Troops and weapon skins

[undercovergeek]

Are the skins on troops totally moddable, as opposed to just a change of uniform pattern or colour - im thinking of an entirely different change to the way the model is presented

And is weapon damage moddable - weapon A does more damage than weapon B?

[Jonny(FGM)]

I think the answer is not without a great amount of difficulty, and no

[undercovergeek]

bugger - thats the end of that then - ive read the posts and i understand why and this isnt an arguement, more of a checking before i waste any time - but the final answer is you can mod the colour and appearance of a uniform and a face but thats it? if i wanted to make different sized troops - taller, bulkier, not all regulation height and weight - theres no way to change this? and no way to add bits of uniform, or bigger, bulkier body armour?

[Jonny(FGM)]

No, I think BF hasn't released any of the 3d models, or they have but the plugin they use to alter them is homemade and they haven't released that. This was discussed in another thread very recently but I can't seem to find the thread.

[undercovergeek]

thanks very much - im not sure im relieved ive just saved 6 months of hard work or upset that i cant change it - no worries

[Ryujin]

What johnny said is correct, making or altering models requires a set of plugins for some modeling program. Editing the "code" is also tricky, I haven't had any luck there yet.

The best you can do is swap around the models. For example I turned the UAZ into an Iraqi Police pickup truck using the existing pickup truck model and swapping it for the UAZ model, but you can't make a whole new model.

I'm still working on figuring out how to change the models, but scripting a plugin isn't my area of expertise.

[LongLeftFlank]

The best you can do is swap around the models. For example I turned the UAZ into an Iraqi Police pickup truck using the existing pickup truck model and swapping it for the UAZ model, but you can't make a whole new model.

Interesting..... So just for example, you might be able to slap a .50cal HMMWV skin onto a BRDM and thereby create something that LOOKS like a Humvee but behaves under fire more like a Humvee gun truck (i.e. thicker armour than the basic passenger Humvee and a well protected heavy MG (DShK is pretty close to M2HB) turret, but still wheeled and vulnerable to RPG fire / IEDs. Wouldn't have any additional passenger capacity of course, and you'd want to swap a US crew in for the Syrian tank jocks (unless you were modding Oddball's tank unit from Kelly's Heroes)

A Sherman can give you a very nice... edge.

[Ryujin]

Interesting..... So just for example, you might be able to slap a .50cal HMMWV skin onto a BRDM and thereby create something that LOOKS like a Humvee but behaves under fire more like a Humvee gun truck (i.e. thicker armour than the basic passenger Humvee and a well protected heavy MG (DShK is pretty close to M2HB) turret, but still wheeled and vulnerable to RPG fire / IEDs. Wouldn't have any additional passenger capacity of course, and you'd want to swap a US crew in for the Syrian tank jocks (unless you were modding Oddball's tank unit from Kelly's Heroes)

A Sherman can give you a very nice... edge.

Actually, yes that may just be possible. So far I've only used pretty simple vehicles to test to avoid a tear in the space-time continuum, but I could in theory make HMMWV gun trucks and allow for both IA and US HMMWVs to be in the same scenario. I haven't really tested how the armor system will react with that kind of swap. I'll give it a shot later, I'll try an extreme example like the crazy offspring of a T-72 and a taxi cab.

[LongLeftFlank]

And a fleet of pickup and taxi borne VBIEDs would seem easy too. You're really pushing the envelope on this game! BFC oughtta be putting you on contract.

[undercovergeek]

so ive created the exploded folder or it did it for me!! whats the best tool for opening mds files for me to have a look at the contents?

[Ryujin]

.mds are infantry models. You can open them with hexadecimal editor, but this will only let you do some limited fiddling, not change the models. You can change the names of textures and animations it calls and that's about it.

Speaking of which I have some bad news. While I could swap a UAZ for a picup truck and get decent results, swaping a BRDM for a HMMWV seems much more complicated.

Most likely the models wock on a series of proxies, "door1", "seat1", "gunbarrel", which are references of locations in space relative to the model center to place soldiers in seats and animate slections of geometry. The UAZ and Pickup most likely use the same proxies (2 doors, driver seat, passenger seats). BRDM to HMMWV could maybe done with some hex editing of the proxy names within the model, but it's a mess.

This isn't so much pushing the envelope as trying to build a house, but someone withheld all the nails and tools so your trying to do it with string and superglue. A real pain to achieve what are very simple things for the developers. CMSF wasn't really built with modding in mind so it's a slow and tough process.

[undercovergeek]

its the infantry models i want to try and change..... if its very very difficult i will persist, if its impossible ill just sulk! just need to know which one

[Ryujin]

If you want to make/edit 3d geometry, I would lean more towards impossible, unless you know how to write a plug-in to open them.

[undercovergeek]

to be totally honest i was going to try and change the marines to be a bit more technically advanced by about ooooo 40,000 years and make the Syrians, you know, a bit.... errr green?

[Ryujin]

I hope that wasn't a Warhammer 40k reference......

[Wodin]

Thats certainly ambitious...would love to see if it works and in action aswell...but I have a feeling you will find it difficult....BUT didn't battlefront want others to use the engine for different settings...hence Afganistan...if so surely it must be possible..unless you need a software programme that BFC own\developed..

[Ryujin]

..unless you need a software programme that BFC own\developed..

That's the catch, you need BFs set of plugins/tools/etc. Otherwise it's very hard to do anything beyond very simple tweaks as you have to exploit what little bits you can actually control and that isn't much at all.

[undercovergeek]

if i cant change the size of the armour and the appearance of weapons - its simply a no go - i searched 40k and came up with a big hit when CMSF first came out and Battlefront waded in (not saying wrongly) explaining they would never release the mod tools as it would fracture the community and weigh them down with tech issues for something they didnt even design, unless it was an official approach, but then its an official game and then theyd got stomped by licencing regulations - my other thoughts are a SWAT mod im investigating

[LongLeftFlank]

Has anyone out there done any new faces for the US forces? I'd like to see Latino and Asian (e.g. Filipino or Korean) face in addition to the white and black dudes. I know M1A1 was working on a Korean War II mod but he's dropped off the boards for some time, to our sorrow.