Uniform mod help

[hypeman]

Under which thread can I find resources and tutorials for making a uniform mod? I’ve been able to find plenty of materials regarding 3D objects but not too much on uniforms.

I’m trying to give The US Army coyote brown ballistic vests along with the UCP camo. It’s just like the coyote brown vest/OCP camo combo that the Army has in Black Sea, just with ucp camo instead of ocp.

Much appreciated 
 

[MikeyD]

I didn't do the CMBS uniforms, I don't know if they are completely compatible with the CMSF2 infantry model. But if there's a will there's a way.

See attached. Its the base wireframe art for CMSF US infantry. This'll help you fit any CMBS pieces onto CMSF2 art (the box-looking objects on the lower right I don't think are being used). There's no 'trick' to doing uniforms, just slave away at it until it looks right.

Edited August 17, 2020 by MikeyD

[waffelmann]

Why not just copy and paste the vest from CMBS into the uniform from CMSF2 (I use GIMP for such things)?

[hypeman]

Thanks Mikey and wafflemann for the help but this is my first time ever creating content personally. I was looking for the instructions and tools/programs one would use to start uniform making. The tips you guys have given are great, its just I'm not exactly sure how to get there yet

[Zveroboy1]

Have you used an image editing software before?

[hypeman]

1 hour ago, Zveroboy1 said:

Have you used an image editing software before?

Unless you count fooling around in MS Paint out of sheer, unrefined boredom in class, then unfortunately no.

[Zveroboy1]

Okay well if you put your mind to it, learning is not that hard really and there is a vast amount of tutorials online about photoshop and the like. But without knowing the basics, it is going to be a bit tricky to do anything beside the simplest of editing. Copying the vest from one model to another one is easy though like waffelmann said.

Far from me the idea of discouraging you but If you really want to you should grab a copy of Gimp or whatnot and spend a month or two watching tutorials about the main features and then give the uniform thing a go after that. Just my two cents.

[Jock Tamson]

On 8/18/2020 at 2:47 PM, hypeman said:

Unless you count fooling around in MS Paint out of sheer, unrefined boredom in class, then unfortunately no.

Download Gimp, then use the BRZ exploder that comes with the games to explode the brz files and expose the individual bitmap images.  Or download one of the US forces mods from https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/cm-mod-warehouse/  and play around with editing those.  Aside from learning how to use Gimp, which largely takes a few hours of trial and error, the important bit is to make sure you save the bitmaps in the correct format - 24 Bit with no additional meta info (this will make more sense when you are using Gimp and try to export one of your edited images for the first time).

This is what a bitmap looks like.  This particular one is for a new Combatant that I did for CMSF2.  I have noted which bits are which.  The front of the shirt was copied from an image on the internet.  

Edited August 19, 2020 by Jock Tamson

[Jock Tamson]

In this example, I copied the texture for the shirt from the internet, copy and pasted the vest from the Syrian Special Ops uniform, recoloured the jeans.  You can see that you don't have to be super careful, so long as you respect the boundaries of each section.  I added a wave transformation to the sleeves.

Edited August 19, 2020 by Jock Tamson

[Jock Tamson]

Lastly, this is the Syrian Special Ops Uniform modded with the German forces trousers.  You can see where I got the vest from for the mod above.

[MikeyD]

You'll notice the placement of the special ops sleeves is different than on the US infantry wireframe art. Because some soldier models are arranged differently than others. So the art needs to be tailored to the specific model.

[hypeman]

Thanks fellas, I really appreciate all the assistance! I’ll try and get educated on gimp and then take my 1st crack at the new uniforms this weekend when I have some free time. If I come across any stumpers I’ll be sure to return here

[waffelmann]

Good luck!

 

 

[hypeman]

Good Evening Gentlemen,

Just took my first crack at gimp and it wasn't terrible. This is just basic cut and paste from existing files, but an important stepping stone nonetheless. For my next attempt, I want to create a marine uniform using flight suits. I was able to recreate this to some extent by using the marine crewmen skin via renaming the base game files. But I'm interested in creating a skin using textures that are not already in the game.

Here's the result:

[hypeman]

In testing it appears that we've encountered a dilemma, the uniform is completely black , As if there is no texture. I would send another screenshot but apparently the "win + PrintScreen" key combo doesn't work for in game screen shots.

[Zveroboy1]

Is there an alpha channel? When you save the uniform make sure there isn't a checkmark for alphas in the file saving dialogue box. Maybe that's it, I am not sure.

[MikeyD]

Size matters. The pixel dimension of the art needs to follow a strict formula or the game won't see it. For uniforms its 1024 pixels x 1024 pixels if your art is 1021x1028 it won't work.

If you look at (most) art is the game its exactly 72 dpi and the pixel dimensions need to be 32, 64 ,128, 256, 512, 1024, or 2048 pixels. The next one up would be 4096 pixels but that's a monster size nobody's ever attempted. File dimension need to be some combination of those numbers. 32x128, 256x1024, etc.

[waffelmann]

5 hours ago, hypeman said:

In testing it appears that we've encountered a dilemma, the uniform is completely black

Did you export or save your work?

 

With GIMP it is important to export (and you habe to check mark  an option in the export-preocess (in German: Kompatibiltätsoptionem -> Farbinformationen nicht schreiben)

[hypeman]

9 hours ago, Zveroboy1 said:

Is there an alpha channel? When you save the uniform make sure there isn't a checkmark for alphas in the file saving dialogue box. Maybe that's it, I am not sure.

I got rid of the alpha channel and now the uniform appears, however the brown vest I added comes out as a weird teal green color as well as the underlying ucp uniform.

9 hours ago, MikeyD said:

Size matters. The pixel dimension of the art needs to follow a strict formula or the game won't see it. For uniforms its 1024 pixels x 1024 pixels if your art is 1021x1028 it won't work.

If you look at (most) art is the game its exactly 72 dpi and the pixel dimensions need to be 32, 64 ,128, 256, 512, 1024, or 2048 pixels. The next one up would be 4096 pixels but that's a monster size nobody's ever attempted. File dimension need to be some combination of those numbers. 32x128, 256x1024, etc.

The file is the correct size, 1024x1024, you can see at the very top of the 1st screen shot I sent.

5 hours ago, waffelmann said:

Did you export or save your work?

 

With GIMP it is important to export (and you habe to check mark  an option in the export-preocess (in German: Kompatibiltätsoptionem -> Farbinformationen nicht schreiben)

I did save and export the file but can you go into more detail about the option I’m supposed to check? I didn’t see anything of the sort when I exported the file Initially.

 

And as a side note, what do you recommend as the best method of taking screenshots in game? The “win+PrintScreen” combo just gives me images of the menu screen.

Thanks everyone

[Zveroboy1]

Okay this is something I struggled with myself in the past and I still don't fully understand how it works, but make sure that in colour management options or under preferences, you are working in RGB mode, 8 bits/channels and that when you export, it should be srgb.

For taking screenshots there was a thread about it recently somewhere on the forum, personally I just use printscreen. Not sure why it doesn't seem to work for so many people.

[waffelmann]

When you saved once, then it is over.

I would like to show it with screenshots, but my forum-limit is full.

 

So I would suggest the following:

- copy one original-uniform textute to a place of your choice

- open it with gimp

- make a sign with the brush

- go on file -> export as...

- in the next screen don't change anything, only klick on <export> at the bottom

- confirm to overwrite

- the comes a little context-menue (export picture as BMP)

             ->Compatibily-options

                      -> check "Don't write Colour-information"

 

- Close the file WITHOUT (!) saving

 

Hope that helps....

 

 

Edited August 22, 2020 by waffelmann
edited worst typos

[hypeman]

 

On 8/22/2020 at 1:39 PM, waffelmann said:

When you saved once, then it is over.

I would like to show it with screenshots, but my forum-limit is full.

 

So I would suggest the following:

- copy one original-uniform textute to a place of your choice

- open it with gimp

- make a sign with the brush

- go on file -> export as...

- in the next screen don't change anything, only klick on <export> at the bottom

- confirm to overwrite

- the comes a little context-menue (export picture as BMP)

             ->Compatibily-options

                      -> check "Don't write Colour-information"

 

- Close the file WITHOUT (!) saving

 

Hope that helps....

 

 

Waffleman you're on the money with that one! I got it functioning correctly. I'm going to try and release my personal little rag-tag mashup I made for US infantry using gear from oleksander's 7th inf reskin and the new uniform I just made.

[hypeman]

With that being said, when I first found out about rag-tagging I learned that you could assign certain uniforms to only appear (in-game) in tandem with certain skins via the numbering of the game files. Does the same apply for gear with respect to uniforms? I ask because I want to try and get the brown harness (mag pouches for US soldiers) to only show up on the brown vest and vice versa for the UCP. But currently, it appears to just happen at random. 

[waffelmann]

You are right. The numbers don't correlate...that means vest and pouches will show randomly (so far as I know....)

Fine, that it works now!

 

[ViperAssassin26]

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I have a quick one. is there a way to get the uniforms from ARMA 3 into SF2? as much as i would love to change the physical appearance. i know we cant. but at least the skin