Graffiti mod anyone?

[Cpl Steiner]

Hi,

I've been playing around with the mod tools and came up with this in only half an hour or so. I'm sure others can do far better - and besides, this made my balconies turn black! I think this has something to do with alpha channels, which I know nothing about.

So, would any gifted modder care to improve on this? I would love to see some decent graffiti mods.

[z1812]

Hi Cpl,

Great idea!!

Regards John

[Roter Stern]

A great idea indeed...

How about this one:

Only problem is that if you use the "facade-exterior" texture, the graphic will appear on all 4 sides of the building...

[ February 01, 2008, 11:07 AM: Message edited by: The Louch ]

[Cpl Steiner]

Originally posted by The Louch:

Only problem is that if you use the "facade-exterior" texture, the graphic will appear on all 4 sides of the building...

Nice one! I knew I wasn't the only one to think this might be cool.

The solution to the problem of the graphic appearing on all 4 sides of the building, as seen in my own practice mod above, is to make it a new wall texture rather than overwriting an existing one, and place buildings using the original texture next to the graffiti-covered one. Thus, the adjacent buildings will cover some of the offending walls. Alternatively, remove a wall completely and make it a rubbled side of the building. There are lots of creative ways to get around it.

Another really cool thing I discovered when doing this is that if you don't have the mod, the game automatically provides an alternative texture. It does not crash the game. This is useful if you want to put scenarios on CMMODS that use certain texture mods but the player doesn't have the mods installed.

[Roter Stern]

The solution to the problem of the graphic appearing on all 4 sides of the building, as seen in my own practice mod above, is to make it a new wall texture rather than overwriting an existing one, and place buildings using the original texture next to the graffiti-covered one. Thus, the adjacent buildings will cover some of the offending walls. Alternatively, remove a wall completely and make it a rubbled side of the building. There are lots of creative ways to get around it.

That's an interesting way of fixing it... to be honest I didn't realize we're actually able to introduce new texture files into the game - something to experiment with later on.

For the time being, here's what I thought of - instead of adding a graffiti to the wall texture, we could add it to the "long window" texture. Either painting over the window or replacing the window with a matching wall texture.

This way the building can be created with the longwindow-graffiti on one side and regular windows on the other three:

Although with this method the vertical room is rather limited, and you end up with a rather odd looking recess in the wall.

Game data file - http://www.mediafire.com/?bgmmdjmxf9x

[ February 01, 2008, 11:23 AM: Message edited by: The Louch ]

[LongLeftFlank]

Nice!

I've touted this about 5 times now but in addition to the AC and ATM flavour objects that you can slap on walls now, I'd love to see some blank 2D panels of various sizes that we can mod to create things like graffiti, signs, pockmarks and closed gates or shopfronts that we can slap on walls as desired. This would solve the 4 side problem and let us mix and match facades. Wouldn't seem too time consuming for BFC to add into 1.07. They can use either blank, white or one of the existing wall textures. We can mod the rest. I'd also like some 3d DIY flavour objects in addition to the bus shelters (stalls, sheds, containers, machinery, vans etc)

If anyone can explain how to retain the alpha channel I'd be grateful to know more. I just use the Windows paintbrush program so that's probably the issue.

[LongLeftFlank]

Btw, has anyone ever seen what happens when a building containing an AC or ATM gets rubbled? Does it just float there in mid air?

Still, I'd rather have these objects and risk occasional visual oddities than fight in sterile, lookalike streetscapes.

If MOUT is where the game really gets challenging for both sides, please BFC let's bring on some new texture options and unleash the modders!

[Roter Stern]

I've touted this about 5 times now but in addition to the AC and ATM flavour objects that you can slap on walls now, I'd love to see some blank 2D panels of various sizes that we can mod to create things like graffiti, signs, pockmarks and closed gates or shopfronts that we can slap on walls as desired. This would solve the 4 side problem and let us mix and match facades.

That would be nice. While you can achieve a similar effect by positioning a road sign right next to the building wall, a dedicated "poster" flavor object would be more convenient.

A little bored this afternoon, so I whipped out this lot for your modding pleasure:

Download the above ... or View the whole folder.

Seven graffiti on a "long window" texture. Originally was going to replace the window texture with a wall texture - like i did in the screenshot a few posts up - but then it would make it impossible to mix and match the graffiti between the different building styles. That, and the recess in the wall doesnt look so out of place when it's filled with a window.

...images were shamelessly ripped off some "Al'Qaeda meets MTV" blog.

More graffiti in action...

[ February 01, 2008, 04:58 PM: Message edited by: The Louch ]

[Cpl Steiner]

The Loach,

Very nice work - far better than my quick effort!

I think the inclusion of "street art" is important for the game as it immediately shouts out at you - "rough area". It is in some ways quite menacing. Anything that helps add to the tension of the game is good IMHO. At the moment CM:SF urban areas look like peaceful suburbs rather than combat zones.

By the way, does anyone know why my balconies were appearing black after I modded my exterior-bottom texture? I know it has something to do with alpha channels but what are they and how do I fix it?

[Roter Stern]

Originally posted by Cpl Steiner:

The Loach,

Very nice work - far better than my quick effort!

By the way, does anyone know why my balconies were appearing black after I modded my exterior-bottom texture? I know it has something to do with alpha channels but what are they and how do I fix it?

Ohh please don't call me that .. although they do seem like a nice fish.

As for the balconies, I encountered the same thing earlier. The solution however, is far simpler than the mysterious alpha-channel.

Look in "\bmp\textures\buildings\balcony textures\" and you should find the 7 default balcony textures, which correspond to the 7 default building styles.

It seems that if you create a new texture set for a building, without creating a corresponding balcony texture, the balcony texture is not loaded at all. At least duplicating an existing balcony texture and renaming it's sequence number to match your new building textures seems to fix the problem.

[handihoc]

How cool are all those!!

'Little' elements like that just add so much reality. Fantastic!

All we need now is a couple of Banksy's.

[ February 01, 2008, 12:52 PM: Message edited by: handihoc ]

[Peter Cairns]

Wait till we start getting "VOTE HILLARY"....

Having said that maybe BF could drum up some cash by selling in game adverts.

Peter.

[missinginreality]

Man your graffiti art is awesome. Totally nice work

[Roter Stern]

Originally posted by missinginreality:

Man your graffiti art is awesome. Totally nice work

Please note my disclaimer above...

...images shamelessly ripped off ...

...however if you're referring to my mad photoshop skills, I thank you!

[missinginreality]

Very honest of you Louch, much integrity. And yes, the photoshopping part of it is where most of the work lies lets face it [although kudos to the graffiti artists themselves too ]

[LongLeftFlank]

Brilliant work! If I have time, I'll try to do some bullet and shell-riddled facades this weekend.

I'll also make another shameless plug here in the wider CMSF forum for my quick and dirty shopfront mod, which is on CMMODs.

Any comments on all this, BFC? How hard would it be to add some placeholder panels and doodads for the modding faithful in patch 1.07? Idle hands being the devils playground and all that?

[Pandur]

iam not into spraying myself but arent this sprays "too good" to be iraqi sprays!?

i tried to look for graffities from iraq and syria the few "good" ones i found where US made, in iraq, the others where simple arabic letters sprayed in black(like the one Cpl steiner did), but no fancy colourfull and "art"full sprays. just massages wich said probably "amis go home" or something along that line.

i mean it even looks strange to see the screenshotss wich are supposed to be from the middle east and than i see clear signs of a subculture wich got its roots far far away and actually does not belong to "syria". not to say syria could not have one or two good sprayers

nevertheless it looks pretty nice. maybe its something for the balkan wars, they surely have more sprays and tags than in iraq

[LongLeftFlank]

I'd assume that in the pre-occupation phase local jihadists wouldn't have had time to do slogans yet, and nonpolitical graffiti would only be seen in poor areas. Big social realist murals of the Assads in heroic profile would be a common and official wall decoration though. You might also see advertising painted directly on walls.

OK, so here's a first shot at giving a building that "lived in" look. The flat black of the shot out windows looks pretty lame (I might try some purple speckles to give an illusion of an interior), but I'm pretty pleased with the bullet holes... based on an actual wall in Baghdad. I'm going to fiddle with this some more before uploading it to CMMODs.

[Cpl Steiner]

Originally posted by LongLeftFlank:

Nice!

I've touted this about 5 times now but in addition to the AC and ATM flavour objects that you can slap on walls now, I'd love to see some blank 2D panels of various sizes...

If BFC are going to do some work to help the modders, it would make sense for them to simply add another layer to the buildings. If you think of a building as being like an onion, the first layer is the wall texture and the second layer is the windows and doors. Currently this is all we have. It would be ideal for the modding community if there was a third layer, between the wall texture and the windows and doors, that would be used for decals of various types. You could then have a load of textures such as decal1, decal2, decal3 etc., that would be selectable for this layer. As with the other textures, the range could be extended by just adding a new number.

I would prefer this method to a doodad approach, if BFC are going to put in some hours/days/weeks to implement a solution. I think it would be simpler to use.

[missinginreality]

Originally posted by LongLeftFlank:

Nice!

If anyone can explain how to retain the alpha channel I'd be grateful to know more. I just use the Windows paintbrush program so that's probably the issue.

LLF - The Alpha channel is a separate greyscale channel saved along with the image. I don't think Paintbrush allows you to edit the Alpha channel however if it gives you a choice on saving you just need to save as a 32 Bit .bmp file though in my version of Paint it doesn't allow that. maybe give GIMP a try?

[LongLeftFlank]

Thanks for the clarification (pardon the pun ) My wife has an old copy of Photoshop Elements somewhere around. I might install that and see what I can do, although that pesky RL keeps getting in my way.

And as soon as 1.06 finishes slouching toward Bethlehem I might actually PLAY this game some, as opposed to modding.

Oh, and I second the idea on having the third texture layer. The doodad approach just seemed like something BFC could give us real quickly in a patch based generic versions of existing objects and let us do the rest. A stopgap measure.

[handihoc]

Louch, I just installed your graffiti pics, but they haven't shown up in the game. Do they only appear in certain types of scenario, or on certain buildings (I've only played the start of Webwings great Ghost campaign, which is sparse village setting, so far).

Or am I still not installing properly? I've installed them, insie their Window_Graffiti folder, inside Z, inside Data, inside Combat Mission Shock Force. Should I unload them from the Window_Graffiti folder or something?

[Roter Stern]

Originally posted by handihoc:

Louch, I just installed your graffiti pics, but they haven't shown up in the game. Do they only appear in certain types of scenario, or on certain buildings (I've only played the start of Webwings great Ghost campaign, which is sparse village setting, so far).

Or am I still not installing properly? I've installed them, insie their Window_Graffiti folder, inside Z, inside Data, inside Combat Mission Shock Force. Should I unload them from the Window_Graffiti folder or something?

They should appear on all 7 default building types, and the scenario setting does not make a difference. And it does sounds like you have them installed correctly.

Keep in mind that "Window Graffiti.zip" (the 7-skin pack ) only includes graffiti on the "longwindow" textures, so they will not show up on plain walls.

So if the scenario does not feature any buildings with those "store front" windows, naturally you will not see the graffiti.

[ February 05, 2008, 06:01 AM: Message edited by: The Louch ]

[handihoc]

Yep, they do show up. Really nice work, dude.

[LongLeftFlank]

Originally posted by Cpl Steiner:

If BFC are going to do some work to help the modders, it would make sense for them to simply add another layer to the buildings. If you think of a building as being like an onion, the first layer is the wall texture and the second layer is the windows and doors. Currently this is all we have. It would be ideal for the modding community if there was a third layer, between the wall texture and the windows and doors, that would be used for decals of various types. You could then have a load of textures such as decal1, decal2, decal3 etc., that would be selectable for this layer. As with the other textures, the range could be extended by just adding a new number.

This third texture layer might also be used to create some cool dynamic effects, such as progressive bullet, shell and shrapnel damage to building surfaces that pockmark the facade and reveal the underlying brickwork or rebar. (Large breaches or holes would need a different function of course). Doesn't seem much more CPU-intensive than some of the other cool effects (e.g. dynamic lighting, smoke) but I'm not an expert in such matters.

If Charles really wanted to go ground up, though, he could start with a "Zero layer" representing the "chassis" of a typical tilt-up or poured cement building (i.e. the cement floors and structural pillars). As the curtain walls and balconies got shot/blown away, a ragged skeleton would emerge, clogged with rubble. This wouldn't apply to more traditional mud brick houses of course (where the walls are load bearing), but it would appear in nearly all multistory or modern structures.

While these skeletal ruins would still offer very decent cover, concealment would be reduced and movement would be both slow and hazardous, especially between floors.