arma3_texture

[full quarry]

Something to work on then maybe?

As it is imperative such facts are taught right

[pseudo shoal]

will definitely throw it on the issues board for future updates

[full quarry]

As whatever instructions you write will be taken as the sole truth by the target audience

[pseudo shoal]

True, I think transparency about the limitations of the software will pair well with curiosity to learn modding the right way, especially since this is just my specific implementation. I hope that with a little effort and feedback from the community, the mods this tool generates can be looked at as great examples for starting points

a lot of how I got into modding in the first place was looking through other mod configs to see how it was done

I appreciate the suggestions!

[rancid obsidian]

Where are the default uniform texture files?

[lethal condor]

What default uniform texture?

[rancid obsidian]

Military ones

[lethal condor]

There is a lot of

[rancid obsidian]

Let me see

[rancid obsidian]

Like "Combat Fatigues (MTP)"

[lethal condor]

"\a3\characters_f\blufor\data\clothing1_co.paa"

[rancid obsidian]

Where is that in files?

[lethal condor]

a3\characters_f.pbo

[rancid obsidian]

It's just has data folder

[lethal condor]

?

[rancid obsidian]

Idk where is that

[lethal condor]

a3\characters_f.pbo

[rancid obsidian]

Where?

[lethal condor]

Arma 3\addons\characters_f.pbo

[rancid obsidian]

Couldn't say that earlier?

[lethal condor]

I misrecalled at that point

[rancid obsidian]

Why "getObjectTextures tMan" doesn't work?

[lethal condor]

Probably because you have no tMan

[rancid obsidian]

How to get that tman?

[lethal condor]

Name it in Editor

[rancid obsidian]

Ah wait yes

[rancid obsidian]

In variable name?
Or init?

[lethal condor]

Variable name

[rancid obsidian]

Why these addresses its so weird?

[lethal condor]

?

[rancid obsidian]

@lethal condor how to get other equipment textures?
Like vest, backpack, helmet, facewear

[full quarry]

Fow what purpose?

[rancid obsidian]

Like a mod?

[full quarry]

You can use the config viewer in game to see them if a object is set up with hiddenselections

[rancid obsidian]

Is there nothing like tMan?

[full quarry]

Or you can create a config dump file that you can read outside of game

[full quarry]

I have no idea what that is

[rancid obsidian]

@full quarry

[full quarry]

No that works only for units and vehicles

[ornate stream]

Hey guys, i had a look for the tex's for the yellow lines.I was after the "long curve" piece.Cant find it.Only found the decal sheet.I think bis might be just using the tex to "wrap" an object to make the lines.Anybody know if thats what there doing?Also am after the numbers/fonts for the runways for A1,A2.unable to locate them.Does anybody know who to contact regarding getting the tex's/font from Bis for the A1/2 runway pieces?Or does anyone know of a site that has nice ones already for free?

[jovial urchin]

Hi ! Does anyone have an RVMAT that allows you to make a window without tinting, interrogation room type?
Opaque on one side, or with a mirror effect, transparent on the other.
Thanks 🙂

[full quarry]

Arma 3 draws surfaces only from front side

so no there is no rvmat for that

you would just have 2 different surface with 2 different rvmats/textures

[jovial urchin]

Thanks 🙂

[ornate stream]

Re- Runway number textures.I found the Tanoa Expansion has a decal with only the 4,6,8 numbers missiong.Was easy to make those numbers from the numbersprovided by Bis.The 6 is an upside down 9 and the 4 and 8 were made from the 0.Is there a tool that can push and pull a Bis yellow line texture to make a good 90 or 45 degree angle? Just starting to learn GIMP.

[silver saffron]

Peeps, any suggestions on how to paint glass in substance painter for a vehicle? I guess just a light stroke of a very faint light blue could do the job, since the glass rvmat is applied to that selection via obj builder and transparency in that particular part of the textures will be applied through the alpha channel?

[full quarry]

depends if you want dirt on it

[trail sequoia]

From personal experience sb glass looks very off in arma
Would suggest using the in game glass textures instead

[silver saffron]

Dirt or not isn’t quite really a priority, they are just a light glass, some infrareds glass and driver’s and commander’s visors on the tank. I managed to get dirt on a custom glass for a car with the same method i explained above though

[silver saffron]

Good to know

[silver saffron]

Is it the Ti_ca texture?

[trail sequoia]

Thats a thermal layer afaik
I use the tanoa windows for clean and altis ones for dirty

[silver saffron]

Mm, have you some reference so i can find them?

That’s very useful

[trail sequoia]

structures_f_exp\data\glass

Don't have the path to altis ones at the top of my head but they also should be somewhere in structures_f\data

[silver saffron]

Thanks

[ornate stream]

Anyone needs those numbers , just let me know.:)

[proper palm]

Hey I have a multicam camo texure, is there a way that i can put another texture on it even tho it already has one?

[full quarry]

Texture on what?

[proper palm]

a vest

[full quarry]

Is it a custom vest?

Assume I don't know anything you want to do

[proper palm]

yes, so basiclly there is a vest and it was published with a multicam version, but i want to make for myself a ranger green version, but as far as i understood you can't really create a new "solid color" texture on an object that already has a camo texture

[full quarry]

It is possible but it is a lot of work

[proper palm]

yeah..

is there a tutorial on how to create a texture?

somewhere

[full quarry]

But also it's possible only if said vest is set up with hiddenselections so that a new texture could be applied through the config

[full quarry]

Not for what you want to do specifically.

[proper palm]

damn

alright i'll see what i can do, thank you

[full quarry]

It is basic image editing

Applying various tools and techniques in your choice of a program

But to understand what you would need to do, you would need to know how to do image editing.

[spark shore]

I'm using the moonie pbr to arma substance painter exporter pinned here
what does the user1 channel represent?

[full quarry]

best to forward this to the author I suppose. @celest obsidian 👆

[grim scarab]

At a bit of a loss and hope someone knows what's wrong. A while ago I made a jetpack and to simulate the jets opening and closing I have one model with two different 'sets' of parts, the closed parts and the open parts and I do some material switching to 'open' and 'close' them. Worked perfectly. Now I've redone the model and I'm having an issue with my UV's. The version with the 'open' jets looks fine but the 'closed' jets textures are all fucked. The two parts use the same UV maps as I just use the same texture for them which worked fine for the old one but its fucked up now.

[grim scarab]

nevermind, copied and rotated them again and now they work. . .

[silver saffron]

Hey peeps, what's the obscure reason behind why some destruction rvmats do not get loaded in game, while others (despite being a copy paste where only the as_texture changes as it refers to a different selection) do work? What kind of esoteric knowledge and stuff is going on here

[spark shore]

actually nevermind I've checked the git and it mentions the user1 not being relevant with my problem
my problem being a completely rough channel turns out completely glossy in the smdi
I'm aware glossiness and roughness are the same map but inverted so maybe for some reson this export preset isn't inverting the map?

[full quarry]

well they are not exactly same map

but in simplified conversion inverted roughness can be alright

[spark shore]

not sure if there's a better way to convert pbr to spec gloss honestly

[full quarry]

it should be ok most of the time

but just best to understand what it does and how the different shader types differ

[spark shore]

I do have a rough understanding of it
but once it becomes an smdi its as if it flips
this is supposed to be completely rough
as it is in the pbr version in substance

[full quarry]

you can always manually edit it

[spark shore]

yeah I even know how but I'd really prefeer not to

moonie's git sort of implied it didn't need any post tweaking
so I either read it wrong or I'm using it wrong

I could have a drag and drop layer that flips roughness
would save me the trouble of opening the channel in photoshop every texture

but I'm just noticing something weird
why does the green channel use the base color?

should it not use the metallic channel?

[blissful knot]

Im looking at retexturing some models, but I dont wont to drop $150 for substance 3d painter. Are there any free alternatives?

[full quarry]

Retexturing means painting over texture images

You don't have access to models usually

So substance painter won't help. It's a tool for making new models and their first textures

For re texture painting you can use any image editor. (ms paint, gimp, etc)

[blissful knot]

Cool.
2 things:
1: You still havent answered my question. So respectfully, Are they any free alternatives to substance painter?
2: Are you telling me that EVERYONE ELSE retextures exclusively with image editors and not substance painter (or alternative)? If so, why?

[blissful knot]

And heck, forget about retexturing. Lets just say im making my first object.

[silver saffron]

Re-posting in case it got unnoticed ☝🏻(Merry Christmas folks)

[lucid halo]

1: No
2: because the P3D model doesn't load into Substance painter so it is easier to use Photoshop or Gimp and just modify the textures.

[blissful knot]

Thats a shame.... Thanks for answering.

[celest obsidian]

Sorry, I forgot to answer. User1 is not a problem, you can ignore it, it's just used to export the AS correctly.

You have 2 solutions:
1 - Adjust the SMDI manually using GIMP or Photoshop
2 - Decrease the RVMAT values and see what happens in game.

There's no "correct" way to export Arma-specific textures from Substance. You can optimize it byt using GIMP/Photoshop but it's not always fast/fun. Switching from PBR to Non-PBR requires the use of old methods and knowledge of how textures and colors work in the engine. The best thing to do is to adjust the values and test them until you get the best result.

I may have a solution, but people would have to use a specific substance template for their project.

[celest obsidian]

One thing I forgot: the specular values must be low. Try these values in your RVMATs:

specularPower = 25;```

[celest obsidian]

Oh my... I've just figured out the problem everyone is having. I should have thought of it sooner, it's actually quite logical, but as I don't explain how it works, if you're not familiar with how a roughness or specularity map works, you may have made this mistake.

How it works:

The export setting using the met-rough workflow exports the specular map (SMDI) as follows:
R = User1 (white)
G = Diffuse/base color
B = Roughness

Note that the engine uses the blue channel of this map to determine where it should shine more or less, that's why we're including the roughness in the blue channel. Arma 3 doesn't support PBR, so we're talking about a non-PBR workflow using only specular maps. Specular maps and roughness maps are not interpreted in the same way, but values can be inverted to transform a roughness map into a specular map.

If your texture is too bright and looks strange in the game, it may be because you didn't invert your roughness before exporting it.
It may also be due to high values in your RVMAT. I usually recommend to keep the specularPower below 60.
The specular and specular power values are the fields you need to adjust.

How to invert your roughness in substance :

• Select all your layers, right-click on one of them and select Group layers. It will create a new folder with all your layers inside of it.
• Right-click on the folder and select Add levels
• Change the Affected Channel from Base Color to Roughness

You can uncheck this effect if you want to continue working on your project, and re-activate it before exporting.

Readme on github updated.

[spark shore]

I did something similar to invert roughness yes
which I guess makes texturing less painful that dragging them in gimp/photoshop every time
but what confuses me is why does the SMDI Green channel use the Diffue/Base Color ?
I've seen someone mention how a grayscaled CO map could help create a credible gloss map but it feels weird that its the only option

@celest obsidian unsure if there's a faster way like you said but I made a drag and drop smart material to do it

[floral fiber]

am i the only person who has just not had any problems with this

[spark shore]

lucky you I guess
I just assumed the exporter would automatically flip it
forgetting it can't do that
I also never had particularly big issues before because my roughness was always grey-ish
so even if it was flipped the wrong way it still never gave issues
but now I made an almost completely rough material so when I forget to flip it it looks like its wet

[trail sequoia]

Does the export presets account for this?

[celest obsidian]

I also added one to the github repo earlier today 👍

[celest obsidian]

It depends on the workflow and the way you make your roughness (or the materials themselves)

[celest obsidian]

Yes, it's a DirectX Normal. 🙂

[wooden lantern]

Here’s my question, why not export a gloss map because gloss is just inverse roughness iirc

[celest obsidian]

No problems with spec-gloss, only with met-rough workflows 🙂

[wooden lantern]

oh no im saying project in met rough -> export and auto convert to gloss

also what's the best practice for exporting metallic maps, or is that just something that needs to be set in the rvmat instead and should be left out of the texture

i do not understand the smdi at all and have seen like 20 different ways of describing it lol

would be nice if there was like a way of telling which ones are actually correct

also is exporting base color or diffuse a better idea

[celest obsidian]

metallic maps should be left out

You can try to include your metallic map into your base color. I never tried but it could work.

The best is still Diffuse for Arma 3 by the way but most people work with Base Colors now

[wooden lantern]

roughness flipped then exported with base color and smdi being R - white G - met B - rough

no roughness flipped and exported as R - white G - diffuse B - rough

gonna try roughness flipped now

[celest obsidian]

Roughness flipped will have the proper result

with the correct values in your RVMAT

[wooden lantern]

oh yeah i should check those

thanks

im used to game engines with pbr lol this is a step backwards

[celest obsidian]

You will find a way to make it look better

yes non-pbr is old school

it's a different beast

[wooden lantern]

mhm

interesting

strange number to pick lol

[celest obsidian]

Did you pick the number yourself or used another RVMAT as a reference?

You can actually adjust the values of your RVMAT using an old BI tool

that I never use

but you can 😄

[wooden lantern]

oh no it was made by someone else

idek who decided those values lol

im just making a new texture for it cuz the og one is... a lil dated

what even is the point of forced diffuse

new rvmats

looks good

[floral fiber]

yeah non pbr sucks

can still make stuff look nice its just a pain on the ass

[wooden lantern]

what fresnel settings could help with it being so matte

bc deadass index of refraction and stuff is still cojnfusing to me lol

[full quarry]

needs git gud

[wooden lantern]

RAAAAAAAAAAA I GOT IT

it looks halo now

RANDOM VALUES WOOOOOOO

[full quarry]

but also if it works

👍

[trail sequoia]

been putting off texturing stuff for a while, working exclusively with multimats
forgot how fun this was
ignoring the occasional adobe antics ofc

[full quarry]

looks good

is that all single multimat?

[celest obsidian]

Nice 🙂

[celest obsidian]

Much better, good job 👍

[outer needle]

Using the moonie presets, the superNo2Diff preset export the normals a grayscale. Is that exported texture supposed to be included into the color map in an independent software or Im I missing something? (sorry, pea brain right now)

[celest obsidian]

exactly, you can use photoshop or gimp to include the No2Diff into your Color Map

[outer needle]

thank you for the clarification, brain barely working right now 👍

[trail sequoia]

Super shader
What I meant was that I was texturing stuff by making multimats with the existing textures

[full quarry]

ah 😄

👍

[willow marlin]

Heyo, im retexturing a uniform from another mod, but i want to make/have made a new normal (nohq) for it.

How do i make it work in game? any special lines of code i need to add?

[sleek temple]

Probably you need to clone rvmat. Specify in it the path to your texture. In OB specify new rvmat.

[full quarry]

cant specify new rvmat in retexture

but there is a config parameter for hiddenSelectionMaterials that can be used to inject different rvmats on an object

[willow marlin]

any idea how this works in practice?

google rwsults did not work

[full quarry]

same way hiddenselections work with textures, just different parameter in config

I do recommend checking out the arma 3 modding samples on steam

and getting yourself a all in one config dump file for easy reading of full A3 config as reference

[willow marlin]

i always forget the samples, thanks

hiddenselectionmaterials didnt work for tho

[full quarry]

check syntax for typos

and make sure your rvmat is actually properly made

and Id assume the texture changing works on that uniform?

[willow marlin]

well atleast the basic texture yeah

[full quarry]

is that for the same part you try to change the material for?

[willow marlin]

yes

[full quarry]

then it could be your rvmat is not correct

[willow marlin]

does it need to be converted to .rvmat in any special way? or anything like that

[full quarry]

packing into pbo should binarize rvmat but you should not need to do anything to it

[willow marlin]

yeah, still doesnt seem to change anythings, but oh well, will need to to try to figure it out

[full quarry]

is your rvmat otherwise same as the original?

except the change of the normalmap stage?

[willow marlin]

yes

[willow marlin]

could it just be that the rvmat cant be changed?

[lethal condor]

In what sense?

[willow marlin]

for a retexture

as in above,

[lethal condor]

I'm not really following the context. What is your issue, your expection, your config?

[willow marlin]

(meant the context is above conversation)
I am retexturing uniform from RHSAFRF, trying to change normal map as well.

Trying to change .RVMAT file for it, by using hiddenselectionmaterials in config.

RVMAT has been changed with normal map line to point to the new normal files location, but doesnt work.

[lethal condor]

How is your config? How is your RVMAT?

And doesn't work how?

[willow marlin]

dont see changes in the normal map, do you want me to paste the whole config/rvmat here, or?

[lethal condor]

Both and your original and result

If you can texture too

It's really hard to see how it is wrong with just words

[willow marlin]

Ok. Is a zip file ok? Would make it easier to pack all

[lethal condor]

Pack your entire project is not necessary

Tell your config where you have the issue, your result picture, your RVMAT

[willow marlin]

config:

{
    class NEW_Uniform
    {
        version = "1";
        units[] = {};
        weapons[] = {};
        requiredVersion = "1";
        requiredAddons[] = {};
    };
};
class CfgVehicles
{
    class ContainerSupply;
    class Supply31: ContainerSupply
    {
        maximumLoad = 31;
    };
    class Supply93: ContainerSupply
    {
        maximumLoad = 93;
    };
    class Supply45: ContainerSupply
    {
        maximumLoad = 45;
    };
    class B_Soldier_base_F;
    class M05_DU: B_Soldier_base_F
    {
        scope = 1;
        author = "Kartsa";
        dlc = "ART";
        model = "\rhsafrf\addons\rhs_infantry3\ratnik\rhs_emr_base_gloves.p3d";
        hiddenSelections[] = {"camo","camo1","camo2"};
        hiddenSelectionsTextures[] = {"NUniform_Kit\data\M05_vest.paa","NUniform_Kit\data\M05_pants.paa","rhsafrf\addons\rhs_infantry3\ratnik\data\gloves_co.paa"};
        hiddenSelectionMaterials[] = {"NUniform_Kit\data\NUniform_Vest.rvmat"};
    };
};
class cfgWeapons
{
    class UniformItem;
    class Uniform_Base;
    class Uniform_DU_M05: Uniform_Base
    {
        scope = 2;
        author = "Kartsa";
        dlc = "ART";
        displayName = "[M05] Dress Uniform";
        picture = "\NUniform_Kit\ui\uniform_test.paa";
        model = "\A3\Characters_F\Common\Suitpacks\suitpack_original_F";
        class ItemInfo: UniformItem
        {
            uniformModel = "-";
            uniformClass = "M05_DU";
            containerClass = "Supply45";
            mass = 50;
            allowedSlots[] = {"701","801","901"};
            armor = 0;
        };
    };
};
class cfgMods
{
    author = "Kartsa";
    timepacked = "1604891926";
};```

rvmat:

ambient[] = {1,1,1,1};
diffuse[] = {1,1,1,1};
forcedDiffuse[] = {0,0,0,1};
emmisive[] = {0,0,0,1};
specular[] = {0.08627451,0.08627451,0.08627451,1};
specularPower = 9.5;
PixelShaderID = "Super";
VertexShaderID = "Super";
class Stage1
{
    texture = "NUniform_kit\data\Nuniform_nohq.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,MC)";
    uvSource = "tex";
    class uvTransform
    {
        aside[] = {1,0,0};
        up[] = {0,1,0};
        dir[] = {0,0,0};
        pos[] = {0,0,0};
    };
};
class Stage4
{
    texture = "rhsafrf\addons\rhs_infantry3\ratnik\data\lodu_emr_vest_as.paa";
    uvSource = "tex";
    class uvTransform
    {
        aside[] = {1,0,0};
        up[] = {0,1,0};
        dir[] = {0,0,0};
        pos[] = {0,0,0};
    };
};
class Stage5
{
    texture = "rhsafrf\addons\rhs_infantry3\ratnik\data\lodu_emr_vest_smdi.paa";
    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(1.16,0.32)";
    uvSource = "none";
};
class Stage7
{
    texture = "rhsafrf\addons\rhs_infantry\Data\env_land_co.paa";
    uvSource = "tex";
    class uvTransform
    {
        aside[] = {1,0,0};
        up[] = {0,1,0};
        dir[] = {0,0,0};
        pos[] = {0,0,0};
    };
};
class StageTI
{
    texture = "rhsafrf\addons\rhs_infantry3\ratnik\data\lodu_emr_vest_ti_ca.paa";
};```

trying to get rid of this

[lethal condor]

hiddenSelectionsMaterials not hiddenSelectionMaterials

[willow marlin]

oh no

how am i this dumb

ok wow i thank you a million times, and will now go hide in shame from a small mistake like this

[lucid halo]

What is nopx? I don't see that listed on the BIS texture naming rules? Should I be using that instead of nohq?

[lethal condor]

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_3:_Parallax_Map
This is something you cannot use on things other than a terrain surface

[modern sand]

Hey i am trying to create a custom sprite sheet, which from what i've discovered requires me to assign a texture to a plane it can't just be a .paa. How do I do this in object builder? I gave it a try, created an 8x8 plane, selected the plane, face properties, and applied the texture. Then i exported it and threw it into a particle config but I'm being thrown an error saying it can't be opened. Can i get some help?

[livid knot]

whats the error exactly?

[modern sand]

"Cannot open object Impact.p3d"

[livid knot]

double check file paths and naming and make sure the p3d isnt corrupt

[full quarry]

exported from where?

@modern sand

[modern sand]

particleShape="\Impact";

P3D file is in the root addon folder

[modern sand]

Object builder

[full quarry]

what menu did you use?

because

in OB you need to just SAVE AS

to save as p3d

there is a button to export p3d but thats some very old unsupported format

[modern sand]

I was using Export lmao

I'll try save as

[full quarry]

[modern sand]

Tried Save-As and im still getting the same error

[full quarry]

where does the error pop up exactly?

[modern sand]

In game, as soon as the particle effect is called.

[full quarry]

then could be the path in config does not match the path in pbo

[modern sand]

https://prnt.sc/gemBYZCdt90X

https://prnt.sc/dhqLw7LJNQ0v

It's in the root folder, there are no subfolders in this PBO.

[full quarry]

thats not the right path

path starts at P:\

so P:\modProjectFolder\someFolder\new.p3d -> modProjectFolder\someFolder\new.p3d

[modern sand]

So instead of "\Impact.p3d";

"\CharacterFX\addons\ImpactMan\Impact.p3d";

Nah tried that, no worky

[livid knot]

Try "\PboName\Impact.p3d" @modern sand

So "\ImpactMan\Impact.p3d"

[modern sand]

Tried that too, that was one of my earlier attempts

so it's gotta be the p3d itself no?

[full quarry]

not necessarily

the path might still be broken

try unpacking your pbo and see what folder structure is in it

[modern sand]

There's no structure at all it's just:
https://prnt.sc/E-F9pqPupkTU

As soon as you unpack it

I haven't even binarized the config yet lmao

[full quarry]

:L

what are you packing it with?

[modern sand]

PBO manager

[full quarry]

what do you have in your pboPrefix file?

ah

then thats the problem

your workflow is fcked

manager is not proper pbo maker tool for addons

[modern sand]

So in order for the file path to be correct i have to use a proper PBO packager?

[livid knot]

Pbo manager might not be great, but ive never had an issue with pathing when packing with it

[full quarry]

most likely

🔨

[modern sand]

Yea same

[full quarry]

people always insisting they got no problems when they come here to ask why they have problems

[modern sand]

I mean i had a problem, which is why i came here. Didn't think it would've been PBO manager

Packing it the right way and testing, gimme a sec

[livid knot]

You could try creating a simple object in editor and see if it spawns it or not

[modern sand]

Yea packing it through filebank didnt work either

[full quarry]

addon builder or better yet pboProject (so it can tell you whats wrong at packing)

[modern sand]

Using addon builder

Testing it now

Okay so it turned my p3d into a texture. Then told me it cant load it, so now when the particle is called its just a bright white box floating in the air

We're making proggress

[mint root]

I'm having an issue where decals/alpha textures I have are not having shadows applied to them. Anyone know how to fix this?

[full quarry]

What material do they have?

[mint root]

Just the default_alpha rvmat

from data_f

[full quarry]

I'll have to check what we're using. That one might not be suitable for this use case.

Also one thing I recall is that you might need to make the opaque parts only 99% opaque. Instead of 100%

[mint root]

99% opacity was the fix, ty

Just saved our lives lol. It's been hours trying to figure it out

[full quarry]

👍

smål bits of knowledge one picks up along the way

[hollow hearth]

What’s a good program to use if you don’t have photoshop?

Just reskinning stuff

[full quarry]

gimp, paint, krita etc free painting software you want to learn to use

[hollow hearth]

Oh that’s right Gimp exists

Thank you

[twilit halo]

Hey, guys! Im looking forward to start making texture addons for uniforms, vests, backpacks, etc. but I can't seem to find a tutorial that shows how to do that stuff and I will be very glad if you can send me some youtube videos and stuff on how to start and where to start from(I dont know any programs too, so it would be very helpful if you tell me the programs that you are using)

[full quarry]

the term you are looking for is retexturing, you should be able to find guides on that on BI Forums and the chat history here.

basically it involves painting over an existing texture in image editor of your choise. (few free ones listed couple comments above)

[full quarry]

and a config that tells a new class of a thing to use your new texture through hiddenselections on the model

[zenith pine]

So I've got a question that I'm gonna preface by saying that this is the first I've gone into doing any kind of arma modding in at least a year so I'm a little rusty. With that being said, I'm trying to make some custom uniforms by repurposing vanilla textures. I was hoping to use the worn kerry fatigues as a reference but I'm not seeing the texture for it anywhere, just the icon for it

[full lion]

Hi,
I'm making my own uniforms addon and I need help.
I tried to find it on the internet, unfortunately without success.
What is the easiest way to make such a preview of the uniform? I mean the image to the left of the text, I know how to add it to the config, it's about creating the image itself.
Image of what I mean:

Thanks in advance for your help!

[rich fossil]

If you use OB I reccomend you to use buldozer but if you use blender I recommend you export it as Obj and as well change your uniforms textures to png so whem you go to shading, click the uniform and drag the texture to that and link it to "Base color"

[full quarry]

no need to export as obj

Blender has plugins to export directly to p3d

[full lion]

Well, to be exact what I am doing. I only changed the texture of uniform, I have it in game, all functional. Only one detail is that "preview" image on the left side of text as shown it's screen from Arsenal. I only ask if there is some function in Arma to do that image, something like function to do preview image for Eden Editor or I just need to do maybe screen in game and in some editing program like PS.

[full quarry]

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/BIS_fnc_exportEditorPreviews this can be adpated for uniforms too

although it might require tinkering

[full lion]

I know about that function, but it does only previews for Editor with the player model, doesn't it? I honestly didn't exactly try it. I need just in-game screen of uniform without anything else to put as preview image into Arsenal. I can't exactly explain it.

Anyways I will try that function and maybe it will do the work.

[full quarry]

like I said it may need tinkering

like modifying the function to place the unit and camera in the way you need

applying animation that T poses it for picture taking and so on

[rich fossil]

Ik, But I use the obj to export the 3d to OBJ to see the textures.

[full quarry]

eh? the 3d?

wut

[rich fossil]

Yes.

[full quarry]

what is the 3D?

[rich fossil]

p3d

[full quarry]

:L

blender can show textures too

[rich fossil]

With the arma3tools pluggin?

[full quarry]

well just on its own

not related to arma3 in any way

you just assign materials and connect them with textures

[full lion]

Okay, thanks a lot.

[true spade]

my first attempt at baking a texture hasn't gone very well. I am trying to bake a wheel that has 4 different materials into one texture set. I baked a diffuse, normal and a roughness in 4k and this is how it turned out. As you may imagine, this isn't my intended outcome lol. does anybody know what im doing wrong or how i might achieve the image on the left from a baked texture

[full quarry]

you still need all the different textures separated

[livid knot]

You cant bake all those values to one texture. Normally you would have one texture image for each of those sets. Engines other than armas let you split the rgba values which lets you combine some of them

[full quarry]

👆

aslo might note here that Arma materials dont use metal/rough PBR but older Specular/Gloss rendering

so the metalness and roughness dont translate directly to that

[true spade]

What would be the solution? To have separate objects for each material and bake individually?

[livid knot]

What program are you using? Just blender?

[true spade]

Yeah at the moment

[full quarry]

change bake outputs to bake texture you need, save it

and repeat

[livid knot]

I havnt baked in blender before, that would mean baking 3 seperate times right goat?

[full quarry]

yes

[true spade]

I really appreciate the help, but I'm away from my computer right now and don't think I understand you both, but thank you guys for hekping

[full quarry]

you bake out different types of textures and save them as files

if you then want to see how they look you make a material and use different nodes to plug those textures on a shader

if you want to use those textures in Arma you create a RVMAT material file and path the textures in correct places in there

[true spade]

Yes I baked each material separately onto the same image, so I ended up with a 2d image of my whole wheel and respective images piecing up the image, but when I applied the image to a wheel it came out looking like that

[full quarry]

no no

separate images

[true spade]

Ahhh

Multiple image nodes feeding into same BDSF?

[full quarry]

yes

[true spade]

Okok

Thank you!

[full quarry]

the basic gist is same with Arma material files too

[true spade]

I shall see how I get on when I'm back at my computer

Thank you so much for the help guys

[ashen violet]

I apologize for blowing up this group but for those who have made a fall/autumn themed map. What were some of the things you did to make your satmap match what textures you were using ? For instance my satmap is all green currently and I’m having a hell of time trying to figure out how to get it to match the textures I used

[full quarry]

use your mask as reference and do color corrections

it will be quite a bit of manual work

but then again, most terrain making is

and well you dont want to use real life satmap anyway since the colors are generally poor for game lighting so repainting it to fit is just part of the process

also you may need to consider if your ground textures are actually right kind/color if they dont look right

[true spade]

this is what im doing, am i doing the right thing? fucks sake im sorry i will get more tutorials down me ive been linked one and havent watched it. But essentially im baking an image for each material. but they all are part of that upper UV map. might abandon this current try until i watch that video though

[full quarry]

yes all the textures use same uv map

but maybe best to go through some tutorials that explain it

[true spade]

YO! it might not be great but this is just with the 4 diffuse maps applied, unsure if they're set up right, or how it ties into bring it to arma, but ill go look that up. just wanted to share a kind of success

[full quarry]

4 diffuse maps just for wheels?

[true spade]

the wheel cap, rubber, that inner tread part, then the tire wall which has text writing but only in the normal map

😦

[full quarry]

for example one of the vanilla APC texture split

[ashen violet]

Thank you. Sorry, I just realized I put this in the wrong channel.

[full quarry]

is alright, it was a texture related question. the terrain channel might be more consistent but still no worries

[full quarry]

note that the APC uses mirrored side there which many dislike despite it being efficient

it makes difficult to make alternate textures

[true spade]

all them 4 fit on the same UV so could i just layer them ontop of eachother?

[full quarry]

yes

you should also be able to bake them all together into single texture 🤔

[true spade]

i did that and it came out looking horrible

or attempted

[full quarry]

odd. Id recommend figuring out why

[true spade]

lol ive done it

im an idiot

ive ended up with that from a diffuse and normal image

thhank you for the help though im sorry for clogging the channel today!

[full quarry]

no worries, thats what the channel is for

you will still need to set up a specular mapping which is similar to roughness but not quite

and some tweaking of the arma RVMAT file later on to get the shinyness levels to work as you like

but its getting there

[true spade]

iis a specular map baked the same as others?

[full quarry]

if you set up something to be outputted as specular map then sure

blenders shaders are metal/rough PBR too now

so its not quite the same

but you can use the material nodes to create suitable output

[true spade]

what image textures should i be baking (normal,diffuse etc.) if bringing into arma is the goal? d

im sorry if i seem frank

[full quarry]

color, normalmap, ambienocclusion, specularmap are the basic parts

[nocturne scroll]

Anyone happen to know if the Arma CWA 9P117 SCUD-B textures are interchangable with the Arma 2: OA ones, and if so, where I could get the Arma CWA 9P117 SCUD-B textures?

[vernal sage]

No, they are not compatible since they're completely different models.

Textures for the OFP Scud are stored in DTA\data.pbo (search for textures starting with "scud"). It uses a mix of PAC and PAA textures.
Textures for the A2OA SCUD are stored in Expansion\wheeled_e.pbo (under the directory "scud" subfolder). It only uses PAA textures.

[balmy palm]

struggling with some pretty basic stuff and was wondering if you guys could help
I understand (roughly) how ambient, diffuse, emmisive etc works; however I'm not entirely sure how the highlighted stuff on the right affect the textures.
Also how would i remove the artefacting on the left image - I believe this is tied to my RVmat rather than the shadow geom.

any help would be appreciated!

[full quarry]

the first box is the well uvtransform which tells the stage the bounds of the texture mapping. typically you leave that as it is unless you know why you would change it

secodn box is optional for DT (detail) texture that can be used to overlay a greyscale texture over the surfaces to add extra detail

the left image looks weird but I dont know what kind of look you are after

so what do you mean by artefacting

and lastly now that I look at it, is this a Forza car?

:L

[balmy palm]

thanks man, appreciate it..
The darker blue appears to be a shadow, but I have no idea why its appearing in random patches

and no, I made the model myself

[full quarry]

shadowlod would need to be made to fit under the visual mesh

if it pokes through it casts shadow on itself

[balmy palm]

ah, I always thought it would cull itself, that probably explains it! thank you

[balmy palm]

Forgive me, I know this isnt the correct place, but I do have a follow-up, the outside shadow LOD problem is now fixed, however this is now an issue inside - do I need to give the shadow LOD a "cavity" inside for the internal space or not?

[full quarry]

yes

like I said, it has to fit inside the visual shape

if you have open interior, the shadow lod needs open interior

tha shadownlod however does not have to be 1 contiunous part

you can split it into smaller pieces if its easier and less polygon using to do so

[balmy palm]

ah, ok, thank you again!

[outer needle]

Hello Fellas, by any chance, does anyone know who was the veteran that showed an example of a "reflective polished metal" texture on D.Eagles in various colors?
I've some questions, as im trying to achieve similar results for barrels

[full quarry]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/839818528685424660/1175903369316008099/image.png?ex=65b6c05a&is=65a44b5a&hm=5f7ab454bbf77f88f5b54c07f50c0b7c425bfdbbed4b6eb87c8414f435cbfa7d&=&format=webp&quality=lossless&width=774&height=510

I got golden buffalo

[full quarry]

ask the questions though, answers can probably be figured out

[outer needle]

Hey Goat, any tip to better translate the metallic look for that kind of reflectiveness?
I assume specularity is low, but I kind of end up with dull looking metal, kind like it had a layer of dirt or as if it was marble instead of metal. Im wondering if there is something that Im missing to consider when exporting the textures itself in Substance with Moonie SuperDiff preset

[full quarry]

spec is high

[outer needle]

so high spec low hotspot?

[full quarry]

but I dont think substance textures really translate into that

its more s specific way to fake/make it in rvmat

[outer needle]

ah, perfect. I will focus on testing on the rvmats then

do you recall if there is a vanilla preset where that happens?
The only one I recall seeing is the barrel for the vanilla 45ACP pistol

[full quarry]

also need correctly set up fresnel value (use supershader)

and correctly made smdi texture

for the gold buffalo

SMDI

the base texture itself remains same

but it can be toyed with too

in my experience dark colors work better though when you make shiny surfaces

[outer needle]

Thanks Goat, I shall refer to this later today.

[floral fiber]

does anyone have any recommended lighting configs for SP to get it matching arma best?

ive tried using those apex envs but they dont seem to be too close

[ivory saddle]

Hello everyone.I'm trying to use scripts to change the textures of vanilla objects to my own.Unsuccessful attempts.Is it possible to do this in principle and how, can you tell me?Or you will have to build your own objects and sculpt your own textures on them.?Help the brothers in arms.

The commands I know for replacing textures, such as, setObjectMaterial,setObjectTexture,setObjectTexture Global and ......, do not help.

[lucid halo]

What does "Concrete024_NOHQ.paa DePax:MipMapOffsets not same" mean? I got the error while building my mod with pboProject.

[full quarry]

something corrupt in the file mayhaps. best to convert it to .paa again

[lethal condor]

We cannot help you either without knowing which object you're trying to retex, what you've done exactly, codes, error messages etc

[full quarry]

only objects with hiddenSelections can be changed with scripts

vehicles, characters are like that

some computers etc have screens that can be rextured like that

most buildings, rocks, trees, etc are not set up for that

[lucid halo]

wth does "DeTex:not little Endian" mean?

[full quarry]

cant say I've ever seen that on

you got some weird files

[lucid halo]

I guess so. I always get that 1% thats not human error lol

[full quarry]

gonne need that exorcist

[solar moss]

Ive tried to make a texture but it doesnt seem to show on the uniform ingame ,its just one weird colour

[lethal condor]

Without details we can really offer no help than generic points to re-check

• Texture resolution
• Texture name
• Texture bitdepth

[dry hill]

Quick question, which "format" should i use here for retextures of uniforms/vehicles etc ?
RGBA / DXT5 ?

[full quarry]

the conversion rules should default to different types depending on the suffix you use

you should not need to select them manually

[dry hill]

thanks

[full quarry]

best to use imageToPaaGUI

its the fastest tool and can convert textures in batches

[lucid halo]

Does pboProject make mipmaps off of the textures you use? I keep getting a "mipmapoffsets not same" error and remade the texture multiple times.

[lethal condor]

It shouldn't. How you've convert to PAA?

[lucid halo]

have used ImagetoPAA and TexView. Deleted the paa before making a new one

[full quarry]

can you think of anything special about the texture? resolution? type?

what source filetype you use?

png/tga?

[lucid halo]

tga source. its a normal map. 4k res.

[full quarry]

weird error. cant say I can rememeber seeing it before 😅

[lucid halo]

Im just cursed.

I find bugs no one ever knew about

[full quarry]

if you delete the paa and let pbo project handle the conversion what then?

it should do it through texview

or imageToPaa dont remember exactly

[lucid halo]

I convert before loading model into object builder then assign the paa's there

[lethal condor]

Can you check the PAA in Eliteness and what it says?

[lucid halo]

no. Im not a subscriber

[lethal condor]

You don't need to

[lucid halo]

according to Eliteness it says so

[trail sequoia]

Its peak adobe that I need a 70$ software so that I can have custom fonts in my other 70$ software
has anyone here tried armorpaint?

[wet nymph]

Hey there, wanted to ask a question about RVMATS. I noticed in the virtual arsenal that the VR entities (targets) aren't really reflective or anything, but they seem to glow under nods. I wanted to try doing a little experimenting, and started looking at the RVMAT and I thought it could have something to do with the SMDI, but there isnt an SMDI pathed.

Is this purely using specular values in the rvmat?

I kind of struggle to understand how the values work as well. I get that they are RGBA values, but not how they would affect the final product

[manic mulch]

hey guys, how can i find the textures used by a structure?
I'm trying to retexture a house from Altis, but want to find the textures of it.

[lethal condor]

Usually in structures_f PBOs. But they are normally unretexturable

[manic mulch]

that's why i'm unable to find it them...
there goes my mod idea.

[lethal condor]

There actually are several attempts that managed to do that. But I don't recommend that

[manic mulch]

is there a reason BI don't allow to do this?

[lethal condor]

It's not about BI. It's about how the model is made

[floral fiber]

terrain objects dont support hiddenselections

[manic mulch]

hidden selections is for changing textures with commands, isn't it?
my idea is to actually replace the original textures, with AI Upscaled ones.

[lethal condor]

hiddenSelections is the regular way to make a retex. As I said it isn't impossible

[manic mulch]

life finds a way

[floral fiber]

has anybody made any sort of performance comparisons for 2k vs 4k texture sheets for uniforms/vests/weapons?

[twin bane]

http://quixel.se/

[manic mulch]

upscaled texture comparison.
The original was 1024x, the newer is 4096x

[manic mulch]

and this is with a 100% new texture.

[native arch]

From what I’ve seen personally is just FPS loss when it comes to uniforms being 4k textures

Vests and weapons I’ve never seen

[full quarry]

These rocks are pretty big.

[full quarry]

This is likely to happen since the memory strain and loading time increase.

[native arch]

I was playing with other people and I couldn’t even look at them because just looking at them was dropping my FPS and I had to keep my distance of like a good 500 meters from them. That was just with my normal settings on high, dropped everything to very low and it made my FPS just hella high

It was like my first time to have a reason to play on the very low setting lmao

[full quarry]

low settings mean 4k is never used

it uses lower resolution mipmaps

well even high might not show 4K actually

I think only Ultra texture quality does

[native arch]

Then whoever made the mod did something cause everything else was lower quality while their uniforms was still like still crisp 4k

Cause i usually play on high not even ultra

[full quarry]

well technically its possible to make a texture with no other mipmaps, forcing the use of the highest one

I little bit doubt that was the case but its possible.

4K can be useful for crisper textures for sure but I would not use it on buildings

since that will blow performance

[native arch]

I would assume uniforms and stuff would do the same?

[full quarry]

there are a lot more building related textures being loaded than there are unit/vehicle related ones

and even the latter have impact

[full quarry]

yeah any 4K takes its toll

so best to use them on things that are looked at closely

[native arch]

I’m assuming it’s better to use that for like smaller things that aren’t used 24/7 like small props n stuff

[full quarry]

I wouldn use it on smallest props either

vehicles and uniforms got enough surface space to benefit from it

smaller gear like vests and helmets might already need less texture space so the can have similar enough texel density on 2K texture as an uniform has with 4k texture

you can make an single banana with 4K texture for that ultra zooming in

but is it worth it? 😅

[native arch]

Lmao no

[upbeat cradle]

Quick question: I'm getting texture pop in and out on a custom hat after about 20m, I know it's an issue with one of my LODs but I'm not sure which one/why. Anyone know?

[full quarry]

well one of them must be missing texture definiyion in the model

should be simple enough to check all lods

in Object builder buldozer for example

[upbeat cradle]

Gottcha, that would make sense; it was the first one I added and have not had the problem since. I'll let you know Mr. Goat man

Yeah that did it, cheers

[manic mulch]

how can i make a specular map like this one? (DTSMDI).

[full quarry]

you can paint one

or combine one from generated sources

as long as you understand what each color channel is supposed to do

it is typically a greyscale image with name suffix of dtsmdi

and once converted to .paa it often changes to look like that according to the conversion rules for dtsmdi

[manic mulch]

so, i would use this heightmap image for it?

[full quarry]

no

you dont really have anything that would directly translate into it

[wet nymph]

Use substance painter if you can

[manic mulch]

is there a way to add a specular map texture for a texture that doesn't have it?
for example, the indoors texture has a specular map. But the outdoors plaster texture doesn't have a specular map.
I tried copying the specular map from the indoors texture and renaming it for the outdoors one, but it doesn't work.
So, is there some other way to allow this texture to use a specular map? some config file or something.

[lucid halo]

Did you copy the RVMAT settings?

[manic mulch]

There isn't a RVMAT in the folder.

[lethal condor]

Since I'm not quite sure about it but, what is the benefit/example with or without _AS map for Super shader? Is there some significant difference? I know is related with AO, but I have never thought it can be a gamechanger

[stray relic]

Are you asking "What is Ambient Occlusion?".
Or "What is the point of having Ambient Occlusion?".
Both of those are not really Arma specific and Google will give a million answers to explain.
Or something else?

[lethal condor]

I mean, how an AS can influence/change AO. I know what is, and how it should look, but as far as I've tried I cannot really spot a big difference with or without AS

[stray relic]

An _as texture is AO. Without it you don't have AO. No AO should be very noticeable.

[lethal condor]

Hm, so I think misunderstood how an AO works, it should refer to baked tex to tell where is dark, not dynamically generated "fake shadow?"

I definitely know AO is and what it looks with or without, but as far as I've tried I failed to see if it is working. I think I may retry after

[stray relic]

I suppose it might be considered a more subtle effect than normal or specular maps, which are really obvious if they are missing/broken.

[lethal condor]

Hmm guess I had to apply RVMAT into P3D directly, hiddenSelectionsMaterials didn't work to apply it

That probably is why I couldn't find any difference

[wet nymph]

I personally just overlay my AO on my diffuse, and only use the rvmat for NOHQs and SMDIs

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1155676343560835072/1195937814018269214/Render1.png?ex=65bf0962&is=65ac9462&hm=3bc7d0c19c0b31d0ec0b4c01fd9c48e26597cac65fcd0dac4e4b6bc1b13f17e6&

It's a blender render, not Arma ofc

But I just have my AO overlayed on the diffuse, and the normals applied through nodes

[full quarry]

you can have some ao as extra shading on diffuse but properly made AO can enhance visuals quite a lot

[crude dragon]

https://i.imgur.com/zHC7WAb.jpg

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

...so does annyone know of a method to remove clutter in the burnt area?

[full quarry]

roadwaylod

[crude dragon]

is it resizable?

[full quarry]

to some extent

although it is not recommenened to do a lot of resizing

can cause wonky stuff

[crude dragon]

Makes it glittchy when wlking to or around it?

my bad, Wonky! ha

[analog sail]

hello, im trying to make a main menu mod and im trying to import a image into i made in adobe illustrator but im having trouble getting the colours to work they keep inverting (mainly yellows and blues). i got the right pixel size to make it into a paa but i dont know if im missing something? because it work with regular png's i get off the internet but not with the ones i made? can anyone help?

[lethal condor]

1. Resolution?
2. Bit depth?
3. File name?

[analog sail]

2048x2048, 32 bit from what i know, and logo.paa im not sure on what suffixes i should be using if any

[lethal condor]

Suffix should be _ca if it does have some transparency, _co if not. Also, which way/software you use to convert?

[analog sail]

i mostly export as tga and use texview2 to make a paa as outdated as it is, imagetopaa just doesn't like me, i've tried with _ca and _co but getting mixed results

[lethal condor]

Maybe try 24 bit, so 6 bit per RGBA

[analog sail]

ok ill give that a try

thank you for the advice

[upbeat cradle]

Anyone know what's causing this? I assumed I needed to flip my normals but it did nothing (I'll not activate windows)

[full quarry]

mesh is flipped?

[upbeat cradle]

Yeah my bad, I was clicking on the wrong option!

[upbeat cradle]

This took a strange turn, the whole section of the model is see-through; I hate to ask again but any ideas?

[full quarry]

alpha channel in the texture maybe

or somehow broken rvmat

[upbeat cradle]

There is no alpha on it and it uses the same RVmat as the leather strap

[full quarry]

texture file can have alpha channel without having transparency

and solid color textures should have it removed

do you use the correct texture name suffixes with your source files?

_CO in this case

[upbeat cradle]

I'll check over the texture, it does have the _co suffix

[full quarry]

is it correct resolution

[upbeat cradle]

Okay so the background was transparent so after changing it the whole part is now just the colour I put in

Pretty sure I found the issue

So when I join the meshes together in blender it deletes the UV map for it, I'm not sure why

[full quarry]

The objects you join have different named uv sets

So those don't join

And create extra u sets in p3d that it can't use

[upbeat cradle]

Beautiful Mr. Goat with the answers again

Hopefully this is the last issue I get. Left is in-game and right is the model. For some reason it's not appearing

[silver adder]

@twin bane, as a side note to Quixel S2 and the FBX issues at the moment, i with no hope of success tried to import a DAE file into ObjectBuilder (since DAE is working in QS2, save me having to export a FBX aswell) using the FBX plugin, and it worked, which was suprising even though DAE essentially contains a FBX file, i expected it to not work

[twin bane]

i don't think the DAE's are actually working properly in 3DO currently, but certainly better than .fbx, i noticed some smoothing and other artifacting after applying some maps. it's interesting though that OB took the DAE, not completely surprising I guess, but not documented anywhere I can think of at the moment. (granted it's 2am)

[silver adder]

DAE seems to be find for the stuff i did today in QS2 granted, i did end up switching back to Marmoset for previewing, still superior

[twin bane]

single object model? just curious as it was painfully obvious for me. where .obj's are performing as usual.

[silver adder]

Well it was fairly simple, probably 5 seperate meshes as a single object

on further investigation, DAE loses its smoothing groups in OB

[twin bane]

yeah, that would be sub optimal.

[young patio]

so im trying to get a set of goggles in game that have like a scratched up scuffed texture on them

problem is they look like this

would this be a texture issue or an rvmat issue?

textures i did up in substance painter and they are pretty good ngl

this is the 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 = 800;
PixelShaderID = "Super";
VertexShaderID = "Super";
class Stage1 {
texture = "#(argb,8,8,3)color(0.5,0.5,1,1,NOHQ)";
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(0.5,0.5,0.5,1,dt)";
uvSource = "tex";
class uvTransform {
aside[] = { 1, 1, 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,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(1,1,1,1,AS)";
uvSource = "tex";
class uvTransform {
aside[] = { 1, 0, 0 };
up[] = { 0, 1, 0 };
dir[] = { 0, 0, 1 };
pos[] = { 0, 0, 1 };
};
};
class Stage5 {
texture = "#(argb,8,8,3)color(1,1,1,1,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(1.1,0.4)";
uvSource = "tex";
class uvTransform {
aside[] = { 1, 0, 0 };
up[] = { 0, 1, 0 };
dir[] = { 0, 0, 1 };
pos[] = { 0, 0, 0 };
};
};
class Stage7 {
texture = "a3\data_f\env_land_ca.paa";
useWorldEnvMap = "true";
uvSource = "tex";
class uvTransform {
aside[] = { 1, 0, 0 };
up[] = { 0, 1, 0 };
dir[] = { 0, 0, 1 };
pos[] = { 0, 0, 0 };
};
};
class StageTI {
texture = "a3\data_f\default_vehicle_ti_ca.paa";
};

made using rvmat gen

setting was glass

it in Substance

[full quarry]

is it supposed to be see through?

does the texture have _CA suffix?

is it saved as TGA or PNG?

[young patio]

yeah its meant to be seethrough

and no its got the _co suffix

save as a .paa

im sensing i saved it as something thats not fully transparent?

[lethal condor]

_CO does have no transparency (aka 0 or 1) while _CA does (0-255)

[young patio]

ah that will be why then

did not know that first time ever making a visor didnt even know _ca was a thing

[full quarry]

theres is a wiki link to texture naming rules in the pinned messages

close to the bottom

[celest obsidian]

inverted normals?

[novel lagoon]

ping?

[willow marlin]

is there a trick to generating _smdi and _as maps?

[full quarry]

AS is generally same as ambient occlusion (you can read more about each texture type on the wiki)

SMDI is bit more trickier since newer texturing workflows dont use it anymore

in simple terms it controls what parts are shiny/specular what are not

[willow marlin]

okay thanks

ill see what i can conjure

[full quarry]

with SMDI the different color channels control different things

[willow marlin]

as i seem to understand but smdi is a bit confusing

nvm im confused by both of them, as is more white=more light?

smdi is red and white but dont understand which does what? atleast the page im lookin at in wiki doesnt say much

[full quarry]

red channel is not used so its all white = full red

[manic mulch]

red channel doesn't do anything
green channel is what is shiny/reflective
blue channel is how much it is shiny/reflective

[willow marlin]

hmm, so if blue channel is fully black, its not reflective at all then i guess?

[manic mulch]

from my understanding, yes

[full quarry]

might also add that the texture modulates the specular and specularPower paramters of rvmat

so white should be full value of given power, black none

[willow marlin]

i guess that makes sense

well seems confusing for the moment so time to stop for the day and try it out with a fresh brain tomorrow

[full quarry]

it is a lot to take in. Id recommend making some simple test cube with different kinds of gradients and shapes on different color channels to see how it behaves in game lighting

[willow marlin]

that might be a good idea actually

[fair kite]

Hi, I have a problem when I packaged my uniform mod in addon builder height maps don't load or something. But only when I checked Sign output and binarize. It works perfectly without these settings. Any tips on what I'm doing wrong?

[full quarry]

heightmaps?

[fair kite]

I mean rvmat

[full quarry]

all pbos should be binarized so if that does not work you probably have somwthing wrong in your filepaths in various files

[fair kite]

All right i will look on my side

[full quarry]

do you have P drive set up?

[fair kite]

no

[full quarry]

ah

while not stricktly necessary it does help to have the modding development environment set up in the way the tools expect it to be

[leaden meadow]

Emm what program would you guy recommend for texturing I have been using Quixel SUITE and Substance Designer for a while now, just wondering if their are any better altrnatives.

[silver adder]

Better than those? QS2.0 now maybe

If you want to look at some alternatives, 3D Coat, Mari, Mudbox.... Mari is incredible, but also comes with a steep learning curve and hefty price tag

[twin bane]

^^ at Mari, although the indie licensing is fair considering it's power.

Mari is massively functional if you have the time to fiddle with it. But QS2.0 is what I personally use the most right now. And relatively speaking probably the most user friendly, smallest learning curve.

[silver adder]

You don't have to paint with Quixel or Substance, you can just control masks, which is nice for those without true artistic know how, with Mari i found it really needed someone who was a artist to control it

[leaden meadow]

Okay, thank you guys, just updated to quixel 2.0 see how that goes.

[willow marlin]

can i find UI texture aspect ratios somewhere easily? is there like a wiki page or something

for weapon and mag UI icon sizes currently

[lethal condor]

Usually weapons have X:Y = 2:1 and magazines have 1:1. But pretty much having wrong ratio does break nothing

[willow marlin]

okay thanks!

[pulsar axle]

Is anyone down to help do some texture stuff for me?

[lethal condor]

Just ask question

[pulsar axle]

I already did I don't know how to do texturing and I'm asking if someone can either come do it for me or teach me

There is nothing agianst the rules asking someone to do textures for me

[lethal condor]

You really didn't. From my perspective you just asked if somebody can help you, without any specific question

[pulsar axle]

I don't need a reason people can say yes or no it's up to them

If they want to know what I need help with they can dm me

[full quarry]

more detailed question than just "stuff" usually yields better answers and possibly pointing to correct channels direction

as #creators_recruiting is the place to look for someone else to make stuff for you

here we answers questions if you want to do it yourself

[pulsar axle]

Thank you for being ressonible and explaining

[manic mulch]

for some reason, the same texture is looking different between buildings.
as you guys can see, on the left it looks alright, but on the right it looks strange.
Would someone know why this is happening?

[full quarry]

differences in rvmat perhaps

these are vanilla houses though right?

[manic mulch]

ye

where could i find the rvmats for them?

[full quarry]

how are you retexturing them?

the model files are not open for that

[manic mulch]

i'm replacing the texture files on structures_f_data

[manic mulch]

the weird thing, is that they look the same when on vanilla, it's just when i replace the texture, that it becomes weird on some of them, and not on the others.

so, i guess it's not rvmat fault

[full quarry]

are you repacking the p3ds too?

[manic mulch]

no, just the textures

[full quarry]

hard to say really what happens

this isnt really a typical thing to do

[manic mulch]

i discoverded the issue, it's actually two of them
my specular map was wrong (probably missclicked something), and turns out some buildings aren't using the specular map, even on vanilla.

[full quarry]

multimaterials typically have used DTSMDI

but yes they arent usually very shiny either

[rigid spindle]

Is there a good way to compress paa files? The wiki's page on the file format is a little difficult to understand for me

[full quarry]

why? 😅 .paa is already compressed format

compression level varies on what each suffix is set to use in the conversion config

[rigid spindle]

I'm unclear on a few details. Would you mind answering a few questions?

1. currently, our 4096x4096 textures come up as DXT1 format and weigh 8.45MB. Does this sound right? Is there a better setting to use?

[full quarry]

if you want smaller files and less quality just use smaller resolution

there is littel point in having 4K textures if you dont actually want the quality

the size sounds about right

[outer needle]

4k is overkill for a lot of things in arma anyway, you dont really appreciate the jump in quality that much compared to other games

[full quarry]

it wont show unless very close

[wet nymph]

4k iirc is only used at ultra settings right?

or very high

[full quarry]

as far as I know its Ultra only

[lucid halo]

NOHQ files at 4k are huge. I switched all my textures over to 2k or less to drop my mod size down under a gig. In reality the 4k textures don't really get noticed in a battle. After playing for so long I realized I didn't notice a difference in textures unless I was making a mission.

[wet nymph]

Honestly I only use 4K for _co textures for large things, like vehicles and uniforms

Even vests tbh

I stick to 2K for anything smaller like pouches and accessories

Hell, I've used 1K for patches and they are still totally fine

[hallow jay]

You can check the TD of your model with Blender addons, makes it easier to decide on texture resolution

[full quarry]

yeah that works just fine unless you got someone doing CSI zooooomin and using 4k monitor

but that is rather rare case 😄

[hallow jay]

wdym? in CSI the resolution gets HIGHER the more they zoom in

[full quarry]

exactly

[wet nymph]

Lmaooo

[floral fiber]

so long as your texel density is consistent

[torn mango]

Is it possible to create a rvmat material which reflects an environment map like a fully metal surface?
S.O.G has a MIG 19 which has something which comes close. Does anyone know how that's done?
https://youtu.be/IF7RMHM_jrU?t=17

Youtube url is at a timestamp for the MIG-19

[lethal condor]

Vanilla mirrors already do. It doesn't refrect anything around you dynamically though

[torn mango]

Thanks I'll take a look at the mirrors. I'm not so worried about dynamic reflections. I'm kinda thinking of a Predator style vibe so if it's unreal that's fine.

[lethal condor]

It is simply RVMAT thing, there should be one in vanilla files

[torn mango]

Neato. Using the basic .rvmat in the extracted a3 data works great.

[floral fiber]

thats what i look like

[full quarry]

ah T-1000

[silver adder]

might be the better place for this sort of thing......

https://github.com/p1nga/RV4-Calibration

Quixel Suite RV4 Calibration Profile and export processor

[rose minnow]

thanks!

[twin bane]

lol i was waiting. still need to figure out how to handle the .rvmats. hopefully slider things in the next 3DO

and direct input for frensel as RV plays with it. (in viewer)

[silver adder]

yeah i have no idea of the best approach for RVMATs, i was thinking an external program would be best, but if we can get it open sourced in Quixel that would honestly do, but it would have to support a fair few things

[twin bane]

yeah, already had most of these conversations. the goal will be to open up as much as possible. not only on export, but shader support with the bassackwardness and all. probably a couple weeks out before that group. think something else 'big' is coming.

[silver adder]

maybe something Mega?

[mighty crest]

+1

[twin bane]

#shrug

[distant rose]

thanks @silver adder

[wet nymph]

Does anyone know how to PROPERLY export an SMDI through substance painter?

I've tried and it looks horrible for anodized shit

I might have an idea on how to fix it, but my G and B channels dont seem to match other SMDIs I've checked

[full quarry]

what does it look like and what do you expect it to look like?

and whats your rvmat property values

[wet nymph]

tbf my rvmat needs to be messed with more, change the fresnel and specular and shit

But my SMDI looks yellow as fuck

Which I know is present in other smdis for similar objects

But mine has too much of it

[wet nymph]

^ I think the problem is I'm assigning full Metallicness in substance, instead of using rational numbers

[full quarry]

very possible

[wet nymph]

I've confirmed that the G channel (metallic) is what gives the yellow hue

But idk, I still doubt it's only that

[full quarry]

metallic does not exist in Arma specular shaders

it does not work the same way

[wet nymph]

yeah ik

but I work with met-rough, which I should probably change lmao

but iirc inverted roughness is glossiness, and metallic is SIMILAR but not the same as spec

[full quarry]

in a rough translation sure

its still dont behave quite same

[wet nymph]

yeah

[silver adder]

just a quick video of it at work, will do a better one when it is not 11pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2icGkGrkM0k

[mighty crest]

Great video, thanks again @silver adder

[wet nymph]

Ok I'm happier with it now, but I still might mess with specular values

It should be shinier irl

[outer needle]

whats your current value? and what do you want to achieve?

since you can have a huge specular and make it be a vaseline smeared thing

[upbeat cradle]

Anyone know what's causing this? These are in the insignia slots, the one on the left is the model in shadow and it's very grainy. The other side doesn't react to light and had a glow around the edge?

[twin bane]

👍

[silver gull]

the problem is that the rvmat can scale spec/gloss up and down. So if you would want a consistent output you would have to use the exact same rvmat settings all the time

so you couldnt even make material colors consistent

[chrome plover]

Oooh thanks for that one Pinga. :)

[woven parrot]

Hi, anyone know how to add the new austrian "Tarnanzug 03" to ArmA?

[frozen blade]

@silver gull - indeed, there should be no direct tweak for spec/gloss with a texture provided

or it should work with .5 .5 .5 ones for instance

[full quarry]

takes a lot of work.

[tacit pier]

Anyone know where's the texture for the vanilla clothing is? I'm trying to find the Parade Cap

[lethal condor]

AoW\Addons\characters_f_aow.pbo

[ancient smelt]

Specular power is incredibly non-linear, especially when it comes to how the environment map reflection is blurred. Using a single value for all your rvmats would be pretty limiting.

[woven parrot]

yeah, but can you explain to me how to do it?

[full quarry]

You can either learn to model and make a authentic model with authentic textures

Or you can try to retexture existing clothing to be covered by the pattern

[young patio]

question for texture peeps out there im using substance painter to make textures what settings is the best to export the project on

and correct me if im wrong:

Diffuse = CO/CA
Normals = NOHQ
Ambient Occlusion = AS
Glossiness = SMDI?

[wet nymph]

SMDI is a mix

NOHQ is Direct X Normals (not OpenGL, though you can convert them by inverting the green channel iirc)

SMDI is red channel full white, green is specular and blue is glossiness

The default Substance Arma 3 presets has a broken SMDI export so you need to change it

If you work with met-rough instead of spec-gloss, you can put metallic on green and roughness on blue (but after exported, put it into PS/GIMP and invert the blue channel)

It isn't perfect but it works

[hallow jay]

wait, what do you mean? Are the pinned presets broken?

[wet nymph]

Technically the SMDI is done wrong

It puts your diffuse on the red channel, so your camo will show up on your SMDI

Which is not what you want

So you need to change it to a custom input (which will make it fully white), and I think the GB channels are also fucked so you need to put metallic on green and roughness on blue

As I said tho, blue needs to be inverted after exporting

[young patio]

this is very helpful ive been having issues with my RVMATS as of late also anytips of baking Ambient occlusion maps in substance i keep getting an error when exporting that my AO map cant be created

its weird though its only on the one model

[wet nymph]

Weird

Can you vc?

[young patio]

i can gimme a minute

[wet nymph]

Sorry had to do something. Still down?

[young patio]

yeee

[celest obsidian]

There is no easy way to export a correct SMDI using the met-rough workflow in substance painter. If you really only want to use substance painter, there are only 2 options available:
1 - Export your SMDI as R=White G=Metallic B=Roughness
advantages: this is the least destructive method
disadvantages: the least efficient method
2 - Export your SMDI as R= White G=Base color B=Roughness
advantages: this is the best solution if you use an adapted workflow that revolves around the base color
disadvantages: it's the worst solution if you don't adapt the way you texture objects.

The truth is, you can't make a proper SMDI using the current industry-standard workflow because it's not adapted. You either need to texture your object using a non-pbr specular-gloss workflow, or manually export the textures from your project and adjust your SMDI directly in Photoshop

[wet nymph]

As I mentioned earlier, usually 1 works best. But then I invert the blue channel. It works quite well and my stuff looks pretty decent in-game

Yeah, maybe it is easier to work with non-PBR spec-gloss, but I honestly cba to change + most of my textures are used in other games

[tacit pier]

I brought the whole Art of War files when I was searching for the thing I wanted to retexture

Uhh

I retextured what I wanted

Where do I save?

[celest obsidian]

I'll just add one thing about the first solution. I don't know if you're familiar with how shading works, but this message might also be useful to other modders.

Why is it so difficult to convert my maps from a metal workflow to SMDI :

ㅤ

SMDI maps are composed of:
🟥 = White
🟩 = Specular map
🟦 = Glossiness map

While Glossiness maps can be replaced by Roughness maps (because you can actually invert a glossiness map), metallic maps are not equivalent to specular maps. This is because the shading method is totally different.

Metallic maps are in **grayscale **(black and white)
0 = ⬛ Black = Non-metallic
1 = ⬜ White = Fully metallic

Specular maps are based on **RGB **values that dictate how the reflection should work. They are RGB, they don't work in the same way and can't be interchanged.

That's why it's not easy to convert one workflow into another. I recommend everyone to read how basic shading works with specular and metallic workflows to better understand how to create their textures in Arma.

I'll update my substance presets on Github and add the old preset (using metal in the green channel) and give a warning of how it might look in the game.

[lethal condor]

I did a pin cause sometimes I simply confuse how to handle it 😅 cheatsheet go brrr

[lethal condor]

I just made a quick example model, and this helps my understand as well. Don't mind the typo

[sage copper]

Maybe worth adding to https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/RVMAT_basics#Basic_surface_setting

[lethal condor]

Could be

[hallow jay]

Wouldn´t it be enough to switch my SP to use a nonpbr spec gloss shader, and then use the spec gloss export preset?

or does the shader used in SP not have any effect on the exported files?

[tardy granite]

Same question as above.

I mostly work in spec/gloss pipeline in Painter.
Is it enough to just use "Arma 3 Super (Spec Gloss)" export preset to get correct smdi map OR i should also manually change some gloss (or other) values before exporting final textures?

[wet nymph]

If it's already set to R = white (user 0), G = Spec and B = gloss then you should be fine

[wet nymph]

While I understand Spec uses RGB values, wouldnt it not matter since it is only used in the green channel?

[full quarry]

excellent!!

also might add that fresnel value in super shader plays a part in the looks too

[wet nymph]

I think there needs to be a more detailed explanation on fresnel. A lot of people get confused on what the N and K values actually mean

And even more people cba to read the wikipedia page on all the physics shit

[full quarry]

that is shaders for you yeah

to get good results one has to understand what one does

the metal/rough pbr is a lot more forgiving in that way I suppose

[wet nymph]

Glossiness is easy to understand, but specular is a bit harder I guess

[celest obsidian]

No, you don't really have anything else to do if you're working in spec-gloss. You'll never get exactly the same result in the game though 🙂

[celest obsidian]

It depends, but you could easily miss important details. The results weren't optimal on my side, but if you manage to find a way to retain most of the details, it would be really interesting to share them here. I stopped testing texturing methods for Arma 3 because I was satisfied with the result, but there must be a better method out there.

[willow marlin]

how can i fix this retucke stretching issue?
i used the same aspect ratio as in the original scope size, so dont understand

[full quarry]

Uvmapping problem?

[willow marlin]

idk, i only change a .paa from an existing one that worked with no problems

(also, unrelated, if a 2d reticle shows the center part as an arrow/triangle but there is nothing to show it as an arrow/triangle in the reticles texture files, how does it get determined its an arrow? its just a red box in the texture file)

[full quarry]

Pictures may be needed to compare and see the problem

[willow marlin]

what is needed to compare in the 2d one?

[full quarry]

Pictures of the paas in texview maybe

And what the uvmapping looks like

[willow marlin]

the 2d is a different thing apart from the picture

[full quarry]

Is it the same picture used for both?

[willow marlin]

no, completely unrelated thing and question

[full quarry]

Well let's compare the textures for the 3d first

[willow marlin]

this is how the normal looks like (ignore the external texture)

[full quarry]

What does the paas look like in texview? For both textures

[willow marlin]

here,

size, cause cropped it

oh fuck

[full quarry]

[willow marlin]

i have fixed this issue, propably

i was using weapons_f/acc/data/reticle_arco_ca.paa, while the mode is using weapons_f_beta/acc/data/reticle_arco_ca.paa

sigh

[full quarry]

different sizes then?

[willow marlin]

yeah, the other one is 2048x2048 and smaller reticle size

[full quarry]

that would be it then yes

[willow marlin]

next question is, how to change reticle arrow (left)
when the texture is like this (right)

[outer needle]

if you square the texture to 1k*1k you get more consistent results since the planes/lense has to stretch the texture less awkwardly too + you can use the center of your texture as reference for position in space instead of having to guess position in reference to stretched planes

[willow marlin]

yes, i am using the squared 2048x2048 now already

[full quarry]

if its not in the texture its probably defined in the config

[cedar lichen]

could also be modelled

[full quarry]

good point

[willow marlin]

oh damn yeah its modelled

[light wagon]

is this what i use for a boonie hat texture or is it something else

    displayName = "$STR_A3_H_Booniehat_ocamo0";
    picture = "\A3\characters_f\Data\UI\icon_H_booniehat_desert_ca.paa";
    model = "\A3\Characters_F\Common\booniehat";
    hiddenSelectionsTextures[] = {"\A3\Characters_F\Common\Data\booniehat_desert_co.paa"};

    class ItemInfo : ItemInfo {
        mass = 10;
        allowedSlots[] = {801, 901, 701, 605};
        uniformModel = "\A3\Characters_F\Common\booniehat";
        modelSides[] = {6};
        armor = 0;
        passThrough = true;
    };
};

class H_Booniehat_indp : H_Booniehat_khk {
    displayName = "$STR_A3_H_Booniehat_khk0";
    picture = "\A3\characters_f\Data\UI\icon_H_booniehat_indp_ca.paa";
    hiddenSelectionsTextures[] = {"\A3\Characters_F\Common\Data\booniehat_indp_co.paa"};
};```

[young patio]

anyone know how to get Text to mirror so it isnt backwards in Substance Painter?

what i want

what im getting

[wet nymph]

There should be a mirror button on the top of your screen

When you select your text layer

Alternatively you can probably put the x axis scale to negative to flip it

(Never tried that)

[young patio]

got it working thanks brother!

[silver adder]

The idea would be to generate starting points, with the correct texture links etc and spec/fresnal settings for your desired look from a library of samples, you would of course need to tweak it as desired

[atomic jolt]

anyone here got experience with retexturing RHS assets?

[willow marlin]

yes

[atomic jolt]

i can't for the life of me find the humvee and m1232 textures

you have any idea what pbo or folder they are in?

[full quarry]

check their configs hiddenselectionsTextures list for reference

[atomic jolt]

well the thing is, for the humvee and m1232 from what i can tell the config that refrences the textures is going to be in the same pbo as the textures themself

[full quarry]

ingame config viewer is your friend

especially if you get the Leopards advanced developer tools mod for better config viewer

[atomic jolt]

i'll look into it, thanks!

[willow marlin]

How do i properly extract things from substance painter for Arma?

I'm only getting a black baseColor texture and none of the actual details done in the editor

[wet nymph]

Are you using PBR or non-PBR methods?

[ashen violet]

Hello, I’m currently working on my normals for ground textures and I’m running into the issue where I’ll save my PSD in PS once I add the parallax map to the alpha channel and when I open that file back up the alpha channel is turned off. Could anyone tell me where I’m going wrong

[full quarry]

You'll have to figure out how PS saves transparency stuff. Last time I looked at that to help a friend we could not figure it out.

For all it's industry standard praise, PS seems unintuitive in some things

[ashen violet]

Would gimp be a better option for this ?

[full quarry]

Well I've used gimp successfully for years so sure

At least it does not seem to need any shenanigans to get alpha channel in use

[wet nymph]

Gimp ftw

[ashen violet]

Thank you, sounds like I wasted too much money and time on ps lol

[lucid halo]

The alpha channel is connected to a mask in PS. So if you have a mask on your normal layers then the alpha will be on.

[ashen violet]

Would I just select and mask the normal layer and that should work ?

[lucid halo]

yeah, thats what I do

remember to save the output as a _CA

[floral fiber]

anyone know how to make heightmapped stuff export to the smdi and as on substance?

[full quarry]

heightmap is not really relevant to smdi

AS = ambient shadow also called ambient occlusion

if that helps

[floral fiber]

looks better when exported onto there as well -- modeller did so with the high poly bake but none of my painted details show bc of export settings

[floral fiber]

i got the export preset off the modeller now -- makes the luger look much better now the toggle lock ridges show on both sides all the time 😅

[wet nymph]

Idk if I understood exactly what you meant, but if you drag the HP baked normal map into your Substance mesh maps, and bake every mesh map BUT your normals, everything will bake with info from the normals

Meaning your ambient occlusion will bake with the details from the normals, and ofc your spec/gloss or met/rough stuff will also be affected by that

So if you have an edge wear mask or something, that will consider the stuff from the normal map as if it was part of the mesh, which means it will show up on your AS and SMDI and add some extra details

If you dont have a HP baked normals, then ofc you do all your details on the LP like you usually would. Export just the normal map (directX), import it back into substance, then drag it into the mesh map menu. Just remember that when you are exporting every texture, uncheck the normal export or else your values will "double" and look really strong

(hope any of that made sense)

[atomic jolt]

RHS retexture showing up like this. Anyone know if this is a file, a config or a texture issue?

(for context, the vehicle textures are suppost to be black)

like these

[full quarry]

White would indicate texture path does not match with pbo structure

[atomic jolt]

seems to have the right structure

some paa's give me an error in texview though

no idea how to solve that, it just said error opening ... file

[full quarry]

thats not good

[full quarry]

probably best to save them as paa again

might be corrupted files

[atomic jolt]

i'll give it a try

[full quarry]

how do you make the paas?

[atomic jolt]

import png to texview, then save as paa

though i'm running into some issues there too

[full quarry]

invalid resolution?

how on earth did you manage to do them first time xD

[atomic jolt]

idk, i'm retexturing RHS stuff, so i just grabbed the RHS paa, made them png's through texview, retextured and now i get that error

[full quarry]

did you save any project files that you can save the png again from?

[atomic jolt]

not in paint, however the png's themself do still open in the windows photo viewer

[full quarry]

weird

well if you can get them back to paint maybe you can save them again

[atomic jolt]

even when i make a new file, copy the texture over, and save it i still get the same error when importing to texview

[full quarry]

whats the resolution?

[cedar lichen]

probably wrong bit rate

[full quarry]

👆

good point

[atomic jolt]

how does one check/chenge the bit rate on an image?

[cedar lichen]

bit depth*

seeing it right there

[atomic jolt]

oh

fair

[cedar lichen]

have no idea how you do it with paint or whatever - it should be uhh, 32, I think, for texview to open them

[atomic jolt]

oh snap you're right. The working ones have a bit depth of 24, the non working ones are 8

[cedar lichen]

eh wait, at least in photoshop its 8 bit channel

but windows detail says 32

shrug

[full quarry]

8bit per channel

[atomic jolt]

so 24 for rgb

now to somehow edit the bit depth

[wet nymph]

usually an export option in ps/gimp

iirc

[atomic jolt]

eyy, thanks for the help guys

got most of em working by exporting them as 24 bit images

just need to fix the blackhawk, add the wheel textures and fix the humvee as that one just isn't even showing a texture at all

but that stuff i should be able to do

[barren fossil]

hi everyone i got a slight bit of a problem, i used to do texture work in some old starsim thats no longer around and after 3-4 years ive pretty much forgotten how to convert models and textures to use in substance painter. i only have access to p3d files for the models and paa for the textures and would like to bring them to an fbx or obj and whatever substance painter will allow me to bring the textures to.

[silver moth]

Does anyone have a high quality image for French CCE camo I could use? Thanks in advance

[orchid oak]

hey, check out: https://paa.gruppe-adler.de for texture convertion, not sure if theres an actual tool but this works pretty good.
For P3Ds (provided they aren't binarized) you can open them in blender with the arma tools plugin or using actual arma tools with object builder, there you can convert it to FBX

[orchid oak]

working on adding normal/specular maps to a model but can't for the life of me figure out what I'm doing wrong.
RVMATs are assigned in blender
Using metal rough with arma met rough export presets in substance
I convert my images with imageToPAA, named with the convention
The RV is loading ingame and the specular power is taking effect
I get no RPT errors. can send more info if needed, my CO map is displaying just fine but normals/spec just aren't applying

[full quarry]

usually means paths are not right

how are you packing your pbo?

[orchid oak]

using addon builder & moving contents to the local mod

[full quarry]

P drive?

[orchid oak]

yeah

[full quarry]

addonbuilder set to binarize the pbo?

[orchid oak]

however the file directories are different from the local mod to the P folder, since the CO is loading I figure the pathing should be fine

binarize on, same for textures

[full quarry]

where the pbo is does not matter

the folder structure you have in P drive gets packed into the pbo

make sure you dont have and P:\ in front of any of your paths

[wet nymph]

Someone found out this tool can break alphas or something, and might make you unable to pack if you are using mikeros

[full quarry]

and turn on errors so you can better see if something goes wrong in game

[wet nymph]

Just drag it into texview and save as a paa

[full quarry]

imageToPaaGUI

[wet nymph]

Are your rvmats correctly pathed?

Not in blender, but the actual .rvmat file

[orchid oak]

rvmat path: texture = "MIRAGE_F1\Data\Textures\PBR\mirage_f1_wingt1_nohq.paa";

[wet nymph]

Did you put it in Stage1?

[orchid oak]

yeah

can try out the texview method, Think I have already but worth another shot. have tried so much stuff now that I'm blanking some of it out

have full logging on ingame

same for addon builder

[wet nymph]

Weird

Where did you get the rvmat from?

[orchid oak]

from the previous author of the mod, they had a general RVMAT as they were only using _co

now I'm handling edits/updates to it as they've left

[wet nymph]

I'll dm you a base rvmat, use that or compare yours