tutorial [Tutorial] How to edit a Steam Workshop mission (Scenario)

[Gunter Severloh 4054]

[Tutorial] How to edit a Steam Workshop mission (Scenario)

by

Gunter Severloh

This is a written tutorial on how to open and install a steam workshop mission into the Eden editor.

This tutorial is meant for beginners and to those who are interested in adding, changing, or seeing how a scenario was created to learn from it.

 

In this tutorial I'm going to show you how to do the following:

• Subscribe to, and install a singleplayer & multiplayer mission.
• Locate the Steam Workshop folders and open the workshop mission.
• Locate the Eden editor folders to move the mission too.
• Review aspects of why a mission wont load once in the editor.
• Review mission naming before or after pbo extraction.

=================================================

Video Demonstration

Video Timestamps of the steps:

• Step 1 - Subscribe to a steam workshop mission 0:38
• Step 2 - Play the mission to install it 2:00
• Step 3 - Locate the Steam workshop folders & open the workshop scenarios 5:55
• Step 4 - Locate the Eden editor folders and install the workshop missions 13:38
• Step 5 - Open the workshop scenario in the editor 15:07

==================================================

Step 1- Subscribe to a Steam Workshop mission (Steam reference guide - how to 101)

Spoiler

1.  Go to the Steam Icon on your taskbar and right click it then go to Library  ----->  SCREENSHOT

2.  Once in your Steam Library click on the Arma3 game icon on your games list (left side), which will

bring up the Arma3 page, then go to the Workshop tab -----> SCREENSHOT

 

3.  Once on the workshop page locate the mission you want to subscribe to. 

 

 Subscribe to a Steam Workshop mission (Scenario)

For this tutorial i'm going to subscribe to two missions, a Singleplayer mission and a Multiplayer mission

for demonstration purposes which will help aid the reader in better understanding the process.

 

Steam Workshop Missions

The Singleplayer mission i chose for the tutorial will be ----->  [SP] Infantry

The Multiplayer mission i chose for the tutorial will be -------> [CO-04] Terrorist Hunt - Factory

 

4. The fourth part to Step one is to Subscribe to the workshop mission. -----> SCREENSHOT

When you click on the subscribe button, the scenario will be downloaded but not installed, to install it go to step 2.

     Note: As it says on the workshop page for the scenario, immediately after you have subscribed to the scenario a message

below it will state the following:

"This item has been added to your Subscriptions. Some games will require you to relaunch them before the item will be downloaded.

===========================

 

Step 2 - Play the mission to install it

Spoiler

The next step is to play the scenario to install it,

the following will break down the process of installing both the SP and MP scenarios we subscribed too.

 

Installing a Steam Workshop Singleplayer Scenario

This is the SP scenario i had subscribed too ------>  [SP] Infantry

 

To begin this step start the game:

1. Once ingame and on the main menu go to Singleplayer and then to the Scenarios tab -----> SCREENSHOT

2. Click on the scenario you have subscribed to and play it ------> SCREENSHOT

3. When you play the mission, just start the mission so that you are ingame and can move around, after press escape and Save & Exit -----> SCREENSHOT

              This "Save & Exit" of the scenario will install the steam workshop scenario!

 

Installing a Steam Workshop Multiplayer Scenario

This is the MP scenario i had subscribed too ------> [CO-04] Terrorist Hunt - Factory

 

1. For a Multiplayer Scenario go to Multiplayer ------> Server browser ------> SCREENSHOT

2. Next, fill in the details indicated by the arrows in the screenshot then click on Host server -----> SCREENSHOT

3. Locate the map (terrain) the scenario is on to the left

then locate the scenario to the right it will be orange which indicates its from the workshop -----> SCREENSHOT

 

4. At the bottom right of the same page is the word "Play" click on that (see screenshot above) to play the scenario + info about the lobby -----> SCREENSHOT

5. In multiplayer while hosting a server you need to do the following:

         A.  Press escape then click on Save & Exit ------> SCREENSHOT

         B.  After clicking on Save & Exit the following message will pop up "If you cancel this mission, all players will be returned to the lobby. Are you sure?" Click on YES ------> SCREENSHOT

         C.  After clicking on YES you will see the following words on the screen "Saving game, please wait"  ------> SCREENSHOT

This will save and install the steam workshop scenario!

======================

 

Step 3 - Locate the Steam Workshop folders and open the SP/MP scenarios you subscribed too

Spoiler

Here you will find the main folder where both the Singleplayer and Multiplayer workshop scenarios

are installed and saved at: ------> SCREENSHOT

                      C:\Users\Your username\Documents\Arma 3\Saved

 

Singleplayer Workshop Scenarios will be found in the Steam folder:

                     C:\Users\your username\Documents\Arma 3\Saved\steam ------> SCREENSHOT

 

Multiplayer Workshop Scenarios will be found in the SteamMPMissions folder:

                    C:\Users\your username\Documents\Arma 3\Saved\steamMPMission ------> SCREENSHOT

 

Open the Steam Workshop Scenarios folder - Singleplayer Scenario - locate the subscribed scenario and open it.

1. Go to this folder location ------> C:\Users\your username\Documents\Arma 3\Saved\steam

2. Locate the scenario, the one i subscribed to is found here ----->  SCREENSHOT

 

3. Open the scenario folder, inside it will be a pbo named  either the mission's name.pbo or mission.pbo

please read carefully below to understand about the name or title of the mission:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IMPORTANT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Using the mission i had subscribed to as an example:

 

- If the mission pbo is named the following -------->  [sp]%20infantry.altis.pbo -----> SCREENSHOT

then when you extract the pbo with pbomanager you will get a folder that will be titled this ------->   [sp]%20infantry.altis -----> SCREENSHOT

this means that the mission will load into the editor without problems because the map extension   .Altis is at the end.

 

- If the mission pbo is the named following --------->  mission.pbo ------> SCREENSHOT
then when you extract the pbo with pbo manager you will get a folder that will be titled this ------>  mission -----> SCREENSHOT

this means that the mission hasn't been named and will not load into the editor when you go to load

the mission folder ingame for the editor.

 

   The reason being is because the .map extension is missing at the end of the name of the mission.

       So if your going to use the name mission for the mission's name then be sure to add .altis or whatever the map the mission is on at the end,

so it looks like this ---->   mission.altis      not ---->  mission

 

Why is this important to have the .map name extension in the mission name?

The mission you are going to attempt to load into the editor was built on a map (terrain) if that map is not defined in the name of the

mission, then the editor cannot identify where to place all the assets of the mission, therefor it wont load the mission.

 

    The mission name itself can be whatever you want, even something else other then what the original author named it,

however if the mission is on Altis or another map the mission name MUST have that .Altis name at the end of the mission title

so for our subscribed mission it should look like this ------->   [sp]%20infantry.altis     

i could even name the mission this ----->   Infantry.altis     as long as the .map extension which is the .altis at the end of the mission's

name the mission will load in the editor. 

      You can do this before or after you extract the pbo.    Without naming the mission but putting the map extension on the name

it will work and load in the editor -----> SCREENSHOT

===========================================

 

Open the Steam Workshop Scenarios folder - Multiplayer Scenario - locate the subscribed scenario and open it.

1. Go to this folder location -----> C:\Users\your username\Documents\Arma 3\Saved\SteamMPMissions

2. Locate the scenario, the one i subscribed to is found here ----->  SCREENSHOT

3. Open the scenario folder, inside it will be a pbo named either the mission's name.pbo or mission.pbo

Ideas on naming - either name the mission before or after you extract the pbo it dont matter.

• Here i copy the mission's name from the mission folder ------> SCREENSHOT
• Here i pasted the mission's name into the mission pbo maintaining the map extension and the .pbo at the end as its still a pbo file -----> SCREENSHOT
• Here i'm about to extract the pbo with the new mission's name ------> SCREENSHOT
• Here i have extracted the mission's name, which now you see the map extension which is .altis -----> SCREENSHOT

===============================

 

Step 4 - Locate the Eden editor folders and install the workshop missions

Spoiler

Here you will find the main folder where both the Singleplayer and Multiplayer Eden editor scenarios

are installed and saved at: ------> SCREENSHOT

                      C:\Users\Your username\Documents\Arma 3

 

Singleplayer Scenarios will be installed in the Missions folder:

                 C:\Users\your username\Documents\Arma 3\Missions

 

Multiplayer Scenarios will be installed in the MPMissions folder:

                 C:\Users\your username\Documents\Arma 3\MPMission

 

1. Move the extracted steam workshop scenarios to their respective folders.

===============================

 

Step 5 - Open the workshop scenario in the editor

Spoiler

1. Start Arma3 ------> go to the Eden editor.

2. On the editor screen open the map that your workshop scenario is set on, in my case the scenario is set on Altis.

3. In the editor on altis (or whatever map the mission you subscribed to is on) go to open  ------> SCREENSHOT

4. Once you have located your mission which wont be highlighted in the list, you will need to import the mission

before you can load and open it. -----> SCREENSHOT

 

Note:  Opening a Singleplayer scenario, and a multiplayer scenario is the same process for importing into the editor.

If you want to test the SP mission in the editor, click on preview (bottom right).

If you want to test the MP mission in the editor, go to play (top), then go down to "Play multiplayer" doing this will

take you to where you host the mission in MP lan.

==================================

 

Reasons why your workshop scenario may not load into the editor:

Spoiler

1. The mission's map extension does not exist, in other words the mission just is a name without .altis or .stratis or whatever map the mission is on, see step 3 under important for this!
2. The mission's map extension exists but is incorrect, be sure to use the proper editor spelling of the mission's map extension.
3. Mission requires mods that are not loaded when attempting to open the scenario. remember if a scenario requires mods to play, then they also need to be loaded to open the mission in the editor.
4. The mission is binarized, to find this out, open the scenario folder itself, and open the mission.sqm with notepad, if all the wording looks encrypted its binarized.

How to open a binarized mission:

How to unbinerize a mission.sqm

What you need to do is the following: (For Arma3)

    1. Go to this folder  C:\Steam\SteamApps\common\Arma 3 Tools\CfgConvert
    2. Take your binarized mission.sqm and drag it over, yes over the MissionDerap.bat and drop it onto it.
    3. Give it like 20 seconds or less, and then a backup will be created of the mission in your mission folder itself, along with a changed date of the mission.sqm
    4. You should now be able to open the mission.sqm to remove any mod dependencies under the addons, or open the mission in the editor and unbinarize it under the attributes tab under general.

You will need the Arma3 tools installed in order to do this, however you dont need to start arma3 tools.

    See my video tutorial on how to do this:

 

 

How to open and extract pbo files

i did not cover this in step three as i have a video tutorial that already covers this, if you dont know

how to extract a pbo please review my video tutorial below on how to do it.

====================================

 

This concludes the tutorial, any questions or issues please ask.

The tutorial may be adjusted, tweaked, and updated in some areas as i see fit, so if you see some changes then thats whats happening.

 

Any suggestions, corrections, and or anything else i may not have covered please let me know, the tutorial was a

long time project i been sitting on for a couple of years, i hope that this tutorial will provide enough detailed information

 to enable players to edit a steam workshop mission of their choice. Cheers!

Edited June 3, 2023 by Gunter Severloh
Added video, updated the color of the font for the steps

[zagor64bz 1225]

I think I can speak for the whole community here when I'm saying that we're ALL very grateful to you, ma man. Arma 3 is an awesome game, holding the burden of time pretty well..but not all aspects of it are very clear or simple to master.

Your tutorials and collections of useful links and tips are invaluable, regardless if you're a newcomer or an "expert" player ;

personally, at 7000 hours in the game, mostly in the editor, I feel I'm barely starting to scratch the tip of the iceberg, and I learn something new every day. So, kudos to you Gunter..and keep on going, we need you!😜

[Gunter Severloh 4054]

Hey very much appreciated!

I do it for the community and you guys because i love this game, and love being around like minded people, and enjoy helping

others who are into Arma and want to better enjoy the game they play.

 

To some its just a game, to outsiders its just a dumb game to waste time on, call it what you want but its time well spent, i've learned

so much directly and indirectly with this game that alot of people who dont play it, or have played very little and dont go outside the bounds of the game itself

have no idea what else it offers. 

   Building tutorials like this, building compilation lists, recording Utube tutorials, theres so many technical, and functional, organizational

aspects people in general dont see in terms of what it takes to put these things together.

 

For alot of general players doing what i do is just work, spending time on stuff that provides no value to themselves other then what the game gives, or what they can

do in the game, in my eyes, the compiling projects that i have done, the tutorials, even mods are another subject i really enjoy.

I love to organize and sort, and make things more efficient, its also a pet peeve of mine to have information all over the place, i seriously cant stand it.

 

    There is not one game i would spend all of my time in, or outside of in this case, lol then this one!

Being in this game series since the beginning, i actually feel more dedicated to it now then i did say 5 years ago, only because of the greater improvements/updates, content

to the game, but because of what i been learning and applying over the years as well as created, lets just say i've vested to much of my time.

 

Anyone that has any sense when getting into this game will realize, that once you open the pandora's box of Arma theres a whole nother world waiting to be explored!

 

Looking at this tutorial as i had mentioned in it will be tweaked, updated, adjusted ect,. atm while looking at it, it looks sloppy, i actually not exactly pleased with

the .... layout of it because its alot of shit that isn't distinct, nor does it look clean as in a readable understanding format, its alot of reading to just get to the point and not simple.

    I hate leaving out details so you either take it with a piece of cake or ask 20 questions about something.

But expect to see it being cleaned up a bit, this was alot of work in one sitting, and only on my day off could i have pulled this off as i had the post on edit the whole time, lol

            Anyways video will accompany it as said sometime this week or when its ready. Cheers!

 

Edit .... Alot cleaner and the steps are more distinct, the steps are separated and you dont have the scroll the entire page now.

Also the information wont overwhelm you if your new to it, if your seeing the entire tutorial at once, i have put each step into their own

spoiler so that when your on them, you see only that information, allows you to focus. Hope that helps, any questions, problems let me know. Cheers!

[zagor64bz 1225]

13 hours ago, Gunter Severloh said:

Anyone that has any sense when getting into this game will realize, that once you open the pandora's box of Arma theres a whole nother world waiting to be explored!

[Janez 530]

Alternatively, one can use Steam Workshop Downloader.

https://steamworkshopdownloader.io/

[Gunter Severloh 4054]

Update

• Added some misc details in the wording of things for certain steps, also made bold, underlined etc,.
• Updated all the screenshot links so that each screenshot will be seen in a huge format, allows you to see the details and any writing i did on them.

Overall just retracing my steps, making adjustments and correcting some things that i missed, didn't add or check, its fairly good now imo, maybe to

much information for the regular arma player but keep in mind this tutorial is meant for beginners and those who dont have a clue on how to do this

so imo any details that would help clear up any possible questions that could or may arise during the process of following a step then its covered.

 

One of the most important points i never covered in my original video which btw is pushing 30,000 views and ranks #1 on utube for the subject 😉

is the the map extension, over the course of time that video was up i had maybe 3-4 people asking about why their mission wont load, and

the main reason was because when they went to extract the pbo it was named mission, once i explained it to them in the comments and they corrected the issue

then their mission worked.

I also had folks confused about if this method worked for mp missions as well.

 

    Even though i renamed my mission in the video i did not make apparent the map extension and why its important, i can only guess

that people just followed what they saw in the video without really knowing why something worked or didn't work and probably just renamed the mission

and possibly forgetting the map extension.

 

Now i have corrected this by adding in the details by giving a few examples, the written tutorial exemplifies this well imo

using example of two scenarios i subscribed too and going through the process, the video when its ready will do the same.

        Video coming soon! Cheers!

 

Edit .... 10-24-20 checking the thread, just noticed all my screenshot links are broke! WTF

apparently i used the wrong link for each individual screenshot, now all fixed!

[Gunter Severloh 4054]

Update

Added video to the OP!

Ok guys, i spent alot of time on this to make it detailed, efficient, and thorough as possible, video itself on utube has the link

to this thread and timestamps for each step pinned in the comments, timestamps are also on the OP under the video too!

 

   Video is a bit longer then my most popular video

of the same subject which the new video is replacing, the new video here is the rerecording, redo, overhaul of that video linked as i left out some things,

and well i dont do my videos like that anymore nor do i sound like that anymore, must be an aging male thing, lol but i really didn't want to exceed 10min

in a video but the subject although simple to do is still complex to most noobs, or those looking to learn how to do it.

 

Anyways i hope that this will help those of you interested in the subject,  any questions dont hesitate to ask

i'm here everyday! 😉

Cheers!

 

[horrgakx 1]

I'm needing to follow the steps in "How to open a binerized mission" but I'm falling at the first hurdle and I can't find the Batch file.

The instructions say to go to the folder C:\Steam\SteamApps\common\Arma 3 Tools\CfgConvert but I don't have that folder, nor do I have that folder where all my Steam content is installed (file path is actually "E:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common").   Can anyone help please?

[Gunter Severloh 4054]

5 hours ago, horrgakx said:

I'm needing to follow the steps in "How to open a binerized mission" but I'm falling at the first hurdle and I can't find the Batch file.

Do you have Arma 3 Tools installed?

5 hours ago, horrgakx said:

(file path is actually "E:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common").   Can anyone help please?

Dont matter what the file path is, Steam\steamapps\common all you need to do is go into that common folder and

locate the Arma 3 Tools folder, for me its H:\Steam\SteamApps\common\Arma 3 Tools\CfgConvert

 

See my post (last post) on this thread, i explain what you need to do for a binerized mission:

 

[VoiceBox II 0]

I'm trying to edit a Steam scenario due to the mission settings being a bit weird and after I export it the mission type stops working correctly, any tips on why this might happen? 

[Gunter Severloh 4054]

Hello, Welcome to BI forums!

5 hours ago, VoiceBox II said:

after I export it the mission

Can you give details as to what you did?

1. So you had played the mission
2. Located the mission in the steamworkshop folder
3. You named the pbo based on the mission name
4. You extracted the pbo and now you have a folder with the missions name and the map extension (terrain the mission is on)
5. Then you moved that mission folder to the editor and did your editing.

Correct?

5 hours ago, VoiceBox II said:

the mission type stops working correctly

So what does this mean?

Does the mission play, or load at all, if it does then whats not correctly.

 

So its either two things, either you didn't follow the process entirely, or forgot a part for getting your mission in the editor,

or in your editing via scripts or through assets in the editor you changed something and the mission dont play or work like it normally would.

   Need details as i cant really give you answer with a solution or info on what is wrong.

[HAWK' 9]

Gunter, once again another masterpiece in how you lay out and explain the whole scenario—straightforward in grasping and implementing that scene. Thank You!

[Gunter Severloh 4054]

Thanks!

Yes the tutorial was actually based on another tutorial i had seen that imo did it half ass, i mean it worked for how they showed it

but it wasn't to my satisfaction, it left to many holes and details missing, and was a sloppy video especially for a highly sought after subject such as this.

So i spent a couple weeks on this, testing every detail i could think of and decided to write up a highly details tutorial and then record a video of that.

Aside my other videos on my channel its one of my most popular.

 

Btw i just had updated the font color of the steps, and added a video under binarized part.

[HubrisOrigin 1]

Some of you may not see your missions appearing in EDEN when you try to import.

For me, it was a simple fix:

If you've ever made a new account on ARMA 3, you may need to extract your missions to 

C:\Users\*username*\Documents\Arma 3 - Other Profiles\*current ARMA username*\missions

instead of 

C:\Users\*username*\Documents\Arma 3\missions

[GG97 0]

Hello. I watched this tutorial and found it really helpful. However, I am encountering new issues.

I am trying to host a custom KP Liberation server to play with my friends. These are the things I tried:

First, I tried to edit de mission.pbo file from \Documents\Arma 3\saves\steamMPMission\KP%20Liberation\KP%20Liberation%20Altis.altis, but whenever I launch the mission after editing the .pbo file, it resets to defaults.

I tried backing up the mission, then unsubscribing from the workshop scenario (thinking it might be resetting the file each time I launch the game), but then it doesn't show on the mission select when starting a new server.

Tried creating a copy of the mission with another name, and editing the .pbo there, called: Custom_Liberation.altis. This one appears as a mission when starting a server, and with all the parameters I wanted. But when I launch it, nothing works the same as the original KP Liberation. Spawn in the wrong place, no menus to use, as if all the scripts stopped working.

I've run out of ideas and can't find anything useful on the internet.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

(sorry for bad English)

[Gunter Severloh 4054]

On 7/16/2024 at 12:24 PM, GG97 said:

I tried to edit de mission.pbo file

Hello, Welcome to BI forums!

So you tried to edit the pbo, what does that mean? You renamed it? You opened it? You did what? As whatever you did is key in relation to your issue.

Ideally when you get the pbo is to take it out of the steamMPMission folder, extract the pbo so you get the folder of the mission, rename or name the folder,

as when you extract it, it wont have a name.

     Key point here is making sure that when you rename the mission that it has .altis at the end of it just like the original steam cached pbo.

After that if you wanted to adjust any parameters in the liberation for that particular mission you would need to adjust the settings in the mission's ui folder and then mission_params.hpp