Importing Counter-Strike models?

[FilPedro 0]

Hello to all, it's my first post here.

I've played Counter Strike for some time now, recentely I've bought ARMA and it does look and play a lot better, however I've noticed that the weapon could look a lot better.

So I've had the idea of importing CS models to the game with permission ofcourse, my question is:

I read that O2 only loads 3ds files, most of CS addons are in .mdl format, can please anyone explain me how to import the mdl files into O2? Specially not loosing the texture mapping while doing so?

Thank you very much for your kind help.

[klamacz 448]

google it: "Deep Exploration" or "3d exploration"

[Infam0us 10]

A cross between CSS and ArmA Should be interesting

[FilPedro 0]

Besides the config.cpp file and the lods work all I need is Deep Exporation? I just have convert the CS model into 3ds and it's done? The textures will stay mapped in O2?

Thanks in advance.

[klamacz 448]

program like deep exploration can convert many different 3d and 2d formats without loosing mapping coordinates. Furthermore is has options to scaling, rotating, changing texturepaths and so on.

Check it yourself, trial version is free.

[maatz 1]

well i never played CSS but aren't most of its weapons in ArmA already or going to be made by comm members, like Jackal?!

[JdB 151]

like Jackal?!

From what Jackal last told me a while ago alot of his models are from Counterstrike (as well as other sources) too

He is more of an "addon-editor" (his own words), though that may very well have changed.

As long as stuff is properly lodded, balanced and credited (preferably with permissions) it doesn't matter much.

[Heatseeker 0]

I have seen quite a few CS conversions to OPF and i have yet to see any that look better than Arma's default...

Better != suitable btw .

[Messiah 2]

I'd say Jackal's are looking a damn sight better than the stock BIS ones... especially once he gets normal maps and specular worked out (I think)

[ebud 18]

I'd say Jackal's are looking a damn sight better than the stock BIS ones... especially once he gets normal maps and specular worked out (I think)

True, but they'll hog much more resources as well. At least the BIS weapons are made and balanced as far as polycount and number and size of textures. For me they are the perfect balance of performance vs quality. Also unless things have changed since the last SJB release, lack of good or any lods in many models for me were a major issue.

[Messiah 2]

last I checked (i.e. when i converted the M4's to diemaco's) there were a good set of lods... or at least as i recall (you know me, my memory is a little rusty at times)

you strike a good point about playability vs visual aesthetics - something I was always moaning about as well - its all well and good having great combat photography porn value, but if it lags to hell when actually using it, whats the point.

[Skaven 0]

The problem with Jackal's addon may be the fact that he's including 300 weapons in one or two pbo files, it's eight times the size of BIS's weapons.pbo

Now if we think that most of the models have like 3 or 4 times the ammount of polys and that some textures are oversized like 512 x 512 than I will say that he'll need a miracle to make it work as I told him in his thread.

I thought that the Hidden Selections could save him but seems like I'm wrong I just can't make it to work.

From what I saw from most packs we had in ofp, people made a new model everytime they needed to change something like a kind of mag or a scope and that is the main problem on making this kind of packs cause apperentely we still can't use the Hidden Selections for weapons.

And ofcourse the Lods are vital specially when a model for itself is already oversized in polys and textures/size.

I'm waiting for his release with great antecipation.

As for the question on this topic:

Deep Explorer will do the job for you, you can find a download link here with 30 days of trial:

http://superdownloads.uol.com.br/download/64/deep-exploration/

When converting to .3ds don't forget to check the export textures and also to rescale the textures to x256, also save the textures as .tga I think this will do the job for you, someone please correct me if I'm wrong, it's been a long time since I import something from CS.

[Messiah 2]

its strange seeing as they've obviously implemented a form of hidden selection in hiding the magazine when changing the mag...

no animations on weapons either I suppose

[JdB 151]

Quote[/b] ]I thought that the Hidden Selections could save him but seems like I'm wrong I just can't make it to work.

Hidden selections may not be visible, but they certainly are being calculated constantly, unless BIS has changed this since OFP.

Proxies are much smaller (3 vertices), and do not get calculated unless they're actually used, but are limited IIRC (haven't got much experience with them).

[Skaven 0]

Messiah the changing mags in the same weapon is made by declaring the mags as a  "SpecialModel", it seems that only the mag is changing but in reality it's the entire model with the weapon changing too, it's just eye candy because you still have to make a new weapon to use another kind of magazine.

JdB if the weapon is being calculated than it seems that when you declare the model in the .cpp file it just doesn't recognize the HS because it's a model of a weapon.

At least I didn't had any luck doing so and I don't recall anyone doing it in the past, maybe I'm wrong?

DeadMeat probably knows this, I'm gonna ask him.

[ebud 18]

last I checked (i.e. when i converted the M4's to diemaco's) there were a good set of lods... or at least as i recall (you know me, my memory is a little rusty at times)

you strike a good point about playability vs visual aesthetics - something I was always moaning about as well - its all well and good having great combat photography porn value, but if it lags to hell when actually using it, whats the point.

I'm may have just had an old version. I'm not slamming Jackal at all or anything. They may now all have good lods for all I know. I know how hard it is to make sure all lods are to make and the sheer amount of weapons in the pack is huge, so I'm impressed if they all have good, accurate and working lods. If not, then 300 or so weapons without proper lods is worthless to me no matter how nice they are. I'm in the minority here I'm sure. I'd rather have 20 or so weapons done to perfection than 300 with 1st lod and pilot lod done very well, but the rest of the lods done only partially.

I'm sure Jackal is painfully aware of this and will have a good solution

Sorry if this is steering the topic off course.

[Skaven 0]

I agree tottaly with you Ebud

You now owe me one by the way Joking, joking sorry

[Messiah 2]

Messiah the changing mags in the same weapon is made by declaring the mags as a "SpecialModel", it seems that only the mag is changing but in reality it's the entire model with the weapon changing too, it's just eye candy because you still have to make a new weapon to use another kind of magazine.

JdB if the weapon is being calculated than it seems that when you declare the model in the .cpp file it just doesn't recognize the HS because it's a model of a weapon.

At least I didn't had any luck doing so and I don't recall anyone doing it in the past, maybe I'm wrong?

DeadMeat probably knows this, I'm gonna ask him.

i'm 100% certain that the magazine changing is not another weapon model being substituted, its merely removing the texture from the magazine, which screams hidden selection to me (although of course its a named selection as its a common feature of the weapons)

[Jackal326 1181]

Just a few points, though the LODS on some of my models are from from great, they're not exactly CPU intensive - some drop from ~4000 faces to 200 within a matter of meters, at a distance where the textures can do the work. So although they don't have a huge number of LODs, the quick drop is quite well disguised so a lot more LODs aren't really required. It would be far worse if you had one LOD only that was very high-poly.

When you consider my weapons PBO is ~950mb (UNCOMPRESSED), and the BIS weapons.pbo is ~240mb, and I have ten times as many weapons, the ratio is pretty good

All we need is for BIS to release Oxygen 2, and/or documentation telling us how it is possible to define proxys on weapon models, and swap between them in the config.cpp and we, the community, are set....well, I am anyway

[Heatseeker 0]

I'd say Jackal's are looking a damn sight better than the stock BIS ones... especially once he gets normal maps and specular worked out (I think)

True, but they'll hog much more resources as well. At least the BIS weapons are made and balanced as far as polycount and number and size of textures. For me they are the perfect balance of performance vs quality. Also unless things have changed since the last SJB release, lack of good or any lods in many models for me were a major issue.

I guess higher detailed weapons will look much better in Arma than in OPF (obviously) but im not expecting a weapon pack as good as the stock material. (quality, consistency, performance).

Arma's default weapons are graphically consistent with eachother and the game's graphics, modeling the springs of a bipod imo is for combat photography... Wipman made the photorealistic M4 and it looked real but out of place.

This i why i was hopeing BIS would release a few more variations of the M4 and AKS74U in future patches .

[Skaven 0]

Yesterday I've converted some weapons from CS, some of them are probably the same Jackal is using and in terms of graphical consistency they do the job pretty well, some of them even better than BIS ones.

Specially if you plan on using the weapons with modified soldiers (addons) than I would tell you that it does the job a lot better, remeber that ARMA in terms of lightning is a lot better than ofp was.