Project ASTFOR - Astelandic Armed Forces

[PuFu 4600]

Well Blender knowledge isn't exactly required. It's just Dennis/LJ learned off Blender and made these weapons with it. We've had occasional UV guys and texture artists try to come along and offer a hand, but so far the transition from Blender to 3ds hasn't been so well, and ended up with technical issues. So we figured, if someone comes in with Blender know-how, it's merely a bonus help, unless we can figure out why we are experiencing some of these issues that keep things from getting into 3ds Max. Of course if it does get into 3ds, it means what uv maps we do have from blender would need to be redone I suppose for working with 3ds. Yeah, it really is the headache it sounds like, lol. But anyways, help is help. If people end up having experience with Blender as well, it's a bonus.

There shouldn't be any sort of real issues by exchanging files from blender to 3ds max or whatever other 3d software out there (via fbx and/or .obj file formats). It should keep all the data, geometry and uv space intact. If you have further issues give me a shout on skype.

[j0nes 194]

Just thought Id add some WIP pictures of the air and sea assets into the thread!

http://s1335.photobucket.com/user/DMM_Jones/library/astfor%20mod?sort=3&page=1

@blackadder

the object youre looking at is a fuel crane of sorts. as seen more clearly here and seen in action here. second picture isnt the same ship, but same concept.

That large crane will be removed from our version of the ship, because the Karel Doorman class support ship that the HAsMS Astoria is based off is a SUPPORT SHIP, whereas we have modified it to fulfill the role of an LHD/LPD amphibous landing dock, with a well deck as seen in the WIP pictures above

[astast 12]

DAMN! :O that is one heck of a nice ship :O good work gents.

Did you make that in Oxygen 2?

Edited April 20, 2014 by astast

[j0nes 194]

@astast

yep! recently messed up my buldozer, so Im a little delayed atm. but it should be back up soon.

[LordJarhead 1721]

Hey,

here are some more / newer shots of the vehicles to look at. Been working on them for quiet some time, realize they have neither smoothing nor textures yet, so they'll look "edgy" for now :)

LeopardPzH2000_A1 Side View, Character Compare

Leopard A2 Driver View A5 Driver View

Leopard_Com_Gun_Side_View_A1 Commander View and Gunner Seat

CV9030N AMOS

CV9030 MkII TOW

CV9030 MKII Bofors AA

CV90 120T BAE Final

CV 9030N Final A1

They may not be a thousand % accurate but I'm trying to :)

Thanks.

LJ

[Jawzahr 10]

Absolutely love the potential I see here. I have always liked the idea of a Scandinavian military.

I do have some critiques I would like to make;

I understand you guys would like some diversity in the arsenal of small arms (M16s are in every other game) but the Negev for a light machine gun? The Negev is Israeli and the CSAT units are using a copy of it http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/ArmA_III#IMI_Negev nothing major but just something that was scratching my brain. If you guys are open to some opinions, I would suggest http://world.guns.ru/machine/usa/lwmmg-e.html and again, I would steer clear of weapons like the M249s and 240Bs as they see too much light. Up to you, but the LMG I linked has a similar vibe to the firearms you have already chosen and I think it would look slick and unique.

Another thing that got my attention was the camouflage patterns. The camouflage pattern really contributes to making the identity of any military. The camos you had listed reminded me a bit too much of the AAF camo with the darker greens and digital pattern. I understand you are a bit unsure of what design you wish to go with but I have a design that you might like. http://www.srvv.org/en/surpat/ The colour scheme would work well with with the arid environments of Altis and the lighter colours would go with Scandinavian forests in winter and in summer.

It's completely up to do with your mod.

I just felt like sharing some feelings as I would love to see this mod go far.

Keep up the good work! and I can't wait for some more updates! :)

[roberthammer 582]

Negev is a light machine gun , many other countries uses it as lmg - look here > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMI_Negev

Regular Negev is 5.56mm while the ArmA 3 CSAT Zafir is a copy of Negev NG7 , which is 7.62mm

For GPMG we got MG3 and there will be new modernized one as well

As for the camo - digital camo can look similar to any other digi camos also those squares will be smaller , the colours are specially made for woodland - not much for altis tho

Edited April 21, 2014 by RobertHammer

[astast 12]

Absolutely love the potential I see here. I have always liked the idea of a Scandinavian military.

I do have some critiques I would like to make;

I understand you guys would like some diversity in the arsenal of small arms (M16s are in every other game) but the Negev for a light machine gun? The Negev is Israeli and the CSAT units are using a copy of it http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/ArmA_III#IMI_Negev nothing major but just something that was scratching my brain. If you guys are open to some opinions, I would suggest http://world.guns.ru/machine/usa/lwmmg-e.html and again, I would steer clear of weapons like the M249s and 240Bs as they see too much light. Up to you, but the LMG I linked has a similar vibe to the firearms you have already chosen and I think it would look slick and unique.

Another thing that got my attention was the camouflage patterns. The camouflage pattern really contributes to making the identity of any military. The camos you had listed reminded me a bit too much of the AAF camo with the darker greens and digital pattern. I understand you are a bit unsure of what design you wish to go with but I have a design that you might like. http://www.srvv.org/en/surpat/ The colour scheme would work well with with the arid environments of Altis and the lighter colours would go with Scandinavian forests in winter and in summer.

It's completely up to do with your mod.

I just felt like sharing some feelings as I would love to see this mod go far.

Keep up the good work! and I can't wait for some more updates! :)

SURPAT is as you can see used by russian units and that wouldnt afaik suit astorian forces

[scajolly 14]

Interesting to see a fake Scandinavian army with 'jewish' equipment. An interesting backstory for the cold war or something?

Do you plan on making, say, oil rigs? Where you've planted your island you've absorbed about a fifth of the Norwegian oil and gas resources :p

Am very happy to see a CV9030. Here's a phenomenal (IMO!) question: Do you plan on adding functionality to the 71mm Lyran illumination mortars on it?

[LordJarhead 1721]

Interesting to see a fake Scandinavian army with 'jewish' equipment. An interesting backstory for the cold war or something?

Do you plan on making, say, oil rigs? Where you've planted your island you've absorbed about a fifth of the Norwegian oil and gas resources :p

Am very happy to see a CV9030. Here's a phenomenal (IMO!) question: Do you plan on adding functionality to the 71mm Lyran illumination mortars on it?

In theory it should be possible. Though it would require further testing but I'm sure it could be possible to make it as some type of weapon that can't rotate. But thats for later plans I suppose are we would have to get this stuff into the game first :)

LJ

PS: There will be plenty of backstory that will logically explain WHY we choose the content we have. EVERYTHING will find a logical place in our history and will be as much as realistic and authentic as we can make it ;)

[erazeri 1]

Been working on a Gripen NG for a quite a while now as my first addon to be released:

http://pilvigalleria.pwn.fi:443/imgs/arma3%202014-04-06%2016-27-10-190.jpg

Some level of cooperation might come handy, at least for me :P

Anyways, good luck with the C variant =)

[LazyHenrik 10]

Why...have...you taken the Norwegian flag, made it blue, and worst of all, mirrored it??? The point where the lines are crossing is too far right!

[mistyronin 1181]

Why...have...you taken the Norwegian flag, made it blue, and worst of all, mirrored it??? The point where the lines are crossing is too far right!

It's not the Norwegian flag, it's the Astorian one :rolleyes:

[Messiah 2]

Why...have...you taken the Norwegian flag, made it blue, and worst of all, mirrored it??? The point where the lines are crossing is too far right!

It's not as if the Nordmen are that unique in their flag design amongst Nordic countries:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Nordic-cross_Flags.png

seems a fitting choice

[PTV-Jobo 820]

Why...have...you taken the Norwegian flag, made it blue, and worst of all, mirrored it??? The point where the lines are crossing is too far right!

There's one in every thread these days, lol.

To.....answer.....your.....question......... :j:

*EDIT* Well, Messiah beat me to it (Thanks for the help, mate! :D)

If you are referring to the flag style in our signature logo, it was a design choice as it looked kind of weird having the lines over too far to the right with a very small square. Please take a moment to breathe and place your poor eyes back into their sockets. I'm fully aware of how the Scandinavian cross looks. And the actual flag and flag-patch for uniforms will be the correct dimensions, so don't worry your precious heart, deary. :D

http://i.imgur.com/BT15U.jpg

This was the original patch design back in A2, but have since found myself in possession of software that is used by professionals who make patches and other things for businesses and things. Basically it turns the vector into a digitized image of what it should look like once sewn on the machines, so our patch designs will hopefully look better and more realistic than the usual make a shape and bevel it in Photoshop method. Designs might change as well. But I just wanted to show you the bars were not crossed in the middle, to console you in your time of need, friend. Now you can sleep peacefully at night now....well somewhat, since the colors are still not Norwegian. Oops!

As to the questioning of certain equipment choices which appear to deviate from the Scandinavian norm--We decided to leave some traces of our Estonian-style Astoria we were originally heading with back when StalkerGB and I started on this project in ArmA 2 when we originally were going for a smaller Baltic theme. Keeps things a bit more interesting. Again, we like taking a few creative choices of our own to bring some fun chaos to everyone's life who tend to be obsessive compulsive when it comes to choices and are too in love with always seeing everyone use an M4 or a HK 416. SNOOZE! Been there, done that. We wanted to do something a bit different here and there. This is also why we have kept the equipment choices we have.

Funny enough, a lot of these choices in equipment (we were even going to upgrade the old Negev to the NG7-style look) and camo possibilities go back to ArmA 2 before BIS brought in the AAF and NG7 Negev. Funny enough the AAF looked pretty close to what Matt and I were picturing for the Baltic-style Astorians in A2, including the digital camo (although AAF is lighter and ours had colors taken from A2 Chernarus at the time). An even worse coincidence was when Dennis was making the Leopard, I brought up about the very same upgrade package that BIS ended up using in ArmA 3. Woke up the next morning when BIS rolled out the update with the AAF equipment and was sent the picture of the Leopard. I swear to god, I lost my mind and wondered if BIS had a team of trained psychics taking our ideas, haha. Still, I know Dennis is happy BIS made the Leo upgraded design, because he hated the idea of it so now he can have is untouched Leopard design back. :p

Actually before I forget again....this brings up a opportunity to mention a bit of a disclaimer I forgot to place on the front page in the first place for the future of this thread--because I know it will unfortunately come to a point where I will have to lay it out there for people who try to take a more controlling stance with our project :( :

The Project ASTFOR team will state here and now--and will not waste time repeating this any further down the line--the choices we as a team have and will make for Project ASTFOR are entirely up to us. If there are things people cannot accept or will have major breakdown as if our creative choices will tear the very fabric of life and all they hold sacred, feel free to pass on our project and pretend we do not exist. We state this now, because it is inevitable that eventually a lot of people who just don't get it will try to force their own changes by any means. Sorry folks, not happening. You're more than welcome to make your own mod, this is our baby and will stay as such. Thank you.

With that said, thank you all for the praises and thus far constructive criticisms (other than the last guy whose eyes popped out over our flag in our signature--if anyone can help console his broken heart, that'll be swell. :p).

Rest assured, in due time more information will be made public to allow the community to better understand Astoria, what she is all about, and some of the reasoning behind our choices, etc. Also again (and this is the last time it will be said as I've already mentioned it on the front page and too lazy to keep repeating myself in the future, lol) many things are subject to change at any time during its development. So size, shape, location, etc, can also change at any time. It's not easy placing a fictional country existing in the ArmAverse within the real world as well. At the end of the day, no matter where we place Astoria, we're probably going to be close to someone. It is Scandinavian, after all--can't just shove here in the Green Sea area with Cherna and others. Tell Norway to shove over and Denmark to move down more so ol' Astoria has some more room. Or we can just tow Iceland somewhere else, pretend we don't know where they went and secretly move Astoria into its place under the cover of night. :p

Edited April 21, 2014 by Yokhanan
few spelling stuff.....and things

[Messiah 2]

I'd personally just replace Bornholm - no one is going to miss them, and it sets Astoria quite nicely between the Scandinavian states it's meant to be a part of, and Estonia which (if I've not misunderstood the thinking behind this) it takes some element of inspiration from (colour wise at least)

[mistyronin 1181]

I'd personally just replace Bornholm - no one is going to miss them, and it sets Astoria quite nicely between the Scandinavian states it's meant to be a part of, and Estonia which (if I've not misunderstood the thinking behind this) it takes some element of inspiration from (colour wise at least)

I support that. Or if not by Ã…land, or Gotland.

[PTV-Jobo 820]

Good idea fellas! I'll send a message to those sneaky ninjas to get ready to tow Astoria into place. :bigsmile:

Also Messiah, indeed it does. We were a bit hesitant, but then when we were going over some history we found dribs and drabs about Estonia's Nordic (I suppose I should actually be using the more neutral term Nordic than Scandinavian? I can never figure out which is the more proper terminology in regards to this) relationship with Denmark and Sweden over time in terms of controlling territory. I don't know if anyone--Denmark or Sweden--held the entirety of Estonia, but I believe areas more north ("Danish Estonia") were held by Denmark for a bit around the 1200's. And there were times where Denmark and Sweden fought over parts of Estonia such as around the very late 1500's. So facts like this, along with the debate between some Estonians who feel a more Nordic than a Baltic connection--and those who, historical facts aside, will not view Estonia as anything other than Baltic, etc..... we kind of figured, why not keep at least some stuff from our original idea.

Consider a small part of Astoria in a way as sort of also an alternate history variant of Estonia if Estonia would have ended up like Finland and considered apart of the Nordic family. Still, Zedderzulu (Who enjoys history and has experience with fictional countries and things such as alternate history) and I have a lot of work ahead of us when it comes to such things. Hopefully, the community will find it more interesting creatively than unbelieveable balderdash as we progress. :)

[mistyronin 1181]

I suppose I should actually be using the more neutral term Nordic than Scandinavian?

Technically Scandinavian means the cultural links between the people who inhabit the Scandinavian Peninsula ( basically Sweden and Norway, but also Denmark ).

Nordic countries, also includes other territories and cultures that were strongly influenced by them ( due to be colonies or lands ruled by them ) but are not physically there: Scandinavian plus Finland and Iceland.

There are also political links like the Nordic Council, even some degree of military co-operation.

Estonia for example although not being considered as such, had been ruled partialy in the past by Nordic countries, and part of its culture is really close to Finland ( like its language that is also an Uralic languages instead of a Germanic Indo-European like the rest of the nordics ).

Edited April 21, 2014 by MistyRonin

[PTV-Jobo 820]

Thanks for the feedback, Misty. Really helpful. I was always confused between the two and when to use each of the terms. :bigsmile:

[paecmaker 23]

This looks really awesome. :D

What camo are you planning to use?

[PTV-Jobo 820]

This looks really awesome. :D

What camo are you planning to use?

@blackadder

Well we're a bit back-n-forth. It's pretty much down to either 1) Flecktarn or 2)our original ASTCDU which kind of looked like Estonia's digital pattern that is currently used nowadays. Vehicles will probably be more splinter-style like you see with Sweden, Finland, etc. So while our idea of doing such a pattern with Norwegian colors looked kind of cool, we didn't want the vehicles to match the clothing. So it's down to either custom Digital or custom Flecktarn. Below are some old examples I did up back when the team was discussing possible pattern styles to go with. The color swatches need adjusting because in-game they seem kind of dark and muddle together too much, but you'll get the rough idea at least:

ASTCDU

http://i.imgur.com/Igfy610.png

Astorian Flecktarn

http://i.imgur.com/99Kyyu2.jpg

At the end of the day, it's tricky, because we don't want to necessarily go with something already used by others around us, plus with Swedish, Norwegian and I'm sure we'll eventually see a Danish mod in the future....we'd also run the risk of blending in too much instead of standing out on our own as well. I was toying with the idea of a possible variant of the Swedish camo pattern, but since a similar pattern will be on the vehicles, I felt we should have a bit of a different pattern for the actual troops separate from the vehicle pattern.

[zimms 22]

I can't describe how much I'm looking forward to your vehicle interiors. And I really like your vehicle/weapon choices.

This is a really well thought out concept and I can't wait to get my hands on this mod. Great work guys!

[beaar 78]

You guys are amazing! I love you! Everything looks so good.

[R0adki11 3949]

I can't describe how much I'm looking forward to your vehicle interiors. And I really like your vehicle/weapon choices.

This is a really well thought out concept and I can't wait to get my hands on this mod. Great work guys!

You guys are amazing! I love you! Everything looks so good.

Thanks for the kind comments :)