How many modders will only stay with arma 2? And not start modding for arma 3?

[Delta Hawk 1829]

I don't mean demanding gratitude. Real artists don't do it for gratitude. I mean taking pride in what you do and being recognized for your hard effort and simply just being thanked.

I'm not a very well known modder but I do plan on sticking to A2.

[Militant1006 11]

Very interesting thread to read through, For all the modders who are staying back on Arma 2 (particularly Delta Hawk, your units truly amazed me, I don't think I've ever seen that quality in arma ever), I personally can not find any reason whatsoever to think that could be unreasonable, but there is a great sense of disappointment when you see modders stopping for the latest entry. To be honest, It'd be nice if Bohemia Interactive gave more support in the mod tools department, considering one of their major advertising points is mod support, plus they can also attribute a sizable amount of income to DayZ, essentially a mod.

Still though It's nice to see quite a few quality modders with plans for the future in this thread.

[Alwarren 2767]

I hate to say this but modding is becoming increasely and dramatically difficult to do. In order to make something above the status quo now days, especially with A3, it requires an extremely complex work flow. I'm not talking about retexturing BIS's stuff, I'm talking about extensive research and designing, 3d Max/Maya, Zbrush, Mudbox, Photoshop and other complex software with industry standard plugins (atleast $4,000 + investment), high poly to low poly with correct normal/height/AO/spec/dirt map projections for organic and inorganic models, complex manipulation of .psd files and material files, exporting/importing, model configuring, blah blah blah...

It's not that bad, at least depending on what type of mod you do. Weapons are obviously easier to do than vehicles or units, but still, as others have said, you can get away with Blender, GIMP and the BIS tools which will all cost you nothing. No program will eliminate the need for a bit of talent.

Now, I am not claiming that my addons are any good, but the M4's did reach 15k downloads on Armaholic, and that is from soneone that didn't know anything about Blender or modelling a bit over a year ago.

Modders have a right to sit on their high horse! Or atleast to be sincerely thanked.

I don't think any high horse is justified. First of all, when you put out an addon, you haven't been asked for it. You did it because you wanted to. If someone appreciates this, hearing a "thank you" is certainly rewarding for the author, and motivation to continue. But every time you release something, you are also going to get people that don't like it (I recently overheard a commentary in an Arma 3 video where a guy said "in the beginning there was only that M4 and that was utter sh*t". No idea if he was talking about mine, but if yes, I have to live with that). That's something you need to be able to cope with.

I guess it all boils down to the reasons why you do it. I personally do this stuff because I enjoy it, same with mission making. Hearing praise from other people surely is motivating, but not always required.

[xx-LSD-xx 10]

I'll still do both. I have to much damn time invested in A2. And it's alot of work. A fact that people who haven't tried editing,modifying,scripting have no idea how much work is involved.

And yes the reward is when someone says that was awesome and there is always who wrote this piece of shit? Good comes with the bad. The community for Arma is by far what makes it the best thing out there.

[mr. bravo 17]

As much as I love Arma2, it certainly has some major flaws in both gameplay and graphics, which I've forced myself to ignore over the years. Arma3 so far seems to correct/improve a LOT of what always bugged me in A2, while also letting us convert content from previous games without too much hassle. Therefore I really see no reason to why I should stay in A2.

So my modding will look and work a lot better in Arma3, and can be played with in a much smoother experience. Where do I sign up? Oh wait..! :D

Edited May 17, 2013 by Mr. Bravo

[bad benson 1733]

No one here demanded gratitude, because most are doing this for themselves. But then again some expect some decency when it comes to comments (and there is a difference between feedback and bitching).

i agree. and besides. the term high horse wasn't brought up by a modder. it's just being reused here in a bad way;) the fact is, determination and skill (also separately) deserve respect. i respect everyone who even tries to make a mod and has the drive to learn something.

people who haven't tried editing,modifying,scripting have no idea how much work is involved.

exactly. and what most people forget is, while most modders do it for themselves, that making a mod for a game isn't like building a sculpture in your garage. if you release a good mod people will use it in hours of gameplay and have fun with it and not just look at it from a distance. it's not like other art forms where your piece is unique and protected and just for people to look at. with a good mod/mission you give people gameplay and content. for friggin free.

while i agree that some people are making a drama of the whole anti arma 3 thing i don't see how that is a problem at all. i've seen people behave a lot worse on the forums while they contributed nothing at all. i'm not saying anyone has a right to act in any way based on their contribution. it's just silly to hold modders to a different standard. in fact they should be seen as complicated eccentric artist/scientist types if that helps people dealing with them riding their high horse:p i'd rather be a douche on a high horse that made something cool than just a douche with no horse and no creation. simple math. more is better ;)

i never liked when people just bitch about stuff because i understand how it feels if you put not hours but days and weeks (sometimes months and years) into something and then someone doesn't have the decency to voice is criticism right or just keep his mouth shut. for a modder his projects are his babies. and it doesn't matter how advanced the mod is or how high its quality is. decency should always be applied when talking about someone's creation because it's something close to his/her heart.

i usually keep most of my stuff to myself because i do anything i do because i want it in the game not for anyone else. and from that perspective. of course i do stuff for arma 3 and not arma 2. models look better in it, there are new script commands, there are friggin physics. sure there are flaws but it's the first time in years that it feels new and polished.

[smokedog3para 365]

Since I have not been able to work from a car accident this is my boredom killer it has kept me occupied day in day out for the last 3 years making islands and now addons I do it just to learn how things work and to make and create content I would like in game when its of a standard i am happy with it will be released till then its just what I use in the editor for testing .

I will still be modding for a2 and a3 as when the official patch comes out im sure most people will use the joined a2\a3 patch so most old addons will be used with the new content.

Don't forget most of the tutorials and post in the forums for information come from the guys that had to start out with no information on how to make stuff for this game series so thanks to them it made it a lot easier for me to get in on the enjoyment and frustration of addon making.

Edited May 17, 2013 by SmokeDog3PARA

[james2464 177]

Looking forward to future Arma 3 maps :D

Edited May 20, 2013 by James2464

[2nd ranger 282]

Pebble island?

[-=Borz=- 10]

Mate, you made, probably, one of the best Islands ever created in my humble opinion.

Second to none.

If you ever come to London you will be rewarded with some beers for sure.

Thanks hips to you Sir, and to all of the other Island makers.

And also to all general addon makers who in occasions contributed to make our lives more bearable.

Edited June 25, 2013 by -=Borz=-
forgot the author.

[dsi24 12]

And as we've also seen, although this one may be a byproduct of Arma's newfound more-mainstream popularity or of "the times we live in", we've also had a seemingly more public emphasis on disseminating that modding knowledge, from Editor tutorials to outright livestreaming the creation of in-game weapons.

My signature quote is proving itself extremely relevant right about now. :cool:

[SavageCDN 231]

I'd just like to say Thank You to all the mod makers out there. I cannot mod my way out of a wet paper bag (ACE_bagp_wet) however I can appreciate the time and effort put into it.

For all those who can't appreciate their work FOR FREE... please die :p

[instagoat 133]

I´ve got to say that I can understand modders becoming frustrated with the game and the tools provided. Agreed, I am particularily bad with this, but it took me about a year now to get something ingame (and that was a mere reskin), and only a week to break the config again to where I don´t understand what I broke and how I broke it.

There is no pipeline in the tools that allows for easy implementation of content. And now that the addons have become so complex, it really slows you down. I´ve the faint suspicion that this lack of ease of integrating new 3D content is also a problem for BI themselves, taking time away from other places. And the longer it takes to get something ingame, and have it work satisfactorily, the harder it is to stay "on the ball", so to speak.

So, I don´t blame anybody who doesn´t want to mod for A3. In fact, I´ve expected that the modding community will change dramatically when A3's features were first being announced. I am not as pessimistic anymore now as I was then (as in, expecting the modding community to dry up completely), but I still see that things are drying up and that the talented people that modded on the games before are often deciding not to participate anymore.

I know it is on the face of it a cheap proposition, but what is necessary is maybe an easier way to get content working ingame. Some sort of GUI based config editor with plug-n-play functionality, an ingame debugger and config editor possibly, and a 3D editor that makes bringing content over from common formats easier. An example would be the weighting difficulty, which seems to be one of the major problems with every Unit model ever. I have seen modders complain about this for a long time, and I don´t exactly understand how difficult this is, and how it could be made easier, but maybe this is worth looking into to?

In the end, the difficulties the modders have are the same the BI devs have, since the tools are the same (unless BI has switched to a different system by now?). And if modders who have all the time in the world and no deadlines are getting frustrated, then how does it have to be for somebody who is working under time pressure and AAA title quality demands?

tldr; blaming modders for leaving is wrong.

Cheerio

InstaGoat

[max power 21]

I agree with you, InstaGoat, that modding isn't easy.

I would like to point out that on the game I'm working on right now, the pipeline is INSANE. I have to constantly refer to a chart to make sure I'm on the right track, and a thorough chart would actually be three charts that could be overlayed. In the scope of things, the arma modding pipeline is actually not so bad, but it is unfortunately it requires the disciplines of like 4 different people to take an addon from nothing to something. I'm not saying it is as easy as it can be, but it is easier than some professional pipelines. The difference is that artists or who ever in the community have to go out seeking support when they're stuck, whereas on a professional team usually you can just go ask the guy who designed the system what's going on with it.

[vilas 477]

i observed 2 problems so far in Arma3:

- textures i made 2048*2048 or 1024*1024 look blured (do not know why) like it was 128*128 or 256*256 maximum resolution,

- normals (NOHQ) are inverted (bump/curved capsized down)

[granQ 293]

I want to quit.. but I can't :(

Editing ofp/arma is like a drug, I don't do it for the fame, not for being creative, not for having fun.. but because when I get home from work its the first thing I do until I go to bed, can't explain it or justify it (imagine the body I would have if I put 25% of that time on exercise).

So whatever you do, never start modding. Its addictive.

PS. There is still awesome stuff you can do without "skills", like the suicide vest in SFP. Its a very simple script, made with notepad, using a standard bis vest. Nobody so far gives a fck thats not a "correct model", we are having great fun and many laughs with early detonations or when in the middle of a player vs player, one guy manage to take out 3-4 guys in one "strike". If its fun, the quality of of the model is less important.. if its just screenshots in the editor without friends, its the only thing that matters.

Edited June 27, 2013 by granQ

[vilas 477]

hehehe GranQ, me the same :)

more over after all those years many of us know each other personally and would be hard to leave anything, because you know people there and i think many of us get used to each other on this globe and globe became smaller

[granQ 293]

yeah, speaking of the network among modders.

NZDF Crash flew around the world to crash (phun!) on my couch for a few days, while he might had other things in mind, like see and explore asia/europe, I am pretty sure the main event was to play arma3 at my house ;)

[chortles 263]

It seems that another impediment to modding for Arma 3 is that there are to my knowledge no purpose-built, Arma 3-specific tools but rather that everyone is having to use the same tools from Arma 2 and then try to incorporate/take advantage of the engine changes in Arma 3...

[Alwarren 2767]

i observed 2 problems so far in Arma3:

- textures i made 2048*2048 or 1024*1024 look blured (do not know why) like it was 128*128 or 256*256 maximum resolution,

Textures seem okay here if I set the texture quality to Ultra.

- normals (NOHQ) are inverted (bump/curved capsized down)

Good, so I am not the only one. I was looking at one of my models yesterday and I thought that the normal map was inverted. Screws looked like they went in not out, etc. I have no idea why.

---------- Post added at 13:44 ---------- Previous post was at 13:38 ----------

It seems that another impediment to modding for Arma 3 is that there are to my knowledge no purpose-built, Arma 3-specific tools but rather that everyone is having to use the same tools from Arma 2 and then try to incorporate/take advantage of the engine changes in Arma 3...

Most of the tools work the same. There are a couple of things that cannot be done with the current tools, for example using unhideValue in model.cfg, which is a problem since it makes reload animations unnecessary complex.

I think the bigger issue than the tools are the actual information. I had to find out a lot of things by myself, for example how the collimator sights work and how to prevent the gun from appearing in front of the sight. Most of the solutions where easy to implement but took ages to find out, and it would really help immensely if BIS provided more example models and information on these subjects.

This is further complicated by the fact that the binarized models cannot be unbinarized by normal means; that means reference is missing, and it also means we cannot easily make new islands with Stratis assets.

[STALKERGB 6]

It seems that another impediment to modding for Arma 3 is that there are to my knowledge no purpose-built, Arma 3-specific tools but rather that everyone is having to use the same tools from Arma 2 and then try to incorporate/take advantage of the engine changes in Arma 3...

Can only speak for infantry modding but personally it hasn't made any difference (that i've noticed anyway lol) using tools designed for OA instead of A3, the difficulty comes from having to work out how all the new bits of equipment and uniforms worked together and updating the config accordingly, which was made easier thanks to vespa's guide he wrote.

[Chairborne 2594]

I wanted to learn how to create islands in arma 2 (and even managed to get one or two to work in game, even though they never got anywhere near completion) because i always felt like there were some good scenarios that no one ever got to create but Arma 3 engine is way better so i think i'll move on.

Graphics are better, game is lighter to run, infantry has a lot of interesting new features that i like (and some that i don't), the AI is A LOT smarter and faster than what it used to be in Arma 2 and i look forward to see what other features they're going to add as soon as the final release is out, especially regarding amphibious capabilities and ships, given that the game takes place on an island and they emphasized so much the whole scuba thing.

While i still am disappointed at the 2035 setting i believe it's just a matter of time before someone ports over or makes from scratch the stuff we had in Arma 2 (maybe BI itself as soon as the game is stable enough to give them time to work on it?) and then we'll have "modern warfare" vehicles and equipment with an engine that has much more to offer.

The biggest problem i see is the addon making tools that often feel pointlessly complicated and outdated (or just broken). For every hour you spend in Visitor 3 (my case) with unpractical tools you maybe have to spend another hour between binarization and in-game testing trying to figure out unexpected bugs. For the time being i don't even want to know how to import stuff into Arma 3 as long as BIS doesn't give us "next-gen" tools.

On a side note, i don't think i could really blame someone for staying in arma 2 (or OFP). There is plenty of information in here about how to get things working (and trust me when i say that for someone who starts from scratch in such a complex game it means a lot to have "veterans" to help you) and a lot of people already have experience using the tools and how to make the best out of them. Despite the many problems it has it still has much to offer in the hands of capable people.

Think of what the PR:BF2 community achieved with a game that is what... 11 years old? And still got to introduce features that despite all the engine limitations are on par with arma and for some aspects work even better.

Moving on to Arma 3 would require re-learning how things work, get accustomed with new features that will take even more time to implement and so on.

I think that many of those who say they won't move to Arma 3 are just skeptical about this new stuff and as soon as someone breaks it down they'll follow.

[Brain 12]

[...] but Arma 3 engine is way better [...] game is lighter to run [...] the AI is A LOT smarter and faster than what it used to be in Arma 2.

Please, give me some of your consciousness-expanding drugs, I'm still stuck up at work. :D The engine is the (nearly) the same, IMO A3 needs at least as much as performance as A2 ATM on most rigs and the AI is worse than in

Don't get me wrong, BI did an awesome job and the AI, compared to any other game/sim is still genius, but there are often situations that kill immersion and give you stomach aches of laughing.

[Chairborne 2594]

On arma 2 i usually had 15-20 fps (13 on chernarus) with butt-ugly graphics and overheating problems, arma 3 runs with 30 fps, better looking graphics and almost no overheating.

I'm not saying it's flawless (we don't even have the final release yet) but imho there have been huge improvements.

[pathetic_berserker 4]

In the scope of things, the arma modding pipeline is actually not so bad, but it is unfortunately it requires the disciplines of like 4 different people to take an addon from nothing to something. I'm not saying it is as easy as it can be, but it is easier than some professional pipelines. The difference is that artists or who ever in the community have to go out seeking support when they're stuck, whereas on a professional team usually you can just go ask the guy who designed the system what's going on with it.

Yes having to being multi disciplined is the clincher, I like modelling, and I like texturing and I’m still really learning both. But I have issues with figuring out scripts and functionality, don’t know why but it’s one of those areas where even after a few successes I just don’t seem to feel any gain in knowledge or confidence. It really prevents me from wanting to do more.

- normals (NOHQ) are inverted (bump/curved capsized down)

Yeah another, why the hell is that, moment.

I want to quit.. but I can't :(

Editing ofp/arma is like a drug, I don't do it for the fame, not for being creative, not for having fun.. but because when I get home from work its the first thing I do until I go to bed, can't explain it or justify it (imagine the body I would have if I put 25% of that time on exercise).

So whatever you do, never start modding. Its addictive..

LOL

I think the bigger issue than the tools are the actual information. I had to find out a lot of things by myself, for example how the collimator sights work and how to prevent the gun from appearing in front of the sight. Most of the solutions where easy to implement but took ages to find out, and it would really help immensely if BIS provided more example models and information on these subjects..

They do seem to be making an effort towards improving this, but we’ll see. Till now it seems like I have spent more than half my time researching everything and trialling its implementation, instead of following a linear path to the goal. When you finally get to the end it’s of course very gratifying. But if like me, your time for it as a hobby is short you can’t realistically expect a timely turn around on a project, which is understandably off putting.

Anyway as to the OP’s question I’ll not say I’ll never mod for A3, I would like to port my Mi-24A at the very least, but for now I’m taking a different approach. I’m going to focus on improving my modelling and texturing skills, and if I happen to create a suitable model to the quality I want then I’ll consider it.