My first soldier addon...

[Chomps]

Hi, there!  I am new to addon-making, so bear with me...

After requesting a couple times that someone make a pack of the original soldiers minus certain parts of the gear, I have decided to do it myself.

Mainly, this addon will have the same old BIS West soliders without the bedroll, which I see several people seem to be working on.  I intend to try to make some other changes as well, like making the helmet slightly larger, having versions without the helmet, having versions with different amounts of gear, and maybe making slight adjustments to the config.

Okay, so I set up oxygen, got the old demo version, and extracted all the stuff I need.

Although I am a beginner, I picked up a thing or two from hanging around the forums.  I know I will have to edit all the LODs to avoid the model from looking silly from medium distance.  I intend on adding a handgun proxy, I am sure there is a tutorial for that.  Also, I will be sure to follow the tutorial for enabling randomized faces.

Still, I have some questions (numbered for your convenience   )...

1) I got the textures on the guy in the Buldozer preview by just dumping the entire extracted demo "Data" directory into a "Data" directory in the root directory.  When I look through the list of textures used by the entire model, it is somewhat lengthy.  When I pack these guys up into the pbo, I obviously will not take the entire Data directory and include a hundred Ural textures.  Do I need to manually go through the list and pick out the used textures or is there a simpler way?

2) The American flag patch and the medic's armband in the demo were seperate parts of the model with their own texture, which looked rather crappy.  How was this fixed in the final version?  Were they just added directly to the arm textures?

3) On the Fire Geometry, it shows two boxes which seem to me to be positions for an RPG/LAW launcher and a rifle.  Is this true?  And if so, would this allow me to change the position of the launcher on the person's back?

Any other tips or suggestions would be great.

Here is a shot of an officer I am making that has no bedroll or equipment pouches, which could be used as some sort of VIP in cutscenes or whatever.  The progress screenshot shows a whopping ten minutes of effort, I sure hope the rest is that easy!  ;D

[img removed]chomp_officer.jpg[/img]

Oh, and by the way, I tend to be a huge quitter and quit on my projects before they are done, so do not hold me to this.

[PunkerSXDX]

Hey Man, I'm doing Soldiers with out Bedrolls too, wanna team up? and we'll release a Pack  

[Chomps]

Sure!  ;D

I may be very busy most of the time however, and I am not the most committed person, but there is no rush I figure.  PM me and we will work out some organization.  I have an idea of what soldiers to include.

[major asshole]

Hey I have one of those...

[Chomps]

Did you make that one yourself, or is that the addon from a while back that added one guy without a bedroll?  Or was it a pack?

[major asshole]

G'day

Did it myself

[teaCup]

Do I need to manually go through the list and pick out the used textures or is there a simpler way?

No lazyboy. You have to do it manually.  

And if so, would this allow me to change the position of the launcher on the person's back?

It's not the boxes in the FireGeoLOD that define the position of the weapons. It's the proxys (-ies?) in each LOD. Try moving them, see what happens..

Cheers

[KevBaz]

erm isnt that the demo model but with a few things deleted?

[Chomps]

erm isnt that the demo model but with a few things deleted?

That is exactly what it is.  I have to start small, you know.

Well, major asshole, I see you have gotten a lot further than I have  ;D, but if anything this will at least teach me more about addon making so I can work on other things.  Seems like a good beginner's project.

Heheh, teaCup, I thought I could find an easy way out.  Oh well, it is not that many, and should be fewer with sections of the model deleted.

Yeah, I was not really thinking there with the Fire Geometry, I remember now that proxies are what determine the positions of extra pieces.  I will play around with the proxies and see that happens like you suggest, but it seems to me that it will mess something up, otherwise other people would have done it before.

[Chomps]

And I was right... I used Bibmi's Teaser model to test moving the LAW proxy, to make it lower on the person's back, and got all excited that it worked, until I armed the launcher...

You knew this would happen, didn't you, teaCup?  ;D

[major asshole]

G'day

No biggie here Chomps just changing textures. My dude is an ODOL it only has 18 textures compared to 53 or so for the MLOD.Much less work.

L8R Dude

[Chomps]

Hey, major as*hole, maybe two things you could help me with...

First, what is the difference between MLOD and ODOL?

Second, I tried to get my edited model in game, and I have all the textures in the file, and it shows up correctly in Buldozer, but when I load it up in game, it is missing a couple of the main textures (namely, the entire front and back).  The sides, hat, shoes are all fine, just the entire chest, part of arms, front and back of legs is completely white.  I checked the texture files that correspond to these areas and they all are in the pbo, and all seem to look okay when I view them in TexView.  What could I be doing wrong?

[major asshole]

G'day

MLODs come from the demo version of OFP, ODOLs come from the full version.With MLODs you can edit the actual model as well as the textures, ODOLs...only the textures.I still edit MLODs the old way...with p3d2obj,3DS max etc. so any O2 stuff I can't be of much help.White I think, usually means missing textures tho.

hope this helps some

L8R

[Chomps]

Yeah, I knew that white means no texture, which is why I checked the directory.  I can open the texture that does not show up in game with TexView, and it must be applied because it shows up in Buldozer.

I am guessing there is some kind of incompatability of the demo texture.