Modding Community becoming exclusive Club?

[soul_assassin 1750]

Haha found my first OFP contribution:

http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard311/ikonboard.cgi?;act=ST;f=50;t=23918;hl=manual

dated november 2002!! haha if you think that the moding community is elitist now you would be shocked at how it was then. O2 wasn't even available for everybody, only the select few. We had to apply to BIS for a license and sign a contract (!!) to just be able to mod. The whole process took months. The o2 forums were also only limited to people with mod-maker status. After the devs got O2, it was only released to general population a year (!!) after that. And ofcourse 0 documentation except for what the devs discovered during that year. Now THAT was elitism :)

[MehMan 0]

I'd gladly write a tutorial for modeling in O2 but I don't use O2 because it's not as good as 3ds Max. I'm trying to make something incredibly simple for rigging and selections in O2 and i'll give it a go and release it as open source with a tutorial. But it depends if I have enough time, this week definatley not.

[sickboy 13]

Heya, interesting thread. (Reporting from my Holidays over in Czech Rep. :cheers:)

(Post written in friendly mood, not native English, please do excuse)

DH indeed might not be what the starting modder is looking for. DH is not your enemy though ;)

Elitism is the opposite of what we're trying to achieve, even though our site mostly focuses on developers, their projects and fan-base, some of our projects (mostly cooperations between various developers/teams), aswell as other endevours, do focus on helping starting devs.

We also hope that the benefits of DH for developers promote open source and sharing of knowledge (in forms of tutorials, biki data etc), which in turn could benefit the whole community.

DH has only officially started since a couple of weeks, but there are already many benefits and progressions made, which may or may not yet have been publically released (but surely will be!).

A few examples are; the Community Base Projects, ACE2's participation in compatibility and openness efforts and the joining of developer teams for SPON and SIX projects, etc.

Personally im willing to support any endevour that can benefit the community, though I have to admit that writing tutorials, even though I did some, is not exactly in my blood :)

Also agree to before mentioned by others; I work 40 hours a week, and develop for ArmA in my free time, support and development of addons and everything surrounding that eats a great amount of time and energy, but is also the most enjoyable.

I suppose this counts for others aswell. We basically do what we can to support the community.

I'm not sure if a new site/community for beginners is useful (DH tried to fill the void for developer cooperation), IMO the best place for beginners is OFPEC and BIF, OFPEC/BIKI could (or even already is) also be the place for easy-to-access tutorial libraries.

(I believe there are loads of tutorials for a great many things, but they might just need better central/advertised access. For example; Especially in the past weeks i've come across sites with tutorials that i've never seen before)

Questions are usually answered by anyone who is willing and able to help, which isn't uncommon to my experience, though this usually doesn't (or shouldn't) mean everything will be done for you.

In any case, tutorials don't write themselves, and knowledge, if not shared, is hard to procure without help.

Open to ideas and opinions!

Edited June 30, 2009 by Sickboy

[rocket 9]

I think the issue is... you have to have a basic understanding of game asset development, and a programming language, in order to succeed in developing addons. This is not something the community here should focus on, as the web is already littered with this.

People will often say "I want to make an addon, can you show me how?" My first question is... Can you make a model in 3d, unwrap it, and texture it? Inevitably, most of the time the response is "what is unwraping?".... *sigh*

Understand the basics before you get to implementing it in game. When I tell people they need to learn to create a model, before starting the addon, people get bored. I found it infinitely easier to make my addons once I understood basic mechanics of 3d model development and rendering inside 3ds Max.

The vast majority of the good 3d artists I know, and all the best programmers I know, learned the lion share of their code experience on their own.

Stuff like:

- How are 3D models generated? Textured? Rendered?

- What do shaders actually do?

- How do classes work in C++?

- How do functions, variables, and arrays work?

- How does the clients/server communicate during multiplayer?

These are basic code/art skills that I think you need to know before you become an addon developer. Games have progressed so far now, that you need to know and understand this stuff if you want to "succeed".

Whenever I encountered something confounding in developing an addon, it was usually because I didn't understand what I was trying to achieve. I was just trying to make it "work" but I didn't actually know the mechanics of what I was directly implementing.

[JdB 151]

We do answer questions about how we make addons, but actually guiding people is reserved for our team members (from which a modest initial skill level is required), since we just cannot find the time to help everybody.

I wrote a wood texturing tutorial for a tut-site that Soul_Assassin or Shadow_NX was making years ago back in the OFP-days. Getting that short tutorial to the point that it was easy for everyone to understand, void of stupidities, and yet keeping it as brief as possible already took me a few hours. Now with ArmA1/2, everything has gotten so much more complex, it's just nearly impossible to write tutorials, and keep up the work on your addon/mod at the same time.

The only thing I've written for I44-use is a simple webpage that lists some hints for new members along with some of the standards we try to keep with our content for the various aspects (res. lods, texturesizes etc), compiled from stuff that our members found out through trial-and-error mainly. It's not that long or in-depth, but that (automatically) means it is nothing more than a summary that a "newbie" has no use for. Writing something for the average modleader is easy, writing something that even the most inexperienced person can understand takes ages.

Edited June 30, 2009 by JdB

[.kju 3245]

Examples of recent sharing of information:

• Recent changes in the BIKI
  
• OFPEC ArmA 2 boards
  
• PMC editing wiki by Snake Man
  
• DH A2 finds forum
  
• Soul_Assassin' ARMA2 updated rvmat for vehicles
  
• Low performance hit addons summary by Sanctuary
  
• RTE blog by i0n0s
  
• Mikero's DePbo tool set
  
• 6thSense.eu:Editing (scripting) Guide
  
• CBA: Community Base Addons documentation
  
• CMB: SimplifyTesting
  
• CMB: DevelopmentSetup
  
• Community modding bible repository
  
• DH wiki - dev information
  
• Scripting in ArmA 2 - link summary (German)
  
• Jman's Kellys Heroes Guide to ArmA2 Dedicated Server
  

This is no and too few sharing of information? Really?

Did you take into account that most devs were disillusioned by A1 and even

left the scene?

Is the ArmA/ArmA 2 modding community turning into a exclusive club for selected members?

Nothing has changed. This was always the case. Yet not in the notion you lay it out here.

If people are not very committed and very skilled to pick up fast,

you are not going anywhere.

As Rocket explains the other way of success is to have studies in that area or be

already a professional.

In any case the lack of engine specific documentation and often unnecessary time

consuming process (aka bad tools or engine limitations, lack of proper debugging etc etc)

to develop makes you to be able and willing to spend many many hours.

At the same time many people are happy to do just simple and less time consuming

editing. This is completely find and they add lots of excellent contribution.

Yet for in depth and advanced development, you need to have a very high dedication.

So in summary it is not an exclusive club made by people.

Instead many many people have spent countless of hours to share.

Can the sharing be more organized and centralized. Of course.

Your specific issue at hand is that your are looking for model/texture information.

For configs, scripting, even world editing OFPEC is and was the place for

question at this level. The model/texture community mostly stick to the BIF.

The BIF is and always was a horrible and unusable place. Why?

It is a support forum and place for endless nonsense discussions of all sorts.

It is only a forum (not wiki or at least portal site).

It took ages to get a decent forum SW with a normal search.

The moderation of this forum is not seen positive by many ppl either.

Head for OFPEC and you will get decent support.

You find endless amount of very good model/texture information in the web.

This engine is not the only place to involve this task.

The only thing important to learn here is the VR engine and tools specific

stuff for this area.

If you ask me, the model/texture scene needs to migrate to OFPEC too or

a new site dedicated for this area, share their knowledge and gather the

specific knowledge at the BIKI.

As always, asking where to find decent information is a good thing. :bounce3:

Edited June 30, 2009 by kju

[-)rStrangelove 0]

Remember Halflife(1) back in 1998 and how one of the biggest modding scenes on the net built up over night and by itself?

1. There was only little delay between the game release and the tools for modding.

2. They were easy to use for everybody.

3. 99% of the modding wisdom was centralized on a few famous sites.

Problems we see here (imo):

1. Tools aren't there yet and the game will be patched over and over.

2. You need to know many technical aspects of many different filetypes used for many different things ingame. BIS raised the complexity of the game without thinking how to 'hide' the complexity to 'casual modders'. It starts with writing a briefing for your mission and ends with configuring the LOD values of your o2 model - no matter what you want to deal with, it's far away from just 'testing around a bit'. You are forced to invest a lot of time studying how things work or you won't go very far. 1st steps are the hardest, whereas it should be the other way around. A big workload has to be done first before you see some sort of result which provides valueable feedback for your skills.

With lots of sparetime invested and no feedback, frustration is lurking around the corner.

3. Why do we need different sites for modding? Why not do it all here, on opfec or on the wiki? Instead i have to make accounts for sourcesystems and exchange public crypt keys etc etc. Mod development shouldn't be exactly like proffessional dev work where you earn money. Keep the information updated on a central site and keep it open for everyone. Don't create obstacles with registration or other things that get in the way of the 'give and take' approach.

[.kju 3245]

> Why do we need different sites for modding?

> Why not do it all here, on opfec or on the wiki?

> Instead i have to make accounts for sourcesystems and exchange public crypt keys etc etc.

> Keep the information updated on a central site and keep it open for everyone.

> Don't create obstacles with registration or other things that get in the way of the 'give and take' approach.

Please clarify that. Please explain us how you need SSH keys to access the DH

forum or wiki? Did you ever read the DH statement? We put our info in the BIKI.

The BIF forum is a horrible place for stated reasons above.

Making up stories based on assumption is the way to go yeah.

[rocket 9]

It was never the intention for BIS (as you can see from Marek's post back to his original interview about OFP in 2000) to release the tools. I'm not even sure why they released the tools. I work for a game development company myself, and we have never opted to release our tools because:

1. They don't tend to make you any money

2. People have high expectations, and they take up your time

3. You're releasing corporate information/technology without tangible financial gain that can be directly measured

It is extremely hard to make any money at all in game development. You have to remember, the install base for games like halflife is much, much bigger than ArmA. I would say there would be less than 100 reasonably prolific modders out there in our hobby.

Game modding has gone pro, there is no simple way to explain how the tools work. For BIS to release the information, they would essentially be giving away all their corporate technology. Personally, I don't think casual modding is ever going to cut it in this modern day of game development - it is simply too complicated. If that's where you want to focus - mission making is built in and much simpler.

[[frl]myke 14]

@.kju

I've followed several times links to DH which seemed to be interesting for me in a general way. More than once it led me to a login page. I'm sorry but: wtf? I would just read a few lines, see if it helps me. Why am i bothered to sign a site just to read?

I can't say if i would participate to a discussion or even if i could add something useful to it because i couldn't even read.

I know you will say "what's the problem? signing up takes a few seconds, os what?". Ok, true, no doubt. But it still doesn't explain why i HAVE to sign in just to read.

I fully understand that for contributing i would have to sign up, nothing than fair.

But honestly, thats one way of being "elite".

@Rocket

Your first point i have to disagree: they tend to make money, not directly but on a indirect way. As it takes some time to create good addons, the game stays interesting for a longer time, giving you more content to play with the longer the game (and tools) exist. So they can earn money with game sales long time after the game was released. Just take OFP. It was still sold a few years after the release just because there was so many content available for it, which kept the game interesting.

And as BIS does not make games for the mainstream market where the big sales happens, they have to go for the long run. Even more as BIS is well known for a superior patch support (measured on big game companies).

[sickboy 13]

@Myke: Non of the public areas you require to login for.

It is only projects which are private (for whatever reason), that you require login for, and indeed for data modification.

(Promoting Open Source is different from forcing it)

[.kju 3245]

Myke contact the site staff or project owners, if you find a page not accessible please.

Its all about configuration. A specific site not being viewable is down to the individual case.

At times it is intentional, at times only by mistake.

Code repositories are of course not always accessible to anyone or not even registered

people.

Let me ask you the other way round - how many devs or mod groups give ppl access to

their private forum or file stash?

Do you give ppl access to your computer?

How a project is setup is to the project managers itself. We encourage everyone to

have it as open as meaningful, yet again everyone decides on his own.

Edited June 30, 2009 by kju

[[GLT] Legislator 66]

)rStrangelove;1338483']

3. Why do we need different sites for modding? Why not do it all here' date=' on opfec or on the wiki? Instead i have to make accounts for sourcesystems and exchange public crypt keys etc etc. Mod development shouldn't be exactly like proffessional dev work where you earn money. Keep the information updated on a central site and keep it open for everyone. Don't create obstacles with registration or other things that get in the way of the 'give and take' approach.[/quote']

Yeah I agree with you. From my point of view everybody would benefit if the knowledge is stored in a central form.

Example:

ArmA II classnames ... you can find them buried in every ArmA forum, hell yes ... as an ammandment or sticky if you've luck. A dozen places, but not in bohemia wiki? Why not? Why is "everybody" doing his own thing instead of setting everything up in the Wiki? If people don't like it, avoid it. But it can't be that hundreds of peopel don't like it.

[Damack 10]

Hey I have been reading some post put up and I know some one had asked about a step by step (kinda a Getting Started) Guide to Modding...

I know for myself I would like to get into modding for a few reasons mostly I feel bad.. that the mods I download some one took the time to make... and here I am leeching off there amazing work ;) I kinda wanna give back by creating some mods and adding to the Wonderful community of ARMA FREAKS :)

I now have the computer for it... So I want to give some back :)

I really wanna help out and give a lil back.. :)

[TeRp 1]

a lot

Well, we at the BWMod are trying to cover some stuff on modding, there's already a texturing tutorial available on our homepage.

We're trying to add some more stuff every now and then, but creating tutorials is a lot harder than it seems.

German only though.

However, feel free to pm me or someone from our team if you have specific problems. I can't talk for everyone here, but I have never experienced anyone in the whole OFP-ArmA-ArmA2 modding-sphere to ignore PMs when they were sent to them, as long as they were expressed right and didn't ask some stuff you could easily find out on your own by using google or searching these forums or the biki with the proper keywords.

I can't say much about ofpec and dev-heaven.

If used none of them often, as I've taught myself a lot since the days when OFP came out so the stuff on the biki is enough for me to reference in most cases.

However, I have agree with you on dev-heaven not being very well designed in terms of usability. I really like the idea behind it, but when I tried finding a dll that was necessary for some depbo tool (i think it was pbodll or something) I didn't have any success: I never found the proper site or a download link and eventually gave up when I always ended up in some strange wiki or bugtracker.

After that, I never visited the site again when trying to find help on something.

I just use their ArmA 2 bugtracker every now and then though.

//Edit:

Just noticed this post:

)rStrangelove;1338483'][...]1. There was only little delay between the game release and the tools for modding.[...]

I think this is what will, well let's say, 'kill' the modding community in ArmA 2 once again, after it already happened in ArmA before.

You can see how people try to mod for the game as it's new and shiny, but you see them lose interest very fast as there are no tools available to import their hard work and the community is shrinking every day.

I can tell from my experience within our team, that waiting for the tools for ArmA has almost killed the mod, as a lot of our members lost interest or even completely abandoned the game.

You can even notice that in the disappearance of a lot of modding teams that were around in the OFP days, they have all vanished, and it wasn't all because they lost fun in the game, it was not being able to mod the game for many of them.

I sincerely hope BIS will not make the same mistake three times (it took them ages to release the tools for OFP, too) and releases the tools before another year and a half have past while there still interest in the game and modding it.

@Rocket:

I have to disagree with you.

OFP wouldn't have lasted that long without mods, and I know a lot of people (only some of them personal though) that bought OFP only to play with a specific mod, e.g. from their home country. So that's another customer and so you get more money.

Same goes for HL, HL2, etc. Mods help selling the game a lot!

Edited June 30, 2009 by TeRp

[Flarmapoint 2 10]

I dont think, and i hope that the modding community never becomes an exclusive club, i think its great that we share our knowledge to not only the pro modders, but also the ones which are just starting out.

We all need a little help sometimes :)

[.kju 3245]

Lump posted these:

http://www.digitaltutors.com/digital_tutors

If you have never done 3D before you might want to start out with a simpler model then a complex model like a jeep. If you do not have a 3D program, you could always download Blender which is free and then find tutorials off the net.

http://www.blender.org/

http://blenderartists.org/cms/content/view/17/53/

---

His blog - seems like he is into it.

[max power 21]

I don't think that difficulty implies exclusivity. Everyone currently working on modding had to learn by the same process as people who are starting out fresh now. Outdated tuts are still useful, old tools still work for a lot of stuff, the search functions on the community forums turn up masses of information, and there are always people willing to help a brother out. I see it as exactly the opposite. The fact it's difficult is recognized by at least some people, and they are almost always willing to answer questions.

There are some people who go by addon forums and trash talk authors for not being michaelangelo, but I don't think that equates exclusivity of within the community. I think that just means that, just like all groups, once you pass a certain number of people, the laws of statistics suggest that there will almost certainly be a few jerks in there.

[rocket 9]

I really agree with everything Max Power said above. I think this has been a great topic to raise. From my perspective, I initially didn't like the thought of people modifying my work... and was worried about people repainting my work to "sub-standard" levels. But then I realized... people have to start somewhere! And I'd be honored to find people are starting by repainting and improving my work.

[Romolus 0]

)rStrangelove;1338483']Remember Halflife(1) back in 1998 and how one of the biggest modding scenes on the net built up over night and by itself?

(not particularly aimed at you ])rStrangelove' date=' your post just seemed to point out the real problem)

[/size']

The thing is, that was 11 years ago and GPUs just started to get serious. Back then, you could just throw together some polygons, slap a few pixels worth of texture onto them and you basically had about the same quality of what was already in the game. It was pretty much a one-man-job.

If you started modding back then, it was quite easy to pick up the required skills, because there just wasn't that much you had to learn.

Today you still have to learn the basics that you needed in 1998, but now you also need to learn what happened in those 11 years after that. That's 11 years of technology racing ahead!

Nowadays game companies use a whole team of specialists to create the game assets and if you want to create something on a similar level, you have to be aware of the massive additional workload and knowledge that you require compared to 1998.

With increasing complexity, it's only normal that things get harder to understand for someone who just starts to get into it. Those technical terms that freak out many new people are just required to manage such a complexity. If everyone would still use layman's terms for everything, one wouldn't get much done. It's the same thing in other fields that have been around for a while and built up a certain degree of complexity.

That's what makes it all seem to be an exclusive club from the outside.

Once you know the basics, you will find that you know how to ask for specific things and that people are much more willing to help out because first it's much less effort when people talk the same (technical) language and second because they see you made your homework and are not just on the desperate search for the "make pretty"-button.

Look for tutorials on general topics that cover the basics, that give you a firm grip on the concepts and the lingo that is required. And there are quite a few of those around. Even if they seem outdated, those things are still the basics of what you need to know. There's really no shortcut there.

You also don't need Photoshop or Max just because everyone seems to be using it. These days Gimp and Blender are more than up to what's required and there are also nice tutorials for both tools that cover the basics. This might not have been the case a few years ago, but today they certainly are. Everyone who's telling something different either doesn't know what he's talking about or is putting way too much importance on little things that don't really matter when you just want to do some game modding as a hobby.

Right now there might not be a plugin for Gimp, but the files from the old TexView can still be used in ArmA2. And if you really need to read textures from ArmA2 for simple modifying, then you can always download a trial of Photoshop and use that with the plugin in a perfectly legal way until BIS releases a new TexView.

As for models, Max has pretty much the same problem as Blender, since you still have to find a way to get your models into O2 or find a coder to write a plugin for direct export to an ARMA2 readable format.

So if you really want to get into modding, do yourself a favor and start with simple things, make the effort to learn the basics and it will pay off. It's the only real entrance fee to that "exclusive" club :)

PS

Same applies if you want to get into scripting. Don't kid yourself, this is programming and you'll get the most out of it if you take it as such. Learn the basics of programming and you'll see that everything makes much more sense.

Even for writing configs a basic understanding of programming is needed to see how the whole system really works. Once you have that understanding, it's just about looking into the BIS configs and see how things are done there.

You don't have to go to uni and get a degree in CS, fortunately in these days there's tons of stuff on the net about those topics and even books that are easy to read :)

[PhilippRauch 0]

Well, i think we have here one of the more complex gameengines around, thus the learning curve is much steeper, add the non-existant documentation of it (well, maybe a bit documentation ;) ) it looks like its mount everest.

Modding for any of BI Titles isnt really part of gaming, its rather more like (semi)professional content creation IMHO. You need to learn and understand loads of stuff before anything might work ingame. Please compare it to creation of content with FlashMX and ActionScript! :lecture:

If i recount the time i needed to get my humble understanding of the engine to a point where i could do stuff ON MY OWN .. well it should be about 1 year full-time working (counting all together from 2002 onwards).

Being really able to work with configs and sqf could be done in about 6 months of hobbyist self-instruction (i.e. trial-and-error) to get into 'modding' for Arma.

Excluding ANY knowledge of content creation tools like Photoshop, Lightwave (i just use these as examples since these are the ones i am used to.. or GIMP, Blender, Milkshape or whatnot...).

Sure this time 'could' be shortened by at least a quarter, IF there where comprehensive/concise up-to-date tutorials/instructables etc... But even with these it still will be at least 50% trial-and-error for learning this crazy czech game...

I wonder when we finally get a Topic called: "Is the community turning into a 'spoon-feed me'ism?"

(meanness intended :P )

I am not trying to put anyone off, but i really, BADLY WANTED some stuff inside Arma, so i worked that bitch till it finally surrendered and we both fell asleep hugging... wet and sticky ...

[raedor 8]

...

Written very well, rom! :)

[NoRailgunner 0]

Imho for newcomers and beginners it would be very good to start with updated ArmA/Arma2 related tutorials. It doesnt have to be the "ultimate" or "greatest" one - small step-by-step HowTo's - accessible for everyone and free from registration. The biki could be the first site to get in touch with modding/scripting etc but it seems that there is no big interest and time to deliver updated informations to the public scene.

Of course without proper tools Arma2 will die as fast as any other game. Would be good if BIS will release Arma2 tools as soon as they can manage it. Some announcement/advertising could help...

[.kju 3245]

What do you guys have with your ArmA II tools?

a1 pbos work in a2.

a1 configs work in a2 - with little modification at times.

a1 scripts work in a2 - with little modification at times.

a1 rvmat work in a2 - generate some rpt warnings. You can learn from BI rvmat.

v3 wrp work in a2 - unbinarized load slow though.

a1 SAT work in a2 - yet loading seems not to work perfect.

a1 textures work in a2 - ofc can be improved. TexView X will make it possible to save in

the new format, unless community develops tools itself faster (seems likely).

a1 p3d work in a2 - vehicles seem to be simple, infantry need more work.

a1 rtm work in a2 (possible changes unknown).

Anything else missing on the list?

A visual editor for FSM would be golden yes.

Maybe flea can continue work on his A1 version or release the source or anyone

else of you guys starts programming an app for it?

So what are you missing to save A2 from dying?

Edited July 1, 2009 by kju

[raedor 8]

So what are you missing to save A2 from dying?

Haha, it wasn't much else when A1 came out... most stuff was working but only some started working on something, the rest was waiting for the tools and lost interest when they were there.