Swedish Army Mod 3 (SAM)

[mr. bravo 17]

It is finally time for us to start showing off what we're working on for the upcoming Arma3. Although things didn't go quite as planned with our previous version in Arma2, this time we have the advantage of working on things before the game is fully released. So first off I'd like to thank BIS for giving us all the opportunity to play and work with the Alpha, while also supporting the modding-community in this early stage with various tools and tips!

So for Arma3 we're conveniently jumping up to version 3, which marks another big change in our content as a project. We have decided not to make this a simple port from Arma2, but instead just picking a few things that we're especially pleased with to convert for Arma3. Base demand here is that our content fits the splendid aesthetics of Arma3 as well as possible. And more than that, we want the functionality and detail of VBS, which is a big reason to why we're attempting to create a lot of content on our own.

For anyone who doesn't know Swedish Army Mod from before, well, the name speaks for itself :P Here's our previous release-thread for Arma2, and a list of what we accomplished.

Official members of the team;

Tobe aka Mr. Bravo - Project leader, 3d-artist, texturer, character rigging.

Stiltman - Coder, implementor, animator.

Nordin - Coder, scripter, implementor, animator.

Zsalheden - 3d-artist, texturer.

Matte54 - Webmaster, 3d-renderer.

Anyways, I will keep this introduction short for now. We're kicking off our news by introducing something new, along with a wall of text and lots of highres pictures, at least once every second week. Hopefully more often. It's kind of a dev-blog, where we can talk a lot more about what we're doing and why. A lot funnier to make and read than just posting random renders/screenshots ;) Minor updates will then follow presented content to keep you up-to-date with the progress.

The full dev-blogs and highres pictures are posted on our own forums over at www.samstudios.se and will not be posted anywhere else because of various forum restrictions and more work for us. Eventhough we use a Swedish domain, all our news are still written in english. That's also where you'll find the latest news about the mod, but we'll try to keep this thread updated as well.

So, our first piece of news for SAM3 is about RG32M "Galten". This is a lowpoly model that has been shown around here before, but in a much earlier stage. Now it's been revived, reworked, and has reached the stage of uv-mapping. If you're interested, here is a link to the full post with info and renders in 1920x1080. I you're not so interested, then here are are a few downscaled renders as a taste;

[MasterDon 10]

I can already tell this is going to be top notch. I'll be following this for sure :cool:

[HorbeySpector 164]

awesome model. :)

[astast 12]

Awesome! I really like the version for arma 2 so im sure i will love the one for arma 3! :D

You guys rock big time!

[jefferspang 2]

holy cow! :eek: really really top notch stuff gentlemen! :) Will all the highlighted red area be animated or toggled via action menu?

[VXR 9]

Looking great guys! Welcome back! :D

[Iban656 10]

Nice work guys! I like it!

Edited May 11, 2013 by Iban656

[papanowel 120]

Indeed, it's very promising and nice looking.

[mr. bravo 17]

Kind words! Much appreciated :D Next up will be some really badass highpoly stuff from Zsalheden who's been very eager to show off his creations as well.

holy cow! :eek: really really top notch stuff gentlemen! :) Will all the highlighted red area be animated or toggled via action menu?

Thanks! We're not sure if everything will be functional ingame yet. We have an idea of what's possible and not from Arma2, but now with Arma3 things are still a bit fuzzy until the full game is released, and most things related to PhysX is still kind of an unexplored area of its own. At this stage we're simply making the models as flexible as possible to support any functionality we can think of, and then during implementation we'll see what can be done within (barely) the engines limitations.

Stiltman will be handling the initial implementation, who some of you probably know already from ExplosiveAids (ExA) RG31 project. Nordin has the in-action experience with the vehicle and is an excellent scripter (As seen in our Arma2 version of SAM), who I'm sure will add some awesome features as well. So it's in very capable hands!

[bad benson 1733]

fantastic work! looks like you have a very clean and balanced model there. i also really dig the render with the highlighted moving parts. fun to look at. keep it up!

[Leaulux 2]

Are you going to make them BLUFOR finally?

The quality of the mod was great in ARMA 2 but I refused to use them as Independent only.

[astast 12]

Are you going to make them BLUFOR finally?

The quality of the mod was great in ARMA 2 but I refused to use them as Independent only.

It does make sense that they aren't bluefor, they are are never choosing sites (no offens) they have choosen not to be a part of eu and i also think un aswell? I think that is the reason they didn't put them under bluefor.

Edited May 12, 2013 by astast

[SAMstudios-3Dartist 45]

We are in the independetet side becuse Sweden is a "neutral" country. Do we are a part of EU and help UN. But not NATO. But we fight in Afghanistan under ISAF right now. ;)

[another123 11]

Very, very nice work there guys.

I got few question just a pure curiosity. I wonder mainly what kind of uniforms will you guys create, there are so many currently issued... like battleshirts, light and heavy uniforms and jackets...

Will this mod be compatible with ACE and ACRE ?

Also I got few wishes, mainly - could you create berets for different units, but so you could wear the headset with it and different ESS/Oakley eyepro's?

And hats :)

Really nice work keep it up! Looking forward to create some scenarios when it will be released :)

[astast 12]

We are in the independetet side becuse Sweden is a "neutral" country. Do we are a part of EU and help UN. But not NATO. But we fight in Afghanistan under ISAF right now. ;)

Lol almost right :) potato potato :D

[lennard 447]

We are in the independetet side becuse Sweden is a "neutral" country. Do we are a part of EU and help UN. But not NATO. But we fight in Afghanistan under ISAF right now. ;)

Sounds pretty BLUFOR to me.

Looking forward to seeing this mod in A3. :)

[mr. bravo 17]

Woha, the decision to make Sweden Independent in A2 was because of AI issues that were reported a long time ago from people who made missions where Swedes were fighting americans/Blufor or more than one side when they assigned sides manually. The original solution was actually to have them available in both Independent and Blufor, but I honestly don't remember why we skipped Blufor completely for the official Beta. Independent worked well during internal testing, so I guess we didn't bother more with it.

Personally I don't really get the big deal behind Blufor/Opfor/Independent in the game. It is editor categories and presets to me, nothing more. Completely irrelevant ingame. The person who builds a mission is the one to decide which nations/factions that are fighting eachother, not presets based on todays reality that might be completely out the window next year.

Can't say yet how we're going to do in A3. So far we have just added weapons and static objects to the game, so no sides have been picked yet. Should be up for discussion later this summer when we're adding soldiers and vehicles, but I wouldn't mind adding them to more than one side again if it would still benefit mission-builders and avoid possible issues.

So this decision is completely about game mechanics. Yet to be investigated in A3.

Very, very nice work there guys.

I got few question just a pure curiosity. I wonder mainly what kind of uniforms will you guys create, there are so many currently issued... like battleshirts, light and heavy uniforms and jackets...

Will this mod be compatible with ACE and ACRE ?

Also I got few wishes, mainly - could you create berets for different units, but so you could wear the headset with it and different ESS/Oakley eyepro's?

And hats :)

Really nice work keep it up! Looking forward to create some scenarios when it will be released :)

Thanks!

I haven't actually quite decided yet what complete uniform we will start with. But in order to save some time for release, the initial units will be quite light. I'm currently working on boots (Standard black) and trousers, and will then jump directly to KRSK12 and a basic cap, available in both M90 and m90k of course. Pretty straight forward. I'm actually most excited about making the light jacket this time, which would fit the greek islands great, but we'll see.

A jacket is of higher priority than a shirt though, and the cap before berets ;) Of course we want to make it all, but our limited sparetime doesn't allow it.

About ACE. This time we will not build the mod directly upon ACE, mainly because it is very hard to keep up with their updates during the first year (We learned that the hard way, several times :P ). SAM will always have a working standalone-version in A3, and then it is up to Stiltman and Nordin when it's time for ACE, as they are the ones who will have to keep our configs synced.

We all prefer to play with ACE, so it's definitely not being ignored. We just have to wait and see what they make of it this time :)

ACRE is no problem. We will not be dependent on it, but as in A2 we will most likely play around with some separated content to be used with ACRE like custom radio backpacks and various equipment.

Edited May 12, 2013 by Mr. Bravo

[paecmaker 23]

Just wondering, do you do all this by yourself or do you sometime work together with the sfp team?

[another123 11]

Sounds good Mr. Bravo :)

[mr. bravo 17]

Just wondering, do you do all this by yourself or do you sometime work together with the sfp team?

I'm definitely not alone :p As mentioned in the first post, we are a team of 4 developers with great knowledge in different areas of modding (Stiltman, Nordin, Zsalheden and me), and we have been working together in Arma since 2010. There's also a fifth behind-the-scenes guy who mainly deals with our site and forums, but doesn't play Arma anymore. He doesn't prefer being mentioned as a team-member since he's not actually working on the mod, but he's paying the bills for our server and maintains things the rest of us doesn't know anything about, so Matte54 deserves to be mentioned anyway.

SFP is a different project with different people behind it.

Edited May 12, 2013 by Mr. Bravo

[Wolfstriked 11]

Man that is one sweet looking combat vehicle.Can't wait to see it textured!

[mr. bravo 17]

Goooodmorning guys! We just presented another vehicle over at samstudios, the Combat Vehicle 90 :D This is a highpoly model that team member Zsalheden is working on, which is very close to completion before the phase of lowpoly. As with all our vehicles there are going to be a lot of interesting parts to be animated and functional ingame, some of which are highlighted in red in the images. This is the most basic variant, CV9040a. But more versions are planned to be made as we go, like CV9040C (Medium), CV90120 (Heavy), CV9056 (AA), as well as variants with AMOS GRK (Mortar) and Armadillo.

As before, you can read the full preview and see the full size images at our forums. Here are some downscaled versions;

[another123 11]

Awesome job there guys, keep it up !

I wonder if it's possible that Strf 9040C and RG32M could have deattachable strecher ? Or corcentina wire that you eventually could deatach and deploy?

And I wonder if you eventually could make possibility to hide fast when you sit trough open hatch? Especially in the rear ?

Really great work looking forward to next update :)

[scrim 1]

Wow, that is just simply amazing!

[mr. bravo 17]

Thanks!

Awesome job there guys, keep it up !

I wonder if it's possible that Strf 9040C and RG32M could have deattachable strecher ? Or corcentina wire that you eventually could deatach and deploy?

And I wonder if you eventually could make possibility to hide fast when you sit trough open hatch? Especially in the rear ?

Really great work looking forward to next update :)

Heh, we've been discussing that as well. The models can handle it, but we'll have to see what the game and PhysX says about it in a few months. The A3 Alpha isn't complete, and we're not implementing vehicles yet, so everything that has to do with ingame functionality is still more or less speculations mixed with experience from Arma2. Stiltman is however currently experimenting a bit with ExA's RG31, as he has mentioned in their thread ;)