Mord

Come to think of it, it could be a side effect of the normal map highlighting too much texture? Mord.

Textures, yes, depending on how different the models are. Model swaps absolutely can't be done. I spent a good four hours or so the other day dicking around in the hex editor eyeing up the Syrian mds files. Charles locked them down hard. @Blimey reported this waaaay back when BS came out but I wanted to see what was what for myself. The Brain some how tied ALL the Syrian soldiers into a single set of mdses. ALL their codes point to lines entitled "placeholder uniform" "place holder skin" place holder boots". The old mdses had a set for each soldier type and their code would point to something like "syrian reserve soldier" "syrian reserve uniform" etc. In effect there is no way to trick the mdses because every single file, no matter what it is, says "placeholder uniform" etc. The only reason Mikey pulled off that weapon swap was because the weapons files hadn't been screwed with. My guess has always been that they changed it because there was too much cross game pollination going on. I'd be happy if Steve and Charles would take pity and allow us to at least pull off some tricks that stayed within titles. I really liked my Mixed Combatants mod in SF 1. It really shouldn't be anything too tricky. So, you'll be able to add any tags etc. that you please. Sides and what not will be up to you. The whole mod should be very (ahem) modular. Mord.

It's a good choice. Quite a few members call it their favorite. There should be new content for it sometime in 2019 too. Mord.

Nah, you didn't. I was just commenting that it was a quickie. I didn't take it negatively. Welcome, man! Seems it is already obsolete. Before I learned the camera trick, if I toggled off the shaders in the editor before I logged out and left the game, when I'd come back everything would be fine. Now, when I start the game back up the shaders are set to on no matter what and I get the trippy graphics shenanigans all over my menu screens. But toggling them back off and clicking on a menu button fixes it as Captain Reyes stated. Minor inconvenience. Mord.

Thanks, man. I am in a whole nuther universe with this new toy. Mord.

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

You're gettin' there, brother! The other day you couldn't walk five feet without losing a platoon! Mord.

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.

Cool! Thanks for those tips. I can really dig in now that the GD screen is stable. I had to stop every few minutes so I wouldn't puke! I will give all these a try. I wanna go through all the presets that are decent then delete the crappy ones. I am guessing just having those installed slows things down, even if I am not using them? Not my best work just needed something quick to compare and contrast. I am looking forward to trying Reshade with some of my older Total War games as well. Mord.

Wait. Are my pics showing the Depth of Field? Or is it a different effect? 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.

@Kevin2k Guys, this is what I just whipped up in Reshade without even trying. Imagine what could be done with some real effort. It really is a game changer. I am completely sold on it. Mord.

You didn't like the color in my pics? Heretic! I don't know. I just found out how to make that M%$#@&^ F%$#@^@ camera stop spinning! I am pretty sure HerrTom mentioned that once upon a time, though. Mord.

Actually, I had that one figured out just couldn't figure out how to explain it. You did a succinct job of it. Thanks, twice. Mord.

Never mind, found it (Input Processing: Pass on all input)! THANKS MAN!!!! I wish someone had told me that a long time ago! Awesome! Mord.

Ok I spent a significant amount of time messing with reshade last night and decided to make a (took forever!) quick little primer for people who haven't tried it yet, or for people who (like me) tried it and just had too many problems getting it to work. I solved that! First off you'll want to head over to Reshade.me and dl the new 4.0.2 Reshade. Now, go to where you dled it. You can uninstall Reshade by redoing the exact same procedure. This time when you click your CM exe it will remove Reshade. No muss no fuss. Ok. Now comes the part a lot of us have had problems with. If you follow my instructions you'll be able to use Reshade with very little hassle. My pain is your gain. READ THROUGH THIS ONCE OR TWICE FIRST. 1b.) Start the CM game you installed reshade on. You'll see this (pic below). DO NOTHING. 2b.) Go to the editor (easiest to just do this in the editor). 3b.) Open a map and preview it. (You can open a scenario or QB or just a flat map. Not really important for this first part). Now this is the tricky part. Just pay attention to your old buddy Mord and I am gonna get this working for you! While you ARE IN THE EDITOR (AND EDITOR ONLY) hit the "Home" key. It will bring up a menu. Now, when you do this, for a lot of us the screen will rotate. If it does just pay attention to the menu box you see in the picture below. It will stay still. If it gets too much you can click "Home" again and it'll take you back to normal and you can get your bearings. I suggest skipping through the tutorial you see in the pic for now. 4b.) Ok see the set of tabs? Click the Settings tab. EDITED: Go to Settings: Input Processing. Set it to "Pass on all input". No more spinning! BIG THANKS to Captain Reyes! Now choose "Effect Toggle Key". Now choose a key on your keyboard that you would like to toggle the Reshade effects. Make sure it isn't something CM uses. I use Shift+F2. Ok press whatever key you are gonna use. That will be used to toggle your effects on and off, obviously, 5b.) Now I am gonna give you some effects to get you started. These will be a good base for you to experiment with without a lot of guess work right off the bat. Ok, click the first tab that says "Home" next to "Settings" in the menu (NOT the keyboard "Home"). Now find the following and check them. Tint [sepia] Emphasize FilmPass ColorMatrix GaussianBlur Colourfulness In this pic I chose all of the above and dragged them all to the top of the list so I always know where they are and I can experiment more easily. I highly suggest you do this to make it easy on you later. Ok, do you have them all? Now, click the "Home" key on your keyboard. Now, if you want to switch back and forth between Vanilla graphics and Reshade graphics you just hit the key you chose in part 4b.) HERE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART: Before you leave the editor make sure you toggle back to vanilla graphics. NEVER toggle Reshade graphics on outside of the editor, or outside of a battle. NEVER toggle the Reshade menu ("Home" key) outside of the editor or a battle. NOTE: If you screw up and do one of the above you'll have to find a way out of it. It won't damage your game or anything but it can take some trickery to get it back to normal. I've done it a bucnh of times now and am used to it. Don't panic if it happens! SEE CAPTAIN REYES'S POST BELOW. Sounds like a lot but it's really quite easy. Once you do it for one game it won't take you long to have them all running using Reshade. And trust me it REALLY is worth it. I didn't think it was but now that I figured out not to open the menu or toggle the effects outside of the editor/battle it's a whole new world. The screens speak for themselves! VANILLA BADASSERY! Anybody that has any problems just ask and I'll do my best to help. I want you guys to experience this! Mord.

Dialing in the Reshade and messing with filters and camera angles for screenie taking. Mord.

No worries. A little ways past where the road stops rising and grades to a level plain. I just ran them there, then drew a target line until it gave me a blue indicator. I targeted just about dead center of the diagonal front part. I am not sure if it was exactly on the wall but it looked like it. The explosion looked like that's where it impacted. It didn't leave any marks on the ground, so. Mord.

I just tested it. Managed to shoot the wall with no damage. However, there is no deploy option and the crewman shoulder fired it. Looks like a bug to me. I have saves if anyone needs them. Mord.

It only works in SF. There is no way that I know of that it can be manipulated to work in SF2. The mds files have completely different naming conventions in the code for SF2. Mord.

Thanks, brother! Mord.

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

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. Yeah, that would work easily. Mord.

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. 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.

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.