The Civil War is back on the menu, boys!

[Mord]

Ok, did some very basic preliminary tests. Mostly seeing what can be done without hex editing. Did some texture swapping and used some masks to get the results I was looking for. These aren't perfect just proof of concept/dipping my toes. This won't be as good as my old civil war and mixed combatant mods but it'll do. With the Syrian Reserves being 98% free of shared textures a very decent Civil War mod and scenarios can be produced. Best results as I see it would be Syrian Reserves (Infantry and Mech), Combatants and Fighters against Syrian Mech, Guards, Airborne and Spec Ops. The Reserves have a pretty decent selection of tanks (and access to most AFV/IFVs) so it would be a decent match up.

Here's some alpha pics to get your imagination pumping.

 

 

NOTE: Combatants are not mixed in with Syrian Reserves.

 

 

 

Mord.

Edited December 16, 2018 by Mord

[Rokossovski]

Wow!  

I am so ready for some red v. red goodness.  Those are some very inspirational shots.

By the way, although the vanilla textures for airborne are quite similar to regulars, because they do not share the same bitmaps they can be modded into something visually distinct.  (And even represent units on the same side as the reserves in red v. red fights).  I'm hoping someone with more talent than I will create new textures for airborne.

Edited December 16, 2018 by Rokossovski

[MOS:96B2P]

25 minutes ago, Mord said:

With the Syrian Reserves being 98% free of shared textures a very decent Civil War mod and scenarios can be produced.

+1  YES!!!!  You Rock Mord!!

I got just the scenario for these dudes. 

[Mord]

13 minutes ago, Rokossovski said:

Wow!  

I am so ready for some red v. red goodness.  Those are some very inspirational shots.

Thanks. I thought it was funny when you mentioned civil war stuff in my bug thread because I was about three hours into these as you posted.

 

13 minutes ago, Rokossovski said:

By the way, although the vanilla textures for airborne are quite similar to regulars, because they do not share the same bitmaps they can be modded into something visually distinct.

Ahh. I don't know how I missed that when I first checked the uniforms. So, as it stands the only shared Syrian uniforms are Regular and Guards. That's cool.

 

Mord.

Edited December 16, 2018 by Mord

[Rokossovski]

Come to think of it, in the meantime one could simply slap in reserve  bitmaps in place on of the existing airborne uniforms.  If airborne is put on the same side as the reserves, it would give that faction access to some nice toys such as BMP-3s and AT-14s.

[Mord]

4 minutes ago, MOS:96B2P said:

+1  YES!!!!  You Rock Mord!!

I got just the scenario for these dudes. 

They are far from done, though. There are a lot of texture issues that can't be seen in the pics, plus all the missing webbing and such. I am hoping someone with some texture experience will wanna team up with me on this one. I have so much to do with the portraits mod as it is.

 

 

1 minute ago, Rokossovski said:

Come to think of it, in the meantime one could simply slap in reserve  bitmaps in place on of the existing airborne uniforms. 

Yeah, that would work easily.

 

Mord.

[Rokossovski]

There is the small matter that the Airborne vehicle crews would share textures with the Regulars.  (I haven't spotted separate textures for Airborne vehicle crews).  Fortunately, those crews would ordinarily have the good taste to stay inside their vehicles and not tarnish our immersion with their unfashionably shared textures.

For the purpose of scenario creation, having the Airborne on the same side as the Reserve units would require players to use appropriate mods that change their vanilla appearance.  Not a problem for me, but a factor to consider if a scenario is to be widely shared.  For my taste, that issue is outweighed by the benefits of giving the Reserve side access to a better class of (Airborne) equipment -- in particular ATGMs.

[mjkerner]

Mord, I’ve already done quite a few mix and matches with Combatant and Fighter textures for my own purposes (Civil War as well as African wars and maybe Cartel/Latin America stuff), but I’m no Vein or EZ. But I can send you pix. Still working on skins, gear and head wear.

[IICptMillerII]

Looks great!

I think you can make a lot of those gear items invisible by naming a blank white bmp file to the gear name. For example, you can make a helmet chinstrap go away by naming a blank white bmp file to "US_helmet_chinstrap.bmp" (not the actual nomenclature but I think you'll understand the point) The same trick can be applied to the model as well to remove a backpack or something I believe. 

[MikeyD]

I've been too pokey, I've got to get my Turkish army mod uploaded to contribute to the project.

[Mord]

4 hours ago, mjkerner said:

Mord, I’ve already done quite a few mix and matches with Combatant and Fighter textures for my own purposes (Civil War as well as African wars and maybe Cartel/Latin America stuff), but I’m no Vein or EZ. But I can send you pix. Still working on skins, gear and head wear.

Nice try but I already know how good you are! Yeah, absolutely, send me some pics of whatever you think would fit the mod. Do you still have my email?

 

3 hours ago, IICptMillerII said:

Looks great!

I think you can make a lot of those gear items invisible by naming a blank white bmp file to the gear name. For example, you can make a helmet chinstrap go away by naming a blank white bmp file to "US_helmet_chinstrap.bmp" (not the actual nomenclature but I think you'll understand the point) The same trick can be applied to the model as well to remove a backpack or something I believe. 

Thanks.

Yep. A mask was used on the Reserves, luckily they had their own dedicated helmet. Their chinstrap is shared with the other Syrian formations but it doesn't effect the other formations in any significant visual way by being invisible. Like with the chinstrap any masking of gear will effect all Syrian formations, so you may end up with Guards units not having canteens. shovels, etc.

1 hour ago, MikeyD said:

I've been too pokey, I've got to get my Turkish army mod uploaded to contribute to the project.

I'd love to see you whip up some plain clothes textures for the Reserves!

 

Mord.

[tpr]

Great news

[mjkerner]

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Mord.  I am pretty sure I have your email, but will PM you if not. What I’ve done so far is a lot of mix and match/ragtagging of the Fighters and Combatants.  And I was going to do the same for Syrian reserves and militia, but keeping a more organized/uniform look.  But are you thinking Republican Guard verses everyone else, or Uncons  verses all army units, or what?

[akd]

Hmm...almost nothing under SAA SF / Airborne corresponds to anything related to the opposition.  Personally, I would mod up the SF guys as Russian SF and the airborne battalion as generic Syrian special forces / airborne, swapping out the old soviet helmets for uncovered PASGT-style helmets (or even better a mix of helmets and uncovered heads).  Mech airborne battalion and its vehicle crews can probably be completely ignored as it corresponds to nothing in reality.

 

Biggest challenge would probably be trying to mod a US Army or Marines TOW-2 team into a credible opposition team.

Edited December 17, 2018 by akd

[mjkerner]

Just reread your initial post, Mord.  I need to pay closer attention. Good suggestions, akd.  I guess it depends on how much Mord wants to follow reality. Me, I like to just go for a generic ME civil war look, and can't see not using all units available.

[Mord]

My initial idea was like my old mod, Reserves in street clothes looking like mish-mashed rebels. I just wanted a set of Syrians that could be pitted against the rest without a bunch of uniform sharing. Reserves are perfect. They have access to some decent tanks and what not but not access to the really new stuff, like how you'd expect a rag tag force to be. Combatants and Fighters have their own models so they can be used however people want. The Mech infantry have their own uniforms and don't need anything, neither do the Spec Ops. But for me it's always been Reserves and Uncons Vs the rest of the Syrian Army. This was never about THE Syrian Civil War, it's about a civil war in SF's reality. But the mod can be made so people can use it however they like.

 

Mord.

[mjkerner]

Right on, Bro!

[rocketman]

Just throwing an idea out to all the uniform modders - have you tried applying an unsharp mask to the textures to give them a crisper look? Will it have a good effect when textures are wrapped around 3d-models?

[mjkerner]

It can be overused and look strange in game, even if it looks good on the texture bmp.  Hell, there are so many manipulations you can use in Photoshop/Corel/Gimp/etc., it takes a lot of experimentation in my experience.

[Mord]

 

13 minutes ago, mjkerner said:

It can be overused and look strange in game

Is that where you get that crinkling look on the fabric? I've seen some stuff where the clothes look like they were painted over super crumpled up tiny foil.

 

Mord.

[Artkin]

I've been looking up regions in Syria to model in the editor. I'm having a hard time finding accurate satellite images of the damage in Aleppo. What regions in Syria would you guys like worked on? 

Edited December 17, 2018 by Artkin

[Mord]

You can work on whatever inspires you. It's a history unwritten. Like with SF we will make the history.

 

Mord.

[akd]

34 minutes ago, Mord said:

My initial idea was like my old mod, Reserves in street clothes looking like mish-mashed rebels. I just wanted a set of Syrians that could be pitted against the rest without a bunch of uniform sharing. Reserves are perfect. They have access to some decent tanks and what not but not access to the really new stuff, like how you'd expect a rag tag force to be. Combatants and Fighters have their own models so they can be used however people want. The Mech infantry have their own uniforms and don't need anything, neither do the Spec Ops. But for me it's always been Reserves and Uncons Vs the rest of the Syrian Army. This was never about THE Syrian Civil War, it's about a civil war in SF's reality. But the mod can be made so people can use it however they like.

Good point, but it is somewhat unavoidable to imagine a fictional civil war without also considering the real one and its affects on perceptions of that fiction.  Given what has happened, it is difficult to imagine a scenario where Russia is sending its latest (-ish) vehicles and small arms to arm the government opposition.  And if you were to include intervening outside powers, Russia would certainly make the top of the logical list (although I suppose we could imagine a scenario where UAE or Kuwaiti BMP-3s are in play against the government).  Given that in reality there is really very little to distinguish between SAA army / republican guard / SF / airborne from an appearance and armament standpoint (beyond the mechanization of some armor units), that gives a lot of room to play with in the SF / airborne category to expand the dimensions of the conflict (real or fictional).

[IICptMillerII]

2 hours ago, akd said:

 Personally, I would mod up the SF guys as Russian SF and the airborne battalion as generic Syrian special forces / airborne,

I'm pretty sure this would be fairly easy to do. You could swap out the Syrian SF textures/models with the Russian textures/models from Black Sea. Someone is bound to do it eventually 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

1 hour ago, Mord said:

My initial idea was like my old mod, Reserves in street clothes looking like mish-mashed rebels. I just wanted a set of Syrians that could be pitted against the rest without a bunch of uniform sharing. Reserves are perfect. They have access to some decent tanks and what not but not access to the really new stuff, like how you'd expect a rag tag force to be. Combatants and Fighters have their own models so they can be used however people want. The Mech infantry have their own uniforms and don't need anything, neither do the Spec Ops. But for me it's always been Reserves and Uncons Vs the rest of the Syrian Army. This was never about THE Syrian Civil War, it's about a civil war in SF's reality. But the mod can be made so people can use it however they like.

 

Mord.

Cool mod @Mord.....I'd definitely like to use this mod and more to the point write scenarios with its use in mind.  To which end, could you (when you have a moment spare) post a formal list of what's on each 'side' and any tags used/usable please?

I'm a massive n00b when it comes to modding CM2 (yet my CM1 mod collection was monstrous).