Help Making A New Nimitz Mod

[n00b hax 10]

I've been playing ArmA for over a year now, but a long, long time ago, I used to play Flight Simulator X. Now in FSX, someone had created a freeware USS Nimitz (CVN 68) which was lightyears better graphically than the rest of the game. After playing the USS Nimitz Mod for ArmA 2 OA, and seeing how disappointingly bland the textures were, I felt inspired to see if there was a way to take the freeware Nimitz and plop it into ArmA 2.

As of right now, I have managed to convert the behemoth from the proprietary Microsoft filetype ".mdl" to a .OBJ file, and have it inside of 3DS MAX, and working.

I have multiple questions about what to do from here.

1. What are the ethical implications of taking this free mod designed for one game and converting it for use in another, while still crediting the original digital artist wherever I can.

2. What do I do from here? I know I need to "script" it, but I have no idea what that entails (as you may have already noticed, I'm much more comfortable with the 3D-animation part of gaming, and less with the coding). I do not know what kind of object class I should use (Ship, Car, House, Other?), and how I would animate it.

By animating it I would hope to

a. Create 4 working Aircraft Elevators.

b. Create a takeoff system which involves hooking the launch bar up to the catapult, the blast shields coming up, and the aircraft being accelerated.

c. Create a landing system using a Tailhook and Arresting Cables.

d. Create a working "meatball", with lights, which will essentially change the lighting sequence based upon the distance, altitude, speed, and glide slope of the landing aircraft.

e. And many many more little things, which I don't want to focus upon until I can get this ship working.

If anyone could give me one on one help, point me in the direction of the right tutorials or wiki's, or help run through these ideas, I would greatly appreciate it!

[[aps]gnat 28]

Hi NH

Welcome.

1- If it really is freeware an the author hasn't restricted to which game its freeware you may be ok, but best practice is to email the author and double check.

2- .... HUGE endeavour. MANY things to do so you need to go read some of the tutorials on Mod'ing ArmA. Your first problem is you have picked a vehicle that wont work in-game unless its chopped in many separate models, then stitched back together ingame (as all Carriers are in ArmA).

Once you get past the model hurdle, then prior Carriers are you best guide so look at their Config and script files.

3a-Elevators don't work very well at all in ArmA

3b-Already been done via scripts, so do-able

3c-Can only be simulated via scripts

3d-Do-able to some degree with a lot of animation, but lights are not very controllable in the game engine

3e-Yes, crawl before you run. JDog spent many 100's of hours getting his to where it was.

Tutorials? This thread area and Editing sub-forum is literally surrounded by Tutorials. Browse.

BTW, if the texture mapping didn't make it into the OBJ or 3DS MAX model, you are wasting your time. Remapping textures back onto the model will be a bridge-too-far.

I was heavy involved in converting 2 Carriers for this game. But I can not directly support you sorry, I have little free time as is.

Edited August 10, 2013 by [APS]Gnat

[darrenin 19]

dude this would be so cool if you can pull this off!

[chortles 263]

Here's a post from RKSL that makes mention of the model issue -- the maximum model size in Arma 2 is at last check only 60 meters -- in the context of a ship whose real-life counterpart is 60.7 m long:

Its slightly over 60m long which makes it - just about - into the absolute maximum ArmA2 geometry envelope. This means it can be a single model and wont need any funky scripting to get it working ingame.

[chortles 263]

If you're still interested, then I would advise you to get in touch with TeTeT -- he's been officially (by JDog) permitted to port JDog's Nimitz mod to Arma 3.