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Project ASTFOR - Astelandic Armed Forces

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Hopefully the community loosens up a bit when the competition is over and you guys get the help you need! Astfor seem really sweet project and if only I had time I'd help out. Don't lose hope just yet!

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Whenever, you need any help, by setting things up accordingly: Just cry out for me.

Project ASTFOR is one of those neat projects where I once in a while checked in to see if there was any progress. Never realized you were running out of hands.

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sorry jarhead, but your post is simply useless. When in need of help, you need to ask for it, not expect to see it happening out of the blue. For instance i have yet to be contacted regarding those uvs.

I understand the venting and frustration, and i also understand the fact that anything outside the special duper 'murica will simply gather less interest, at least in this community. I really want to help you guys out by teaching your modellers how to be able to properly and fast unwrap a model - it is actually a very simple process once you have certain guidelines, rather than uv your entire mesh collection. I can help out with some obviously, but an artist should be able to produce the entire thing from modelling to texturing on its own.

If the only part thatis holding you back from getting stuff ingame are the uvs and textures, then that is simply fixed. But then again you can't really expect a single guy to unwrap everything someone else produces, because it is indeed a pretty boring job. Best bet is to have your guys learn how to do it is a fast manner by themselves (which is pretty straight forward unless you are using o2 to do it, but i doubt it).

So again, contact me via skype pm or whatever if you need a hand

Actually its really sad seeing this giant community producing so many cool mods and addons for the game, but seriously no one seems to be kind or helpful enough to help us out with this. Maybe the idea does not fit into most peoples "US ULTRA SUPER DUPER MARINES NAVY PATRIOTISM" crap we've seen million times already. Astfor, this is something complete new and special, a whole new idea, bringing some fresh air into the setting of ArmA3, but no one seems to be interested in helping. I mean, is it the size of the mod that deter most people? Is it the job itself, that UV mapping is a shit load of work? Certainly I dont understand how multiple mod groups get together and produce awesome stuff (RH Studios) but we can't seem to find anyone REALLY helping us out and NOT making endless, useless empty promises! Sry to say it that harsh, but over the last year, I've experienced so much bullshit... seriously...

Just saying, we are not even able to get ONE friggin rifle ingame. And no one seems to be really interested to join our team and produce something special with us. Its sad. If anything would be so easy to learn as making sounds, I would've done so much more for you, John! I would've really enjoyed getting the things together and ingame for you, so that your WISH comes true! To finally have this one unique mod, YOUR mod, that you always wanted to realize! I hope we will get there my friend! I miss you being happy :(

Sry for my outrage...

LJ

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sorry jarhead, but your post is simply useless. When in need of help, you need to ask for it, not expect to see it happening out of the blue. For instance i have yet to be contacted regarding those uvs.

I understand the venting and frustration, and i also understand the fact that anything outside the special duper 'murica will simply gather less interest, at least in this community. I really want to help you guys out by teaching your modellers how to be able to properly and fast unwrap a model - it is actually a very simple process once you have certain guidelines, rather than uv your entire mesh collection. I can help out with some obviously, but an artist should be able to produce the entire thing from modelling to texturing on its own.

If the only part thatis holding you back from getting stuff ingame are the uvs and textures, then that is simply fixed. But then again you can't really expect a single guy to unwrap everything someone else produces, because it is indeed a pretty boring job. Best bet is to have your guys learn how to do it is a fast manner by themselves (which is pretty straight forward unless you are using o2 to do it, but i doubt it).

So again, contact me via skype pm or whatever if you need a hand

We were trying to get a rifle ingame for a half year now, as no one knows about uv mapping and as the model is "kinda" not good enough to UV map'it, it was a no go for all the people so far joining us. I'm not saying people should just do stuff, we ARE asking for help, we ARE posting about our needs to get things on a roll. But so far, we got many "helpers" who actually were no help at all. You just loose the trust in people when its always the same. And so it is indeed frustrating to see other mods grow and their process while ours seems to fail on a simple task like one rifle.

And by the way, a opinion is never useless :P Its just sad, thats it, I stated my opinion, done. Some day we might get there, we might get the help we need. But we were tying that back in A2 already and there was no real help so far. And one just can't do everything. I do sounds and modeling, I just dont have time for UV mapping, either to learn it properly, nor to UV map the models I did. And I dont expect anyone to just get into the group, do the boring stuff and leave again. Thats not what we want. Maybe it was just the summer time when most people are not really inside in front of their PCs and go on vacation or rather to the beach instead into o2 :P

I'm just saying, I'm experiencing this mod going nowhere for like 2 years now. At some point you just dont believe anymore...

So,

LJ

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Listen mate, i really don't want to argue with you here. I understand very well the time constrains, i have them to (i own my own business and that takes priority over most other things out there, i am an awful boss to myself :P). I am saying that when in need for help, ask for it, in a directed fashion. Yes, there is the manw constrains at play, and yes it was the summer time and so on, but don't blame it on the entire creator part of the community. There is real no competition on the larger scale here.

On the other hand, if we are to be talking about UVs, you need to understand that it is a part of how you do your models in the first place (although i do not agree with the part that a certain model is not "good enough" for unwrapping, that is pure bullshit). I am saying that for most modellers i know, their models are sort of their pets: they want to "raise" them al the way to a finished product. On one hand, the one that knows its pet best is the owner, the inside out of it, so it is simply faster for everyone involved in such a product to leave the unwrapping to the "owner". On the other hand, from my own perspective (and that is the way it works in commercial production as well), a model is not sent to the texturing department until it has been UVed.

Again, UV Mapping is anything but complex. Yes, it can be a bit time consuming, but otherwise it is a very straight forward job to do. I really don't know the software you are using (i assume it is blender by your first post), nor the people that you had contact with before, but i would say it was simply unlucky on your part. There are many very good artist in this community that could have / would have given you a helping hand. It also might have something to do with the fact that before the post 1 page back, i for once (and unfortunately i do spend a bit too much time on BIF for whatever reason) was never aware of the "production" issue you have.

We were trying to get a rifle ingame for a half year now, as no one knows about uv mapping and as the model is "kinda" not good enough to UV map'it, it was a no go for all the people so far joining us. I'm not saying people should just do stuff, we ARE asking for help, we ARE posting about our needs to get things on a roll. But so far, we got many "helpers" who actually were no help at all. You just loose the trust in people when its always the same. And so it is indeed frustrating to see other mods grow and their process while ours seems to fail on a simple task like one rifle.

And by the way, a opinion is never useless :P Its just sad, thats it, I stated my opinion, done. Some day we might get there, we might get the help we need. But we were tying that back in A2 already and there was no real help so far. And one just can't do everything. I do sounds and modeling, I just dont have time for UV mapping, either to learn it properly, nor to UV map the models I did. And I dont expect anyone to just get into the group, do the boring stuff and leave again. Thats not what we want. Maybe it was just the summer time when most people are not really inside in front of their PCs and go on vacation or rather to the beach instead into o2 :P

I'm just saying, I'm experiencing this mod going nowhere for like 2 years now. At some point you just dont believe anymore...

So,

LJ

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Yeaaaaaaah, I kinda knew where last nights posting was going to end up. I wanted to step in with my voice but after going out to dinner with family I ended up coming back home in a damn-near food coma. 'Murica! :p

I know LJ's postings about this subject can come off a bit rough at first glance. I guess that's why I sometimes get designated the public relations guy in our JSRS thread when it comes to dealing with kiddies and impolite numbskulls since Dennis knows I tend to take the more stealthy and diplomatic approach. (Then if that fails, then I just simply arrange for that person to mysteriously fall on an ice pick 30-40 times by accident. No wait, sorry that's just my New Jersey Italian coming out...you never read that last bit!).

Just keep in mind please from his perspective as well. He came into this knowing full well what this project meant to me personally from the get-go--which I have already explained in some way in my previous post. LJ only came in for sound work originally, and stood by watching people on our team take advantage. He's watched people bend me to my breaking point and then some. People being involved making lot of promises, but develop a lazy "I'll do it, whenever the hell I feel like it" attitude. Or say they are really busy, but end up off on the side working on other projects providing them with assets, telling me what we will have for my own mod so that they can pass our assets off to other mods to help them.

In other words, when people came aboard Project ASTFOR, other people's projects always benefitted except Project ASTFOR. Now try making sense out of that one, I dare you lol. Eventually after seeing this all and then some LJ decided to undertake learning Blender and ended up doing most of everyone else's job on top of JSRS (3d modeling can be a chore, but add in the fact of also dealing with literally over 1,000 sound files on the side at the same time for JSRS and now Dragonfyre and also helping out other people's projects with sounds). So to see my announcement does hit Dennis as well, especially when he on one hand helps other mod teams with sound work freely, but then when asked for a hand in return people tended to respond with crickets. When we made this thread, we did ask for help, and Dennis even tried tapping a few contacts he did work for since coming into the ArmA community. I also think Dennis asked for help when he accidently made a thread showing off his Leo and CV90's before I was ready to go officially public. So yes, we did ask the community directly, and yet we either never got the help, or people added us on skype, agreed to help, and then disappear without a trace never to be heard from again or end up resurfacing in the community with their own projects. The only thing we haven't tried was building our own Bat Signal. ;)

I will admit, at times it does come off that if a project has to do with anything "OMG 'Murica Special Forces!", people tend to be more readily available to be involved than say a completely fictionalized Scandinavian-style nation in the ArmAverse. It sucks, but I understand as well. I mean for a lot of guys, this is what they did in real life so they are more inclined to bring it to life to enjoy in ArmA. So I can't fault people for what they like, it's a personal thing. You can't force your vision upon anyone, and even if I could I wouldn't want to, because there would be no real satisfaction or passion behind it. Y'know? I think what Project ASTFOR needs isn't help, but rather good people who want to help and be apart of it. Unless the people helping share some sort of desire to be apart of the project and see it succeed truly, we'd only end up back where we are.

I think that is more of an issue--not so much the lack of help, but rather the lack of heart to help within the team. And that especially rings louder than anything when it comes to my team in the past and present. Sure, real life and work are major things that take priority. But even so, when you start sensing a lack of heart from your team, then you're never going to get far. And that is certainly the current situation I think. After so many people coming in with big promises and false sense of passion for the project and ending up leaving behind damage and chaos, we all lost heart. And even now, our infantry go-to guy admits there is certainly a big lack of desire to do anything related to ArmA 3 these days. Going on 2 years now, and we still didn't even get our base infantry soldier sorted. Especially since someone else came in making grand sweeping promises with the infantry side of modeling assets and had us give them full control over the infantry development, claiming it'll allow them to work quicker and efficient than if stalkerGB remained involved. They instead ended up doing work for another major project currently in the community. So by the time things got corrected and the dead weight and false promises removed, our original infantry guy has been too busy with work and now just lacks the desire to work with ArmA 3 right now. So again, when people get to that point, it puts our project further down ol' Shit Creek. But I end here on that subject, otherwise names start getting dropped and things get ugly out of old anger. All I can say is that like with anything in life, "Shit happens". I'll move on....

Let this also serve as an example to all you kids out there in our community who think doing what the community does for ArmA is relatively easy and think they are somehow obligated to your happiness and have to provide you with information and product whenever you demand it. This is tougher than you think, lol. I've respected the community from the start since my arrival with Armed Assault (sorry to admit, but I never got to enjoy and experience OFP), but going into ASTFOR as my first ever project for a video game? Whole new level of respect, especially to the community veterans who have stuck through all these years. Especially with how BI tends to make impressions of their product one way, but it ends up in reality turning out being a product that trying to work with makes you want to take up the career of renting a bus and traveling around the country punching the elderly in the kidney out of frustration. :p

In the mean time, thank you again for your offer to help and have a chat, Pufu. If you can, send me a quick PM with your skype name since for whatever reason (Maybe because of Chrome) when I click your skype icon it doesn't work and I looked for PuFu on skype, but ended up with a lot of possible people, lol.

I also again want to personally thank ARMSCor for their support and willingness to help us out. I'll certainly be getting in touch as I said on my facebook post.

And to the rest who offer their support still and desire to help but unfortunately tied up at the moment (heh-heh, kinky)--thanks and hopefully when the time lends itself the opportunity to work together, we can. I understand and appreciate the gesture either way. Again, hopefully once MANW blows over and the dust settles, we'll see ASTFOR still standing here. I'm certainly not going out without a fight for this project. I love it too much, but I also know many of our fans would love to experience it as well in the future. Even with the "deadline", that leaves us currently with over--what?--110 days give or take? Still quite a decent amount of time for opportunity to strike and start to turn things around for the project in my book. So here's hoping!

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. .

Edited by rzon

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Just wanted to post a quick update:

I am pleased to announce and welcome officially the additions of both TheMisterCat & SpartanVI to the ASTFOR team and both will be involved in the infantry development sector of our project. Both individuals have shown a lot of promise on their own, and I know they will both fit in just well on our team. Welcome aboard fellas! :)

Although still WIP, here is a teaser of one of the Plate Carriers being worked on for the Astelandic forces, based off of the SnigelDesign Strap on plate carrier modeled by TheMisterCat, to show we're still alive and kicking: http://i.imgur.com/JloBaxr.png

RH is also pecking away at the "classics" weapon pack from A2.

We're also tackling the helmets--both uncovered and covered versions. This was a bit of an older render sent over, but it'll give you guys at least some idea: http://i.imgur.com/zX3OCrB.png

Still much work to do (i.e. nvg mount, etc) but we're slowly getting there! :)

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Just wanted to post a quick update...

...Still much work to do (i.e. nvg mount, etc) but we're slowly getting there! :)

You're Alive.

:yay:ALIVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!:yay:

(And no not the addon)

Really had me worried there with the last reply and the locked post, really glad to see you guys are still making progress :D

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Haha nah. I mean I was pretty close, but mostly just locked it, cleared my head and went on a bit of a side mission to see if the project was salvageable among other things. I'm excited to have both Cat and Spartan involved in the project now, plus both the ARMSCor creator and Pufu has made themselves available to me for any questions and to help along the best they can with us learning unwrapping properly. So should we hit any bumps along the way (which will happen since we're taking baby steps and learning as we go), we can ask for tips and whatnot on how to get past such bumps. So yeah....we're starting to slowly lurch forward again. We'll just have to see where it takes us. :)

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As we head forward, I've actually been working on some uniforms and I may have them worked out over this long weekend barring anything like a meteor crashing through mg house

It'll be a good time.

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The infantry screens on the front page are broken. Love this project, I have a weird love for Scandinavia and I love this idea!

Further, I have zero knowledge of blender or modelling, but If you need help with configs, history or maybe mission making (down the road of course) I am willing. I know this isn't the help you really need right now but I want to do whatever I can!

Edited by Baddazs

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Thanks, Baddazs. Will def keep you in mind! Our Scandinavian History Guru is a bit AFK due to real life, so should he be unable to return to the project, I'll give ya a shout and discuss things. Also cool missions would be a welcomed addition once we finally get to a point of beta release to the community. :)

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How are things progressing here?

Again, I offer any help that I can provide. I want sooooo badly to continue the Viking Legacy with this addon.

Long live The AllFather

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Yeah, so far Robert sent over to me the "classics" pack as I call it--with the Swedish-style Galil's, Negev, MG3, etc. Just sweeping up any bugs and fine tune along the way. Right now LJ's getting sounds redone so it fits 100% with the rest of Dragonfyre as well--since obviously Dragonfyre is like the official sound mod choice for ASTFOR and all sounds made for the mod will be built around it. Still need to get AT equipment sorted and brought in, Robert's also working on the XCR rifle and unfortunately there has been a delay on the Galil ACE as the person who is suppose to be doing it has stopped returning communications with Robert so we may end up having to scrap it. Still, to be honest already testing the old school Astorian galil's, they are fun enough on their own. :)

We're also working on the infantry side. StalkerGB sent us over our older A2 Astorian mlods as well as his A3 British soldier mlods to help get the infantry models jumpstarted. Of course right now being the holidays and whatnot, we're going to be putting development on hold until after the new year and pick up where we left off.

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will the units have desert camo aswell or are you just focusing on woodland style ? keep up the good work looking forward to this

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Yeah we'll probably have a desert variant of the camo eventually. I guess right now it's more of a focus on getting the thing actually pieced together which will probably be in woodland-style. But yeah, it'll definitely support desert-style as well since I tend to love the Afghan scenario, so I'm always dicking around on PR Fata and stuff in the editor, lol.

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*UPDATE*

Here is a link to an Imgur album featuring some real early WIP shots of a new MG3 SOPMOD model being worked on for Project AstFor by a friend of mine.

http://imgur.com/a/xNcN4#0

Also the classics wep pack is going well and so far the Galil's are quite enjoyable to use and look quite nice in the Swedish Grey-Green paint scheme, though we will still also ultimately provide the original black paint scheme as well. Ill also be looking into how the whole MRT mod thingy works, as I'd really like to have the 3x actually flip physically instead of the old way of having standard and 3x view....I prefer having little details like that. ;)

Anyways, just wanted to show we're still here quietly nudging along and not dead.....yet. lol :p

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*UPDATE*

Here is a link to an Imgur album featuring some real early WIP shots of a new MG3 SOPMOD model being worked on for Project AstFor by a friend of mine.

http://imgur.com/a/xNcN4#0

Also the classics wep pack is going well and so far the Galil's are quite enjoyable to use and look quite nice in the Swedish Grey-Green paint scheme, though we will still also ultimately provide the original black paint scheme as well. Ill also be looking into how the whole MRT mod thingy works, as I'd really like to have the 3x actually flip physically instead of the old way of having standard and 3x view....I prefer having little details like that. ;)

Anyways, just wanted to show we're still here quietly nudging along and not dead.....yet. lol :p

Looks pretty sweet, Cannot wait to see more :)

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This project looks really interesting! You guys seem to have done an amazing job so far, and I wish that you will succeed in making the mod the way you would like it to be. However, I have one question that I hope you could answer. Will all of the content in this modpack be available for other communities once the mod is entirely done? If so, will it be possible to ask for permission to maybe get just a specific vehicle or item instead of everything?

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Hi there! Just thought I would poke around to see if this mods development is still alive and kicking. Really looking forward to seeing this mod!

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Yep, we're still somewhat alive. Just missing a good portion of the team. LJ has been focused on JSRS so we got set back a lot. We had a lot of vehicles in the works that LJ started in Blender, but just didn't have the time or whatever to complete them. Plus J0nes has been MIA for ages. Last I heard, he was involved in MANW, but past that, unsure what he's doing or if he is still even around in the community. So I'm not even sure on the status of our air and naval section of the mod as well and might have lost that setting us back, in which case we'll need to reconsider some things.

Sounds like a shit situation for Project ASTFOR.....and it is. There's no pretty way of painting it. Sometimes you start a mod with a great idea and intent, and things happen along the way. All you can do is try your best to adapt to the situation at hand. And with that said, we're not giving up on this project, even if it takes until the end of existence itself. So don't worry. :)

With that said, we could definitely use any help we could get, especially in the modeling department. No particular software knowledge required like in the past with Blender. Any and all help is welcome. We're getting there with uv mapping knowledge and weighting in-house, so that's growing to be no longer a major issue for our team thankfully like it was in the past when we first started. :yay:

As far as needs atm, anything goes a long way--whether someone can help with modeling infantry-based things like a uniform or helping Cat with the workload with our vests, etc. Or if someone is pretty good at texturing, etc. Like I said, any help goes a long way in helping this project going.

Also, time is not an issue. Especially today in the community there are a lot of huge and amazing projects being worked on and there have been people who wanted to help but worried that due to current project work that they wouldn't be able to deliver in a timely fashion. To which I would like to state that time is not an issue from the perspective of the development team for Project ASTFOR. Things get done when they can and that is all there is to it. So if you are tied up with other projects but interested in helping a little bit here and there when and where you can, still feel free to let me know! :)

Not going to beg the community for help, but just being upfront and honest about the way things have gone and that, yes, we could certainly use an increase in manpower if the opportunity arises to help with our development. Regardless if we get help or not, we're going to do our best to keep moving forwards and do what we can to get Project ASTFOR done.

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