Reskinning a seagull

[General Barron 0]

First off, I'm a complete "noob" when it comes to addon making (I prefer scripting/mission editing). But I'm trying to make a simple addon for a mission, so here I am! Here's my question: How do I make a simple reskinned model? All I want to do is replace the default seagull textures with my own (darker ones, so hopefully it looks like a crow).

My problem is that I can't open up the p3d model for the seagull anymore! I could do it when I first downloaded oxygen (thats how I found the textures it used) and was trying to figure out how to work with it, but now I can't open the file up anymore! I've read the reskinning tutorial, and I have my textures all ready. But I can't open up the model to apply the textures! Anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

[Planck 1]

I presume you mean the Texturing Addons tutorial by E J Will.

If you don't have it, get it here:

http://www.ofpec.com/editors/browse.php?category=1_6

And a tool to accomplish the task called Texture Swapping Utility by Mike Schell here:

http://www.ofpec.com/editors/browse.php?browsewhat=3&category=3_3

If you want to use Oxygen and Buldozer for this maybe you should try reinstalling Oxygen and Buldozer again.

Planck

[General Barron 0]

Hmm... Actually, the tutorial I meant was the sticky topic in this board. However, I do remember seeing that tut you are talking about before, and that is actually what I really was looking for.

I read the tutorial, but I can't get it to work. The problem is with the .sqm decrypting. unpack-sqm.exe gets a bunch of errors while it tries to decrypt it, and when I try to open up the resulting file with the tex swapping utility, I get an error. I also tried unSQM, but it wouldn't make a mission.txt file, although it displayed no errors.

I even tried opening up the p3d file on my own. I found where the paths to the textures were written (pretty much the only recognizable words in the file), and I switched them with the path to my textures. I then saved it as a p3d file and plopped it into a pbo. But when I place the object in the editor and hit preview, OFP crashes and gives me an error saying something like "bad version in p3d file".

Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong? And as a side question, why do you need to rename the p3d file "mission.sqm", and then decrypt it? I've never seen an encrypted mission.sqm anyways.

[Planck 1]

Long time since I played about with this........I may look and see if I can get it working.

Will report back ASAP.

Planck

[Planck 1]

Ok....I had a go at this, but unpack.sqm doesnt seem to work at all.

So, what I did was I renamed a copy of racek2.p3d to crow.p3d.

Next I opened the p3d in a hex editor and changed the texture paths to my own fictitious textures.

The original textures were:

data\hlava2.pac

data\racek_spodek.pac

data\racek_top.pac

I changed these to:

mydata\crowhead.pac

mydata\crow_under.pac

mydata\crow_top.pac

Then I resaved the file and loaded it into the Texture Swap Utility just to check it could still read it.

Everything was fine.

One little thing.....the textures used in the model are not mentioned just once in the file.

There are multiple entries in the p3d mentioning the textures.

You need to go through the whole p3d using Find to find them all and change them as appropriate.

I think........but not 100% sure......that the reason for this is the differnt lods need their own texture path sections.

So search all the way through till you find all instances of the original texture paths, and change them to the ones you will be using.

Hope this helps a bit.

Planck

[General Barron 0]

Sweet, I got it to work! And actually, it turns out the texture-swap utility could open the p3d without running the unpack sqm on it first.

Thanks for the help Planck!

[General Barron 0]

Shoot... I tried making a "seagull" in the same fashion as the official cpp file has it, which is like this:

class CfgNonAIVehicles

{

class GENB_Crow

{

scope=2;

model="\GENB_vamps\crow";

simulation="SeaGull";

reversed=0;

};

};

In BIS's cpp file, it looks the same as mine above, only the model and classname are different, and there are more classes under cfgNonAIVehicles. However, when I tried camcreating my crow, OFP crashed!

Do you know if it is possible to make a new type of "seagull cam"?

[Planck 1]

I must admit it never occurred to me that you may not be able to create a new type of seagull camera.

However I don't know if it is  impossible or not.

I have a suggestion though.

Try changing your cfgNonAIVehicles entry to:

class CfgNonAIVehicles

{

class GENB_Crow: SeaGull

{

scope=2;

model = "\GENB_vamps\crow";

simulation="SeaGull";

reversed=0;

};

}

So that it inherits the seagull properties.

Btw there are 2 seagull models in Data3d.pbo, they are:

racek2.p3d

racekT.p3d

racek2.p3d is an ODOL model

racekT.p3d is an MLOD model

You can therefore get racekT.p3d into Oxygen ok.

The Texture Swap Utility cannot view the MLOD version though, it only loads ODOL models.

I think the reason unpack.sqm didn't work is because it only 'unpacks' MLOD models, I havent tested though.

And the final piece of useless info is:

racekT.p3d is the ONLY MLOD model in Data3d.pbo.

Hope some of this helps.

Planck

[General Barron 0]

Okay I tried your suggestion, but it still crashes OFP. I know my model works because I can make a static object using the model and it looks fine. So that brings me to my next question: would it be possible to attatch the seagull animations to a static crow object? Then I could "fly" it around using setpos. Otherwise, I guess my idea is out the window.

[Planck 1]

Alas, I have very little experience with playing about with the animations.

You may have to wait till someone with experience in this pops in.

I will continue digging about though.

Planck

[bmgarcangel 0]

whoA!!!

I have a crow but I dont know where it is........