arma3_texture

[lethal condor]

Urm... what exactly you wanted to do?

[full quarry]

These are multimaterial uv mappings

For tiling textures

The other uv set contains the 1 uv space mapping for mask and other 1 space textures

[full quarry]

These are not broken

this is how its supposed to be

what are you trying to do?

[lethal condor]

We still have no idea what's your intention

[full quarry]

where is the building from?

[lethal condor]

If you want to repaint a multimat building, you need to edit texture itself and rvmat

Also GM's Terrain Samples are not really good for an actual game but just for the terrain creation

[full quarry]

building retexturing is basically done via the rvmat

since the rvmat assigns the textures to the mask colors

but also are GM buildings even retexturable with hidden selections?

as buildings rarely are

as hidden selections do not work in terrain placed objects

you would need separate p3d for each color variation for terrain work

and you dont have access to GM building textures Id wager either

so what you want to do may not be possible at all

[full quarry]

there is second UV set for the mask

check out the multimaterial wiki page

from Mondkalb?

[spark shore]

any way to add ambient shadow to a building without using multimaterials?

I guess with an MC texture but is it useable without multimats?

[full quarry]

other shaders use it and AS/ADS too

like super shader

[spark shore]

but how can I make AS work on tiled textures in super?

does super support multiple UV unwraps?
I might be missing something

[full quarry]

it does yes

but

why are you not using multi material...

[spark shore]

its just too frustrating, especially on buildings that are a mix of metal and concrete

[full quarry]

its just better for performance

@fresh hill you know this guy by any chance?

[spark shore]

yeah I know but thankfully its not an issue for what I'm doing
I usually never drawcall any more than 5 texture at once, and not even that high res
anywhere I can read about using AS on a different UV?

[full quarry]

second uv set, change tex to tex1 on stages you want to use second uvmap

basically same thing as with multimaterial

[spark shore]

so you're claiming you don't know the only person who can give you access to those files?

[full quarry]

👆

[spark shore]

its neither hard nor allowed my guy

[full quarry]

but you know thats forbidden

this means bye bye

where do these thiefs keep popping up

[spark shore]

I think its just new people who don't understand how it works
not many games are as strict as this

[full quarry]

Its common sense if you have to use tools to bypass "security"

its not legit

well now it looks all weird

but anyway

sorry @fresh hill for the ping.

[tired zenith]

I figure this might be the right channel. I've tried as much troubleshooting as I can on my own. I'm running into a problem when trying to incorporate markers into my mod; these are .paa files, both identical in dimensions and the creation process, but for some reason only one of them appears as-intended in game. The icon on the left is functioning correctly, but the icon on the right is semi-transparent with no color when placed on the map. I was going to post a screengrab of this issue, but it seems images are disabled here. Here is my config code;

class CfgMarkers
 {
    class hlsep_marker_union
    {
      name="Union";
      icon="hl2soundspack\icons\icon_union.paa";
      color[]={1,1,1,1};
      size=32;
      shadow = 0;
      scope = 2;
      markerClass = "Flags";
    };
    class hlsep_marker_lambdares
    {
      name="Lambda Spray";
      icon="hl2soundspack\icons\spray_lambdares.paa";
      color[]={1,1,1,1};
      size=32;
      shadow = 0;
      scope = 2;
      markerClass = "Flags";
    };
};```

Has anyone any idea on how to correct this issue of the .paa ingame appearing faded out grey and almost entirely transparent?

[full quarry]

if you use the working one on the non working one does it work=

you can also link pictures

[tired zenith]

I'm not sure what you mean by this - they are 2 different markers, but their cfg in the code is identical between both here

hlsep_marker_lambdares works perfectly as intended, hlsep_marker_union does not

https://i.imgur.com/upImcr6.jpg

[full quarry]

you sure its just not like that?

[tired zenith]

just not like what?

[full quarry]

what the icon should look like?

also what resolution are they?

[tired zenith]

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/half-life/images/3/34/Wasteland_Scanner_logo.svg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/250?cb=20100327180702&path-prefix=en

both are 512x512

[full quarry]

set its color to 1,0,0,1

[tired zenith]

will give that a shot

[full quarry]

also you should use _ca texture suffix

[tired zenith]

first time messing with markers, i only found this buried deep in the bi forums lol - why _ca?

[full quarry]

that converts with alpha transparency

[tired zenith]

would that be .paa_ca or do you mean hlsep_marker_lambdares _ca

[full quarry]

check pinned messages for wiki page about texture naming

[tired zenith]

will do

[full quarry]

name_ca.paa

or name_ca.tga/png -> converts to name_ca.paa

[tired zenith]

unfortunately changing the 1, 0, 0, 1 had no effect, will try with _ca

with _ca also seems to make no difference

the icons all appear as intended inside texview, too

[fresh hill]

Ehh late to the party 😄

GM buildings are not set up with Hidden Selections because they are primarily intended for terrain use, which does not support this aspect.

Indeed the terrain samples are just to allow a succesful pack via Addonbuilder, they are not suitable for any re-usage or rework and subsequent release.

[full quarry]

yeh the person was shown the door.

[tired zenith]

i found out the issue; markers seem to be restricted exclusively to 256x256 - not resized ingame - must be 256x256 to default render color/alpha

once i tried that, fixed

[full quarry]

👍 👍

Qwest completed

[torpid lance]

Does anyone know how the stars are added onto the F4 Phantom when you get an kill on an enemy Mig?

[vapid sandal]

anyone know if its possible to create a mod like RS rain textures that doesnt require editing for every single piece of gear, instead it just changes the shinyness and overlays a rain texture

if an overlay isnt possible, a system that is extremley easy for others to create compats

[lethal condor]

No, RV4 doesn't do such overlay depends on the weather or something

[full quarry]

It's built into the model. It's not possible to add to other things only on things built anew

[livid knot]

Is arma capable of getting a 2d uv coordinate based on the selections of a character? An example being, if I plugin the forefinger selection, would I be able to get out the area that it takes up in the 2d texture?

[full quarry]

no

[livid knot]

Darn, thanks

[full quarry]

one way to spot where to texture connects with model is with uv checker texture

[livid knot]

Id need it to operate procedurly on any uniform. Cant check em all :(

[full quarry]

then no

😅

[livid knot]

Im trying to understand some stuff with Multimaterials. On this page:https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Multimaterial it mentions a "Mask" map, is this like a traditional mask map? I.e. black and white shows/hides part?

[full quarry]

BRGB as in Black, Red, Green, Blue color map

each color represents a set of color,normalmap,smdi textures that are commonly tiling textures so a surface can be covered with more crisp pixel density

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Mondkalb's_MultiMaterial_Tutorial

this is also linked there

[livid knot]

Ya I read that, just didnt understand what it was alluding to, thanks :)

[livid knot]

I asked in scripting yesterday but maybe that was the wrong place for it. Is there any documention on how arma applies the blood decal to the uniform of a unit when they're injured?

[full quarry]

its a damage state rvmat that changes the MC layer/stage

such rvmat would be done on each used rvmat

[livid knot]

So its specific to just the uniform its made for as apposed to a decal that gets slapped on top?

I think I was able to find some info on it based on your description, thanks again

[full quarry]

@livid knot so its this thing

kinda crosses over to config making but it involves textures too so should be fine

so each rvmat on a uniform, say the first one cloft1.rmat has then 2 more variants for wounded and killed states

sometimes these are the same

[livid knot]

Thankyou for giving me the reference, which config is that screenshot from? So I can check it out

[full quarry]

from my all in on config dump

but seems to be class C_man_1:

this stuff is also very easy to break with retexturing if one uses hiddenSelectionMaterials and do not define the new injury materials for the new rvmat

and if rvmat uses MC stage for dirt or camo then those need their own wounded versions too

so it can lead into a big number of extra rvmats and supporting textures

[livid knot]

Ya I'm not sure whether ill actually be using it, definitely seems very convoluted. I more just wanted to understand how it worked, I was hoping it was an applied decal and not a whole new texture, but alas....

Anyway thanks for your help on the subject!

[full quarry]

oh it would be a lot simpler if you could just say woundOverlay = wound_pattern_01.paa

or better yet woundpattern[] = {woundpattern_01, woundpattern_02,woundpattern_04} and so on

one can dream

ah even even better would be some sort of different damage type specific wound patterns

and ammo type could define what pattern it makes

buuut thats just dreaming

unless wink wink enfusion could have something like this wink wink

[tidal herald]

Is there a way to view the contents of RVMATs in-game? Specifically, those that are locked away inside a CDLC's EBOs.

[full quarry]

no, but cdlc people quite often share such info when asked

[lethal condor]

Can't you if you have the file path and https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/loadConfig command (2.10)?

[full quarry]

Can't access the file

[iron thunder]

With loadConfig/loadFile you can (if you know the path)

[calm tangle]

i'm trying to import an object to arma 3. I created the 3d model on blender, used a jpg normal map (converted in tga for object builder) and converted the model in obj. I mported the model in object builder, selected all my faces and applyied the tga converted normal map. I created 2 uv sets so i can used the 0 for a custom color texture and the 1 for the normal mal. But when u try to open the object in arma 3 editor i have an error wwhen i try to place the object saying "Make not available 'c:/users/erc/documents/arma 3 mods/terra/wall.tga' ". How can Arma 3 ask me for a file that's not even included in the game ?

[calm tangle]

nevermind i found the solution

but i have a new question: why are my textures being displayed with the normal map overcoming my texture ?

i have hald the object with the normal map color and half with the texture color

[calm tangle]

here is the image
https://ibb.co/v417P6q

the texture is the green part

[severe rune]

That doesn't look like a normal map

is your texture power of 2 size?

[calm tangle]

it is a normal map downloaded from https://ambientcg.com/ (excellent free website for textures) and i reconverted it into png (because imageToPaa didn't want to convert to original file) with photoshop and then into paa with texView

should i have converted it to tga with blender instead of photoshop ?

[calm tangle]

i tried to convert the normp map into tga with blender, now arma 3 doesn't even want to display the shapes of the normal map converted with photoshop

[lethal condor]

is your texture power of 2 size?

[calm tangle]

yes, 2048x2048

[livid knot]

Are you able to apply a normal map like how Aryes is? I was under the impression it has to be done in the rvmat

[full quarry]

This is correct, normalmap is assigned through the rvmat material file. Only _CO _CA color textures are assigned directly to model texture slot.

@calm tangle

Also check toy the naming rules on wiki

[calm tangle]

here is my rvmat
ambient[] = {1, 1, 1, 1};
diffuse[] = {1, 1, 1, 1};
forcedDiffuse[] = {0, 0, 0, 1};
emmisive[] = {0, 0, 0, 1};
specular[] = {1, 1, 1, 1};
specularPower = 150;
PixxelShaderID = "Super";
VertexShaderID = "Super";

class Stage1 {
texture = "IARTS_Terra\data\wall_normal.paa";
uvSource = "tex";

class uvTransform {
aside[] = {1, 0, 0};
up[] = {0, 1, 0};
dir[] = {0, 0, 0};
pos[] = {0, 0, 0};
};
};

[full quarry]

It's broken.

You need all the rest if the stages too.

Set up P drive so you get the unpacked Arma data to use as reference and get the default super rvmat from a3\data_f as base for your new rvmat

[livid knot]

There is also a handy online tool here that generates some basic rvmat styles https://jdtools.dev/rvmat/index.html

[calm tangle]

now my texture is not broken anymore but i can't get the normal map displayed

ambient[]={1,1,1,1};
diffuse[]={1,1,1,1};
forcedDiffuse[]={0,0,0,1};
emmisive[]={0,0,0,0};
specular[]={1,1,1,1};
specularPower=60;
PixelShaderID="Super";
VertexShaderID="Super";
class Stage1
{
texture="\IARTS_Terra\data\wall_normal.paa";
uvSource="tex";
class uvTransform
{
aside[]={1,0,0};
up[]={0,1,0};
dir[]={0,0,0};
pos[]={0,0,0};
};
};
class Stage2
{
texture="#(argb,8,8,3)color(0.5,0.5,0.5,0.5,DT)";
uvSource="tex";
class uvTransform
{
aside[]={1,0,0};
up[]={0,1,0};
dir[]={0,0,0};
pos[]={0,0,0};
};
};
class Stage3
{
texture="#(argb,8,8,3)color(0.0,0.0,0.0,0.0,MC)";
uvSource="tex";
class uvTransform
{
aside[]={1,0,0};
up[]={0,1,0};
dir[]={0,0,0};
pos[]={0,0,0};
};
};
class Stage4
{
texture="#(argb,8,8,3)color(1.0,1.0,1.0,1.0,AS)";
uvSource="tex";
class uvTransform
{
aside[]={1,0,0};
up[]={0,1,0};
dir[]={0,0,0};
pos[]={0,0,0};
};
};
class Stage5
{
texture="#(argb,8,8,3)color(1,0,1,0,SMDI)";
uvSource="tex";
class uvTransform
{
aside[]={1,0,0};
up[]={0,1,0};
dir[]={0,0,0};
pos[]={0,0,0};
};
};
class Stage6
{
texture="#(ai,64,64,1)fresnel(0.4,0.2)";
uvSource="tex";
class uvTransform
{
aside[]={1,0,0};
up[]={0,1,0};
dir[]={0,0,0};
pos[]={0,0,0};
};
};
class Stage7
{
texture="\a3\data_F\env_co.paa";
useWorldEnvMap="true";
uvSource="tex";
class uvTransform
{
aside[]={1,0,0};
up[]={0,1,0};
dir[]={0,0,0};
pos[]={0,0,0};
};
};

[full quarry]

Start from the correct naming suffixes

And is your project on P drive?

[calm tangle]

yes it is

i've seen videos where the exact same rvmat works. I don't understand why mine is not working

[full quarry]

most likely the path in rvmat does not match the file structure that gets packed into p3d

also earlier you meantioned different uv sets? how many uv sets does your model have?

[calm tangle]

i corrected the uv set number, since i have my noHQ in the rvmat, i only have one uv set

[full quarry]

👍

whats the folder structure on P drive?

[calm tangle]

problem solved you were right, the game couldn't find the nohq file i need to correct this line in the rvmat:
texture="\IARTS_Terra\data\wall_normal.paa";
the right syntax is:
texture="IARTS_Terra\data\wall_normal.paa";

[calm tangle]

Is there a way to include a roughtness or mettalic effect in the rvmat ? I also have a roughtness image wich gives a marble effect to my object and i would like include itin the rvmat with the nohq.

[full quarry]

no Arma does not use metal/rough PBR shading

it uses older Specular/Gloss type of shaders which require bit dffierent kind of textures

there are articles about the differences online

[dense peak]

Do arma 3 textures have the capability to be spawned with specularity?

@full quarry

As in created on the ground?

[full quarry]

I do not understand the question.

[dense peak]

I want to create water puddles using a texture is it possible?

[lethal condor]

A vanilla object already does

[dense peak]

How?

@lethal condor

[lethal condor]

What how? You wanted to know what?

The rvmat it uses?

[dense peak]

No I want to create water puddles etc

[lethal condor]

If you want, you can do it?

[dense peak]

Yes but how?

[lethal condor]

Using a custom rvmat?

[dense peak]

I've never used rvmats ever.

[lethal condor]

Then learn?

[dense peak]

Resources?

[lethal condor]

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/RVMAT_basics

Also some template rvmats that located in a3\data_f

[edgy robin]

how tf am i suppose to figure out what goes where on the retexture

😭

[zinc jasper]

hey i just finished making a texture for the int of the amv-7 and im trying to test it using scripts but it wont show up it only shows the og texture

[lethal condor]

Always tell us what you've done alongside the consequence

[lethal condor]

You can use UV Checker texture to figure out which part goes where

[zinc jasper]

well i made a texture for the passenger compartment of amv-7 marshall and i put in the code this setObjectTexture [3, "APC_Wheeled_01_NOD_int_CO.jpeg"]; and i go to check the interior of the amv-7 marshall and it doesn't change from the vanilla texture.

no errors at all so the file name is correct

[lethal condor]

Interior can't be retextured

[zinc jasper]

dang

thank you for your help

[dense peak]

@lethal condor I was able to learn from someone elses code.

They just used paa files

[dense peak]

Turns out ArmA 3 came preloaded with water textures

In the form of water spills

[lethal condor]

Not even sure what you mean

[dense peak]

WaterSpill_01_Medium_Foam_F

etc they are puddles

[lethal condor]

And what do you mean by preloaded

[dense peak]

It's built in

Already existing

[lethal condor]

...Yes? It is. I don't even know what your question is anymore

[dense peak]

I asked how to create ambient puddles

When it rains, that was my goal

[lethal condor]

Let me rephrase: what is unclear

[dense peak]

Well right now I am toying with the idea of spawning raindrops based on the bounding box of a building

Actually this is better suited to scripting

[lethal condor]

Let's say I can make the red reflections (this red color is just to exaggerate the reflections, doesn't represent the final product) in daytime/daylight, and I wanted to make it so will appear in night time in a custom lightsource. What I could do if there is a possibility?

[calm tangle]

how do i make a glass texture on an object in Arma 3 ? What color do i give the object ?

[full quarry]

transparent one

or semi transparent one, depending on what kind of look you want on it

[calm tangle]

thanks

[lethal condor]

Context?

🤔

[normal basin]

Im having an issue where arma is not accepting my opacity channel in my smdi export preset, so I can't make thinks like lenses have opacity, anyone know a fix for this in substance or have a updated preset?

[full quarry]

smdi does not control the transparency of texture

its the alpha in _CA texture

you can edit that manually too in image editors

[normal basin]

Thanks goat 👍

[lean osprey]

Anyone have A3 NATO MTP camo template they would like the share

[onyx rover]

Hi all, I've got a couple of questions (one of which unfortunately doesn't belong here, but Im not sure where else to ask as this is a two pronged question), but I wanted to make sure that it was okay to do some things before I even started into a process for it.

1. Is it okay to re-texture arma 3 backpacks and create a mod for those re-textures? Say for example, I create a new texture for a carryall, but I want to reference the vanilla carryall backpack model for the texture to be on.
2. Is it okay to call said carryall a different name, say for example I give it a new moniker like "Allcarry", while also having more space in it for what I want to do with it.
   Thank you for any responses 🙂

[full quarry]

1 yes as long as your mod does not repackage the vanilla models and the models use hiddenselections
2 yes you can name your new items as you like

[onyx rover]

Good to know! Thank you so much!

[calm tangle]

How much margin to we have to give each UV element so object builder can display it normally ? Since yesterday i keep trying to use a texture baked with blender in object builder but i don't know why the even when i see the uv layer correctly set bulldoze doesn't display it correctly it's taking extra margin and i don't want this

[full quarry]

It should just display it as far as I know.

Something must go wrong in your process

[calm tangle]

This is what i keep telling myself, i managed to make it work once si i thing something is wrong with my process i will make a video. I tried baking the texture with various margin and various UV projections but object builder doesn't want to display it correctly

[full quarry]

If you compare uv mapping between source an in OB are they different? Does the model have multiple uvSets ?

[calm tangle]

No i tested the texture with the fbx model on Blender and everything works

[full quarry]

Link pictures?

[abstract holly]

is there a wiki page or a dev post somewhere about the new thermals, and what if anything they require from a modder standpoint?

is it just an entirely seamless process for modded content and no changes are needed on my end, or will i have to produce some kind of new TI texture?

[full quarry]

as far as I've seen, no details on that.

[tropic totem]

I am trying texture editing on arma 3 for the first time and was wondering how to export the file to a jpeg from Photoshop. I seem to only have PNG/JPG available and when I export them to the file, it shows that (filename).jpeg is not found

and do you need to export the file or just save it?

[full quarry]

Why do you want jpeg specifically?

Jpeg is same as jpg though

[tropic totem]

Bc the video I watched said vehicle/skins in vanilla Arma only can read jpeg

oh is it?

[full quarry]

No

Gawd

Ditch that video

[tropic totem]

haha

im just trying to reskin a offroad to see if I can get it to work

[full quarry]

Well you will want to save your edited texture as png or tga. The file you will want to convert to Armas texture format .Paa

And you will want to use correct texture name suffix of _CO

Name_CO.png converts to name_co.paa

With Arma 3 tools texview or imagetopaa tools

[tropic totem]

Should I export my file I currently have edited back to texview?

[calm tangle]

This is what my building is supposed to look like
https://i.ibb.co/qRhPG4j/ob3.png

This is my uv set in object builder:
https://i.ibb.co/C0BzGjx/ob1.png

This is what i get in bulldozer:
https://i.ibb.co/tcVgk9H/ob2.png

The black spaces you can see in my uv layer is emply space, there is supposed to be nothing there

[calm tangle]

I tested the uv set in object builder and i don't know why OB is taking around half a centimeter of margin for each UV element

When i resize an element and leave half a centimeter magin it's correctly displayed

[frail stone]

For a building like this one, you should start using multi materials
https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Multimaterial

[severe rune]

Nothing you do there, same as old thermals.

But something that was also added for modders is better effects for optics.
In vehicle optics you can now control the resolution and blur, and implement digital/optical zoom
I've seen some screenshots of what RHS was experimenting with that and its amazing

Also Render to texture displays thing were updated, before you could only use whitehot/blackhot modes. Now you can use all thermal imaging modes on them

[full quarry]

What resolution texture you have there?

And your sharpness/ vertex normals have not exported out right, the smooth shading messes up the view a bit

And do you have rvmat assigned too?

[calm tangle]

The baked texture is 2048x2048, each UV island have 0.001 margin and i baked the image with 2px extra margin. I don't have rvmat assigned yet. I haven't exported the normals yet.

[full quarry]

You really should make it use multimaterial though. But the margin should not matter at all.

Uv should not care where it is. Something else must be happening

[tropic totem]

I am having a problem, I have the texture in the mission file, but it keeps saying c1.jpg not found. Why does it keep saying it cant be found but the file is there?

[tropic totem]

got it to work

[calm tangle]

this is what i keep repeating myself but i can't find what it is. I'll try another way

[calm tangle]

How can a texture be a .jgp file ? Arma 3 only uses .PAA files

[full quarry]

can not

[lethal condor]

If you mean .jpg, yes

[full quarry]

it will still convert to .paa

[full quarry]

double check your texture resolution

and do you use _CO suffix in the name?

[calm tangle]

I'll double check everything again. I haven't created a mod folder on P drive yet so i haven't renamed the texture with _CO, i'm just loading the texture from my documents. Texture name is "headquarters.paa"

[full quarry]

ah

that could be the issue

[calm tangle]

why ?

[full quarry]

all the Arma tools are designed around P drive

but also your model shading is all broken for some reason

so it just could be it breaks on export somehow

[calm tangle]

object builder usually loads texture from my documents perfectly but i'll try the P drive this time.

[calm tangle]

it's definitely not working i tried everything i could think of and it didn't work. I even tried OBJ file format but i have the same problem

[full quarry]

im curious now. can you zip up a blend withew the exported part and the texture

[calm tangle]

when we open a file in object bulder, i have to revert some faces to give the object it's original shape. Isn't there a way to do this job in blender instead ?

[full quarry]

Yes, you have likely built it so with blackface culling off so you don't see face orientation right in blender

[atomic jolt]

trying to preview a texture of a helmet, but i can't seem to be able to use the setobjecttexture command on the helmet

[lethal condor]

You can't

[atomic jolt]

whenever i do, it colors the torso

oh

is there any way to preview those?

[lethal condor]

Make a Mod

Alternatively, you can make a Mod with a helmet with a hiddenSelectionsTextures which points a local jpg (or tga or paa or...) file and use Diag exe

[atomic jolt]

huh, alright, that's a whole lot more complicated then i though

[lethal condor]

Not really

[calm tangle]

thank you very much i desperately tried to do this with Object builder but with an object of the size of my headquarters, it's lagging way too much

[calm tangle]

i think i'm getting close to an answer: when you export an object in FBX all meshes gets automatically triangulated, with cause the UV set to change a little bit in order to include the additional faces. I think this is why my uv layer never was correct.

[full quarry]

this could indeed be it

triangulating pre export is preferable

also you unwrap is a bit terrible. theres so many tiny islands that barely cover a pixel

[calm tangle]

this model is not of mine, it's a model premade by someone else using sketchfab that i have modified to make it compatible with arma 3. I could have reshape entirely the building in order to correct all these errors but i decided to go with what i had

[full quarry]

ah

not good idea 😅

[calm tangle]

the faces of the building and the wall didn't have thickness

[atomic jolt]

did it, sort of, though i have a slightly diffrent issue now, it's conflicting with something in my groups modpack (might be the janky pbo's of our other custom assets), so rn the helmet shows up in the arsenal but when you put it on it's just the shadow of the model and no texture is visible. It works fine without the extra mods. My question is, how do i go about finding the issue and fix the pbo of my helmet thing (or what discord channel could help me with this)?

[soft kestrel]

what is the 3CB retexture policy?

[full quarry]

You would have to ask them.

[safe pendant]

I am looking for a EMS/Medical themed vanilla Mohawk Helicopter texture for personal use only if anyone has one already

[dense peak]

hey guys so pretty much i am trying to retexture some mods, and well for some reason it dosen't work for me so when i make a retexture with a file paa , and then trying to make it into a pbo and make a new modpack for it when i place it in the game its shows the logo not found and it wont work maybe you know what could cause the issue?

[full quarry]

Retexturing is done via hiddenSelections and configs, not by replacing files and repacking mods.

[dense peak]

oh. and how do i do that

[full quarry]

You make your new textures, you make config that refers to the assets in the mod and replace their hiddenselections configs with yours and pack that. Nothing of the original mod is packed

[dense peak]

but well in the video it self, says that, all u need to do , is, get the paa file retexture it replace it , the another paa, then repack to pbo. and make it to an own mod pack install it as an actual mod file. and then launch and it show work , but for some reason it did not for me and its anoying me

[full quarry]

What video is that, sounds like it gives all wrong directions

Lot of videos do that

[dense peak]

I'll send it here.

When I get back home

[placid elm]

How does one change a vest texture in the eden editor like you do uniforms or vehicles?

For example, this is what I used for my uniform
this setObjecttexture [0,"Blue1.jpg"]; removeallWeapons this;

nvm, think I found out no. Anyone have a tutorial for an efficient way to test out vest textures then?

[full quarry]

one does not

only way to do it is via addon

fastest way could be using diag exe and filepatching

[placid elm]

Thanks! i've been scouring for a tutorial on how to create an addon for it. Still got a lot of learning to do. Vehicles/uniforms were a lot easier lol

[full quarry]

vest should be basically uniform but without the cfgVehicles character component

[placid elm]

Appreciate the help, i'm slowly getting there. Anyone know where the Press Vest is located? Been looking for an hour now

[full quarry]

you can find its path in ingame config viewer

[magic obsidian]

anyone know if there's an existing green texture for the tempest?

[bronze gyro]

I dont think so

[magic obsidian]

👍

[tawdry forum]

i'm looking to do a small retexture of an SSh-68 helmet from RHS. is there a way to pull the model from that mod to retexture it? (the RHS eula states it's fine with retextures of certain items and this helmet falls into that category)

[lethal condor]

Unbinarize a p3d model so it is editable is forbidden

[livid knot]

You would have to modify the uv unwrapped texture directly. I dont know if they provide a blank one or if you would just have to edit the existing paa

[rare cedar]

Hello everyone, do you know if it is possible to correct the blur on the white lines?

https://ibb.co/4S4fjFW

[full quarry]

Well you could make the mipmap stages manually with dedmens mipmap tool

Other than that this is normal mipmap behavior

[rare cedar]

Thanks for the info

[full quarry]

If you make them manually you can control the sharpness in different levels more

[olive pawn]

any info on the Refract shader?

[lethal condor]

What do you need to know? Pretty much you can do is what Refract rvmat/particle does

[olive pawn]

I mean like a wiki page or something explaining the stages n such. I see it used in other mods rvmat's before but i cant find much explaining how it works

[full quarry]

There is no info on it

[dark path]

i'm trying to make a vehicle have a glossy/shiny/chrome material. i've read about setObjectMaterial, but what would be a good material to use? im having trouble finding them

[full quarry]

unlikely to work since if some material stuff cant change unless the object has that material present in the original model

and there is no "make thing shiny" material that would just work

as each material uses its own settings and technical textures

so you would need your own custom rvmat for that

[dark path]

ah, i see

[wispy bloom]

Is anybody aware of what might cause the defined 'picture="image.paa"' to show a UI icon in the Arsenal but not in the Inventory slot?

Is this a common issue?

[full quarry]

broken configs

[still glacier]

for it has always been that i forgot a \ in front of the path

"\pboname\data\image.paa"

[calm tangle]

Anyone knows why my texture is transparent ? I just created a new building, all face a correctly oriented and on Blender the texture is correctly displayed. There isn rvmat but i use the same rvmat on an other face o the same object and it works fine

[calm tangle]

problem fixed. I didn't notice the texture was transparent

[full quarry]

😅 that is usually the culprit

[dense peak]

Does anyone know where to find the Arma 3 face textures?

[full quarry]

Characters pbo

[dense peak]

Ok ✅

Thank you

Do you know where that is in the files I’m real new to all this stuff

[lethal condor]

Arma 3\addons\characters_f.pbo

[dense peak]

Thank you

[torpid lance]

currently having an issue where the as and smdi are making the model to appear a lot more white than what it is. I am sure the exporting of the textures from SP are correct. Anyone have an idea of what is causing this?

[full quarry]

textures and/or rvmat is not right

[torpid lance]

I see why they call you the Goat

[full quarry]

my guess is your specularity is blowing up

[torpid lance]

Yeah, it wasn't correct at all.

[shadow gale]

anyone give me a hand, having issues with GIMP, i saved the file as it was a XCF file so i convert the file to a PNG or a JPEG and what i done with the textures are at the top left not where i placed them, or disappear?

https://gyazo.com/df2a5680bf4a9544b54d0c73292f3dfe

What is done ^

then saved https://gyazo.com/524283055e15f8569a66720a060fee65

[full quarry]

how do you convert it to png?

you can export as png right ouy of gimp

[shadow gale]

Where i don't get that option?

[lethal condor]

Ctrl+E

[full quarry]

the file menu...

[shadow gale]

Ty.

[shadow gale]

yeah wasnt showing, not used GIMP so still working it out.

[versed axle]

I am making a custom face for a mod, is there an easy way to make a texture map? I am not sure how this works

[full quarry]

No easy ways , you will need to manually draw/edit it and if you want to make it properly you will also need rest of the skin shader textures

[wispy sun]

Could someone explain to me what the exact function of these two options is when creating a .rvmat

ambient[] = { 1, 1, 1, 1 };
diffuse[] = { 1, 1, 1, 1 };

[livid knot]

The values are rgba I think, diffuse should be the base color, and the Ambient is the ambient lighting applied to it

[placid elm]

What sizes are generally you should use for pictures/billboards?

photo frame (portrait) in particular

[full quarry]

depends how accurate you want it to be. portrait frame 512 could already be enough

[placid elm]

Been testing with my avatar

[full quarry]

Source picture must have more pixels than what you scale it to

[placid elm]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1012120656961343488/1012120687806255104/unknown.png

[full quarry]

These look fine.

[placid elm]

Got the right side correct, as its a square frame 512x512. Trying to figure out left side as it cuts off on the right

and part of the ride side moves to the bottom of the frame

[full quarry]

Looks like the left frame has bit poor uv mapping

[placid elm]

I see, will just stick with right side then.

[full quarry]

Simpler. You would need to make new texture for the other one where you compensate the uvmapping offset

[calm tangle]

how do we make the glossiness/metalic effect in Arma 3 ?

[molten spindle]

Im having a problem with a texture, Im trying to apply a texture that has an alpha channel but the transparent areas are just rendered black

texview2 recognizes it as a transparent texture in DXT5, but ingame its just black

any idea how to fix that?

[calm tangle]

are you sure the background of your texture is not black ?

[molten spindle]

it's not

I fixed it

somehow, when you include the texture that has alpha in the hiddenSelectionsTextures in your config, it becomes black

I went to the model and assigned the texture from there and it worked

[full quarry]

The mesh is baked with transparency property, if there is no transparent texture assigned that property does not get baked in.

Some default textures and materials must always be assigned to the model

[proper tartan]

developed a tool easily converting PBR texture to super shader textures
it looks really good

[proper tartan]

its ur lucky day ,there's a new tool to do that

https://mobile.twitter.com/Douzidoge/status/1563216375673282565/photo/1

豆子Doge (@Douzidoge)

@EnfusionEngine humm...🤔

Twitter · Aug 26, 2022, 5:26 PM

here's the result

https://forums.bohemia.net/forums/topic/239734-a-tool-converting-pbr-materialsmetallic-roughness-to-arma3-textures/

infact im introducing my 0.12 ver now, this 0.10 version is outdated. the new version can really get a even more fantastic result

some 0.12 results

oops i can't post my pictures

okay i posted them on my twitter

based on Blender Composing nodes ,very easy to use

https://mobile.twitter.com/Douzidoge/status/1563581151226122241

豆子Doge (@Douzidoge)

Introducing a good tool! Just use it like original Blender shader nodes

Twitter · Aug 27, 2022, 5:36 PM

it "almost" brings PBR into Arma3 world, i means , pretty close

[full quarry]

Looks pretty great @proper tartan!
@ancient parrot this could interest you too!!

[proper tartan]

i think yes! and i also hope every one can use this tool

uploading it to my github repo. if some guy used it and like it, please star the repo, it's very encouraging to me

[celest obsidian]

Pretty cool

[trail sequoia]

Is there anything specific that needs to be done to convert 16-bit normalmap to 8-bit, or can I just do it with GIMP

[proper tartan]

yes you can

[wild night]

Hiya boys, i'm looking for templates for the modular carrier vest (the LDF one). All of the links are dead on the official forums, anybody got it on their hard drive? (i'll also take any other templates you guys have, i started making some AAF retextures, and, well.... i ended up in a bit of a rabbit hole)

[trail sequoia]

Exporting Images to BMP on L3DT gives me broken files, has anyone experienced something similar?

figured why, too big image
need to export as mosaic and stitch using imagemagic

[full quarry]

correct

[trail sequoia]

fun stuff

[trail sequoia]

not sure what I'm doing wrong but I'm ending up with a 1.6Gb mask

maybe bmp isn't the best format here

[full quarry]

bmp is fastest to load into TB

and huge resolution images take space like that

bmp is uncompressed format

solution would be to make smaller maps

big maps take a lot of disk space

[trail sequoia]

fair enough
but do want to press on with larger map and I do have the disk space needed
on the publishing / ingame performance side
should I go with png or stick to bmp?

[full quarry]

bmp is faster to process. png would take 100x longer

they get turned into .paa tiles eventually

the source material is not packaged or used in live game

[trail sequoia]

bmp it is then
on the question of modifying mask/sat texture
how can I work on those with gimp
or do I edit the mosaic and restitch everything?

[full quarry]

you edit the source files, import them into TB and re generate tiles

I would strongly suggest making smaller map at this level of knowledge

learning is faster and easier that way

[trail sequoia]

think I phrased that question wrong
I was talking about editing the source file
do I go about editing the stitched mask
or do I edit the mosaic and restitch

[full quarry]

either way works

you can import the mosaic tiles separately into TB too

as long as you position their coordinates correctly so they align

[trail sequoia]

not to get ahead of myself
but did 4x4 and 8x8 maps
do I still stick to a something small in terms of experience?

[full quarry]

Well the questions did not reflect on that knowledge. Then again if you have not had to do large textures thnigs may not be apparent even if you have used the programs for smaller textures.

however if you need to split bmp you are making something larger than 30 kilometers

[trail sequoia]

well Indeed this would be my first time going over 20k with textures which is where problems start occurring with the programs (at least from what I'm reading)

[full quarry]

you need quite a lot of ram to handle stuff in 20+ px dimensions yes

at least to handle it smoothly

[trail sequoia]

as expected
going full basic with the questions as I've heard many tales of problems that occur within the 20k+ terrains
but from what I'm gathering
working with tiled textures over stitched on TB with bmp format seems to be the way for me
would be slightly tedious to apply changes but would be more agile

[full quarry]

stiching in between would be a time waster yes

[trail sequoia]

thanks for everything

[full quarry]

the seam areas on the mask may be problematic from time to time as the Terrain Builder split tiles likely will have data from both sides or in worst case 4 different imported texture tiles when TB processes the tile split

so youll have to be extra careful with how many mask colors you use

[trail sequoia]

is it the amount that would be problematic or the mask colors being close to each other or combination of both?

And would would stitching the end result of the mosaic be a way around this issue?

[full quarry]

its problematic because you can easily add different colors to each corner

stiching wont help with this as the colors would still be there

and if you dont have the means to edit the stitched image you cant do much about it

of course you can have a more tiles/ textures imported that cover the seams from both sides so its easier to edit those areas

there are few different mask tester applications too but for those to work you would need the stitched mask texture

[trail sequoia]

Could you name/link one of those

Also I just realized I'm on texture makers channel asking terrain stuff
dum dum moment right there apologies for that

[full quarry]

I've used this. https://forums.bohemia.net/forums/topic/225019-mask-tiel-colorcalculator/. Pennyworth also has made one but I always forgot how to use it,

[full quarry]

just remember to put the next terrain questions there 😉

this at least was partly channel topic related

[trail sequoia]

fairs, was asking tex questions earlier, apparently forgot to switch back

[full quarry]

👌

[proper tartan]

is there a addon for blender to open or save .paa file?

[livid knot]

Not that I know of, can convert png's and jpg's with texview though

[proper tartan]

ok, thanks

sorry for my poor English lol

[trail sequoia]

Paa Converter from grad is also an option
it also works on more filetypes
https://paa.gruppe-adler.de/

[trail sequoia]

Are Displacement files same thing as heightmaps
or are they Inverted or something?

[full quarry]

they can work for that but may need tweaking. to look right in the arma renderer

[trail sequoia]

what would be such tweaks?

[full quarry]

tweaking the color range to modify the parallax strength that sort of stuff

[real gazelle]

Has anyone else had issues with retexturing the buttons on the Parade Uniform from Art of War?

[lethal condor]

What issue?

[real gazelle]

They don't seem to want to be changed

They just stay as the default US ones

Talking about the non-Decorated one btw

[lethal condor]

Yeah seems unretexturable

[real gazelle]

God damn it

[lethal condor]

You can send a report in #arma3_feedback_tracker (check the pinned)

[real gazelle]

Will do. Thanks.

[full quarry]

https://imgur.com/gallery/yM8qwp9 real life retexturing is a bit more involved process than with how simple it is with hiddenselections in arma...

[slow tree]

Unless the model doesn't have selections...

I have a model that looks correct in Bulldozer, yet seems to not be loading its RVMAT in arma itself. (Texture looks like just the CO)

||https://ibb.co/MC9GFz3 ||
|| https://ibb.co/T1zryQM ||

I have encountered this issue in the past, but I cannot remember what the solution was back then.

EDIT: Duh, model wasn't binarized properly! Got it fixed now.

[full quarry]

👍

this channel is very helpful in that way

many times people find the solution just after posting ::D

[cyan cedar]

I don't know if this is the right place, but I need someone to help out with texture work on an asset I am having put in arma. I don't know how to texture and the last person I tried talking to said it needs to be done on photoshop and that the UV mapping is really poorly done and complex making it difficult and they don't want to do it.

[full quarry]

#creators_recruiting would be the channel to enlist help. This channel is more to ask questions/ talk about how things are done

[cyan cedar]

Okay thank you

[full quarry]

Texturing does not necessarily need to be done in photoshop, there are a lot of options for that

But if you made the model, you should be able to fix the uvmapping too if you invest bit of time to it

[slow tree]

This single thing saves you so much headaches and time with Buldozer. Thanks for this goat, will recommend to anyone!

[coarse scaffold]

Could you also share rvmat you have used?

[full quarry]

unfortunately the user got banned for using ripped content with the texture converter.. 😞

Good talent goes to waste

[coarse scaffold]

oh dang

thanks for the info

[severe rune]

https://github.com/Hatsuna-Miku/Arma3PBRConverter their blend setup is here.
No rvmat there though

They had a example mod on workshop, but that was using guns ripped from Battlefield 2042 so.. yeah thats gone

[sullen mango]

looking to be able to scale a graphic up/down without it looking bad, would vector graphing work? unsure if its compatible with the real virtuality 4 engine. new to all this lol

[slow tree]

scaling a graphic? What do you mean? But no, RV only accepts paa files (RV exclusive format, you can convert from png <-> paa) mostly and png/jpeg in some instances, SVG is not possible.

[quaint spire]

Tga is preferred I think

[slow tree]

targa works better with the arma 3 tools but for the sake of paar conversion, they are the same afaik.

[bronze creek]

Q: I did some textures editing yesterday. How do I repack them as an independent PBO that overrides previous one? Thank you.

[lethal condor]

Repack, is not a recommended act but you'll just pack a pbo.

Q1: what do you have so far? Only a texture?
Q2: What is the object you want to retex?
Q3: Do you have a config experience?

[bronze creek]

• 2 textures modified among a dozen
• rocks
• nope. Beginning.

[lethal condor]

What, a rock?

[bronze creek]

yes, a rock. a dark one, from CUP I don't like. It is a good start. Unpacked the PBO, converted the textures, changed them.

[lethal condor]

Then you'll need to forget the idea. Most of terrain object are not retexture-friendly

[bronze creek]

What is the reason?

[lethal condor]

Most of terrain object are not retexture-friendly
You actually can. In a very complex, inefficient, hard, and performance-unfriendly way

If you want a detailed reason, you'll need to learn how to retexture 101 first

[full quarry]

Basically your hack would break the pbo compatibility with all cup stuff.
If you want to do your own rocks you can
A) Make new models and new texture that fit you.

B) get the A2 public data packs and retexture the A2 rocks

[shrewd shard]

https://imgur.com/gallery/xvPEUGZ hey anyone know why this happens with the glass?

[full quarry]

Perhaps alpha sorting issue? Or broken uvmapping

[wise dagger]

select the glass polygons

in Object builder

then

Faces -> Move top

and give it a try

[dense peak]

im looking for someone who can make a mod set for my ww2 unit?

is this the place if not can someone please help me

[full quarry]

#creators_recruiting

[coarse scaffold]

I found Ama 3 Apex shader for Substance Painter on GitHub, anybody uses that?

[quaint spire]

Don't work for me

[still glacier]

How would i achieve a shiny, raincoat like effect?

[full quarry]

play with specularity

[still glacier]

is it possible to change only part of a texture

or only the whole thing

[full quarry]

no

well yes

but you still need the whole texture

you just edit the part you want to edit

hiddenselections are rarely multi part and hidden selections are only way to change textures

[dense peak]

I want to know how to retexture anything
because I have no idea how

so here's what I want to retexture:
infantry uniforms (primarily combat fatigues)
vests
helmets
infantry vehicles

i just need help with getting the texture files, how to open them if they're a special file, and how to import into arma 3

[carmine hinge]

Might be a stupid question but is it possible to retexture the glass on vehicles? i.e. making an aircraft canopy look similar to the fuselage?

Or is that more of a "defined by the model" thing

[lethal condor]

It could be defined by the model, yet if you have a proper config knowledge it is possible I guess. IIRC I've done before

[full quarry]

It is a bit rare to have hiddenselections on the canopy

[dense peak]

I cant find a way to get NATO texture templates

they're all 404ing because they're old

[full quarry]

where are you trying to download them from?

[dense peak]

at this point, anywhere

mainly from forms from like 2013

[full quarry]

from BIforum?

[dense peak]

yes

[full quarry]

what post did you try?

[dense peak]

the links on the steam guides

[full quarry]

steam guides are not on BI forums

https://forums.bohemia.net/forums/forum/218-arma-3/

This is BI forum

though yes a lot of links pointing to Armaholic site are gone

[dense peak]

yeah i click a link to a BI form but on there when i click the download link it says 404 or file error

so i want to find some vanilla texture downloads

[full quarry]

arma 3 samples have some templates but not for all things

template is just a tool to make textures though

you can make retexturing even without the original texture

but naturally it can be helpful

if you set up the modding tools and modding environment P drive you get the game files extracted there and can browse through all the original textures

[dense peak]

Alright,
can you help me go through that process? Thanks

[full quarry]

BI Forum thread for community templates

https://forums.bohemia.net/forums/topic/176288-community-texture-templates/

[full quarry]

@dense peak this could be of use for you too

[dense peak]

Alright thanks

[steady halo]

So im trying to retexture RHS Pilot helmets, And they have patches on them that im trying to figure out how to edit also to put funny pictures and stuff on, But i cant find anything online on how to edit them. Any help appreciated Thanks

[full quarry]

those would likely be hiddenSelections

[errant mist]

does anyone know how i can change the full ghillie camo? i can only find the grass bits but not the uniform itself

[full quarry]

check its hiddenselections in its config and see where the textures are pathed to

[errant mist]

i tried that and no luck either im blind or looking in the wrong place

[full quarry]

put down the ghillie man in editor, right click on him and use the open in config viewer to open its class

[errant mist]

i will try that

thanks man

[torpid lance]

current having an issue with the normal map of an armor piece I am making. The normal map works correctly when the armor is in the sun, but when it goes into the shadows the normal map no longer displays the same amount of depth. I have looked at the RVMATs and compared it to a similar armor piece that works correctly and they are the same.

[full quarry]

Normalmap is for light shading, no light no shading so what you see is to be expected.

[quaint spire]

include your AO in your diffuse texture

[celest obsidian]

you can also include the details of your normal directly in your color map. You can do this in different ways, here is the method I used: https://youtu.be/pdYM9KF1Iko

[torpid lance]

Aye this worked! Thank you

[quaint spire]

wouldnt this almost work better with a a cavity map (provided you have a high poly to bake it from)?

[celest obsidian]

sure, you can use the AO, curvature, normal... anything 🙂

[dense peak]

i got a request for anyone that wants somethin to do

i want a german GDR unifourn in the NVA 1 pattern

[full quarry]

#creators_recruiting is for that. if you want to make that, the channel is open for questions

[rigid tusk]

I'm new to making textures, I'm currently retexturing the F/A-18 from firewill, I am testing the texture I have so far to make sure there's no gaps and I don't know how to show both texture maps at once, when I try to add the wing texture it just puts it on the body instead. Any help?

I actually just figured out how to do that but when I put the second map in, it seems like it is out of line or something

The body should be completely white but there is black all around it.

[full quarry]

are you using hiddenselections to apply the textures with config?

[rigid tusk]

I'm using init with the code "this setObjectTexture [0, 'C:\Folder\Folder\Texture.paa'];"

Not sure how to do hiddenselections

[full quarry]

they are just method of setting up retexturing though addon config. Basically same as what you do now but you would have ready plane to choose from the editor asset list

now setObjectTexture uses the number index to point to different hiddenSelection textures set up on a model, so when you change the number, you can assign different textures

[rigid tusk]

gotcha

[full quarry]

it may vary what textures are set up to be able to be changed though

[rigid tusk]

Yeah I have two textures, body and wing, I was able to get wing and body running together but wing for some reason is showing the textures wrong, having black spots all over where there is blank space. I can send you a screenshot if you want

[full quarry]

you cant make holes in textures if the original does not have transparency

[rigid tusk]

Not holes, the texture map is correct to how the original texture map was made, just different colors on the texture map

[full quarry]

also you can link pictures here too

[rigid tusk]

gotcha

[full quarry]

much easier to keep it all in one place

[rigid tusk]

Sorry, internet just went out, here's the image

https://gyazo.com/58124c2daa78e37994ad8090289194d7

[full quarry]

can you put down the original plane too for comparison?

[rigid tusk]

I'll get you a picture of some other spots too

Arma just died on me so it'll be a second

https://gyazo.com/b1b69c703df61ad32455532d86d3436b

https://gyazo.com/33f8b34e93aabb8e44eb7bac91dda726

Original

Hmm now it's wanting to work correctly

Thanks anyways

[full quarry]

👌

[honest laurel]

do I need special software to edit .paa files without breaking them? I'm trying to edit some CUP textures using paint.net but everything in the same category changes when I change any .paa, specifically, I tried to edit helmets_mnt.co.paa and now all CDF uniforms and helmets etc wont load in-game.

error: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgWeapons.CUP_arifle_AK74'.

[lethal condor]

This is not a texture issue but config

[honest laurel]

Right, I haven't changed anything besides the actual image, haven't renamed or moved anything, as far as I can see the end result is identical to the source material when viewed through file explorer.

[lethal condor]

How did you make the pbo? Or, did you "repack" it?

[honest laurel]

repacked it using addonBuilder yea

essentially download CUP Units, extracted using cup_creatures_people_military_cdf.pbo using extractpbo
drew on one image to test if it works, then packed it up again

[lethal condor]

That's not how to make a Mod after all. I'm not that free to take a time to elaborate rn so...

Basically you only "overwrite" some parts of a Mod that you want to overwrite through a Mod

[honest laurel]

Right, I've just taken the relevant PBO file, tweaked the contents inside after unpacking it then repacked it and put it back where I found it. Does that not work? the way I see it everything is identical to what I downloaded besides the contents of one image. I'll look into it a bit further

[full quarry]

Repacking it is not the way to go. That essentially breaks the pbo

A retexturing mod contains only changed files and refers to the original mod only as dependency

Explained it here just yesterday #arma3_model message

@honest laurel

[floral fiber]

if you want to change a texture you leave the mod files alone except for copying the .paa out

you then do your retexture after converting it to png then back to paa once you have done so

you then create a folder with a data subfolder and a config.cpp

inside your data folder you put your texture

inside your config.cpp you create a cfgpatches class and a cfgvehicles class (or cfgweapons depending on what you are retexturing. use config viewer to find out which it is in AND the hiddenselections you need)

inside of your cfgvehicles/cfgweapons class you either inherit from the original items classname (would recommend to stop issues with other mods) or you overwrite the class with the correct hiddenselectionstextures of your new texture

use addon builder to turn the overall folder into a pbo and then put the pbo inside of a local mod folder with structure
@yourmodname\addons\yourpbo.pbo

add as local mod in arma launcher and profit

[honest laurel]

Alright thanks. Will give it a shot.

[honest laurel]

https://imgur.com/a/IPoyFFo
Trying to edit the CDF vest from CUP Units, can anybody figure out why this is not working? can boot the game with CUP and my own mod just fine but none of the changes actually apply. Thanks

[twin kelp]

Hi guys I've got a quick question

If I'm editing a texture from a mod, can I save it back to that mod or do I need to make my own?

Is the process to make a local mod with the new .pbos and have them overwrite? Can there be conflicts?

I've just read up

Do you guys end up explaining this everyday? Lol

[full quarry]

pretty often.

in case someone is wondering, Answer is making a patch mod to work on top of the original mod. No original files are packed into the new mod. just config and the new texture(s)

[full quarry]

do they have separate rvmats? that may be needed to split them to their own sections

and it makes sense in the way that the transparency is backed as enabled on a p3d data when you have transparent textures on it

also make sure your _CO does not carry alpha channel at all

[honest laurel]

have you found any guides or whatnot to editing mods? i think I'm doing the same thing as you but have hit a wall on making config

[twin kelp]

Not yet

I reckon the process is explained somewhere above, I just haven't read up much yet

[honest laurel]

same, ive just been downloading some mods to see if i can find a cup vest reskin to look at the config

if its explained above could u drop me a ping thx

[mint beacon]

Hi there - I'd like to retexture the RHS BMP (I see the EULA states this is ok, if not please advise). Is there an easy way to correspond the UV map to the texture? E.g. open he model in a 3D package? So far I have just been individually colouring each 'island' and manually identifying them, but this process is a bit tedious.

Trying to open the p3d in the object viewer causes it to crash for me.

[lethal condor]

A binarized p3d cannot be opened. Nor unbinarize it

[honest laurel]

I couldve sworn when I was looking at A2 assets I was able to open them but I cant anymore, its a bit of a pain because i wanted to eventually port A2 models to A3 but I cant open stuff like the A10 anymore where I used to be able to

Especially strange as I havent touched my A2 models that I exported so i'm not sure what could happen to make them become binarized

[mint beacon]

Ah I see. So the only way is to use a UV checker or colour each island to work it out?

[lethal condor]

Basically

Maybe they had a template, if not you can use a UV Checker to see where are where

[mint beacon]

Thanks!

[full quarry]

you cant/are not allowed to debin a2 models. you can use the ones from Arma 2 sample datapack

[severe rune]

"Licensed Data Pack"

[honest laurel]

Strange. Im positive i had the ability to look at them when i first extracted A2 files

[sullen grail]

How would you reskin a helmet from RHSAFRF and then add it into your own mod?

[full quarry]

you would paint a new texture for said helmet, create a config file (config,cpp) that has class setup that creates a new class of helmet that inherit the config of the orignal and changes name to your liking and hiddenselection paths to your new texture

your new mod would then contain said config and said texture and use rhs as required addon dependency

[sterile viper]

I came here with the same idea as that guy in mind so I'm wondering where you would see it or do you check in game?

[full quarry]

you check in game yes

retexturing cant be done in 3d

however there is filepatching option that can be used to liveload files into game

which can be useful for faster previewing

[honest laurel]

so how do mods like CUP uses all the Arma 2 assets? if you cant open models or arent allowed to re-use them.

[lethal condor]

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Category:Public_Data
The source models are available under the certain condition

[honest laurel]

ah yes I actually do remember that

that was how I was viewing the models before

they call it a sample but as far as I can see it includes basically everything?

[full quarry]

pretty much yes. they come with licenses that say how they can be used

Also a good to note about CUP is that they have replaced a big chunck of assets with completely new ones already

[honest laurel]

yup. Ive been trying to reskin the CDF Uniforms since they are so unfaithful, hence all my questions recently
as far as I can tell all of the vehicle, vest, helmet and weapon models are identical, and all if not most of the vehicle and weapon textures seem unchanged too

[mellow frigate]

Im trying to make a normal map using Photoshop but it keeps making this bump as if there was a gloss in the texture https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/877174578491842590/1025819119045574676/unknown.png?width=1202&height=676

could anyone help me?

[full quarry]

bump?

and what does the texture look like on that part?

[mellow frigate]

texture as in color?

it's just gold, nothing there

can I dm you so that I can send you a screenshot of what's happening in PS?

[full quarry]

you can link pictures here

but what does the normalmap you generate look like

[mellow frigate]

thats what i mean, it generates with the bump but i dont know what causes it to generate like that

i dont know how to get rid of it https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/229320609107148802/1025833788045004860/unknown.png?width=992&height=676

actually im realizing all of the surfaces dont look flat

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/229320609107148802/1025834589165453432/unknown.png?width=1174&height=676 when i blur it, it gets more apparent

[full quarry]

well it treats your image like heightmap

and your image has those bumps on it

you would probably need to create the heightmap separately so it doesnt have the bumpyness on it

[quaint spire]

all in all should be pretty easy to trace that as a 3d model then bake it onto a plane

[ocean monolith]

how can you get arma to render an 8k paa?

[lethal condor]

IIRC no, Arma 3 only supports up to 4k

[ocean monolith]

it dose but you can get 8k's to render

ik that arma wont render them unless you pack them in a mod, the only way i have seem them work is if the are packed in a mod with pbo project but idk what setting / how to get them to work

[frozen blade]

why would you want a 8k single texture?

[ocean monolith]

we use them in the h-60 mod for moving maps

but yax is the only one who is able to build the mod with the maps working. we are trying to figure out why

[frozen blade]

do these 8k textures work then? last i tried it, they didn't

[ocean monolith]

they do

but only yax can build the mod and have them work

[full quarry]

Id suggest multiple 4k ones instead.. 8K memory footprint is pretty insane

[ocean monolith]

Are you just talking like just there actually size?

[full quarry]

yes

also Id wager the game would still mipmap it to 4K or even lower very aggressively

[ocean monolith]

Only on less the high textures settings

[ocean monolith]

And no most of them are 1-3k

I would of not put them in if they where more

[heavy ivy]

Now that I have a custom texture, how do I go about incorporating it into my addon?

[full quarry]

custom texture for what? new asset? retexture?

[heavy ivy]

A retexture for the BMP-2 from CUP. Wondering how I go about implementing it so that it acts a new texture in my addon.

[full quarry]

well basically you create a mod project folder (preferable on P drive (mod dev environemnt)) and put your texture in there and create a config file next to it and in the config file you create reference to the CPU bmp class so and inherit the config data from it and then alter few things like displayname and the hiddenselectionTextures list so it points to that new texture you made.
Then that gets packed up into a pbo and you run it in game

[heavy ivy]

ok, I'll give that a try tomorrow
Feel like relaxing and gaming rn.

[full quarry]

good idea 👍 no need to stress about it and easier to figure out the details with relaxed mindset

there are P drive setup guides on PMCwiki and on the Armadocs terrain tutorials (links on terrain channel pinned messages)

[heavy ivy]

Would it also be possible to include the texture as a .paa within the folder of the addon, and then apply it as a hidden selection texture? Or would it cause a problem where the game wouldn't know how to apply it to the vehicle unless I make the retexture itself its own PBO?

[full quarry]

that would be exactly the way to do it yes

[heavy ivy]

Oh ok, then I'm going to do that

[full quarry]

👍 👍

[heavy ivy]

Well, I think I did something wrong, because the part of the BMP that's supposed to be covered by the new texture is just transparent.
For context, I have the texture path written as follows

hiddenSelectionsTextures[] = {"Karzeghistan Defence Forces\addons\KDF\data\KDF_BMP2_1_fin.paa", "cup\trackedvehicles\cup_trackedvehicles_bmp\BMP2\data\bmp2_02_acr_des_co.paa"};

ALso, yes, I know I spelt defense wrong

[full quarry]

spaces in folder names can cause broblems

use _

[heavy ivy]

alright, will do

[full quarry]

also usually if texture does not show up in game it means pathing is wrong

are there any error messages?

[honest laurel]

Can somebody explain or send me to a guide that explains the 'rvmat' files and the .nohq, .as, etc images?

[full quarry]

BI wiki has pages for those. texture naming rules, rvmat basic etc

in Short rvmat is the material file that dictates what shader a surface uses and where the different technical textures like nohq (normalmap high quality) are located for their respective stages

[honest laurel]

ok thanks

[stray relic]

You also need a _co suffix on your texture before it converts to paa.
KDF_BMP2_1_fin_co.tga >>> KDF_BMP2_1_fin_co.paa

[heavy ivy]

Alright, will do

[heavy ivy]

I've added both the _co and inserted the spaces in the file name, and it's still having the same problem.

[heavy ivy]

Any other suggestions?

[honest laurel]

https://imgur.com/a/sZBVKWU can somebody explain why in A2 these AS textures do not line up to the CO textures or to each other? they all have a different layout unlike cup where the vest textures all line up, can they be expected to work like this without explicating overlapping with each other?

[full quarry]

It is most likely that the model is set up with secondary uvset with fitting u mapping for this texture and the rvmat that uses this texture is setup to use uv source tex (default uvset 0) for some textures and tex1 (the alternate uvset 1) for others like this.
It is part of model optimization to reduce amount of texture memory usage.

[honest laurel]

right, so what does that mean for me if I want to port this as-is to arma 3 based of the work already done in CUP
the issue I have is that CUP thus far has used the same layout for the CO, SMDI and NOHQ, files for the helmet and vests

my rvmat file is identical to one used in A2 besides file paths as far as I can see, does that mean I can expect to use these files and have them overlap correctly?

[full quarry]

Don't know. If cup stuff is different then probably not

[honest laurel]

right, I mean does anything besides rvmat reference or change how these files interact with each other?

[full quarry]

Well changes in the models themselves

[honest laurel]

right, so you get a model and unwrap it in order to find out where to paint your textures? because im just trying to figure out how mod creators take a unique uniform model and then define the mapping when it comes to texturing it

if i could do that I could likely solve alot of my problems when I come to re-doing uniforms

[full quarry]

What exactly does re doing u inform mean here?

I don't quite understand what approach you are taking here

[honest laurel]

to retexture CUP uniforms, except I suspect CUP may have redone the uniform models someway down the line
so when I say redo uniforms I really just mean making a unique uniform, I dont think ill be taking anything from CUP unlike with vests and helmets because the texture layout that the CUP uniforms use isnt related the the texture layout of the A2 uniforms in any way

in doing this im hoping to figure out how to do a AS file for the vest since the way I see it its all related to texture mapping anyway

[full quarry]

They probably gave done changes and fixes yes so A2 textures don't match.

Re texturing is pretty much done by just painting over the texture file. 3d models are not involved in the peocess

[honest laurel]

right but when you make a texture it needs to wrap around the model

[full quarry]

Yes and a model has uv unwapping to do so

If you make new models you will also need to make new unwapping

Old textures usually don't work with that though

Since they are made for different unwrap

[honest laurel]

right, so If I took an arma 2 model and unwrapped it it wouldnt work with the relevant arma 2 texture when ported to A3?

[full quarry]

Arma2 models are already unwrapped for their textures

[honest laurel]

right, so then theoretically you could take said model and port it with its textures into arma 3 and everything would fit into place?

[full quarry]

Yes

[honest laurel]

alright cool, I just wanted to make sure it was possible

will look into modelling stuff 👍

[quaint spire]

you can get them to match by applying the smdi as a diffuse texture in a baking software of your choice and then doing a basecolour bake onto the other UVset

[heavy ivy]

Tried another fix for my texture to show up in-game, and still no luck. However, it did through up this error message saying it couldn't load the texture path. I noticed, however, that it was all in lower-case whereas my config and P-Drive have upper-case letters. So, could it be that I need to get rid of all capital letters from my texture path?

[full quarry]

no, that should not be necessary. but it does mean your folder structure in your packed pbo does not match your folder structure on P drive

what are you packing the pbo with?

[heavy ivy]

Addon Builder

I have started brewing some potential theories as to what might be causing the problem

1. When I renamed and remade the .paa texture file to include _co at the end, I put reference to it in the config before it was even made. So, maybe I should delete that part of the config and remake it
2. Maybe the "Karzeghistan_Defence_Forces" at the beginning is unnecessary for it to read the texture.

[stray relic]

The next bit of advice to help resolve your current issue and help in future is to download and pack with Mikero's free tools, pboProject. It will tell you exactly what is wrong with your texture path.

[craggy ruin]

if you're using addon builder you will need to correctly set the prefix manually, pboproject does this for you. you left out this vital info before.

assuming your config.cpp is at P:\Karzeghistan_Defence_Forces\addons\KDF\config.cpp your prefix in addon builder options should be Karzeghistan_Defence_Forces\addons\KDF and then pack that folder

you're also mixing Karzeghistan Defence Forces and Karzeghistan_Defence_Forces in your code snippets, be consistent

[dense peak]

What is the process of re-texturing? I am trying to retexture something...

[frozen blade]

that something is important in the process

[full quarry]

#arma3_texture message

[dense peak]

P

Just finished modelling my

Model

Have zero to little knowledge about texturing tho

🤡

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/756049452539707473/1027307571285065759/received_1468607246980446.webp

If anyone wants to do the dirty work dm me
I'll send u the model but I'd also like to have the finished result

[dense peak]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/956505435786063912/1027768499839434822/pass3.png

potato texturing

[full quarry]

not a terrible start.

though I feel sorry for the poor chap who has to paint that thing in the factory 😅

[dense peak]

now to import it to the only arma I have
arma : cold war assault

[full quarry]

Good luck. The tools for that are ancient 😅

[dense peak]

Yea you said that before
jk

hard to forget
especially since you're the only guy here

they should rename this server
Goat of arma

[ebon bramble]

Hey guys, is there a script that will take photos of your gear for Inventory / Arsenal Icons? Or is it a manual process

[full quarry]

Bi wiki has some example of that I recall

it can be scripted/automated at least

[stray relic]

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Eden_Editor:_Configuring_Asset_Previews

[ebon bramble]

thanks, but this is not completely what I am looking for, unless you use the same function on gear and not vehicles and units

[serene agate]

Does anyone have a template for the vanilla HEMMT? I found this old post but the download links are dead
https://forums.bohemia.net/forums/topic/169833-hemtt-retexture-templates-and-mod/

[white otter]

Hey everyone,

Quick question from me, does anyone have a example or photoshop file for the CSAT Hexcam?
https://forums.bohemia.net/forums/topic/156283-csat-hexcam-sample/
I was looking at this thread, but unfortunately all the links are dead

[vernal sage]

Wayback Machine still has the original thread on Facepunch Forums archived with two samples of arid Hexcam available:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190407051614mp_/https://forum.facepunch.com/dev/qxsy/Facepunch-Camouflage-Thread-V2/1/

The Mediafire link with the zip works fine (Rusty_Camos.7z) and has both the uniform Brown Hex and the vehicle Arid Hex variants. Make sure you enter the actual link into the address bar and not the archived one though.

IIRC not sure if Wayback Machine managed to store it but if you dig through the thread you should be able to find swatches for Desert, Tropic and Semi-Arid Hexcam too. Just keep in mind that the links for those ones may or may not still be functional.

[dense peak]

I've been struggling with weird transparent texture behavior, I believe I've correctly sorted alphas by selecting all transparent faces and going to faces > move top in object builder.
This normally solves my issues for transparent textures but these in particular are stubborn. Any idea what could be causing the weird artifacts?
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/566060230824165383/1028556205578264607/unknown.png

lod 1 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/566060230824165383/1028556579022323742/unknown.png
lod 2 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/566060230824165383/1028556631316897844/unknown.png
lod 3 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/566060230824165383/1028556683213029446/unknown.png

[dense peak]

It seems I've solved my issue, I had to change my rvmat from super to TreeAdv

TreeAdv seems to work pretty well

[white otter]

Oh wow I didnt know that facepunch thread existed, thank you so much!

[full quarry]

Correct the tree shaders should be used on plants due to them being designed for leaves. And trunks. I believe you would really want the one used on tree crowns though. Or at least might want to try it out.

I'm not sure what artifacts you meant in the picture though, it all looked fairly correct for supershader and how your model is made

[dense peak]

it's kind of hard to see in the first screenshot but there's this white staticy haze that forms around the leaves

[full quarry]

Could be due to mipmapping and texture alpha breaking with bad background color

As in under the alpha you might have white which starts to bleed through with mipmapping blending the texture and transparency edges

[steel talon]

Does anyone have a texture template for the Mi-48 Kajman? I can't find any on the community pages or samples. I can likely make one but I'm a bit crap with GIMP

[sweet rampart]

Looking for someone who can upload like patches to the workshop

[lethal condor]

Try #creators_recruiting

[heavy ivy]

Still having the problem of the missing texture, but I just thought of a solution: Would placing the config in the same "data" folder as the custom texture potentially fix the issue?

My logic is that the engine can't load the texture as it's following a texture path that is only in my P:Drive

[full quarry]

the config.cpp should be in the root of the folder structure you want to pack and all files you want to get packed with it should be in subfolders of that main folder

only whats is after a config.cpp file gets packed

[full quarry]

so yes sounds like that could be the root of your problem

[heavy ivy]

So, if I have the the config file and the folder containing the texture all located in the same folder, it should work? Hmm, if I have it already set up correctly, maybe the problem is more that the path includes more than it needs to. Like, should it instead just be "KDF\data\KDF_BMP2_1_fin_co.paa"?

[full quarry]

what do you pack the pbo with?

[heavy ivy]

addon builder

[full quarry]

ah

that would explain the problems

you will really want to use pboProject as it has error checking that would likely already solve this issue

[heavy ivy]

I have it installed, and I keep trying to build the pbo with it, it just tells me "makePBO failed: missing file(s)". I have no idea if this is related to the missing texture problem or not.

[full quarry]

it means your paths are wrong

or textures are not where those paths lead to

that is exactly what I was talking about that it solves your problems xD

[heavy ivy]

Oh, I see

[heavy ivy]

Alright, so, I've tried shortening the texture path to "KDF\data\KDF_BMP2_1_fin.co.paa", as the KDF folder also contains the config.cpp. I thought this would fix the issue, but PBOProject still tells me there's a file missing. So, where have I gone wrong this time?

[full quarry]

whats the actual full path to the file?

P:\something

[heavy ivy]

P:\Karzeghistan_Defence_Forces\addons\KDF\data, and then in the data folder there's the "KDF_BMP2_1_fin_co.paa" texture file.

[full quarry]

why do you have the addons folder in there?

[heavy ivy]

I think it's from when I was trying to get the config to work in general. It obviously wasn't the solution so it's a weird artifact of that. Should get rid of it cause it makes it more complicated than it needs to be

[full quarry]

well I just find that kind of unnecessary folders odd

[heavy ivy]

Ok.

[full quarry]

anyway, you will want to use pboProject and you will then need to use the full paths to files excluding the P: from the beginning

unless you use PBOPREFIX

but if you dont know what that is you probably are not using it but just in case make sure you dont have a file with that name in your folders

[heavy ivy]

Alright, will try that when I get home.

Wrapping up dinner rn

[heavy ivy]

When you say that latter part about the full paths, do you mean in the config or in telling pboProject the source folder?

[full quarry]

in the config

[heavy ivy]

If that's the case, I essentially have it set back to how I had it at the very start. So, I'm not sure that would work.

[olive gale]

hello does anyone know how to make the turret skin for the cheetah aa not look weird

[full quarry]

whats weird?

[olive gale]

I used the texture to make a template and it looked bugged. I thought I messed up and then I applied the apx skin on normal cheetah and it ended up looking bugged again

like I copied the directory

and it still looked messed up

[full quarry]

copied the directory??

[olive gale]

from the pbo that has the ifv-cheetah aa

[full quarry]

[olive gale]

"A3\Data_F_Exp\Vehicles\Turret_olive_CO.paa"

just to check but it would not put the skin right

[full quarry]

how do you try to put it on the tank?

[olive gale]

I made a reskin pbo for my mod

to make a black variant for ion

[full quarry]

so you have a config that applies the turret texture by hiddenSeletions?

[olive gale]

yes

I copied everything from the main mod

selections and and selection textures

wait I see something now

false alarm I forgot a line

[full quarry]

not the models tho right?

[olive gale]

no

only textures

[full quarry]

k

[olive gale]

I don't touch p3d files

[full quarry]

so ye was just coming to the textures array and if you filled it up right

[olive gale]

I forgot to say it to use the crv texture

[full quarry]

no idea what that is. but ok 😄

[olive gale]

it's the third skin out of 4 needed

I'll run it again

[olive gale]

found the true issue

I was repainting the base tracked vehicle

instead of the cheetah

[full quarry]

👌

That would do it

[olive gale]

yea. it makes a bit of sense tho

since the cheetah is in the armor beta pbo

[supple fjord]

Hey texture makers! Just a quick question. How hard is to edit/make a helmet texture? Also, is the procedure long and costy?

[full quarry]

for what helmet? costy?

do you mean how to do a retexture?

[abstract willow]

Hello, how do I convert an _AO into an _AS?

[soft silo]

could you provide some more context?

[abstract willow]

How do I convert an Ambient occlusion map into an ambient specular map

[full quarry]

you name it texturename_as and convert it to paa with imageToPaa

and possibly tweak the blue and green channels to your liking

[honest laurel]

https://imgur.com/a/bvwOVkT
so I took a unit model from the A2 samples to use try and retexture it, but it seems to be asking for the corresponding texture from A2? how can I use my own custom texture with A2 samples?
keep in mind I havent got ca/characters2/blufor/data/soldier_co.paa anywhere in any of my configs or anything

trying to make a uniform item fyi

[lethal condor]

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_Licensed_Data_Pack
Take from here

[honest laurel]

those are binarized? I wont be able to edit the model then correct?

ive removed the hands from the unit model so that it only incluide the actual uniform part so binarized files wouldnt work for me ;/

[lethal condor]

No, texture is not

[honest laurel]

ah, I thought u were saying to take models from that instead of the samples,
you think if I take soldier_co texture from there then it should work?
even if the path is different then what is in the error message?

[lethal condor]

You take the texture, adjust the texture/material path, then it should work

[honest laurel]

chuck it in data folder like every other texture?

[lethal condor]

Yes

[honest laurel]

ok, when its dowloaded ill try it
ive extracted the textures directly from the A2 local files and tried the same but that didint work but I'm not sure if they are the same

[lethal condor]

Huh, then you don't need to download the same pbo

It just couldn't find the texture in the given path

[honest laurel]

yea one sec I think i did it wrong

trying again

er no i couldnt get it to work
no matter what path I tried, ca\characters2\blufor\data\ or the path for my own mod

[lethal condor]

How do you assign your texture path? And where is your texture?

[honest laurel]

the texture path for my mod is "\CUP_Units_CDF_Uniform\data\soldier_co.paa"
my texture is in the data folder

[lethal condor]

Then assign your model's texture path so

[honest laurel]

ah, is that rvmat file?

[lethal condor]

A paa is not a rvmat

[honest laurel]

no but to assign the texture path

for example this is the first part of CUP vest.rvmat

ambient[] = {0.5,0.5,0.5,1};
diffuse[] = {0.5,0.5,0.5,1};
forcedDiffuse[] = {0,0,0,0};
emmisive[] = {0,0,0,1};
specular[] = {1,1,1,1};
specularPower = 150;
PixelShaderID = "Super";
VertexShaderID = "Super";
class Stage1
{
    texture = "CUP\Creatures\People\Military\CUP_Creatures_People_Military_CDF\data\cdf_vest_nohq.paa";
    uvSource = "tex";
    class uvTransform
    {
        aside[] = {1.0,0.0,0.0};
        up[] = {0.0,1.0,0.0};
        dir[] = {0.0,0.0,0.0};
        pos[] = {0.0,0.0,0.0};
    };
};
class Stage2```
and you can see texture = # there, is that what ur referring to?

[lethal condor]

No, I've refer to the texture path for the model. Bring up your p3d, select the faces, press E (Or Ctrl+E, I don't remember), select/edit texture path

[honest laurel]

ooh
okay ive never had to do that thats likely my issue lol
thanks will try it now

[honest laurel]

i think is still not working
though tbh I've only double checked

[full quarry]

Do you have P drive set up?

[honest laurel]

dont think so

[full quarry]

that would be the problem then

the tools are made to work with P drive development environment

[honest laurel]

right, ive succesfully done a vest and helmet just not a uniform, does that change anything or is this purely for uniform creation

[full quarry]

if you have to refer to external data it has to be in its right place

[honest laurel]

refer to external data under what context, like models and textures? if so in my config im only referencing .paa and .p3d files in my own mod folder at this point

[full quarry]

it helps to see the exact paths when everything is set up right

[honest laurel]

right im not exactly sure what your referring to sorry.

[honest laurel]

so this probably isnt the most relevant channel but but ill just follow through
i've got a P: drive shown in my file explorer now, is that that an indication that everything is set up correctly?
important to note its a mirror of my main drive, I wasn't sure if that would be an issue since my mod files are all on a portable HDD

[stray relic]

Not entirely correct. You want the P drive to be a shortcut to the folder in which you'll be making your mod development.
So for example, if your portable HDD is E:, and you have a folder on it for modding called E:\ArmaModding, then your P: drive should be a shortcut to that folder.

[full quarry]

the work directory can be on C: too but its not recommended as it can take a hefty chunk of space

as in C:\armaWork that would be linked virtual to P drive

you dont want your whole system be exposed on the P drive

[stray relic]

He's already told us where his files are

[full quarry]

ah true

so just need to path the drive to right place

[stray relic]

So what I said then 😉

[full quarry]

yis

[honest laurel]

have any good guides to setting up aa p: drive? have looked at the wiki but it is not terribly
descriptive

[stray relic]

Run Steam Arma 3 Tools.
Preferences > Options
set Path to Arma 3 directory (where the arma3 game exe is installed)
set Path to your P Drive (your Arma modding work folder)
Register.

Click Project Drive Management button.
Mount the work drive P > Run.
Extract Game Data > Run.
Optionally Prefences > Mount P drive on startup

[honest laurel]

alright, I've got a P drive which is an exact mirror of my modding folder right now, game data has been extracted into a A3 folder inside it

not sure if it would effect anything but I've set the path to my P drive to be my entire modding folder, not any specific individual folder with data/config etc inside of it
not sure if that would be an issue but thought I would mention it.

also I assume that when using addon builder I should now set the Addon Source Directory and the Destination Directory to the versions inside of the P drive as opposed to my original drive?

https://imgur.com/a/HGSTZ2Q also while I'm here may as well ask about this? I'm not sure if its a property of the model or from something else but I wasn't able to find anything on it unfortunately

[steel talon]

Does anyone happen to have a retexture template for the Kajman and Nyx?

[west steppe]

can anyone help with changing the camo on a texture in substance

[young patio]

HOWDY YALL im brand new to this modding gig and im having trouble with my textures namely i have no idea how to make:
Normal maps
Shadowmaps
or
Rvmats the few vids ive watched online dont seem to apply to what im doing. my major questions are:

1. how do you go about making a normal map? (ive seen one guy bake it in blender and another do it by hand in GIMP)
2. How do you go about making a shadow map (ive only ever seen a guy bake it on blender but the tutorial wasnt a tutorial more of a demonstration)
3. What exactly is an RVMAT and what do i do with it?

im getting pretty confident with the rest of this modding stuff but the textures are really spinning me out and stressing me if im honest. any help for a newbie would be greatly appreciated cheers all!!

[full quarry]

You can find general texturing tutorials and guides online for the tools you have available

Common method today is creating the high poly detail model where the details are then baked on second lowpoly game usable model

This process can produce all the necessary textures you could need.

Rvmat is a text file that contains definition for what shader a surface uses and what technical textures are used in that shader. There are more details on that on the BI wiki

[young patio]

what about shadows and shading ive been told my textures look flat (100 percent true they do)
how would i go about adding shadows and definition to it? im guessing thats what shadow maps do?

[full quarry]

I'd wager if you dwelve into the texture making tutorials such things become apparent

[young patio]

aight ill give it a go, right now im commiting texture crimes

all my textures overalp

*lap

and its just hideous

so really want to step it up as my models look great but the skins applied are ugly

[full quarry]

I'd recommend walking through some basic tutorials and forgetting about arma specifics for a while

The Arma specifics become a lot more easy to understand once you understand texturing workflow in general

[young patio]

alright cool thanks for the help

[full quarry]

Blender can do whole highpoly lowpoly workflow.

Some like use substance painter as it can be faster to work with, but comes of course with a cost.

[dense peak]

Hi I need help with some retexturing

or to be specific adding a color on a beret hat and changing color of an M1 Helmet

[full quarry]

Is there something specific about the process you are unsure about?

[dense peak]

Yes I just started ARMA 3 last month, and I know next to nothing about these stuff

and do not even know where to get started

However what I want is fairly simple which is basically

1. Adding a unit insignia to a beret hat

or

2. Painting a green M1 Helmet to color tan

@full quarry If you can help me get started here that will be very great

[young patio]

ive picked up armor paint as it was relatively cheap and has alot of the same functionality as substance painter but based on the blender framework.

Just got to learn that framework.

[full quarry]

Indeed it has similar features and should be good tool too.

[full quarry]

While you may think it sounds simple it's not quite as simple. I got some stuff to do but perhaps someone else can point you to right direction to where start with retexturing.

The BI forums might have some useful info on that

[olive gale]

does anyone have something similar to a takistan pattern

[near warren]

is there a way to make something glow? I've only ever done PNG to PAA stuff. I'd like if I could have emissions though :P

[severe rune]

yes, using the .rvmat material

[near warren]

why do I have a missingnome

[severe rune]

Well its atleast not as easy as making a retexture.
How did you use custom textures? like, on billboards, or setObjectTexture, or mod configs?

[near warren]

Err- UserTexture sign, so i guess billboard

Should I restart the game to refresh the image? Ie, if I change the image and restart the mission, not application, will it have issues?

ah, seems like it

[severe rune]

On some things (not billboard, but User Texture object works) you can also set material

there you need to set a .rvmat material.
And SuperExt materials let you set a emissivity texture

[olive gale]

hello I need an opinion for some textures I made where can I post them

[lethal condor]

imgur

[olive gale]

and then post the link here?

[lethal condor]

Ye

[olive gale]

https://imgur.com/a/hfPxn0v

https://imgur.com/a/LEJjWbF

I tried making a chernarus buzzard and L39ZA

[dense peak]

where do I find the files of the arma 3 person texture?

[olive gale]

you mean face?

[dense peak]

you know like the shirt the characters are wearing?

uniforms

[olive gale]

I think they are in samples

or in pete's texture templates

[dense peak]

Hmm?https://streamable.com/up1aah

[olive gale]

in steam type arma 3 in the library search bar

you'll see arma 3 tools, arma 3 samples

[dense peak]

oh got it

[dense peak]

how do I view the samples? I clicked launch and nothing happened