Texture modding

[antoineflemming 14]

Hey, mods, maybe a kind of Modding Questions thread would be good for people who have questions about modding. Also, an addon request thread for this Discussion forum would be good.

Anyway, I've been starting to work on my SF mod for ArmA3. And basically it involves reskinning uniforms and gear in ArmA3. However, seems like only some of the gear has hiddenSelections. Anyone know of another way to reskin without hex editing? Because that's pretty much one of the only sure ways to do this in ArmA 2, and hiddenSeections would be a much better way to go. So any help would be great.

[nodunit 397]

What about opening the pbo and changing the texture or something like that?

[antoineflemming 14]

What about opening the pbo and changing the texture or something like that?

Well, here's the thing:

1) I don't want to just replace the texture of an existing uniform, vest, or helmet. I want to make an additional one.

2) Currently, the only way to do that for the uniforms and vests is to duplicate the uniform/vest model, hex edit it, and release. But, I'm pretty sure doing that is frowned upon by BIS if I'm not mistaken. Besides, hiddenSelections are a much simpler way to do it. I've noticed that the caps have hiddenSelections and that the Tactical Vest has hiddenSelections. Just curious if there's some other way that modders have made retextures in the past. Because I only know of two ways, and it'd be nice if there were some other way. If not, then I'll resort to the hex editing...

[fluttershy 2]

Hi antoine,

i can assure you that the current Blufor Soldiers do not have hiddenSelections for the clothing textures. Maybee have a talk with sudden over at armaholic. He recently released a reskined version of the Blufor Soldiers. Although the clothing isnt interchangable which is, if i am not wrong, something you want right?

Also nice to note: The Danish Military advisors released by DDAM and Villas used the Divers, because they do have hidden selections.

Edit: Just noticed - Ohally is retexturing as well, i will send him a PM and ask if he would tell me his method. I will keep you posted about this.

Edited March 7, 2013 by fluttershy

[Stino 1]

I got a question, ive never been into modding arma 2 but i want to retexture some things in arma 3 like helmets and stuff.

Do i need to have some sort of program for this? i though the game would include a modding program besides the mission editor.

[antoineflemming 14]

Hi antoine,

i can assure you that the current Blufor Soldiers do not have hiddenSelections for the clothing textures. Maybee have a talk with sudden over at armaholic. He recently released a reskined version of the Blufor Soldiers. Although the clothing isnt interchangable which is, if i am not wrong, something you want right?

Also nice to note: The Danish Military advisors released by DDAM and Villas used the Divers, because they do have hidden selections.

Edit: Just noticed - Ohally is retexturing as well, i will send him a PM and ask if he would tell me his method. I will keep you posted about this.

Thanks.

[Vespa 1]

except helmets, all BLUFOR clothing and equipment have selection named "camo" in their models, and we already use that for swappig skins in internal version. Dunno what made it to alpha

[antoineflemming 14]

except helmets, all BLUFOR clothing and equipment have selection named "camo" in their models, and we already use that for swapping skins in internal version. Dunno what made it to alpha

Yeah, I don't think it made it. At least, I ONLY see it for the underwear, the caps, and the Tactical vests (the ones that have a police variant).

Also, you should have done the camo like Battlefield 3 did there camo. They made like a color-coded normal map and applied seamless camo textures to the normal map, so that the colors matched up. Then you'd truly be able to just customize the camo, which is what I'm trying to do.

[PuFu 4600]

Normal map should never have information comes from the pattern or color. I am certain bf3 normal map does NOT have that sort of info in. You could post a link to such a normal map anyways

[antoineflemming 14]

Normal map should never have information comes from the pattern or color. I am certain bf3 normal map does NOT have that sort of info in. You could post a link to such a normal map anyways

Well, I guess it's just a regular diffuse texture then. I'm not really sure how they do it, but they have a color-coded texture. And the camo is a separate file that's just the pattern. So it might just be a gray diffuse texture. Either way, it's an interesting way to do camouflage.

Edited March 7, 2013 by antoineflemming

[instagoat 133]

Well, I guess it's just a regular diffuse texture then. I'm not really sure how they do it, but they have a color-coded texture. And the camo is a separate file that's just the pattern. So it might just be a gray diffuse texture. Either way, it's an interesting way to do camouflage.

Problem I see with that is that at seam lines, the camo would be seamless, which it isn´t in real life. In my recent texturing attempts with OA I´ve painstakingly cut out every single seamline where I could find photographs of the fabric actually being cut, for example.

I was hoping for easy access retexturing too, hopefully we´ll get some of that in the future. Hex editing is a major pain, in my opinion, and I don´t like to do it because I do not understand how it works, and I break things more often than I get them to work.

[antoineflemming 14]

Yeah. The vests do in fact work. But the uniforms don't. So hopefully BIS can add that in.

@whatever-BIS-devs-look-at-this: is it possible for BIS to release their camo patterns for NATO and Iran? I like Multicam, so I'll be making Multicam gear, but I can't really find a texture that goes well with the current combat shirt. The colors are off.

[Binkowski 26]

Yeah. The vests do in fact work. But the uniforms don't. So hopefully BIS can add that in.

@whatever-BIS-devs-look-at-this: is it possible for BIS to release their camo patterns for NATO and Iran? I like Multicam, so I'll be making Multicam gear, but I can't really find a texture that goes well with the current combat shirt. The colors are off.

Try to use AlexVetsin's multicam swatches that he released and then just fade them back and add dust effects to them. I used that on one of my boonies and it turned out pretty similar.

[antoineflemming 14]

Try to use AlexVetsin's multicam swatches that he released and then just fade them back and add dust effects to them. I used that on one of my boonies and it turned out pretty similar.

That's exactly what I'm using right now :) If they'd release a template or PSD where I could easily swap out the camo pattern, then I'd just replace the whole thing.