skins though, any volunteers?

EDIT: Just tried this in user made mission. And once more all ships rendered with the same skin.
It didn't pick skins at random even though there were 3 variants. Will have to do some more testing.