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SupaDetail! German Infantry - Work in Progress


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As I've mentioned before I'm working on a complete overhaul of the German infantry in the game, this consists of a number of bits

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  • A database to simplify editing and creating the units and their equipment, ranks, etc, etc</font>
  • An exporter which creates the text files that the game uses from the database</font>
  • Textures</font>
  • New squads, split into natural (and historical) firing teams</font>

I was hoping to get something done that could be shared properly before going away for 2 weeks on Tuesday, but as this is unlikely now I think I thought I'd share some pics of work in progress.

First of all the new squads - what I've done is split them up into two (or in a few cases three) teams. One for each LMG team and another with the rifle/SMG team (squads with no LMG I've just split down the middle). This may not seem like much, but it makes a big difference to gameplay - you can double click on each natural unit, order them to give covering fire etc, then double click on the second half and get them to move without worrying about accidentally sending them off. You can kind-of do this already by assigning keys, but it's very fiddly and not as quick as simply double clicking. Hard to show in a pic, but here you go - and early war rifle squad, lmg with 2 assistants and the rifle team commanded by the man with smg:

teaser_firingteams.jpg

Now all of this would be a bit dull without new uniforms, so I've been working on them too. I've almost finished setting up my photoshop templates, done most of the tunic variations, now working on the camo smocks, then just have the parka sets to go, plus some without marching boots. Here's a sample of the ss-camo, with one random one from the tunics (the SA texture):

swatches_taster.jpg

From top to bottom, left to right: Peas 44 B, Italian camo trousers; an autumn plane tree pattern; smock made from Italian camo; palm trees with clumps (autumn); a summer plane tree pattern; palm trees with clumps (summer); SA Militia (Styria - used in anti-partisan operations in Slovenia, later merged into the Volkssturm); a summer burred edge pattern; another autumn plane tree pattern. These are still works in progress (things like shoulder boards, collars and insignia haven't been worked on these yet), but should give some idea of the range I'm aiming at.

Both the textures and models are fairly low resolution unfortunately, but I think they still look OK in the game and fine unless you get too close - this is the one from the top left:

taster_HJ.jpg

Have fun

Finn

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Camo looks great, cant wait to use them in combat :cool:

Where are the uniforms and the default face stored, i have only skins.ini and body.msh but no tga files in the human folder :(

[ June 29, 2007, 06:51 PM: Message edited by: rofl ]

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Originally posted by rofl:

Where are the uniforms and the default face stored, i have only skins.ini and body.msh but no tga files in the human folder :(

It's probably because they're not in the filelist.txt file that comes with the extractor as the one included is quite out of date. In the post at the modding forums I've outlined what you need to do to get the filelist.txt up-to-date. The time consuming (and boring) bit is running the game and opening/closing all the missions etc to catch most the file names with filemon. If no-one has done it for the patched version by the time I get back I'll do it and upload a newer txt file, but I don't have time before going away.

Glad people are liking the WIP, hopefully it won't take too long to get something together for release when I get back.

Have fun

Finn

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Tom3d

In case FinnN has already left for France:

There is currently no (known) way to manipulate the .msh files the represent the underlying shapes and polys of the models. I have done some looking around to try and find a generic model "opener" which would let me at least view the model parts. No success so far. The textures, however, are simply .tga formatted files and can be opened with IrfanViewer and the full plug-in pack for Irfan.

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Nope, leaving on Monday - can't wait!

The 3D textures are dxt5 flavour DDS files, but named as .tga files. DDS is a native DirectX graphics format, so it can be decompressed by the graphics card rather than the CPU. TGA files would probably work, but best to stick to DDSes for that reason. There's a variety of tools that can read and write them, I'm using the Photoshop plugin from NVidia.

SlapHappy is correct though, currently we can't create or modify the .msh files - so we can only change textures or (in the case of vehicles) connect parts (which have separate .msh files) together in different ways. I think that and the 3D terrain are the only two things which aren't potentially moddable at the moment, and as the .msh files are probably a custom format it'll need someone with some experience analysing that sort of thing to make any progress. This is what Dr.Jones has found out so far:

http://tow.sieber-markus.de/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=21

Have fun

Finn

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Awesome work! CAnt wait till all these mods start pouring in. Its a shame that it seems you(Finn) and some of the other guys should have been on the development team for this game, and maybe we would have got more of what we really wanted! Thanks alot to you men. You really are gifted. Hope you have a good vacation Finn.

Mike

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  • 4 months later...

I'm not dead! Out of the blue an expansion pack for Crusader Kings came out and I've been playing that for a while - I tried to be strong, really I did!

Anyways, I'm looking at restarting work soon - I'll get the in-progress version out in the next few days so possibly others can help me get it out the door quicker.

Have fun

Finn

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