veh skin modding, future add-ons

[G.Mooyman]

Originally posted by ColonelBlimp:

I mean look at Close Combat-a game which even though being pretty ugly to play pushed the boundaries of wargame realism so much that it is still being played today, mainly through being so moddable.

CC is not mod able apart from the mission editor. Most of the mods are in fact hacks, and therefor not legal. Although most game publishers don't object to such re-engineering because it helps the sale of the product in most cases.

[TTorpedo]

CC moding is only possible with the tools made by the comunity. (I think even the CC5 patch was developed by the comunity!).

As for Faces of war, its the most modable game i´ve ever seem, you only need notepad...for the data, and the editor lets you build from maps to missions.

Watt all this games lack is a real dinamic campaign.. but thats another story

PS: Drawde79, i don´t know if "Jasson" made is work after your´s if he did congrats to you to as he did a awesome work.

[Dr.Jones]

Originally posted by Drawde79:

What I meant was that if the filename and location is correct, you may be able to get modified files to override those in the .SFS archives. This worked in Il-2, so maybe it will do in TOW?

An example: if the skin texture file (stored in the .SFS file) for the Tiger tank was "textures\vehicles\tiger1.tga", if you put a modified "tiger1.tga" file in the appropriate folders below the TOW root folder, it would override the original texture. (Hope this makes sense)

In the case of vehicle skins and other graphics, the originals would have to be extracted first, but this wouldn't be necessary for sounds, assuming you knew the format and frequency/quality used by the game.

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by SlapHappy:

BTW, just want to give kudos to Drawde79 for the impressive work he did adding mod content for the SHOWWII game. Well done.

I think my mission generator for S:HOWW2 was used as the basis for the Faces of War dynamic campaign generator - not sure, though. What was Faces of War like compared to S:HOWW2? (never played it) "Soldiers" was a fun game and in some ways the most realistic (at the time) in terms of vehicle damage and weapon modelling, physics, etc - shame the missions were so small and limited. If a map/mission editor had been released for that game I might have stuck with it. I also tried modding Blitzkrieg 2 but gave up due to the difficulty of modifying the campaign missions.

I'm thinking of creating a mission/campaign mod for TOW, with more historically accurate vehicle types for the date and theatre represented in each mission, also soldier weapon loadout changes such as SMGs/rifles for officers (I'll wait for the patch first though - assuming it isn't released before I get the game in the mail; it's possible that this will make some changes to the missions). Not planning on doing any vehicle skins though, even if it is made possible, as there are many people here far more talented than me at this (and the default skins in TOW look pretty good anyway) </font>

[Dr.Jones]

Ok done it, added fictious unit sdkfz_8. Also can be selected in MissionEditor.

br.

Dr.Jones

[Oudy]

Very nice Dr. Jones

Theoretically, could you also alter the characteristics for an added unit. For example, could you add a PzKpfw III Ausf H (with the long-barrel 50mm KwK 39 L/60) and modify its in-game stats? You would have to use the 3-d model of an existing PzKpfw III correct?

This sounds potentially very interesting.

Oudy

[Dr.Jones]

Not theoretically, it can be done practically. This would be very easy to add new PzKpfw as old graphics but with new stats, also i found how to read ammo's.

for more info email me.

br.

Dr.Jones

[ColonelBlimp]

Hopefully if the patch/addon doesn't solve all the problems the modders will be able to do something!

[FinnN]

That's really exciting news - the thought of parallel folder structure did occur to me when Dr.Jones sent me the SFS extractor to look at, but the mods here said not to discuss extracting files so I didn't get around to taking a look.

Now, the question is - if someone wanted to make a new unit and share it, let's say a captured French Char B1 tank in German service (even the texture is already there in this case), it'd mean distributing either the model folder or the extraction tool. What's the official line on this?

I guess with textures it's an easier situation as someone could easily make some templates based on the original files, but without using them at all (I think I might actually do this) - but again it depends on the extraction tool to make these templates. Again, is this something that would be tolerated?

Have fun

Finn