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h34dup

Algerian Special Forces

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As an Arma2 editor, primarily, this would be my first attempt at creating an add-on unit, or I suppose in this case, a simple reskin. Fortunately, I have many years experience creating skins for games like MOH:AA, COD, and COD2 (which included normal and specular maps), so I do not foresee having problems on that end.

Reading mondkalb's tutorial to start, if anyone here has other useful reference material to help, I would appreciate it!

The purpose for creating this addon is to add Algerian Special Forces units, which were inspired by recent real-world developments in Algeria, which culminated in one of the most devastating hostage situations in decades, in-terms of hostages killed. There isn't a whole lot of information regarding Algerian SF -- aside from the fact that they have a penchant for torturous and over-the-top training techniques, and apply a mostly Russian methodology to counter-terrorism (taking the name as literally as possible). There are enough photos out there to give me a sense of what they need to look like.

There are a couple of possible versions of SF uniforms:

All OD with three-hole balaclava and/or MVD-style helmet

646286706.jpg

le_det11.jpg

http://i23.servimg.com/u/f23/11/43/45/77/dsi_ph12.jpg (181 kB)

http://i23.servimg.com/u/f23/11/43/45/77/dsi_ph14.jpg (144 kB)

Russian-style DPM (?) with black watch cap

http://i22.servimg.com/u/f22/11/43/45/77/parass10.jpg (160 kB)

http://i22.servimg.com/u/f22/11/43/45/77/ph_de_10.jpg (177 kB)

More info:

http://fulcrumaaf.skyrock.com/

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?127649-Algerian-special-forces-Pictures

Suggestions and input are welcome and appreciated!

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For the Russian-style DPM question, I believe it is either:

1988 3-TsV

Smog

or 1981 3-TsV

Good luck as well :)

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Sakai-- it was seeing your SURPAT units this morning that finally convinced me to give this a try-- is it OK with you if I play with that release for this project?

EDIT: Thanks for the specified patterns as for the DPM question, I was wondering if perhaps those were pictures from the unit during an older period in its existence, like during or shortly after their being a Soviet entity.

EDIT 2: Better yet, if you are interested in collaborating on this and doing some units in that pattern PM me!

Edited by h34dup

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Sakai-- it was seeing your SURPAT units this morning that finally convinced me to give this a try-- is it OK with you if I play with that release for this project?

EDIT: Thanks for the specified patterns as for the DPM question, I was wondering if perhaps those were pictures from the unit during an older period in its existence, like during or shortly after their being a Soviet entity.

EDIT 2: Better yet, if you are interested in collaborating on this and doing some units in that pattern PM me!

Sorry but Im rather busy with my own projects :D but if you need any help PM me, and yes feel free to use the config.cpp if you mean that :)

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Good luck with models

..

No need to make models, BIS OpFor CHDKz and MVD from Russians.

Switch their faction, side and vehicleclass and tada!

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No need to make models, BIS OpFor CHDKz and MVD from Russians.

Switch their faction, side and vehicleclass and tada!

Yeah, this should easily be possible as a reskin, I had a look in the un-PBO'ed SURPAT and looked through the config.cpp -- easy to follow from a high-level, but is there a nice, detailed page or tutorial on this? The BI Wiki page is only top-level info.

More importantly, how does one get to the necessary .paa texture files (which seem to be able to be reverse-saved back to .tga using TexView) in Vanilla for the re-skin? As nice as the SURPAT soldiers are, it looks like I'd lose all details of the cloth folds and texture trying to convert that SURPAT camo pattern back to straight OD-- it'd be a much better idea to start with the CHDKz and MVD like Sakai is saying. So if someone could let me know how to access these texture files, along with any code that defines which texture files are needed (eg. uniform texture, equipment texture, etc.), that would help.

Also, if I'm missing some essential reading, tutorial, documentation, etc. (I've read through part of mondkalb's tutorial, and while comprehensive is far beyond what this project requires) please let me know! My searches have not been turning up very useful links.

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You have to re-texture from nothing aka NOHQ file, turn them into grayscale's.

Once your done with that you have to HEX Edit the P3D aka directions, they have to be have same amount of character's as old one.

You will find NOHQ files in characters2.pbo

If you need help getting certain nohq.paa's just PM and I will send them to you if you can't find them.

Edited by Sakai

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You can retexture co files aswell. Get or make a tiling camo texture and paste it over the co texture, cut out the parts you don't need to retexture like belts, boots, pins and such. Then get the nohq, make it grayscale and lay it over the co texture as an overlay, again, only on the parts that you want to retexture. From there it's mostly shadowing and dirt left. That way you get a rather detailed ( depends how much time you spend ) co texture and on top of that a normal map, which enhances the detail even more.

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So NOHQ refers to a normal map then, which it looks like you can use a Photoshop plug-in to generate.

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Mondkalb%27s_Addon_Tutorial#Step_Five:_Creating_the_texture

Are these maps embedded within the .paa/.tga? I did not see other textures in the un-PBO'ed folder, but I did not look into the other channels in Photoshop.

I'm actually beginning to wonder if this will be worth the headache of switching back and forth, since Adobe CS is on my Mac installation and I run Arma using Bootcamp.

Also found this tutorial, but it appears to be for Arma 1? Says the models have all been released, which I know is not true for Arma 2.

http://tactical.nekromantix.com/wiki/doku.php?id=arma:texturing:reskin_tut

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ArmA 1 models have been released as MLOD's so it means people can edit them, NOHQ's are embedded with .paa only textures ONLY uses .paa and sometimes .pac but thats rare for me.

You gotta open them with Tex2View and save them as .png or .jpg

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Don't use Hex Editors to change texture paths, use Mikero's DOS tools.

He has a tool (I believe the one you are looking for is SetP3D) and it'll allow you to change texture paths without the same restrictions as hex editors.

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So NOHQ refers to a normal map then, which it looks like you can use a Photoshop plug-in to generate.

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Mondkalb%27s_Addon_Tutorial#Step_Five:_Creating_the_texture

Are these maps embedded within the .paa/.tga? I did not see other textures in the un-PBO'ed folder, but I did not look into the other channels in Photoshop.

I'm actually beginning to wonder if this will be worth the headache of switching back and forth, since Adobe CS is on my Mac installation and I run Arma using Bootcamp.

Also found this tutorial, but it appears to be for Arma 1? Says the models have all been released, which I know is not true for Arma 2.

http://tactical.nekromantix.com/wiki/doku.php?id=arma:texturing:reskin_tut

Get Eliteness2.91 program. With it you can scan the arma 2 pbo's to see what's in them and you can depbo them. Also get unRAp so you can view config files. And lastly get TexView 2 to actualy open the paa files and save them as png and vice versa. I also advice getting notepad++, makes configs easier. You also don't need to make new normal maps, you can use the old ones unless there's some drastic changes to the diffuse texture.

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Cool thank you guys! Last night I started to wrap my head around the process some more, but it is all new to me...so my head felt like it was going to explode.

Is there a quicker and easier way of testing skins than exporting, converting, PBO'ing and launching Arma 2? Definitely a detail-oriented guy here, so it will likely take a while for this to get done if this is the case.

I may want to consider serving Kommiekat's request for African jihadists, which would be a much easier 1st project than this one. I've accessed and examined the Takistani OPFOR skins, though I think perhaps the IND Takistani Guerillas may be a better choice.

I understand the basics of the .cpp file and how to modify that for my purposes, just not the process that goes with these p3d files-- how they are created, what their role is, etc.

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Are these maps embedded within the .paa/.tga? I did not see other textures in the un-PBO'ed folder, but I did not look into the other channels in Photoshop.

They are not embedded. They are independent files which should be in the PBO alongside the _co texture.

If you have skype, there is a big group chat for ArmA 2 Model makers and I'm sure you'd be able to get some help.

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Hello and thank very much for this initiative,

I've registered to the forum Just to try to help a little,

On Tiguentourine Operation, the force involved was a joint task force of three origins (combined forces is almost a rule in the Algerian methodology):

GIS (Groupe d'intervention special) which is basically the Algerian Intelligence special Force, these guys are almost totally invisible on media.

DSI (Detachment Spécial d'intervention) which is very close to be like French GIGN.

and an elite group from Algerian Paratroopers that are commonly called special forces in Algeria.

the very much "special forces" are those of GIS and unfortunately there isn't enough material to learn about them.

Algerian Special Forces were born during the Algerian struggle for independence between 1954 and 1962.

Best regards,

---------- Post added at 22:29 ---------- Previous post was at 22:28 ----------

here are two DSI videos :

  1. entrance to DSI selection Process :

  2. exhibition video :

here is a video of Algerian paratroopers :

for GIS, the only thing we know is there sign :cool:

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupement_d'intervention_sp%C3%A9cial

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