This is essentially how Quake and Quake 2 skins worked. You’d have a flat PCX image that’s wrapped around a 3D model.
e.g. Quake
Quake 2
Anyone who had the image in their local directory would see it, everyone else saw the default skin.
But you’d need a fairly high quality image for it to work in Zwift since the game resolution and model fidelity is so much higher than games made 25 years ago.
I suspect the way skins are done these days is very different from that old method anyway, so it’s probably unrealistic for anyone but an experienced 3D artist.
Of course, but even once the skin has been unfolded into a net, painting it will require some skill. It probably wouldn’t be a case of “copy & paste transparent PNG of logo here”, because a flat logo won’t just paste onto a flattened out (and probably warped) 3D net I expect.
I guess it depends on the poly count and how large the panels are. Of course a net for a simple shape (like a cube) is trivial to work with.
Still, it’d be a nice little side hustle for someone with the skills. =)
(Of course, this is entirely speculation on my part. I’ve no idea how Zwift does skinning.)
Of course perhaps has been said before ( but worth saying again in all the noise that this ticket generates) who said anything about it having to be an exact replica of a club jersey . Let face it most small clubs don’t invest this on there real club designs they are variations on a template . The argument that supporting highly bespoke kit , including he jersey material or sponsorship logos etc etc is clearly not something a sensible product would try and waterfall launch from day 1. All we really want is SOME ability to create an identity that does not have to resort to archaic ideas like using a tag on your name. I can only highlight what we have ended up doing . Our club kit is most closely matched to the Bike and Beer one … so we use it . All that we would “need” is that Bike and Beer could be replaced with our Club Name … and maybe to have the shorts color match ours (BTW before anyone jumps in and says thats Copyright BnB I am not suggesting that Zwift take that as the template its for illustrative purposes only) . One would hope some other small scale “customization” could be done . You get the idea anyway … I really don’t think most of the votes here are expecting all singing … anything at all would be a start , if nothing else just doing something instead of blocking to shut up repetitive frustrations ( of which am a contributor) might be a good idea. Its already been mooted and designed how this would be expected above in this thread … and its used by 1000’s of games of all sorts of scale and complexity to great success without all the alleged problems we are being presented with from all the “cant do” advocates… I really don’t think at this point there is any point in suggesting how Zwift might do it , since the problem is not how and when. It is clear to me anyway that Zwift have as it stands simply rejected this Feature request and that’s the end of it . The Feature request that is needed is probably to have the forum updated to include the required status of the request , in this case its WONT FIX .
I have been asking my country flag for 5 years. From what I have gathered it is more complex than completing a missing to Mars. So… um… good luck with your request.
but if this feature is important to you then… Zwift is not for ou
There is always some barrier as to why Zwift can’t do something that ever game since Pac Man does. Water is wet, the internet is too intenet, the color blue is too blue. so therefor the feature that you want is not technically possibble. At some point you will get the “we are working on it” message
let users create design, but it’s visible only to them, not to anyone else
use semi-custom designs with templates and word, font selection. This is probably the best choice
full custom but designs but would require (a) Zwift to download designs on the fly, not store them on every client machine, (b) dealing with copyright violations, possible obscenity, etc.
My money’s on 2 as the best approach. Riders would need specify only around 10 parameters, maybe fewer.
I just don’t get Zwift dragging there heels on this request (apart from it appears to be there company culture to fail to deliver anything that anyone asks for ). Quite why they wish to cultivate a reputation as a company who does not invest in there customers and product is anyone’s guess but there we have it .
Then again maybe its just wrong people in decision making positions. Its exactly the same as the Save and don’t exit issue . A simple change blatantly ignored because they are not listening or not capable of product ownership. Then someone turns up at Zwift I guess and they have ears ,common sense and proper attitude to just do it as its that easy . Right now that person is needed to look at this , look through all the weeds and understand how to do something and apply some much needed decision velocity and application and start to put this one to bed too.
Oh and while they are at it , Since to be able to create a club jersey first you need a club !! Roll out the clubs functionality that is currently available and being developed and improved more than a lot of other stuff but handed out to mates and mates of mates only and is causing real world inter club disputes and making club owners pretty antagonistic towards zwift with there quite appalling approach and control of a beta program.
Here is a fantastic bit of double standards and ignoring there own objections to club jerseys being available in game . Somehow seeming to believe this feature is actually supported.
In the next season of Zwifts sponsored racing league they have stated this
In-game kit (no funny business): teams are required to select an in-game Team Kit at the start of the season and maintain use of the same kit throughout. Deliberately changing team kit or race names to confuse opponents would be considered as against the fair spirit of the competition and may result in a points deduction or disqualification.
So how exactly can we select a team kit when they don’t support it I guess they mean choose someone else s team kit and pretend it is yours !!!
If I am not mistaken one of the big (nonsense) objections to us getting this feature was the complexity on copyright and acceptable use . Now here we have Zwift advocating that you can race officially and with there backing under a kit and logo of a brand you do not own …
How would lets say GCN for example feel about a team riding under there kit colors officially as that teams kit if the team are disqualified or discredited.
Come on Zwift ,now you are introducing the REQUIREMENT to have a team kit , you have to provide the facility for us to actually HAVE a team kit …
Hello everyone. I’ve been on zwift for a couple of months and it seems like an excellent platform for doing sports and getting motivated every day. I joined a team, specifically ZESP. I have found that virtual teams, unless they are professionals, do not have the possibility to carry their personalized team kit. I understand that this is a great job on the part of the Zwift HQ team, but I also understand that, being a team with more than 500 riders in Zwiftpower, we should have the possibility to create our own kit. I would like to hear opinions of what you think about this topic. I also understand that they are working on new routes and circuits, but perhaps they should dedicate some of their programmers to make possible the dreams of many team members, to bring their own team kits. I await your opinions and take this opportunity to thank the Zwift HQ team for the great work they do.
According to the support of zwift, its programmers are dedicated to doing other jobs and are inadvertently neglecting the majority of subscribers who are not professionals and who really are the ones who keep this platform going. Those who dedicate themselves every day to creating events, marches and races so that everyone can enjoy zwift. I understand that team owners are upset that they are not treated the same as professional teams.
I could not agree more with Jaime’s request! ZESP is the largest Spanish speaking community on Zwift, and organizes tons of great group rides and events, welcoming Zwifters from anywhere and way beyond it’s members base. ZESP is close to 2000 members (500 on ZP).
They have been there forever bringing a lot of activity to Zwift and making the Zwift experience go to a totally different level for me.
I have real difficulties to understand that ZESP does not have its custom kit yet, while many other teams, smaller in number, less active in terms of events organization, and newer to the platform, have.
Like many other ZESPers, main reason I am sticking to Zwift vs other platforms is ZESP, and if it is a shame that any teams are not able to consolidate their identity through a kit, the fact that a large community like ZESP does not is simply a lack of consideration for the tremendous amount of work its administrators have been genuinely putting on Zwift, without any other reward than the satisfaction of having created a great group of people living an experience together. The least that Zwift could do to correspond to their undisputable and relentless dedication is to create their custom kit.
I can’t understand this. If a large community like ZESP, absolutely non for profit, contributing to the platform for years without asking for anything. It is basically unfair that this tremendous commitment is not acknowledged and recognized by Zwift.
How long can it take to a developer to create a custom kit? One day? Two? Sincerely I don’t have a clue. At one point in time Zwift mentioned they were developing a tool so each team could develop their kit by themselves. What happened to that project?
You can’t ask people to invest time and passion in something like ZESP administrators do, and ignore them when they ask for something as basic as a way to have a certain identity in the game.
I would like to know the requirements to have a Kit.
If these are base on monetary return country based, events, social rides participation… Or just based on a purely subjective criterion of the Production Manager.
Unfortunately, it appears that the decision is based on the arbitrary decision of a single person.
It is a shame that after the strong sources of funding received, they forget the most important part of a business, The client.
I am not sure where you are thinking the difference is between Professional and Non Professional Teams.
The diference is between what can be maybe be described as a chosen inner cirlce of friends and friends of friends , and everyone else . Nothing wrong with that to a certain extent , trust and confidence is important , but not when it starts to lock people out and entry into that group is very difficult indeed. It starts to get very divisive.
As this thread mentions, the ability to do this with a higher throughput and frequency is a top product feature request. I won’t get into the technicalities of how this work is done here but will note that we’ve doubled or tripled our kit output with each release since December. Even still, the requests coming in outstrip our ability to make more.
Decisions on which kits are built and put in game are based on several factors including:
-Zwift or partnership campaigns requiring new kits
-Racing leagues (often with broadcast components) that require differentiated brands to know who’s competing versus each other (Super League Triathlon, Zwift Racing League Premier Division, etc)
-UCI ProTour Team requirements, as well as national federation requirements for sanctioned eSports competitions
-Prominent Event Promoters who benefit the community by representing their identity on kit
-Strategic partners who require brand presence in the Zwift ecosystem
These are all highly labour intense methods to making kit available and we probably know that having the facility to have exact replica of real life kit is not going to happen any time soon. Its neither economically or technically feasible for zwift to be offering that to us , as anyone reasonable here would agree. Then there is all the issues of logo ownership and expiry and so on …
Would be great if Zwift could think of ways to productionise more simplistic jersey configuration that would be a great start point . Thats if you are not already working on something like this already for a release soon . The requirement for community teams to have to wear team kit for the ZRL series has to be making this a more likely requirement ?
So a simple solution is something like
A set of 5 or 6 basic kit templates , most club kits I suggest fall into very similar shapes and components i.e solid with different color arms , stripe aross the chest being good examples. .
Then add the ability to select a primart and second , and highlight colour (Although as a club who has a RED jersey we would like that to be done a little differently to the way bike frames are done ) and you have enough I think to approximate most club kit.
Finally ability to add the club tag to the jersey. After all the main reason to have a jersey to to indentify clubs and how do we do that now … using tags …
As it would happen , those last 2 settings are already captured in the Zwiftpower Club settings ready to use
A feasible simple start point that I bet would make most of so much happier .
To me, the big picture here is the marketing and branding. This has the potential to be anoher revenue stream, why give it away for free?
Zwift is trying to figure out how to monetize this potential feature. Plus they would have to assign resourses to approve the Jerseys, you don’t want someone creatng something that is not politically or socallly correct.
I guess they mean choose someone else s team kit and pretend it is yours !!!
) and you have enough I think to approximate most club kit.