Been done in 2016: https://www.beamng.com/threads/scratch-decals.34252/#post-504308 And considering the devs changed the way the game renders paint and reflections a few updates ago, they might be waiting to find a more permanent solution so they don't have to re-do paint scratches and mud marks from zero every time they find a more optimized way of doing that. It has nothing to do with lazyness, it's just that the game is still in alpha.
I will try to be kind as this post rather ticked me off a bit... It has never been said by a Dev that paint scratches or dirt on vehicles is something that is impossible to do. It's not impossible at all. Not even remotely impossible. It is just not a focus of the current development direction. The core underlying graphics engine needs to be brought up to par first before they start implementing features like this that could be easily broken by any adjustment to the underlying engine. Think about it like making a Pie. First you put in the crust, then you put in the filler, then you put on the topping. Now imagine, just before you stick the pie in the oven, you decide that you wanted a cookie crumb crust rather than a dough crust... now you have to either attempt to pull all the contents of the pie back out, so you can change the crust... probably ruining the rest of the pie in the process... or you just start from scratch all over again and make yourself a new pie. This is what the Dev's are doing... but on a MUCH more complicated scale. They don't want to give out features early, only to have to redo all of their work once they make a change to the underlying engine which, I don't know if you have noticed, they do on almost every update and have been doing so for literally YEARS. Even the most minor change to the underlying graphics engine can bork a feature like this 7 ways to Sunday and end up having to be almost completely rebuilt every time they would want to make a change. They are attempting to get every feature and bug with the base, core graphics engine ironed out first before they just start layering features on top of it. Better to build off of a solid foundation that will work perfectly on all systems with no bugs then to just pile a bunch of stuff ontop of a half done foundation only to have the whole thing come crumbling down and needing a full rebuild when too many features are added to it. The way that venzo implemented his feature, not to detract from the work he has done (it is great), is nowhere near what the devs want to implement. The devs want to make everything completely dynamic. Mud for instance. If you spin the tires faster or slower, they want to have the mud hit the body in different locations just like in real life. If you drag a panel through the mud, they want it to paint that area in mud like in real life. If you then drive through water they want it to wash off where the water touches just like in real life. Scratches, same deal. If you slide along a surface, some surfaces will be more abrasive than others, which will effect how the scratches are made... just like in real life. If the sliding occurs in a particular direction on a panel, they want the scratches to show up in that direction... just like real life. Doing things to that degree is FAR MORE COMPLICATED than most people give them credit for. All most people see is that other games have it so why don't they? Trust me... the Dev's are FAR from lazy. 98% of the work that they do to implement these features will never be seen by you or I. It is all in the back end, under the hood, buried in files that 99% of the community will never look in or even has access to. Also, they have a lot of features internally that they have been working on for years that they deem are either not up to the quality they want or are not ready for release because systems further down in the stack are not at 100% yet and they wish to avoid the issues that I spoke of earlier. Trust me... they don't come on the forums, see a heavily requested feature, chuckle to themselves, and then just tell us, "its not possible" without ever considering it.
Exactly, it's sad that some people think, oh the devs are lazy. Devs that are lazy would not work on a game for over 7 years and keep adding things that impress the community.
its just that most communities dont appreciate the amount of work the devs need to do to add a feature (also can we get back on topic)
To get back on topic... This looks pretty good actually, i hope you take your time, ignore all the impatient morons and improve the mod at your rate
