If I may chime in from the peanut gallery...
I think Alessandro is right about the video cards. Gunship supports larger pcx skins up to the limit of the user's video card. This is nice, but only if the majority of users can enjoy it. (hmm. I wonder if the vid card manufacturers offer driver upgrades for this issue?)
But there's an important point that I think is worth repeating: simply taking an existing 256x256 PCX and re-sizing it to 512x512 does
not produce a hires or more detailed skin. Chompy chose a great way to illustrate his findings, because if you look closely, you can see that the new stripes have finer detail than the original 256x256, however the rest of the skin looks exactly the same.
I've spent a fair amount of time trying to get the formerly unflyable helos in GS (which all use a single 256x200 pcx), to look as great as the flyable ones, (which generally use 2-5 pcx's per skin). I thought the 512x512 skin would do it, but I found that only works if they are completely repainted at the 512x512 size. (Which is how I suspect alot of these skins were originally painted: as much larger images, then shrunk to 256x256. Hmmm. Wonder where all the originals are?) I'm sure various government agencies have the software to enlarge and enhance the 256x256 to 512x512 quality images, but I sure don't. I'm open to suggestions on this issue. There are alot of folks over here that are good enough to repaint these birds from scratch, and I now have a whole new appreciation for the skill involved. Because I ain't got it!
So this may be an argument for the multiple 3DZ approach you guys (Chompy?) came up with. That's basically how it's done in GS.
Anyway, good luck with all this. Clever crew hereabouts...
cheers
fng
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The GUNSHIP! Helipad [This message has been edited by fng2k (edited 11-13-2002).]
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