HT and Pyro, I've seen the recent changes in how the cockpit is depicted from the exterior.
When a plane is viewed from a distance, the cockpit interiors used to be 'masked' by a black surface. I'm not sure why it is like that.. my guess is the pilot is not fully 3D modelled, so you have to hide it from the waste down.
Now, in the recent versions, you've added a texture to the 'black surface' to sort of depict the pilot's legs and plane interiors by 2D.. I must say, it looks horrible!
I think I liked the old, black, surface better. It may have looked gamey, but at least it wasn't awkward or lookin' plain wrong.
Now, when I take a screen shot at certain angles, the pilot inside the cockpit looks like something out of a neo-cubist nightmare.
The intention was good, but I think the result is just plain bad. My opinion is, you should revert to the old, "black mask", until some other method is developed in the future. I don't think adding in a 2D texture to that 'mask' is a good alternative. *Bleccch!!!*
My second request is, can the pilot not disappear when the plane is zoomed in closely? When you view out from a certain distance, the pilot is visible. When you zoom in close, the pilot disappears.
I know that usually you guys don't accept pilot skins when plane skins are submitted.
But as an amateuer skinner, I try to depict planes as real as possible, and naturally, I try to use real photos of individual pilots that piloted that very plane, if I can findout who the pilot was, and get their photos.
But the problem is, I can't get a clear picture of how it looks like, when I redo the "dude" files. Zoom in a little to see if the pilot skins are good enough and bam!, the pilot disappears.
Also, my squadmate Sanjini makes a lot of AH films. He has quite a few complaints on how some takes and close-range shots of airplanes in AH2 look bad - the plane model itself is good, but when a close range shot is in angle, the pilot disappears from the film! A cool movie of carrier based planes taking off one-by-one, and none of those planes are piloted!
So.. can the pilot not disappear?
Or at least, can the distance where pilot disappears be adjusted, so if a 'camera' is 'placed' outside 5 yard diameter of the cockpit you could see the pilot?
