Modding:Tutorials not Tools?

[Psylnz 0]

I just read the latest interview on the forums about Armed Assault. I'd like to thank XeLSiS for pushing the fact that the mod tools for OFP1 were not so user friendly (in questions 5). I would have liked to make this request for Armed Assault, but since that part of the forum is closed, I'll make it for the "Next Generation PC Game". Instead of creating complete new user friendly tools for the community, why wouldn't Bohemia just put together a few indepth tutorials on the tools that they use. Surely this would be simpler and take less time than developing user friendly tools, and if they give out the very tools that they built the game with, they will obviously be the most compatible with the game.

[DBR_ONIX 0]

The mod tools are OFP are far simpler that for other games, making a mod for OFP is fecking easy compared to most other games.. The tools were very easy to pick up (You only needed one or two, O2 mainly, then MakePBO, and notepad..)

But if there is new tools, decent tutorials would be great to have:)

- Ben

[Psylnz 0]

The mod tools are OFP are far simpler that for other games, making a mod for OFP is fecking easy compared to most other games.. The tools were very easy to pick up (You only needed one or two, O2 mainly, then MakePBO, and notepad..)

But if there is new tools, decent tutorials would be great to have:)

- Ben

Have you tried modding Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Far Cry, or the Battlefield Series? I found those much, much easier to use, but part of that might have been the tutorials. I can only relate to the games I have tried, but of the ones I have tried to mod with, Operation Flashpoint was by far the hardest. Now it should be kept in mind that I mostly concentrate on mapping, and in fairness, HL2 and Far Cry were released long after OFP, so one would expect them to have better modding tools. Half-Life has a staggering amount of tutorials, many I presume to be right from valve, as they came with the World Craft Program on my Half Life CD. Visitor, the mapping tool, was almost completely in Czech the first time I tried it. Really considering, the game sold over a million copies, most of them to English Speaking countries, I don't think that an English Map editor would have been too much of a stretch. Using the user made BSSREB tutorials, I'm finding 02 to be pretty good, but some of it still seems a bit quirky.

Again, what I'd like to see is the tools they made the game with, and good tutorials, from Bohemia. Even if the tools aren't so user friendly, I think these and good tuts would be the best way to go.

[Madus_Maximus 0]

Try the Battlefield 2 tools... then find the bin and open notepad.

They're attrocious. Buggy as hell, no tutorials (well, there's a few user made ones), you need about 10 grands worth of other software to make any good use of it and is just generally lacking in every respect but the "crap" aspect.

I've heard of people on mod teams making their OWN tools that work much better than the official ones EA made! Now THAT shows a problem.

OFP is easy as hell to mod compared to most others I've modded.

[redface 1]

I've heard of people on mod teams making their OWN tools that work much better than the official ones EA made! Now THAT shows a problem.

that's not unusual of course. in the case of OFP1, Wrp_Edit and WRP_Tool were developed by modders prior to the public release of Visitor, and I'm under the impression that it is still more widely used than the official mapmaking tool.

I agree that OFP modding tools have a steep learning curve, but we can't really complain about the availible quantity of user-made addons, can we?

[Gordy 0]

Try the Battlefield 2 tools... then find the bin and open notepad.

They're attrocious. Buggy as hell, no tutorials (well, there's a few user made ones), you need about 10 grands worth of other software to make any good use of it and is just generally lacking in every respect but the "crap" aspect.

I've heard of people on mod teams making their OWN tools that work much better than the official ones EA made! Now THAT shows a problem.

OFP is easy as hell to mod compared to most others I've modded.

Tools are as buggy as the game itself.

I found Modding B2 quite easy. I didn't need any other tools appart from those I already have.

Editing a texture was a childs play compared to OFP.

As far as I know you don't need 10 grand worth of software as there are tools like XSI Mod tool (free), which has most of the capabilities of the commertial one and is only limited to exporting low poly meshes. Then you use Gimp as a replacement for photoshop and notepad for scripts and configs.

The only thing required is the initial help of the developer to make pluggins for a specific external tool. The game is in developement for years now and it wouldn't hurt to prepare a few export/import pluggins.