Here's something I've noticed. People that use HD texturepacks generally think that most people use HD texturepacks. Those that use LD texturepacks think the opposite. I think that the number of experienced users with HD and LD textures is more of a 50/50 split. This would be a fairer assumption, given that there were enough supporters and creators of HD texturepacks that they were given native support. Given that pretense and an averaging of the projected opinions it is likely that, currently, half of all users would find the default skin resolution to be pixellated or seem out of place. Now, to solve this problem, the HD skin system allows a user to upload two skins; both with different resolutions. Preferably, this would include an HD skin, and an LD skin. If someone blocks the HD skin's resolution, then it defaults to the LD version, and vice versa. If both are blocked, the skin is set as the default skin instead. There is nothing that either party will see as out of place if they don't want to see it, so stop bringing it up. It gets a little old after my twentieth time explaining this.
Real time skin changing can't be dependent. It's not just a problem of adding more skin servers. You'd need the skin server to keep tabs on every server and get constant reports of all the users joining and leaving each server, and on top of all that, you'd need the skin server to keep track of every Minecraft session and ID that is open, as well as the IPs of each one. This also makes the skin server unstable. One rule in coding that I know is, the bigger it is, the buggier it is. Each additional step adds to that bugginess. Currently, the skin system is quite simple... which is why it works. The independent skin system is also intended to be fairly simple, with two steps added instead of at least four with dependent real time skin changing.
Also I never said anything about losing skins. If you're talking about skin THEFT, that's where you go on a skin stealer site and copy someone else's skin. That means with independent skin handling, your skin stays yours alone and can't be used by others unless you let them use it on a skin site. Think of it like preventing people from reposting posts you've made on Reddit and claiming your work as their own..
That has been addressed. If Dinnerbone doesn't want to see HD skins, then he can block the higher resolution ranges and if the secondary skins of users that have HD skins as their primary include a default resolution skin, then he will see that skin. It's a feature that I thought of before even writing this suggestion almost a year ago, because there will be certain resolutions that each person might not want to see... be they in the LD range, or the HD range.
1. It wouldn't cause lag. A 128x128 skin, for instance, is only 64 kb uncompressed; and much smaller compressed(sometimes over 8x smaller). One chunk can be up to 5 kb, for reference. You can load hundreds of chunks in seconds because the file sizes are negligible, and you can download dozens of skins from that same server on the same premise. All possible considerations have been made in the OP to ensure that scaling can take place should resources become so strained that skin handling is more often than not deferred. Skins may look like they're big and scary... but they're very tiny. For all the millions of skins out there, Mojang's skin server uses less than twenty gigabytes to store them all... That may seem like alot, but most servers won't be handling millions of skins. In fact, with appropriate database clearing and redundancy handling, even quite large servers may only have to deal with a few thousand skins; still no more than a few megabytes of data even with HD skins. I could literally host a skin server off my phone.
The independent skin handling was suggested for three reasons, the first of which is moderation. It's not common, but sometimes huge dicks log onto peoples' servers... And I'm not talking in metaphors. Independent skin handling means servers and server owners can moderate these 'troll skins' on a case-by-case basis, removing offensive skins and potentially revoking their skin changing privileges on a server if the need arises. The second reason is for posterity. When Mojangcrosoft is dead and buried, the spirit of Minecraft should be able to live on, including its' skins. Independent skin handling creates a sort of buffer for when their servers finally shut down. And the third reason is... Well, going from a medieval server then hopping onto a sci-fi server without changing skins... It's a bit awkward being a knight in full plate armor when you're in the middle of a metropolis filled with flying cars, isn't it? Yup, it means you can have a skin for every server.
2. Nightmayer19 made some incredible renderings of a 256x256 skin she made for her OC Naushe that you may find of interest, if you think anything higher than 128x128 resolution would look weird. Remember, the resolution of a skin is always 4x higher than the texture pack it would fit in with the most, so 128x128 skins would be equivalent to 32x32 texture packs and 256x256 skins would be equivalent to 64x64 texture packs.
3. Each resolution is hopefully going to be optional, so if you only want HD skins, then you can block LD skin resolutions. Likewise, you can block HD skins if you only want LD skins, or, if you only want skin resolution X, then you can block all the other resolutions. Each person is permitted a number of skin slots; with each of them having a texturepack-like heirarchy. The hope is that each user would choose their skin resolutions in a way such that the possibility of all their skins being blocked is low. But yes, if a user blocks all of your skins, you become a Steve/Alex to them.
4. Real time skin changing requires independent skin handling. The independent system allows the server to instantly relay new skins instead of clients fetching skins when a user logs onto the server... That may be a bit confusing, so let me try to explain it more practically.
When you log into singleplayer or multiplayer, your client fetches the skin associated with your player id from Mojang's skin server. When you log into a minecraft server, it gives the client a list of names, the client requests the skins from the skin server, and then ceases communications with the skin server unless another user logs in. When a user changes their skin, however, only the skin server knows that, and it can't track the servers that people are on... so it can't tell the other people on the server you're in that you changed your skin... which is why skins don't currently update in real time. This is good, though, because it keeps the skin server efficient and simple; meaning it's less prone to breaking or being exploited.
Now, independent skin handling can support realtime skin changing because the minecraft server then knows that someone changed their skin... because it's the one that's handling it. So, it can tell the clients logged in at the time: "Hey, this guy just changed their skin, here's a copy of it!" because of that. Making realtime skin changing work with the dependent skin handling would be... very messy. Sorry.
1. Vanilla minecraft... supports hd textures out of the box. Minecraft isn't being modified("modded") because resource packs are only collections of textures, sounds, and mesh files. Mods change the behavior of something (Like how a modified gun barrel may increase accuracy). A more appropriate term may be customized, but that wouldn't support your argument very well considering how Minecraft fosters that at its' core.
2. You can, but that's not an HD skin, that's just an HD version of a default texture. If you already have a skin, then it will not appear on your player or any other player with a skin, and you will only be able to see that one skin in HD.
3. Here's the thing, again... They still gave HD textures native support. It shouldn't come as a surprise that it creates a paradox in your statement. They wouldn't have updated the functionality of native texturepack handling to support HD textures if they didn't include HD texturepacks in their considerations on the feature. They clearly care about the HD side of their aesthetic platform, and have worked to tailor it to accomodate that side.
4. Oh dear... No. It wouldn't crash any server at all. Mojang is smart enough to ensure that skin handling is deferred if the server is overloaded and the core processes need to be attended to, but that would be, literally, relieving a tiny smudge of processing power in the grand scheme of things. In addition, server owners have the same control as you do when it comes to what the server will accept. A server with excess network capacity can crank up the allowed skin size, and servers that have high usage can tone it down as needed. Remember that most skins are trivially small - where a chunk can be 5 kb, an uncompressed 128x128 image file can be, at the extreme side of things, 64 kb Compressed, it is MUCH smaller. When you log into a server, you're already downloading hundreds of chunks worth of data. A skin is /nothing/ compared to the burden of loading chunks and processing all the changes in the environment. Even if you're downloading ten of them, or twenty, or thirty. At the end of the day, it shouldn't affect performance unless you're already overloading your server.
Responses are in bold. Consider what you have pointed out, I would support if the resolution only goes up to 128x128. I think that anything higher would be very unfitting (and yes, I read the entire post before I even commented my first comment on this thread. I stick with that argument nonetheless).
Nightmayer19's skin was 256x256, for reference.
I often feel the need to clarify the skin resolutions as they relate to texture packs, so here goes... The default skin resolution is four times as large as a block texture; hence why the "default" skin size in the poll is 64x64. That's pretty much the "don't change anything option".
Likewise, a 128x128 skin is equivalent to a 32x32 texturepack, a 256x256 skin is equivalent to a 64x64 texturepack, and so on.
The resaon I would prefer an HD troll skin is because then at least they put work into it, and I can respect that.
I think that you should be abl to have multiple skins, and prioritize others
ex:
You have 3 skins. A 32x32, an 128x128, and a 1024x1024
If the person preferred the 128, they'd set that one up as the 'first'
This would make it so that everyone who could see 128 skins would see theirs.
Bur what if someone has set up that they only wanted 256 and higher?
Then you'd put the 1024 as second.
Then, most players could see the 256, but players with 256 disabled would see the 1024.
But what if someone had only 32 and 64 enabled?
You'd set up the 32 skin as your 3rd, and therefore, players would only see it of they couldn't see your 128 and 1024 skin
Now finally, if someone had only 256 skins enabled (picky) then, since none of your skins fit within their parameters, they'd see you as their set default skin
That's pretty much the plan, but the suggestion I made has it at two, with one being "preferred" and another being a "backup" skin if the former is blocked. Perhaps it should be dependent on the server -- I.E a server with excess network capacity could increase the number of skins someone can upload for themselves, while a more overwhelmed server could scale it back to one or two. Thanks for the input! I'll definitely be pondering this for a bit.
Ah. I didn't see that part, thanks! That makes it a lot easier to support.
OP: Have you made any reddit post about this? If not, I think you really should.
I actually did consider this... but Reddit is scary. xD
I guess I'll try it, though. Is there a subreddit in particular that I should post it to?
Well... that's odd. I mean, I could have sworn that my skin didn't fit into minecraft because minecraft, for me, has 256x256 textures. The skins as they are now don't fit in, that goes for anyone using hd textures... which were given native support years ago. Like I said in the OP, I end up looking like an out of place, pixellated blob with my texture pack.
Man, I haven't seen Theriasis' name in a long time... She's one of the best people here. Unfortunately, that guide doesn't affect this suggestion. You see, there's only one potential 'problem area' wrt the guide, but it's an essential feature. You're talking about my saying it's, in some capacity. 'optional', I assume. The truth is, it's not. Not in any conventional sense of the word. Any given user would be able to set a range of skin resolutions that they want to see, which may include exclusively the 'default' skin resolution, but that 'optional' part goes both ways... Meaning I can block LD skins. High resolution skins are no more optional than low resolution skins. Some servers may end up allowing HD skins exclusively, and others more may have specific skins that are assigned to different teams or ranks that are HD and completely controlled by the server. That would be something that Mineplex may do for team games, for instance.
As I'm sure you are aware, many servers have 'their own' potentially HD texture packs that they ask their users to use. In a setting such as that, hd skins would be preferable over LD ones to unify the server's aesthetic wrt the players themselves. That's where making the default resolution skins themselves optional, and allowing hd skins exclusively would benefit a server.
Why is that better? It's still crude either way, but at least in the default format, the "offensive" skins aren't too graphic. People go great lenghts to troll or offend on the Internet, and there's no telling how detailed it could get. I don't think that this would be that big of an issue, since there aren't that many skins like that, but I am still puzzled at why such a skin would be better in high resolution. The offending skins in the default format are infrequent and not too graphic. Ones with a higher resolution would be worse.
Well,as it stands now, they are excessively large. Some people even go to the lengths of creating a skin that is literally JUST a penis. More pixels allows for the offenders to scale it back a bit instead. And... You know what? If they made a naked skin in hd that wasn't laughable... I'd probably commend them for their attention to detail wrt the shading. However, they are a minority that comprise <1% of the Minecraft population. Even if this supposed problem is somehow worsened by the advent of HD skins, it would be even rarer than the normal offensive skins. They still generally take more time to create well than LD skins, making it prohibitive anyway.
At any rate, if Mojang only worried about what the bad eggs would do with something, then they wouldn't have made potions, or TNT, or any of that because they can be used to upset people.
When I was playing an adventure map with an included high-res texture pack, I saw a skin in HD on a villager and it looked awful. I know that all skins won't be alike, but most of the skins in the standard format right now are humans, so unless everyone wants an awesome master cheif skin or some other kind of skin that works with this format, there would be a bunch of weirdly realistic humans running around.
Texture packs are a fickle thing to compare skins to, simply because they're... Well, alot bigger. They can take months to complete, but the individual blocks and entities aren't given the same attention to detail as a skin is. The villagers you saw were... well, "assembly line" comes to mind. They simply weren't given the time that they needed to be made into something beautiful. And, of course, you're probably looking at the extreme side of things.
Nightmayer19 showed some amazing shots of her HD skin , which I'll include here, that are simply brilliant. The way she shaded it makes the hard edges invisible. This probably wouldn't even be the most popular skin resolution, as this has a 4x higher texel density than a vanilla skin. Most people would opt for 2x density skins, instead. Half the resolution of what you see below. Look at the expanded range of expression the artist has with the higher resolution, though. The face in particular doesn't simply have two dots for eyes and a fat rectangle for a mouth... it's, as I said, expressive. It's something that, for all my attempts, even I failed at with the default resolution... and I'm one of the unknown elites when it comes to LD skins.
Im on the fence with this suggestion. On one hand it would be nice to have higher definition skins because you could add more details to them, and make them more realistic, which I am a supporter of in the right context.
Now there is the problem with servers like "Mine Plex" which contain hundreds of players online at the same time, so would that cause lag? How would you address this issue?
Also with the higher resolutions skins come the possibility for people to make naked skins, which can prove to be a problem since a majority of the minecraft fan base is young. ( I know nothing can really be done to prevent that, for people will always find ways to make them, but still this is an issue.)
Anyways Im 50/50 on this matter. Quite undecided to be perfectly honest with you.
My suggestion has been sculpted, through consultations with people that have concerns similar to yours, to accommodate the concerns of all users.
In terms of independent skin handling, if Mineplex were to accommodate extremely high res skins, there would indeed be the potential for network lag. However, the skins themselves should have a negligible effect on performance in game. Most rendering stress is caused by the block models and entity models. It should only affect performance if they're so low on RAM that the difference of a few mb causes lag. However, if anyone has a concern about it, each user can toggle what resolutions they want to see and what ones they don't in their clients. A server owner can also allow or prohibit a range of skin resolutions of its' own, so the feature can be adjusted by each server to mitigate excess network and database stress.
As for naked skins... Well, I've seen my fair share of walking penises in LD, too. It's unavoidable, as you said, but with the independent skin handling system, a server owner or operator can moderate skins on a case-by-case basis, changing a user's appearance to something more appropriate and disabling skin changing for a user are but two of the new abilities that a servers' administrators would have at their disposal.
Well, here's the thing, teesee... Either they run around with pixel shlongs the size of cats, or they make a reasonably sized one in higher resolution. At any rate, I already discussed the need for advancements in per-server skin handling in the OP. The fact that offending skins exist at all suggests the need for per-server skin management and moderation... which I covered in the OP here:
Quote from rayblon »
Independent Skin System
Remove the skin server entirely and relay skins directly through the server to the users. Additionally, allow real time skin changing through the server(meaning instant skin swaps for roleplay!).The skin changing would work similarly to how texture packs work, with the primary skin being the first contender for being displayed, and a secondary skin slot for a different resolution, if desired.
A minecraft server would maintain its' own skin database that clears out skins that aren't used after 30 days at startup. This system can also enable servers to restrict skin sizes for certain users, allowing HD skins to be a donator perk, as well as controlling the skins of the users(I.E naked skins could be changed to a more modest skin, problem skinners can be banned from changing their skins, etc.). This system means you can have a catalog of skins, clothing, and uniforms, etc, on servers independant of eachother.
Also, there are amazing looking high res texture packs out there... like the one in the OP. Logic would suggest that if the blocks can look good in HD, then so can the players.
This doesn't fit in at all and could be used for trolling.
[b]No support[/b]
*sigh* I guess expecting people to read the OP fully is just too much.
I rebutted the "it doesn't fit in" argument in the end, in the section with the big read header saying "counter-arguments".
"It goes against the feel of minecraft, breaking immersion."[/b]
That is a very good point, assuming everyone uses 16x16 texture packs. Over the years, texture packs and HD texture packs have slowly been given native support and more and more depth in their abilities(I.E. block meshes). [b]The users with higher end computers may be using intermacgod's realistic pack or one of the hd versions of sphax, or LB Photorealism or some amalgamation of the three. While their worlds will be vividly detailed... a quick press of f5 reminds you that you're an out of place, pixellated blob.[/b]
And a quote:
Trent:Minecraft to me is blocks not low res sprites. And low res being the point of the game? I thought the point of Minecraft was allowing players to be creative in a world full of angry green things that want to blow up your creations.
Now, for the trolling part... also covered in the OP
"I don't like HD stuff", "Minecraft is ugly in HD", "People will make ugly skins in HD", "Naked people in HD? No thanks!"[/b]
Unfortunately, one must discard personal preference when considering such things. We simply cannot evaluate what has yet to happen. In fact, if we were to look at pre-existing HD skins, we would see content that would indicate the opposite.A suggestion is something that petitions its own productivity and objective value in implementation. [b]As for the nudity/nsfw argument... If it's in HD, that means the junk they draw on the skin doesn't have to go down to their knees or rise up to their chest[/b] to give you an idea of what it is. If anything, it's a public service, imo.
I couldn't support the part about HD skins, unless there was a way to disable them, or it was only for HD resource pack users.
But about the anti-stealing and offline storage, I support 101%.
Each user can upload two different resolution skins by default. The OP points out that you can select which resolutions you want to be visible and what you don't want visible. That way, hd an ld texture pack users can both block skins that break immersion for them, and if someone has a blocked HD skin, they still have an ld skin to show off with the two skins thing, and vice versa.
Vox Populi and Hypixel are exempt from this policy even though they offer enchanted gear and ranks with exclusive features. We've just sailed into murky waters.
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I put the reddit link at the top of the post.
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Here's something I've noticed. People that use HD texturepacks generally think that most people use HD texturepacks. Those that use LD texturepacks think the opposite. I think that the number of experienced users with HD and LD textures is more of a 50/50 split. This would be a fairer assumption, given that there were enough supporters and creators of HD texturepacks that they were given native support. Given that pretense and an averaging of the projected opinions it is likely that, currently, half of all users would find the default skin resolution to be pixellated or seem out of place. Now, to solve this problem, the HD skin system allows a user to upload two skins; both with different resolutions. Preferably, this would include an HD skin, and an LD skin. If someone blocks the HD skin's resolution, then it defaults to the LD version, and vice versa. If both are blocked, the skin is set as the default skin instead. There is nothing that either party will see as out of place if they don't want to see it, so stop bringing it up. It gets a little old after my twentieth time explaining this.
Real time skin changing can't be dependent. It's not just a problem of adding more skin servers. You'd need the skin server to keep tabs on every server and get constant reports of all the users joining and leaving each server, and on top of all that, you'd need the skin server to keep track of every Minecraft session and ID that is open, as well as the IPs of each one. This also makes the skin server unstable. One rule in coding that I know is, the bigger it is, the buggier it is. Each additional step adds to that bugginess. Currently, the skin system is quite simple... which is why it works. The independent skin system is also intended to be fairly simple, with two steps added instead of at least four with dependent real time skin changing.
Also I never said anything about losing skins. If you're talking about skin THEFT, that's where you go on a skin stealer site and copy someone else's skin. That means with independent skin handling, your skin stays yours alone and can't be used by others unless you let them use it on a skin site. Think of it like preventing people from reposting posts you've made on Reddit and claiming your work as their own..
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That has been addressed. If Dinnerbone doesn't want to see HD skins, then he can block the higher resolution ranges and if the secondary skins of users that have HD skins as their primary include a default resolution skin, then he will see that skin. It's a feature that I thought of before even writing this suggestion almost a year ago, because there will be certain resolutions that each person might not want to see... be they in the LD range, or the HD range.
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1. It wouldn't cause lag. A 128x128 skin, for instance, is only 64 kb uncompressed; and much smaller compressed(sometimes over 8x smaller). One chunk can be up to 5 kb, for reference. You can load hundreds of chunks in seconds because the file sizes are negligible, and you can download dozens of skins from that same server on the same premise. All possible considerations have been made in the OP to ensure that scaling can take place should resources become so strained that skin handling is more often than not deferred. Skins may look like they're big and scary... but they're very tiny. For all the millions of skins out there, Mojang's skin server uses less than twenty gigabytes to store them all... That may seem like alot, but most servers won't be handling millions of skins. In fact, with appropriate database clearing and redundancy handling, even quite large servers may only have to deal with a few thousand skins; still no more than a few megabytes of data even with HD skins. I could literally host a skin server off my phone.
The independent skin handling was suggested for three reasons, the first of which is moderation. It's not common, but sometimes huge dicks log onto peoples' servers... And I'm not talking in metaphors. Independent skin handling means servers and server owners can moderate these 'troll skins' on a case-by-case basis, removing offensive skins and potentially revoking their skin changing privileges on a server if the need arises. The second reason is for posterity. When Mojangcrosoft is dead and buried, the spirit of Minecraft should be able to live on, including its' skins. Independent skin handling creates a sort of buffer for when their servers finally shut down. And the third reason is... Well, going from a medieval server then hopping onto a sci-fi server without changing skins... It's a bit awkward being a knight in full plate armor when you're in the middle of a metropolis filled with flying cars, isn't it? Yup, it means you can have a skin for every server.
2. Nightmayer19 made some incredible renderings of a 256x256 skin she made for her OC Naushe that you may find of interest, if you think anything higher than 128x128 resolution would look weird. Remember, the resolution of a skin is always 4x higher than the texture pack it would fit in with the most, so 128x128 skins would be equivalent to 32x32 texture packs and 256x256 skins would be equivalent to 64x64 texture packs.
3. Each resolution is hopefully going to be optional, so if you only want HD skins, then you can block LD skin resolutions. Likewise, you can block HD skins if you only want LD skins, or, if you only want skin resolution X, then you can block all the other resolutions. Each person is permitted a number of skin slots; with each of them having a texturepack-like heirarchy. The hope is that each user would choose their skin resolutions in a way such that the possibility of all their skins being blocked is low. But yes, if a user blocks all of your skins, you become a Steve/Alex to them.
4. Real time skin changing requires independent skin handling. The independent system allows the server to instantly relay new skins instead of clients fetching skins when a user logs onto the server... That may be a bit confusing, so let me try to explain it more practically.
When you log into singleplayer or multiplayer, your client fetches the skin associated with your player id from Mojang's skin server. When you log into a minecraft server, it gives the client a list of names, the client requests the skins from the skin server, and then ceases communications with the skin server unless another user logs in. When a user changes their skin, however, only the skin server knows that, and it can't track the servers that people are on... so it can't tell the other people on the server you're in that you changed your skin... which is why skins don't currently update in real time. This is good, though, because it keeps the skin server efficient and simple; meaning it's less prone to breaking or being exploited.
Now, independent skin handling can support realtime skin changing because the minecraft server then knows that someone changed their skin... because it's the one that's handling it. So, it can tell the clients logged in at the time: "Hey, this guy just changed their skin, here's a copy of it!" because of that. Making realtime skin changing work with the dependent skin handling would be... very messy. Sorry.
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1. Vanilla minecraft... supports hd textures out of the box. Minecraft isn't being modified("modded") because resource packs are only collections of textures, sounds, and mesh files. Mods change the behavior of something (Like how a modified gun barrel may increase accuracy). A more appropriate term may be customized, but that wouldn't support your argument very well considering how Minecraft fosters that at its' core.
2. You can, but that's not an HD skin, that's just an HD version of a default texture. If you already have a skin, then it will not appear on your player or any other player with a skin, and you will only be able to see that one skin in HD.
3. Here's the thing, again... They still gave HD textures native support. It shouldn't come as a surprise that it creates a paradox in your statement. They wouldn't have updated the functionality of native texturepack handling to support HD textures if they didn't include HD texturepacks in their considerations on the feature. They clearly care about the HD side of their aesthetic platform, and have worked to tailor it to accomodate that side.
4. Oh dear... No. It wouldn't crash any server at all. Mojang is smart enough to ensure that skin handling is deferred if the server is overloaded and the core processes need to be attended to, but that would be, literally, relieving a tiny smudge of processing power in the grand scheme of things. In addition, server owners have the same control as you do when it comes to what the server will accept. A server with excess network capacity can crank up the allowed skin size, and servers that have high usage can tone it down as needed. Remember that most skins are trivially small - where a chunk can be 5 kb, an uncompressed 128x128 image file can be, at the extreme side of things, 64 kb Compressed, it is MUCH smaller. When you log into a server, you're already downloading hundreds of chunks worth of data. A skin is /nothing/ compared to the burden of loading chunks and processing all the changes in the environment. Even if you're downloading ten of them, or twenty, or thirty. At the end of the day, it shouldn't affect performance unless you're already overloading your server.
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Nightmayer19's skin was 256x256, for reference.
I often feel the need to clarify the skin resolutions as they relate to texture packs, so here goes... The default skin resolution is four times as large as a block texture; hence why the "default" skin size in the poll is 64x64. That's pretty much the "don't change anything option".
Likewise, a 128x128 skin is equivalent to a 32x32 texturepack, a 256x256 skin is equivalent to a 64x64 texturepack, and so on.
The resaon I would prefer an HD troll skin is because then at least they put work into it, and I can respect that.
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That's pretty much the plan, but the suggestion I made has it at two, with one being "preferred" and another being a "backup" skin if the former is blocked. Perhaps it should be dependent on the server -- I.E a server with excess network capacity could increase the number of skins someone can upload for themselves, while a more overwhelmed server could scale it back to one or two. Thanks for the input! I'll definitely be pondering this for a bit.
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I actually did consider this... but Reddit is scary. xD
I guess I'll try it, though. Is there a subreddit in particular that I should post it to?
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@That_Guy_With_a_Default_Avatar
Well... that's odd. I mean, I could have sworn that my skin didn't fit into minecraft because minecraft, for me, has 256x256 textures. The skins as they are now don't fit in, that goes for anyone using hd textures... which were given native support years ago. Like I said in the OP, I end up looking like an out of place, pixellated blob with my texture pack.
Man, I haven't seen Theriasis' name in a long time... She's one of the best people here. Unfortunately, that guide doesn't affect this suggestion. You see, there's only one potential 'problem area' wrt the guide, but it's an essential feature. You're talking about my saying it's, in some capacity. 'optional', I assume. The truth is, it's not. Not in any conventional sense of the word. Any given user would be able to set a range of skin resolutions that they want to see, which may include exclusively the 'default' skin resolution, but that 'optional' part goes both ways... Meaning I can block LD skins. High resolution skins are no more optional than low resolution skins. Some servers may end up allowing HD skins exclusively, and others more may have specific skins that are assigned to different teams or ranks that are HD and completely controlled by the server. That would be something that Mineplex may do for team games, for instance.
As I'm sure you are aware, many servers have 'their own' potentially HD texture packs that they ask their users to use. In a setting such as that, hd skins would be preferable over LD ones to unify the server's aesthetic wrt the players themselves. That's where making the default resolution skins themselves optional, and allowing hd skins exclusively would benefit a server.
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Well,as it stands now, they are excessively large. Some people even go to the lengths of creating a skin that is literally JUST a penis. More pixels allows for the offenders to scale it back a bit instead. And... You know what? If they made a naked skin in hd that wasn't laughable... I'd probably commend them for their attention to detail wrt the shading. However, they are a minority that comprise <1% of the Minecraft population. Even if this supposed problem is somehow worsened by the advent of HD skins, it would be even rarer than the normal offensive skins. They still generally take more time to create well than LD skins, making it prohibitive anyway.
At any rate, if Mojang only worried about what the bad eggs would do with something, then they wouldn't have made potions, or TNT, or any of that because they can be used to upset people.
Texture packs are a fickle thing to compare skins to, simply because they're... Well, alot bigger. They can take months to complete, but the individual blocks and entities aren't given the same attention to detail as a skin is. The villagers you saw were... well, "assembly line" comes to mind. They simply weren't given the time that they needed to be made into something beautiful. And, of course, you're probably looking at the extreme side of things.
Nightmayer19 showed some amazing shots of her HD skin , which I'll include here, that are simply brilliant. The way she shaded it makes the hard edges invisible. This probably wouldn't even be the most popular skin resolution, as this has a 4x higher texel density than a vanilla skin. Most people would opt for 2x density skins, instead. Half the resolution of what you see below. Look at the expanded range of expression the artist has with the higher resolution, though. The face in particular doesn't simply have two dots for eyes and a fat rectangle for a mouth... it's, as I said, expressive. It's something that, for all my attempts, even I failed at with the default resolution... and I'm one of the unknown elites when it comes to LD skins.
Here's a link to some images of her skin: http://nightmayer91.deviantart.com/art/Naushe-s-Expressions-497033728
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My suggestion has been sculpted, through consultations with people that have concerns similar to yours, to accommodate the concerns of all users.
In terms of independent skin handling, if Mineplex were to accommodate extremely high res skins, there would indeed be the potential for network lag. However, the skins themselves should have a negligible effect on performance in game. Most rendering stress is caused by the block models and entity models. It should only affect performance if they're so low on RAM that the difference of a few mb causes lag. However, if anyone has a concern about it, each user can toggle what resolutions they want to see and what ones they don't in their clients. A server owner can also allow or prohibit a range of skin resolutions of its' own, so the feature can be adjusted by each server to mitigate excess network and database stress.
As for naked skins... Well, I've seen my fair share of walking penises in LD, too. It's unavoidable, as you said, but with the independent skin handling system, a server owner or operator can moderate skins on a case-by-case basis, changing a user's appearance to something more appropriate and disabling skin changing for a user are but two of the new abilities that a servers' administrators would have at their disposal.
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Well, here's the thing, teesee... Either they run around with pixel shlongs the size of cats, or they make a reasonably sized one in higher resolution. At any rate, I already discussed the need for advancements in per-server skin handling in the OP. The fact that offending skins exist at all suggests the need for per-server skin management and moderation... which I covered in the OP here:
Also, there are amazing looking high res texture packs out there... like the one in the OP. Logic would suggest that if the blocks can look good in HD, then so can the players.
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*sigh* I guess expecting people to read the OP fully is just too much.
I rebutted the "it doesn't fit in" argument in the end, in the section with the big read header saying "counter-arguments".
Now, for the trolling part... also covered in the OP
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Each user can upload two different resolution skins by default. The OP points out that you can select which resolutions you want to be visible and what you don't want visible. That way, hd an ld texture pack users can both block skins that break immersion for them, and if someone has a blocked HD skin, they still have an ld skin to show off with the two skins thing, and vice versa.