#arma3_texture | ARMA | Page 31

prime pewter Aug 5, 2018, 12:46 PM

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does anyone know of a material that makes the object transparent? trying to find a way to make the VR dude invisible while still being able to hit him since hideObject removes hitboxes too

full quarry Aug 5, 2018, 12:51 PM

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have you tried with no texture at all?

prime pewter Aug 5, 2018, 1:03 PM

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the issue is that i'm trying to do it all mission side. so i'm using setObjectMaterial/texture. but you can only change it, if there is one applied by default. adn the VR man seems to only have a material. and normal units are even harder to hide with all their selections and the whole head/face/identity handling

full quarry Aug 5, 2018, 1:16 PM

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fully transparent _CO could work. maybe some custom rvmat with all diffuce and whatnot values set to 0 alpha

silver gull Aug 5, 2018, 4:16 PM

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i was under the impression that with setTexture you will not get any transparency, unless the map that is already applied by default is a map with transparency already

full quarry Aug 5, 2018, 4:27 PM

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refracting shader at least did not work with it

bitter linden Aug 5, 2018, 10:14 PM

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What are the odds that we could find a texture template for those new SAM launchers

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Specifically the CSAT ones

full quarry Aug 5, 2018, 10:45 PM

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theres a texture template thread on BIforums so you might ask there @bitter linden

bitter linden Aug 6, 2018, 12:18 AM

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@full quarry Which one would that be?

full quarry Aug 6, 2018, 12:18 AM

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something something community templates or something like that

bitter linden Aug 6, 2018, 12:19 AM

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Right on, looks to be the most recent/most recently replied to

full quarry Aug 6, 2018, 12:22 AM

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Could be worthvile to ask there. Template makers/users probably follow the thread

bitter linden Aug 6, 2018, 12:26 AM

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I'm a tad surprised the CSAT SAM/radar only come in the two hex camo patterns right now, since a lot of CSAT's other stuff has some variation, urban-grey or black

molten kettle Aug 8, 2018, 1:09 AM

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hey guys just wondering if anyone knows why everytime i try open an assets texture file in texview 2 it gives me an error?

full quarry Aug 8, 2018, 1:23 AM

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@molten kettle pls dont ask on many places xP just answered you up top

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this would be the better place though

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continue texture talk here

molten kettle Aug 8, 2018, 1:25 AM

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just says error loading file. i took it out and extracted it already

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@full quarry

full quarry Aug 8, 2018, 1:25 AM

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where is it from

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how did you extract it?

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so its a .paa file then?

molten kettle Aug 8, 2018, 1:26 AM

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yeah its paa

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i just used normal unzip program

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do i need to use eliteness?

full quarry Aug 8, 2018, 1:26 AM

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unzip

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whaaat

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where did you extract it from?

molten kettle Aug 8, 2018, 1:28 AM

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just to a folder then i tried to open SUV_01_ext_03_CO with texview 2

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sorry i used pbo manager @full quarry

full quarry Aug 8, 2018, 1:31 AM

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possibly it has extracted wrong. PBO manager I would not recommend to use if you got mikeros tools

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if you have modding environment properly set up (P: drive and arma data extracted with Mikeros Arma3p) you dont have to mess around with any of that

molten kettle Aug 8, 2018, 1:33 AM

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oh okey ill try set all that up again thanks alot @full quarry

full quarry Aug 8, 2018, 1:33 AM

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https://pmc.editing.wiki/doku.php?id=arma3:tools

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this has all the info you need to do that

molten kettle Aug 8, 2018, 1:51 AM

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yes! its working thanks alot @full quarry

silver gull Aug 8, 2018, 9:23 PM

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2 p3ds, same texture, same material, same named model properties, "slight" quality differences... i'm confused
https://abload.de/img/track1xmewf.jpg
https://abload.de/img/track2vec8w.jpg

silver gull Aug 8, 2018, 10:12 PM

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any ideas?

nocturne lake Aug 8, 2018, 10:13 PM

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if it wasn't the same material, I would think there was some forceddiffuse applied to it

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really no idea mate :/

silver gull Aug 8, 2018, 10:24 PM

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i think something may be borked with the other p3d as a whole. Copied the affected piece of the mesh into the p3d with the properly working texture - works fine
https://abload.de/img/track350ick.jpg

silver gull Aug 8, 2018, 10:39 PM

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ok, no, p3d is fine, i'm just a moron. I had swapped the mesh of the texture for a different one (with different texture), but still had hiddenselectionMaterials defined for the old track, overwriting the material in the p3d... works fine now https://abload.de/img/trackswap3d8cqv.jpg

karmic nebula Aug 9, 2018, 6:59 AM

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I might have bitten off more than a chew and I was wondering if I could ask some questions about configs? I made a retexture of Russian forces 2035 Gorka saved as PAA but now I’m on the config part and I was wondering if it is possible to just add the uniform in without assigning a character or anything? I’m watching about 2 different videos on retexturing and configs along with reading some tutorials but they seem to involve assigning units. I would just like to add the uniform in game as a garment that you can choose from the arsenal if that makes any sense

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Sorry, i just started actually modding today and I really appreciate any help you guys can provide. I also really appreciate all the generosity you guys have taking the time out of your day to help others

somber pier Aug 9, 2018, 7:31 AM

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@karmic nebula You can just replace the texture on a current uniform, thus anyone wearing that will have the new textures, but you wont have the older one. You'll have to make a new uniform if you want the new texture but keep the old texture as well

karmic nebula Aug 9, 2018, 7:44 AM

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Aw I see, I would like to add on a new one so that would involve doing configs then?

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Can configs be found on mod folders as well? I would just like to copy one and add in the new texture somehow

frozen blade Aug 9, 2018, 8:32 AM

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you won't be able to copy paste everything

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you'll have to write a new class

karmic nebula Aug 9, 2018, 8:48 AM

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Understandable, so I would have to get the config template. Then start typing in stuff? I assume I would also have to find the models that correlate with the texture I want to use as well?

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Sorry I’m so confused it’s hard to explain lol it’s like trying to learn how to speak an alien language

hardy atlas Aug 9, 2018, 10:11 AM

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anyone familiar with substance designer?

severe rune Aug 9, 2018, 10:13 AM

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Just ask away

hardy atlas Aug 9, 2018, 10:15 AM

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https://imgur.com/a/lB5Kw7K

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So i want to have the snow normal appear in the red of that image

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and the other normal appear in the black

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What would be the best way to do that?

severe rune Aug 9, 2018, 10:19 AM

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turn the red/black into a white/black mask
And then use the "blend" node I think

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Don't have designer here to give exact values
you could just take the red output of that red/black mask. And use it as greyscale parameter for the blend node

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and then blend between the two normals

hardy atlas Aug 9, 2018, 10:20 AM

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in the future i will probably have more than 2 colours as this is the satmask i am using

severe rune Aug 9, 2018, 10:20 AM

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you could just nest blend nodes. But there is probably a easier way

hardy atlas Aug 9, 2018, 10:21 AM

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hmm

frozen blade Aug 9, 2018, 10:21 AM

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there is just a few people around here actually using designer in production. Indeed what dedmen says is correct, you can have multiple greyscale maps blended together

hardy atlas Aug 9, 2018, 10:21 AM

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kk

frozen blade Aug 9, 2018, 10:21 AM

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best bet is to try substance discord directly

severe rune Aug 9, 2018, 10:21 AM

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I use designer too. I could tell you what to do exactly if I could try it myself but I'm at work and don't have it here to try it out ^^

frozen blade Aug 9, 2018, 10:22 AM

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https://discord.gg/v9zUndH

hardy atlas Aug 9, 2018, 10:22 AM

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ty

frozen blade Aug 9, 2018, 10:22 AM

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since there are a ton more people actively using both allego products

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i for one use designer only now and then

hardy atlas Aug 9, 2018, 10:26 AM

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yeah, well ty for the help

hexed cairn Aug 10, 2018, 4:14 PM

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hello i need a custom item for my clan to be textured, anyone can give me some info /advice? we want to model a centurion helmet, but kinda modernized, is it possible?

vestal sundial Aug 10, 2018, 10:01 PM

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Start with a concept, usually sketched. Agree on the design. Create a 3D model/ UV Unwrap/Bake etc.. Texture the Model. Game configs. Testing/ Tweaking. Publish. Profit.

spark shore Aug 13, 2018, 8:05 PM

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would it look bad to add an eyepatch to a face skin
can't test it rn

silver gull Aug 13, 2018, 9:27 PM

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yes, because it will look like painted on... obviously

spark shore Aug 13, 2018, 9:38 PM

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oh fuck just realized

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yeah that'd be pretty bad

frozen blade Aug 13, 2018, 10:13 PM

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you can always make 3d model for that eye patch

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not that hard to do either

spark shore Aug 13, 2018, 10:33 PM

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yeah but it should be an eyewear and I don't want to occupy that slot like for MGSR

vestal sundial Aug 13, 2018, 10:33 PM

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Make it part of headgear?

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spitballing

spark shore Aug 13, 2018, 10:35 PM

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would be cool if I could change soldiers model
could do all kinds of stuff with that

surreal hatch Aug 15, 2018, 3:39 AM

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So I've got a problem where my fabrics are kinda weirdly shiney, what should I be addressing in the RVMAT to make them less shiney and more like fabrics?

golden niche Aug 15, 2018, 3:58 AM

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less specular and specular power?

frozen blade Aug 15, 2018, 9:31 AM

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ideally, directly the SMDI map

surreal hatch Aug 15, 2018, 11:22 AM

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Gotcha. I'm trying to look through what's in A3 and make the SMDI more like that

silver gull Aug 15, 2018, 12:03 PM

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ha.... A3 smdi are all over the place.

surreal hatch Aug 15, 2018, 1:59 PM

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It's like the reddish purple or something. I'll tone down the speculars as well

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But I have an Arma 2 bag ported over that's also shiny... Didn't change the smdi so it may be the speculars

full quarry Aug 15, 2018, 2:03 PM

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@surreal hatch https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Super_shader#5._Specular_map

Super shader

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some background for how SMDI works

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https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/ArmA:_RVMAT#Basic_surface_setting

ArmA: RVMAT

silver gull Aug 15, 2018, 4:33 PM

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https://youtu.be/hlAxkJGeAT0?t=2095 looks pretty neat what they have in the pipeline

obsidian nimbus Aug 18, 2018, 11:46 AM

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https://i.imgur.com/sc4mI3y.png
https://i.imgur.com/3Tk2Abp.png
Photoshop's reduce noise filter is a miracle

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the saturation is just there to help me see the changes and I didn't realize how drastic it was lol

sudden marlin Aug 19, 2018, 7:58 AM

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Any tips for making textures from scratch?

full quarry Aug 19, 2018, 9:18 AM

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what kind of textures? new textures to be used to create new models, re-texturing something old, textures to create new textures...

hardy atlas Aug 19, 2018, 12:01 PM

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@sudden marlin Depends how you are doing it. Substance painter is a fantastic way to get good looking generated / real time painted results and you can get really nice normals / specular etc. Photoshop is also a pretty good tool.

obsidian nimbus Aug 19, 2018, 10:27 PM

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can you have more than 7 texgen classes in a multi material rvmat?

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it doesn't seem that you can have more than 2 UV sets anyway so it wouldn't matter nvm

obsidian nimbus Aug 19, 2018, 10:51 PM

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I just baked the mask to a new uvset for my model so it would work with that problem solved

golden niche Aug 21, 2018, 12:25 PM

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is there any limitations on what shader you can use on roads? like, can you use super on the road?

full quarry Aug 21, 2018, 12:28 PM

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no you unfortunately can not

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the one all roads use is the one that works

golden niche Aug 21, 2018, 12:32 PM

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aha, but that default one supports specular map, right?

full quarry Aug 21, 2018, 12:35 PM

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ye

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you got the a3 road rvmats in the unpacked data

golden niche Aug 21, 2018, 12:45 PM

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yes, i ask because i think i heard that there are some issues with specular on the roads

bitter oxide Aug 21, 2018, 1:25 PM

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Hi. I'm trying to edit some helicopter textures and I noticed that it's actually a collection of textures that are collated to create the final one. This must mean there is some file that specifies which textures are loaded. As I want to actually just remove a texture rather than change or add anything, just making it not load at all seems to be the best solution. I don't know the location of this file though. Can anyone help me?

severe rune Aug 21, 2018, 1:27 PM

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It's defined in the model and it's rvmats

full quarry Aug 21, 2018, 1:31 PM

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only way to change textures on a finished game running model is if it has hidden selections defined and you can set the new textures to it via config

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creating a replacement or new vehicle version

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Biforums have topics regarding to how the basics of it works

bitter oxide Aug 21, 2018, 1:33 PM

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What tool will allow me to open rvmat to check for hidden selections?

severe rune Aug 21, 2018, 1:34 PM

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rvmat's are text files

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and rvmat's don't tell you about hidden selections

bitter oxide Aug 21, 2018, 1:35 PM

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I've tried opening them and it seems it has either a weird encoding or binary data inside of it.

severe rune Aug 21, 2018, 1:36 PM

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How did you unpack the pbo?

full quarry Aug 21, 2018, 1:37 PM

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and where is the model from?

bitter oxide Aug 21, 2018, 1:39 PM

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From the base game.

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I unpacked the PBO with PBOManager

full quarry Aug 21, 2018, 1:40 PM

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pbomanager is not your friend for this kind of work

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basically what you want to do requires proper setup of the mod development environment and config editing if the particular chopper has hiddenselections you can use

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https://pmc.editing.wiki/doku.php?id=arma3:tools

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and creation of new addon .pbo

bitter oxide Aug 21, 2018, 1:43 PM

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So CfgVehicles entry into my own pbo would solve this issue but only if there's a hiddenselection for the texture I'm attempting to remove?

severe rune Aug 21, 2018, 1:44 PM

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you can just check the helicopter in Virtual Garage. If you can change the texture then it has hidden Selections

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then you just need to find out if the part you are trying to edit is part of a hidden selection.
You can open the helicopters class in config browser to find the path for hiddenSelectionTextures used. Just open one of these and check if they contain the part you wanna edit

bitter oxide Aug 21, 2018, 1:49 PM

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Thank you.

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Seems like it is not the case. Oh well.

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It is a bit strange that you cannot modify an existing vehicle class texture unless it specifically allows for the texture to be changed.

full quarry Aug 21, 2018, 1:59 PM

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not really, the files are packed into the binarized game ready packet

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if you were able to change the textures at will you would break the game

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for example you could edit all units to be bright red and glow on your screen

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which would be cheating

bitter oxide Aug 21, 2018, 2:00 PM

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That's easily preventable.

full quarry Aug 21, 2018, 2:00 PM

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yes

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by how its made now

bitter oxide Aug 21, 2018, 2:01 PM

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Unless my understanding is wrong though, I can't make my own mod for singleplayer now.

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Without duplicating the vehicle class

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Right?

full quarry Aug 21, 2018, 2:02 PM

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if it does not have a hiddenselection for that part you want to change then no

bitter oxide Aug 21, 2018, 2:02 PM

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That's the strange part.

full quarry Aug 21, 2018, 2:03 PM

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well not for me, but in the end it is what it is

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what part were you trying to edit?

bitter oxide Aug 21, 2018, 2:04 PM

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I'm trying to remove Heli_Light_01_dot_ca.paa from Heli_Light_01.

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Entirely.

full quarry Aug 21, 2018, 2:04 PM

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mm what does it do?

bitter oxide Aug 21, 2018, 2:05 PM

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It was added in the Encore update. It adds a marker reticle on the MH-9 Hummingbird and also AH-9.

full quarry Aug 21, 2018, 2:05 PM

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well I guess those are permanent parts of those choppers now

bitter oxide Aug 21, 2018, 2:06 PM

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Yup.

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A game where you can edit the weapons configurations on a jet during runtime but can't use your sleeve to erase a magic marker on the windshield 😛

full quarry Aug 21, 2018, 2:06 PM

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you might have lead on the specific issue though and you would have got the answer right away 😄

bitter oxide Aug 21, 2018, 2:07 PM

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That is true, but I wouldn't have learned as much about how the game operates.

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It was useful information regardless.

full quarry Aug 21, 2018, 2:07 PM

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well perhaps.. but it took quite a lot of time.. 😛

bitter oxide Aug 21, 2018, 2:07 PM

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Teach a man to fish...in a rudimentary way at least.

full quarry Aug 21, 2018, 2:08 PM

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well true I do like that analogy. 😄 hopefully you then put this info into good use

stray relic Aug 22, 2018, 4:21 PM

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1 x 2k texture or 4 x 1k texture? for miscellaneous parts scattered around a vehicle

severe rune Aug 22, 2018, 4:23 PM

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less textures == less sections == better

stray relic Aug 22, 2018, 4:24 PM

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that's what I thought, but as they're scattered, all the parts might not be in scene at once, so there may be less texture memory consumed with the 1k's?

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does less sections trump less memory usage?

severe rune Aug 22, 2018, 4:25 PM

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Even if you see just a pixel of the part at some point the texture will be loaded and stay cached in memory

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99% of the time both of your textures would be loaded anyway

stray relic Aug 22, 2018, 4:26 PM

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oh ok, I assumed it would be dumped out of memory when not in scene - thanks

severe rune Aug 22, 2018, 4:26 PM

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Also 2Mb or so don't do match with todays graphics cards with 8GB or more memory

golden niche Aug 22, 2018, 4:30 PM

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For example, i have a tree model with 5 vis lods and shadow lod, each lod has 1 (or more, but by default 1) bark texture, bark mc and nohq and same for polyplane -- ca, mc and normal, so 6 separate texture files per lod, 5 lods+shadow will give me 30+ separate texture files + ton of rvmats. Is there any point of merging most of the textures to 4-5 atlases performance wise? Or is there any reason to keep them separate?

full quarry Aug 22, 2018, 6:50 PM

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@golden niche you dont use same textures on all vis lods?

golden niche Aug 22, 2018, 6:50 PM

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no

full quarry Aug 22, 2018, 6:50 PM

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oh

golden niche Aug 22, 2018, 6:50 PM

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in theory there might be possibility of sharing them but mostly no

full quarry Aug 22, 2018, 6:51 PM

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I dont quite understand why

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surely it cant increase performance if it loads each texture into memory

golden niche Aug 22, 2018, 6:58 PM

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because silvador generates textures that way

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but i mean, is there any benefit in having one big 2048 texture instead of bunch of 512s and 1024s

full quarry Aug 22, 2018, 7:07 PM

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yes

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absolutely

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as Dedmen just said above

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less textures == less sections == better

golden niche Aug 22, 2018, 7:10 PM

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but the thing is that each lod will still have own sections count, sharing same texture file between different lods should not affect that, right?

frozen blade Aug 22, 2018, 7:25 PM

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how do you have access to silvador if you don't mind me asking?

golden niche Aug 22, 2018, 7:31 PM

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bought it

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do you want to see an invoice?😂

silver gull Aug 22, 2018, 7:36 PM

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sharing the same texture file between different lods will make an impact on gpu memory and loading speeds. If every lod of a model would use a different texture and you look at a scene ingame, your memory and load times will suddenly skyrocket

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idk if lod's are instanced seperately, or if instancing works cross lod's with the same material.

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there is very little information about how instancing works in arma

full quarry Aug 22, 2018, 7:40 PM

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I've been under the impression that Silvador might not make the most performance friendly models

golden niche Aug 22, 2018, 8:15 PM

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i guess, but what exactly do you mean?

full quarry Aug 22, 2018, 8:17 PM

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I've never heard the specifics but I guess things like what you face now with each lod having their own textures etc

silver gull Aug 22, 2018, 8:18 PM

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if you can show us pics of what you get out of silvador we can propably help you. I dont think many of us have experience with that tool and it's options.

full quarry Aug 22, 2018, 8:18 PM

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I've only tried the demo that does not have export enabled xD

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did not really tell me much

silver gull Aug 22, 2018, 8:19 PM

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could well be that an optimization pass in a regular modeling tool could be necessary before importing into the game...

golden niche Aug 22, 2018, 8:22 PM

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https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Mee6olU_x2w9JdWpojHxI-E_D2DX03gi

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some test bushie

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it's not very fancy, but enough get the idea

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and, for example bi used to combine last tree lod to atlases

fresh hill Aug 22, 2018, 8:55 PM

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An atlas for all trees, or per individual object?

full quarry Aug 22, 2018, 8:55 PM

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for all trees

fresh hill Aug 22, 2018, 8:57 PM

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I'm not convinced it brings any benefit. From what I understand and was told by a programmer who did the old tree shader, the trees are not aggregated into one piece at last lod.

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There is a small benefit by only having one file in vram. I suspect that is however neglectable, but I dont have the data to say either/or on that. 😄

full quarry Aug 22, 2018, 8:58 PM

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📎 unknown.png

fresh hill Aug 22, 2018, 9:04 PM

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Ah, catching up now with the earlier chat. Silvador has the problem of generating a full set of texture per lod, instead of sharing one set across all of them. This is purely bad for required memory, but doesnt impact the scene complexity.

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I've been under the impression that Silvador might not make the most performance friendly models
You are correct.

This is why I chose to make my trees by hand in blender.

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could well be that an optimization pass in a regular modeling tool could be necessary before importing into the game...

Absolutely. And from what I heard through the grapevine, this is the story of the BI's trees in Arma3

golden niche Aug 22, 2018, 9:09 PM

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There is a small benefit by only having one file in vram yeah, so i was wondering is there any of having all lods of single object in one file (where possible). Because if there is no benefit then it's gonna save lot of work

fresh hill Aug 22, 2018, 9:09 PM

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Yes.

golden niche Aug 22, 2018, 9:10 PM

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Yes, you mean there is benefit, right?

fresh hill Aug 22, 2018, 9:10 PM

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Yes, there is a benefit, as it will reduce the required amount of memory for the scene. Right now with Silvador's trees everytime a new lod is switched, a new set of NOHQ, MCA and CA are loaded. You'd want to avoid that.

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Bi's trees are made up from a trunk material and a general branch polyplane. All lods make use of that. IIRC, the polyplane texture was even located in a dedicated folder called polyplanes or so.

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I've followed this and set my trees up this way:

Resolution lods:
0 to 5 -> uses the generic polyplane material and generic bark material
6 -> uses a single bespoke material that has a fully rendered tree on it

golden niche Aug 22, 2018, 9:13 PM

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Yes, there is a benefit, as it will reduce the required amount of memory for the scene. Right now with Silvador's trees everytime a new lod is switched, a new set of NOHQ, MCA and CA are loaded. You'd want to avoid that. that is what i suspected, but i'm not an expert

fresh hill Aug 22, 2018, 9:14 PM

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"\gm\gm_plants\data\gm_fagus_sylvatica_polyplane_summer_ca.tga"
"\gm\gm_plants\data\gm_fagus_sylvatica_bark_co.tga"

And then in the last reslod:
"\gm\gm_plants\gm_trees\data\gm_t_picea_abies_04_mlod_summer_ca.tga"

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Oops, mixed species. But you get the idea. 😄

golden niche Aug 22, 2018, 9:15 PM

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yep, the only thing is my trees will probably have 1st lod 2048 or 4096 (in exceptional cases) polyplanes, and other lods will go to 2048 atlas hopefully

fresh hill Aug 22, 2018, 9:15 PM

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Same here. my polyplanes are 4k

golden niche Aug 22, 2018, 9:15 PM

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plus shadow polyplane may share one of the polyplanes uv

fresh hill Aug 22, 2018, 9:15 PM

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But that texture is only loaded once across 5 variants of trees, so its easy going on the memory

golden niche Aug 22, 2018, 9:16 PM

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well, i can't share atlases between different species, it's rather within other lods of the model

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because of how it generates stuff

fresh hill Aug 22, 2018, 9:17 PM

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Yes, the tool will limit you here.

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The purpose for Silvador was to have a "blue print" tree template that you can generate trees off that always look the same (the plan), but you can vary their mesh/lod complexity, so that the tree may be used across different products and even simulators, but still looks the same

golden niche Aug 22, 2018, 9:18 PM

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or if you have skills to manually postprocess it in 3d editor

fresh hill Aug 22, 2018, 9:18 PM

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And 10 years down the line when processing power quadrupled again, better looking trees can be exported that still have the same branch layout.

golden niche Aug 22, 2018, 9:19 PM

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or you can even just render branches to polyplanes and then use them in 3d editor to manually assemble tree

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but that's not me, unfortunately

fresh hill Aug 22, 2018, 9:20 PM

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or if you have skills to manually postprocess it in 3d editor

Never was the goal of the tool, but it did happen to go this way for some users. I noped right out of there and did it 100% in a 3D program, as I would have to end there anyway.

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Yeh, Silvador might be a good half-way measure, and just use it to generate polyplane branches to then populate a tree with.

white cargo Aug 22, 2018, 10:35 PM

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anyone here use adobe bridge?

frozen blade Aug 23, 2018, 12:38 AM

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@golden niche no, i wanna know how i can buy it 😄

silver gull Aug 23, 2018, 12:57 AM

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secret dealer

silk rock Aug 23, 2018, 3:46 AM

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anyone here got a good tut for texturing? lost on how to get from the model to a textureable doc in either blender or OB 😕

golden niche Aug 23, 2018, 8:29 AM

#

@frozen blade contact bisim, probably, via email🙂

hardy atlas Aug 23, 2018, 10:12 AM

#

@silk rock Google UV unwrapping. If you are using blender I don't know any tutorials. But there is an excellent one out there for 3DS max if you google "3DS max grenade tutorial"

full quarry Aug 23, 2018, 2:53 PM

#

I would think there are plenty of Blender unwrapping tools related stuff out there. The basic concepts are the same on every platform

somber pier Aug 23, 2018, 3:11 PM

#

Yea, theres a pretty nifty Blender tool which auto unwraps for you, but you can change all kinds of parameters for it

full quarry Aug 23, 2018, 3:16 PM

#

understanding how unwrapping and uvmap textures work is step 1. using the normal tools is step 2. and using fancy tools is step 3.

plucky onyx Aug 24, 2018, 12:52 AM

#

When texturing an Arma mod in Substance Painter, does it matter what shader I use? Further, any recommendations on how to export? I can get diffuse, normal, and AO maps out just fine, but opacity, specular, and gloss always come out blank.

#

The relationship between the shader I'm using, the channels I'm using (e.g. metallic vs. glossy), and the final output for Arma confuses me.

#

Also, how it all relates to rvmats

silver gull Aug 24, 2018, 4:03 AM

#

ianbanks made a shader for arma for use in substance

silver gull Aug 24, 2018, 4:19 AM

#

different shaders have different default channels. you can add more. Make sure while painting you have the channels activated for painting

severe rune Aug 24, 2018, 5:40 AM

#

My Substance exports (spec,gloss) always come out too bright in Arma.
But I just can't get myself to use ian's shader for once because of the different channels and smart materials not liking these

dry otter Aug 24, 2018, 8:14 AM

#

best is to press C and look at diffuse only

#

it's the closest render you will have to adjust colours

#

then arma is making things oversaturated and brighter, about 10-15%

#

@plucky onyx

hardy atlas Aug 24, 2018, 2:20 PM

#

There is a non pbr spec gloss shader out there which i use and works nicely. Not a fan of ians shader personally

plucky onyx Aug 24, 2018, 2:33 PM

#

My issue is spec/gloss maps always come out blank. Surely there should be some detail in them, especially with my rough and scratched metallic surfaces? I'll post a screenshot example after work.

#

When using metallic/rough shaders

vestal sundial Aug 24, 2018, 2:45 PM

#

If you're using metal/rough shader your spec/gloss will always come out blank as those channels have no information. You will need to convert them, the substance painter exporter has options for converting rough/metal to spec/gloss before export

#

https://support.allegorithmic.com/documentation/display/SPDOC/Exporting+textures

distant rose Aug 24, 2018, 2:47 PM

#

lol they have typo'd Arnold renderer some on the preset list on that page 😄

#

Anorld 😄

vestal sundial Aug 24, 2018, 2:51 PM

#

Also, I found that Ianbanks shader is useful in the following scenario: Export your basecolor/AO/metal/rough texture from your metal/rough SP project. Create a new SP project with Ians shader, import all appropriate maps, tweak the maps so it looks good in the shader. Export your _CO, _SMDI, _AS maps.

#

A little lengthy and tedious, but it allows me to leverage the awesomeness of substance painter's smart materials etc, with the accuracy of Ians shader.

distant rose Aug 24, 2018, 2:55 PM

#

I let the substance guys know about the typo in the substance community discord 😃

plucky onyx Aug 24, 2018, 4:11 PM

#

@vestal sundial Thanks for the help. I am using the converted channels on the bottom right of the export window. I'll screenshot everything later.

plucky onyx Aug 24, 2018, 10:30 PM

#

I have successfully solved my problem. The answer is: there was no problem! I was expecting the SMDI maps to have detail in them for a certain material. But they didn't. I tried another material with more obvious variations in it and the detail showed in the SMDI maps. So the software was fine; my expectations weren't!

I have another question, moving right along in the workflow:

In Buldozer, the texture diffuse shows up fine when linked in Object Builder (although without the right spec, normals, etc.). If I also link the pastebinned RVMat, it shows as pink. What am I doing wrong?

Looking at the fuselage specifically:

https://pastebin.com/tsPwixhy
https://imgur.com/a/Vk6iqvG
https://imgur.com/a/5qpjDMV

full quarry Aug 24, 2018, 10:34 PM

#

you have the fuselage selected

#

and it shows the selection mask in buldozer

plucky onyx Aug 24, 2018, 10:34 PM

#

Not when I screenshotted that. Nothing selected. When I select things, it shows everything else as transparent.

full quarry Aug 24, 2018, 10:34 PM

#

then you might have wrong kind of a texture somewhere

#

are all your textures correct size?

#

ie 1024^2 2048^2

plucky onyx Aug 24, 2018, 10:35 PM

#

Yes, the fueselage specifically is 4096, which I've used successfully in retextures before

full quarry Aug 24, 2018, 10:36 PM

#

did Buldozer convert them to .paa when you ran it?

plucky onyx Aug 24, 2018, 10:36 PM

#

Yes

#

inc. the _nohq etc.

full quarry Aug 24, 2018, 10:37 PM

#

and they look alright?

#

/open in texview

plucky onyx Aug 24, 2018, 10:41 PM

#

Yep they look fine

#

If I unlink the RVmat in Object Builder it shows the color map fine, too. I think it's something about the RVmat that fucks it up

full quarry Aug 24, 2018, 10:43 PM

#

whats the base of the rvmat from?

plucky onyx Aug 24, 2018, 10:43 PM

#

Firewill F-15E

full quarry Aug 24, 2018, 10:43 PM

#

check that you have all the ; in place and so on

vestal sundial Aug 24, 2018, 10:43 PM

#

Try an RVMAT from the A3 folder?

full quarry Aug 24, 2018, 10:44 PM

#

true

#

does not matter if the textures are not for your model

#

as long as they dont show as pink

plucky onyx Aug 24, 2018, 10:47 PM

#

ahmmmmm... using a default one doesn't make it pink, although it shows all the wrong normals obvs

vestal sundial Aug 24, 2018, 10:48 PM

#

Use the rvmat editor in OB to assign the right textures

plucky onyx Aug 24, 2018, 10:50 PM

#

I can't find references to a built-in RVmat editor online; how do I open it?

full quarry Aug 24, 2018, 10:51 PM

#

I would say its not necessary to use that

#

use imageToPaaGUI to reconvert your textures to .paa

plucky onyx Aug 24, 2018, 10:52 PM

#

I am comfortable just tweaking RVmats in Notepad++ and that's normally what I do. At least now I know it's some problem in my custom RVmat file.

#

I'll have to come back to this in a few hours though.

#

Thanks everyone for the help so far

distant rose Aug 24, 2018, 10:54 PM

#

If you have the resource library window enabled in OB, navigate to current model > materials > double click on your rvmat and it will open in material editor

nocturne lake Aug 24, 2018, 10:55 PM

#

meh, Notepad is the right way to edit them IMO

distant rose Aug 24, 2018, 10:56 PM

#

Oh yeah, mat editor can fudge things no doubt, I was just letting em know how to access it without having to find the exe 😃

full quarry Aug 24, 2018, 11:09 PM

#

oh also make sure all your paths are right

vestal sundial Aug 24, 2018, 11:24 PM

#

I never had issues with the material editor ¯_(ツ)_/¯

nocturne lake Aug 24, 2018, 11:34 PM

#

mostly it just annoys me because it has a tendency to make absurd decimal values from using the sliders

dry otter Aug 25, 2018, 6:12 AM

#

IDK if it matters but your RVMAT has its stage in wrong order, DT and MC are stage 2 and 3 in default_super.rvmat

#

Just copy paste default super and replace the paths in it

#

(To your own textures) then tweak

frozen blade Aug 25, 2018, 9:47 AM

#

it does matter

plucky onyx Aug 25, 2018, 6:22 PM

#

OK I've got the RVmat working again. Next question:

What's the point of specular maps if the specular[] and specularPower parameters override them? It makes it really hard to get the shine of the metal to look like it does in Substance Painter

full quarry Aug 25, 2018, 6:24 PM

#

substance painter by default uses the newer metalness workflow and Arma the older Specular workflow so they do mix

#

specular map can be used to control how the specularity is shown though

#

https://marmoset.co/posts/pbr-texture-conversion/

Marmoset

PBR Texture Conversion | Marmoset

By Joe “EarthQuake” Wilson In this tutorial, I’m going to demonstrate how content created for traditional shaders can be converted to PBR shaders, how to convert content from one PBR workflow to another, and explain the various differences in modern workflows. This tuto...

plucky onyx Aug 25, 2018, 6:25 PM

#

So I set the base value with the parameters, and all the map does is vary it in specific places?

full quarry Aug 25, 2018, 6:25 PM

#

for example this article discuss the difference

silver gull Aug 25, 2018, 6:26 PM

#

you cant get stuff to look the same in arma as it does in Substance with PBR. Impossible

full quarry Aug 25, 2018, 6:26 PM

#

https://resources.bisimulations.com/wiki/RVMAT#Basic_surface_setting

RVMAT

#

this explains how the specular works with different color channels

#

but yea they will never look 1:1 same

plucky onyx Aug 25, 2018, 6:27 PM

#

I'm familiar with that page; what I'm asking is if we have a specular map that defines all this, why do we need the parameter at the top of the RVmat?

silver gull Aug 25, 2018, 6:30 PM

#

because the range that you get with the map is not enough

#

if you have glass and concrete in the texture, one or both of them will look bad. You can try it out ingame yourself

plucky onyx Aug 25, 2018, 6:35 PM

#

😦 it's frustrating that I can make it awesome and perfect in Substance Painter and just never match it with Arma

silver gull Aug 25, 2018, 6:36 PM

#

use this as smdi https://abload.de/img/gradient_smdicofuj.png
and this as normal https://abload.de/img/sphere_nohq6wdts.png
try different specular and spec power settings in rvmat.
example https://abload.de/img/20160801014809_1tzfls.jpg

#

and yes it does suck.

plucky onyx Aug 25, 2018, 6:38 PM

#

Does Enfusion use PBR workflows?

severe rune Aug 25, 2018, 6:39 PM

#

DayZ does yes. They can still cut it out before Arma 4 tho ^^

silver gull Aug 25, 2018, 7:00 PM

#

for authenticity reasons... "iconic arma look"

shut sparrow Aug 25, 2018, 8:50 PM

#

@silver gull right click -> save image as...

silver gull Aug 25, 2018, 8:51 PM

#

wat?

shut sparrow Aug 25, 2018, 8:52 PM

#

about images above

#

very helpfull

silver gull Aug 25, 2018, 8:52 PM

#

???

shut sparrow Aug 25, 2018, 8:55 PM

#

you have posted images about smdi and what it looks like in arma

#

i found it very usefull so i saved it

silver gull Aug 25, 2018, 9:02 PM

#

😄 ok, i thought you wanted to suggest me something

glossy crown Aug 27, 2018, 8:20 PM

#

Hey, I just want to know what's the difference betwwen _mc texture and _mca texture

severe rune Aug 27, 2018, 8:35 PM

#

common sense would say one has alpha and the other doesn't

white cargo Aug 27, 2018, 9:34 PM

#

_mc already has alpha

odd crane Aug 28, 2018, 8:05 PM

#

What does MC mean? Multiply Color?

full quarry Aug 28, 2018, 8:07 PM

#

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Super_shader#3._Macro_map

Super shader

odd crane Aug 29, 2018, 4:44 PM

#

wow, i feel like a noob now. I should know better lol

dense peak Aug 30, 2018, 11:01 PM

#

can anyone help me out with some texturing questions

full quarry Aug 30, 2018, 11:03 PM

#

Depends what the question is. Usually we find solutions here.

dense peak Aug 30, 2018, 11:07 PM

#

Hehe so Im retexturing this chinook and when I load it something overrides the edited texture

full quarry Aug 30, 2018, 11:08 PM

#

how do you setup the texture?

#

and wheres the chinook from?

dense peak Aug 30, 2018, 11:08 PM

#

its RHS

full quarry Aug 30, 2018, 11:09 PM

#

possibly you got some sort of config duplicate or something like that

dense peak Aug 30, 2018, 11:09 PM

#

hmm...

#

stand by

full quarry Aug 30, 2018, 11:09 PM

#

so how do you setup the texture?

dense peak Aug 30, 2018, 11:10 PM

#

I take it and change it from paa to png, then edit it and change it back to paa from png with the same name

#

remove the old paa from the pbo and replace it with the new one

full quarry Aug 30, 2018, 11:11 PM

#

no

#

nonono

#

thats not how you do it

#

RHS folks will eat your balls for that

dense peak Aug 30, 2018, 11:11 PM

#

u rite

#

ill just add it in and reconfig it

full quarry Aug 30, 2018, 11:12 PM

#

retextures are done with hiddenselecetions

#

if a vehicle does not have any then theres no retextures

dense peak Aug 30, 2018, 11:13 PM

#

how do I go by finding the hiddenselections

full quarry Aug 30, 2018, 11:14 PM

#

Im pretty sure there are guides/topics about retexturing for that in the BIforums

dense peak Aug 30, 2018, 11:20 PM

#

im so confused lol

full quarry Aug 30, 2018, 11:21 PM

#

about what?

dense peak Aug 30, 2018, 11:22 PM

#

the hiddenselections part

full quarry Aug 30, 2018, 11:23 PM

#

did you look up the forums?

#

hiddenselections are parts of the model that are defined in the config and can be used to apply different textures on those selected parts

#

by making a new config class with appropriate texture paths

#

I dont know if the RHS chinooks has hiddenselections

#

I would assume RHS puts those everywhere

nocturne lake Aug 30, 2018, 11:28 PM

#

The Chinook definitely has them, since we already have olive drab and desert texture sets for it

dense peak Aug 30, 2018, 11:45 PM

#

I cant find a way to do it

left horizon Sep 1, 2018, 1:30 AM

#

I made a texture for the journalist clothes and I would like to see it in-game, how do I set up the texture to display in-game?I have zero scripting/coding knowledge btw

silver gull Sep 1, 2018, 2:24 AM

#

there are retexturing tutorials on BI forum, and pretty likely also on youtube and other sites. look for those

glossy crown Sep 2, 2018, 8:03 PM

#

Anyone already experienced the issue with calmwater shader, when you move the camera of eden above the surface, the calmwater shader moves. Only doing this with some types of pond

full quarry Sep 2, 2018, 8:03 PM

#

yes

#

calmwater shader does that

#

so far seen it on all my tests

glossy crown Sep 2, 2018, 8:05 PM

#

That's weird doing only on some p3d

#

Thinking, doing this because of size

#

Because copy paste one working, just changed size, and was not working anyway

full quarry Sep 2, 2018, 8:07 PM

#

dunno, really

#

what sized ones it works on?

glossy crown Sep 2, 2018, 8:09 PM

#

Little size one

full quarry Sep 2, 2018, 8:09 PM

#

how little?

#

go to admit that I have not tried it in anything less than 20m diameter

#

because no point 😛

glossy crown Sep 2, 2018, 8:11 PM

#

like 15 m from center

#

That's the pond_small from A2

full quarry Sep 2, 2018, 8:13 PM

#

hmm is that unwrapped?

glossy crown Sep 2, 2018, 8:14 PM

#

I need to check it another time

#

It's not

left oyster Sep 2, 2018, 8:20 PM

#

i want to reskin a vic, and have found the texture templates, but cannot figure out how to do it properly without having the actual model, painting it, and baking the UV....

full quarry Sep 2, 2018, 8:22 PM

#

only way to retexture anything in Arma is to paint over the the existing texture or template and create a new config for the alternate texture version and use hidden selections to replace textures

left oyster Sep 2, 2018, 8:22 PM

#

every skinning tutorial and vid i have looked has been a bunch of cut&paste over the template, usually camo patterns etc... nothing dealing with putting detail in very specific locations apart from a logo or text on large flat panel..

#

yeah.. thats what i thought

full quarry Sep 2, 2018, 8:23 PM

#

tutorials usually go over the basic steps

#

also the vehicle has to be created with the hiddenselections and if it does not have them, retexturing is impossible

#

it may not be as simple as it sounds as you have noticed

left oyster Sep 2, 2018, 8:25 PM

#

the term 'user hostile' comes to mind

glossy crown Sep 2, 2018, 8:26 PM

#

The most weird things, with the problem of calmwater, working fine when placed with createSimpleObject command

left oyster Sep 2, 2018, 8:26 PM

#

i guess i would be better off building a model from scratch and doing it that way

full quarry Sep 2, 2018, 8:27 PM

#

perhaps. Retexturing is not the priority of any asset though

#

its a bonus

#

@glossy crown that is a good observation

#

does it apply on any sized water object?

glossy crown Sep 2, 2018, 8:29 PM

#

Didn't tested yet, but I want to test a class = House and a land class

#

Right now using class pond

full quarry Sep 2, 2018, 8:30 PM

#

let us know what you find out! Interesting to hear if it works properly on some class

glossy crown Sep 2, 2018, 8:45 PM

#

After further test, this bug only appear when baked into a map

#

but all class into geometry doesn't change anything

full quarry Sep 2, 2018, 8:46 PM

#

oh I'm pretty sure Ive seen it on objects I've thrown down in Eden

glossy crown Sep 2, 2018, 8:47 PM

#

Tested with Eden placed one or createSimpleObject and working fine for me

full quarry Sep 2, 2018, 8:55 PM

#

odd 😄 could have sworn the reflection moved oddly with Eden objects

glossy crown Sep 2, 2018, 8:56 PM

#

Anyway, we will never have the calmwater shader without bug

dense peak Sep 2, 2018, 8:59 PM

#

when attempting to convert my .png to .paa in game it turn the colors black. I use 32 bit png format. I also tried using tga and the same issue. Is there a way to solve this?

#

tried 256x256, 128x128, and 64x64

full quarry Sep 2, 2018, 9:01 PM

#

what type of texture?

#

_CO, _CA, _NO?

#

and what is it for

dense peak Sep 2, 2018, 9:02 PM

#

just for ingame UI

full quarry Sep 2, 2018, 9:02 PM

#

and are you sure you apply it correctly

hardy atlas Sep 2, 2018, 9:02 PM

#

sounds like AO

dense peak Sep 2, 2018, 9:02 PM

#

also not sure what that second line is :/

hardy atlas Sep 2, 2018, 9:02 PM

#

oh

full quarry Sep 2, 2018, 9:02 PM

#

what do you convert it with?

dense peak Sep 2, 2018, 9:03 PM

#

Textview

#

also tried imagetopaa

#

usually it works (for my other ui stuff)

hardy atlas Sep 2, 2018, 9:03 PM

#

does the PAA become black or does the game show it as black?

full quarry Sep 2, 2018, 9:03 PM

#

imgatopaa is usualy better

#

and do you have alpha transparency on it?

dense peak Sep 2, 2018, 9:04 PM

#

@hardy atlas the paa when i open is correct. In game it is incorrect

#

@full quarry ye

full quarry Sep 2, 2018, 9:05 PM

#

so you need to covert it as _CA to keep the alpha transparency

#

so yourtexture_CA.png -> texview/imagetopaa -> yourtexture_CA.paa

#

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/ArmA:_Texture_Naming_Rules

ArmA: Texture Naming Rules

dense peak Sep 2, 2018, 9:06 PM

#

ah alright let me test

#

nope tried CA and CO both result in the same thing

full quarry Sep 2, 2018, 9:17 PM

#

you absolutely sure your code is ok

#

try it with some other texture

dense peak Sep 2, 2018, 9:18 PM

#

aight lemme grab smth

#

ok well then. Seems like the random angrybird is also black. I guess it could be my code

#

@full quarry fixed. Was code... Thanks

full quarry Sep 2, 2018, 9:25 PM

#

👌

dense peak Sep 3, 2018, 4:41 AM

#

So I retextured the end of the tail rotor on the RHS chinook with this setObjectTexture [1,"texturename.paa"] and the texture duplicated on the other side but its inverted

#

https://i.imgur.com/l3aSw2H.jpg

#

https://i.imgur.com/kiy2tlv.jpg

digital mantle Sep 3, 2018, 5:46 AM

#

They use the same texture on the model, most likely.

golden niche Sep 3, 2018, 5:58 AM

#

what is correct procedural empty _mc map?

#

#(rgb,1,1,1)color(0.5,0.5,0.5,1,mc)

#

this?

#

and what about _dt one? I'm confused by wiki a bit

nocturne lake Sep 3, 2018, 1:28 PM

#

texture="#(argb,8,8,3)color(0,0,0,0,MC)";

#

texture="#(argb,8,8,3)color(0.5,0.5,0.5,1,DT)";

#

pretty sure you want 0 alpha in the MC, otherwise it applies a colour overlay to the base texture

golden niche Sep 3, 2018, 1:31 PM

#

mc is "overlay" and dt is "multiply", right?

#

thanks, anyway

golden niche Sep 3, 2018, 2:32 PM

#

is there anything wrong with storing color texture within _mc map, like this?

#

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/484746956858589184/486181385145679903/geometry_mc.png

hardy atlas Sep 3, 2018, 7:19 PM

#

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

odd crane Sep 6, 2018, 3:44 PM

#

Anybody played around with _NS textures?

#

"_NS - normal map specular (normal map with alpha channel)"

#

It looks like a normal map that includes specular data in the alpha channel. Can anybody confirm?

white cargo Sep 6, 2018, 3:46 PM

#

never even seen that, are there any ingame examples?

odd crane Sep 6, 2018, 3:51 PM

#

Not that I know of, but then again I just found out about it. It could help with the multimaterial shader. You'd be able to use the _SMDI as an overall specular map, and the _NS specular for tiny specular detail

full quarry Sep 6, 2018, 3:54 PM

#

it might be a remnant od soome older tech

#

👆 see above @foggy torrent do _NS textures work?

foggy torrent Sep 6, 2018, 3:56 PM

#

probably can be used with NormalMapSpecularMap shader

coarse scaffold Sep 6, 2018, 6:58 PM

#

Is there a way to use rvmat to make texture Greyscale ingame?

frozen blade Sep 6, 2018, 7:46 PM

#

no

vestal sundial Sep 6, 2018, 10:16 PM

#

Does anyone know of an Arma shader for Marmoset?

placid thicket Sep 7, 2018, 9:35 PM

#

Anyone here had an issue with substance painter flipping normals on import from 3ds max?

#

https://vgy.me/EY3KQD.png

#

importing as .obj seemed to be fine

hardy atlas Sep 7, 2018, 10:00 PM

#

invert y axis?

#

Direct X uses Y- (inverted green channel) and OpenGL use Y+

#

If your substance painter is set up for an Arma workflow it will be Direct X. So make sure your 3D's max is the same.

placid thicket Sep 7, 2018, 10:03 PM

#

I fixed it

#

reset xform, max did weird things to the normals

hardy atlas Sep 7, 2018, 10:04 PM

#

Ah

nocturne lake Sep 7, 2018, 10:06 PM

#

was it a duplicated/instanced object that had been mirrored?

placid thicket Sep 7, 2018, 10:33 PM

#

yeah, I think the mirroring caused it

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 1:41 AM

#

Can someone help me with setting textures onto weapons? Currently whenever I load my mod into the game it's just white. I've set the rvmat and texture in the face properties for all LODs and such, but it still comes out as white.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 1:42 AM

#

you may have bad paths or you are packing it wrong or you have some sort of config/hiddenselection error going on

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 1:43 AM

#

I'm thinking it's a pathing issue.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 1:43 AM

#

fix paths -> repack

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 1:43 AM

#

However I'm not entirely sure.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 1:44 AM

#

well whats your path like? does the textures show up in buldozer? do OB mass textrue rename tool show them as black or red?

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 1:45 AM

#

OB mass texture show them as red, and only the co.tga texture from the texture field appears in buldozer.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 1:45 AM

#

well if they are red then theyre fubar

#

how did you set them?

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 1:46 AM

#

Select the faces and open them in face properties. Press the folder icon and navigate to the texture files. Select the corresponding file, apply, and press ok.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 1:46 AM

#

that should work

#

do you have the development environment set up?

#

P drive

#

unpacked A3 data

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 1:47 AM

#

Yep.

#

Hold on.

#

The OB paths are no longer red.

#

Apparently it was missing a " \ " at the beginning?

#

Going to repack and try again real quick.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 1:48 AM

#

📎 unknown.png

#

📎 unknown.png

#

do you have this in OB settings?

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 1:49 AM

#

The penetration bit is red for me, don't know what it is. And the Path for textures is similar except it navigates directly to the texture folder. I should probably fix that.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 1:50 AM

#

yes

#

your settings are pooped

#

how did you manage that? 😝

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 1:51 AM

#

Oh now I see.

#

So.

#

Path for textures was "P:\neg_weap\Textures\WeaponName".

#

Just set it to "P:" however.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 1:52 AM

#

p:\

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 1:52 AM

#

The reason it was missing the " \ " was because I never put the slash at the end in the path.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 1:52 AM

#

yep

#

it is P:\ now right?

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 1:53 AM

#

Yeah.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 1:53 AM

#

👌

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 1:53 AM

#

Now for some reason .paa doesn't want to show the texture in buldozer.

#

Should I just go back to .tga?

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 1:53 AM

#

are the textures what resolution

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 1:53 AM

#

2k.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 1:53 AM

#

2048?

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 1:53 AM

#

Yeah.

#

It's one whole texture.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 1:54 AM

#

what did you convert it to .paa with?

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 1:54 AM

#

The paa tool in arma tools.

#

ImagetoPAA.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 1:54 AM

#

do your textures have ther right naming convention?

#

_CO

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 1:54 AM

#

Yep.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 1:54 AM

#

etc

#

ok

#

did you restart buldozer?

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 1:55 AM

#

Nope.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 1:55 AM

#

🙈

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 1:55 AM

#

I'll restart it once I reassign these textures.

#

Yeah my bad.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 1:56 AM

#

most of the time all trouble is user error related

#

so no biggie

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 2:00 AM

#

Alright so.

#

How exactly do I restart this thing? Project Drive Management and then launch?

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 2:00 AM

#

wut?

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 2:00 AM

#

Buldozer.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 2:01 AM

#

from OB

#

same place you started it

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 2:01 AM

#

Ok.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 2:01 AM

#

what the hell is project drive management?

#

😄

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 2:01 AM

#

Ok I got it.

#

Texture appears in buldozer, but it's only the co.

#

I guess the rest will show up ingame.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 2:02 AM

#

no they should all show

#

your paths in rvmat can be wrong

#

class Stage1
{
    texture = "LoDR_Trees\Jungle\Data\LoDR_Jungle_Tree_01_Tentacles_NOHQ.paa";```

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 2:02 AM

#

Oh.

#

So no P:\

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 2:03 AM

#

no

#

never

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 2:03 AM

#

Ok.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 2:03 AM

#

ever P:\ in arma paths

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 2:04 AM

#

    texture = "neg_weap\Textures\AK12\neg_ak12_smdi.paa";```

#

Still looks the same. I might just be confusing things.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 2:06 AM

#

what do you expect it to do?

#

also whats your specular values at the top?

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 2:06 AM

#

I was hoping to see a bit of the specular.

#

specularPower = 120;

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 2:07 AM

#

does it have a normalmap?

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 2:07 AM

#

Yes.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 2:07 AM

#

what shaders are you using?

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 2:07 AM

#

You mean the _co stuff or

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 2:07 AM

#

PixelShaderID = "TreeAdv"; VertexShaderID = "TreeAdvModNormals";

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 2:08 AM

#

Oh.

#

Probably the wrong one.

#

PixelShaderID = "Super";
VertexShaderID = "Super";

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 2:08 AM

#

no thats correct for your use

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 2:08 AM

#

Nice.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 2:08 AM

#

Im fairly certain your gun is not a tree

#

😛

#

paste your whole upper section

#

with the diffuse and specular and whatnot

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 2:09 AM

#

};

ambient[] = {1,1,1,1};
diffuse[] = {1,1,1,1};
forcedDiffuse[] = {0,0,0,0};
emmisive[] = {0,0,0,1};
specular[] = {0.01,0.01,0.01,1.0}; //amount of glossiness - the higher the number,the higher the glossiness
specularPower = 120; //area of glossiness - the higher the number,the smaller the area
PixelShaderID = "Super";
VertexShaderID = "Super";```

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 2:09 AM

#

your specualr values are very very low

#

so no wonder you dont see any

#

and specpower is kinda high

#

so the highlight would be very sharp and small

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 2:10 AM

#

What would the general values be for a weapon?

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 2:10 AM

#

you can check what Arma weapons use

stray relic Sep 8, 2018, 2:10 AM

#

try 0.4,0.4,0.4,1.0 and 40

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 2:11 AM

#

but it depends a lot from what kind of textures you got going

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 2:12 AM

#

Those values work.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 2:12 AM

#

👍

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 2:12 AM

#

Alright. Going to repack and try this out.

#

model = "\neg_weap\neg_weap_AK12_F.p3d"; /// path to model No P:\ right?

#

Because right now the model doesn't appear.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 2:18 AM

#

no p:

#

but

#

in model path

#

no ""

#

model = \LoDR_Trees\Jungle\LoDR_Jungle_Tree_01.p3d; // Path to model

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 2:19 AM

#

Really? Alright. The sample config had it. model = "\Samples_f\Test_weapon_01\test_weapon_01_F.p3d"; /// path to model

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 2:19 AM

#

samples can be wrong 😄

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 2:23 AM

#

Still not appearing.

#

Path is messed up.

#

File is located in P:\neg_weap. Have model = \neg_weap\neg_weap_AK12_F.p3d;

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 2:25 AM

#

what do you pack with?

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 2:25 AM

#

AddonBuilder.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 2:26 AM

#

well its possbile it messes it up somehow

#

Id recommend using the mikero toolset and pboproject

#

as it gives you a lot more feedback on problems

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 2:26 AM

#

If I put the P:\ it'll appear.

#

But that won't do for afterwards.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 2:28 AM

#

yeah never put p:\

#

because it might just bandaid your problem

#

does your weapon have hiddenselections?

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 2:28 AM

#

Nope.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 2:29 AM

#

well cant really say much since youre using addon builder and it just lets everything go by

#

it expects everything to be perfect for it to work right

#

you could check the arma rpt log if theres anything about bad path or missing textures

#

do you run arma with the show script errors lauch parameter?

#

and is the whole weapon missing or just the textures on it?

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 2:30 AM

#

No. I'll put that on.

#

Whole weapon missing.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 2:31 AM

#

ok then that is likely a larger config error somewhere

#

get the mikero tools

#

the free version is enough

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 2:34 AM

#

Is there a download for the entire kit?

#

Only see downloads for individual parts.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 2:35 AM

#

no you need them all

#

they work together

#

well not all of them perhaps but its simpler to just get all of them

#

than to try to isolate the ones you dont need right now

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 2:37 AM

#

I open MakePbo and press a key, but nothing happens.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 2:39 AM

#

pboProject

#

is the one

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 3:00 AM

#

It doesn't show the issues with the model.cfg.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 3:04 AM

#

config..cpp is the one with the weapon classes

#

model.cfg is for animations

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 3:04 AM

#

I already cleared the issues with the config.cpp

#

Now it won't pack because of the model.cfg

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 3:05 AM

#

well what does it say?

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 3:05 AM

#

Output is to P:\temp\neg_weap\config.bin

P:\temp\neg_weap\config.bin
1 File(s) copied
"model.cfgs for this pbo have errors"

#

That's it.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 3:06 AM

#

do you have noisy output on?

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 3:06 AM

#

Yeah.

#

Turn it off?

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 3:06 AM

#

no

#

open the logs

#

usually it shows where it stops

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 3:08 AM

#

What logs exactly?

#

Where?

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 3:08 AM

#

📎 unknown.png

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 3:08 AM

#

binlogs doesn't have a model.cfg

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 3:09 AM

#

there should also be a packing.log

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 3:09 AM

#

Yeah. Packing log said "model.cfgs for this pbo have errors".

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 3:09 AM

#

if it does not open from the view outputs

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 3:09 AM

#

And then nothing else.

#

No specification on what errors.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 3:09 AM

#

whats above that

#

and if so then your model.cfg is broken

#

pretty badly if it cant even start with it

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 3:10 AM

#

I simply took the model.cfg from the sample and modified it.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 3:10 AM

#

¯_(ツ)_/¯

#

well its broken

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 3:11 AM

#

It's odd because the animations worked fine.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 3:11 AM

#

pastebin it

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 3:11 AM

#

Sure.

#

https://pastebin.com/MdHvAEx2

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 3:16 AM

#

could be it does not like that you dont have the weapon skeleton anymore

#

that the weapon class is using

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 3:17 AM

#

Probably.

#

I'm actually using the RHS weapon skeleton, but I have no clue how to "#include" it.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 3:17 AM

#

you cant

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 3:17 AM

#

Figures.

#

It was working though. I was using the skeleton.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 3:18 AM

#

¯_(ツ)_/¯

#

working does not mean its right

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 3:18 AM

#

I changed it to the MX skeleton and it's still acting out.

#

Can't find the rtm.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 3:19 AM

#

you changed what?

#

where?

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 3:19 AM

#

handAnim[] = {"OFP2_ManSkeleton", "\A3\Weapons_F\Rifles\MX\data\Anim\MX_gl.rtm"}; in the config.cpp

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 3:20 AM

#

thats not related to this at all

#

that is the weapon holding animation

#

the model.cfg is for the weapons animations

#

like bolt movement and such

#

the problem is in your model.cfg

#

not in your config.cpp

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 3:21 AM

#

Ok so.

#

What skeleton then?

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 3:22 AM

#

{
    class neg_weap
    {
        pivotsModel="";
        isDiscrete = 0;
        skeletonInherit = "";
        skeletonBones[] =
        {
            "trigger",      "", /// not in this model, but good to use
            "bolt",         "",
            "bolt_catch",   "",
            "magazine",     "",
            "safety",       "",
            "muzzleFlash",  "",
            "OP",           "",
            "ForeSight",    "",
            "BackSight",    ""
        };
    };
    class Test_Bipod
    {
        pivotsModel="";
        isDiscrete = 0;
        skeletonInherit = "";
        skeletonBones[] =
        {
            "bipod_legs",       "",
            "bipod_leg_L",      "bipod_legs",
                "leg_L",        "bipod_leg_L",
            "bipod_leg_R",      "bipod_legs",
                "leg_R",        "bipod_leg_R"
        };
    }; 
};```

#

these

#

and the classess below you have skeletons in use that do not exist

#

    {
        skeletonName="Rifle";```

#

like this

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 3:22 AM

#

Wasn't entirely sure if I could remove that or not without any issues.

#

I don't actually have a bipod.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 3:23 AM

#

which is why I dont like the example skeleton

#

it does not teach how it works

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 3:24 AM

#

So what exactly should I do?

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 3:26 AM

#

that is a long story my 6am brain cant type

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 3:26 AM

#

I feel you dude.

#

This is a lot.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 3:26 AM

#

I would suggest you combine the classes into 1

#

and remove all the bipod stuff

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 3:26 AM

#

I can make stuff, I just can't figure out the whole scripting bit.

#

I just removed the bipod stuff.

full quarry Sep 8, 2018, 3:27 AM

#

once you get the hang of it, it becomes easier

#

but it will take time and practise

#

the sample config is too complex in my opinion

#

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/ArmA:_How_to_animate_a_model

ArmA: How to animate a model

#

this could help you understand how it works

#

and then I suggest you compile it again in a simpler for with only the stuff you need

scarlet isle Sep 8, 2018, 3:30 AM

#

I think I'll give this a go tomorrow.

#

Thanks for the help though.

lunar tapir Sep 9, 2018, 9:44 PM

#

have a question, why does Arma change image color? I used png as original and used TexView to convert it to .paa

#

original image is orange, in-game is blue

frozen blade Sep 9, 2018, 9:46 PM

#

2^n

lunar tapir Sep 9, 2018, 9:46 PM

#

aha

full quarry Sep 9, 2018, 9:48 PM

#

correct suffixes?

frozen blade Sep 9, 2018, 10:07 PM

#

yeah or that ^

wind gate Sep 14, 2018, 7:56 AM

#

@lunar tapir Also check the size of your image, i cant be just anything.

lunar tapir Sep 14, 2018, 8:07 AM

#

how do I find .pbo in which certain arma texture is residing?

#

for example : "\A3\Structures_F\Mil\Flags\Data\Mast_civ_CO.paa"

#

(I don't want to unpack everything)

severe rune Sep 14, 2018, 8:10 AM

#

Structures_F

#

probably Structures_F<something>.pbo

#

Or use a DokanPbo P drive to have all pbo's unpacked without ever unpacking anything

lunar tapir Sep 14, 2018, 8:13 AM

#

thanks

spark shore Sep 14, 2018, 8:28 AM

#

hey quick question
I've applied a wood texture for a simble cargo box in blender and connected everything
but when I do the box turns a very dark brown

hardy atlas Sep 14, 2018, 10:35 AM

#

I don't use blender but I imagine if you are talking about viewing in the blender you have either, Got the view window set to display shaded colours rather than textures. Or you have not unwrapped the box correctly.

#

@spark shore

full quarry Sep 14, 2018, 11:16 AM

#

or there is no appropriate light

oak oar Sep 14, 2018, 6:18 PM

#

hi, how can you make the texture darker on the sunny side of an object? In the shade everything looks good, only on the sunny side, it is much too bright and especially from the top extreme.

full quarry Sep 14, 2018, 6:21 PM

#

tweak the rvmat diffuse and ambient values

vestal sundial Sep 14, 2018, 8:50 PM

#

Perhaps have too high of a specular value as well?

hardy atlas Sep 15, 2018, 10:11 AM

#

Pictures would also help in such a situation

tame heath Sep 16, 2018, 1:25 AM

#

https://gyazo.com/35aad4d2a7b7b01cff3cc035a8f858fa

#

any ideas?

full quarry Sep 16, 2018, 1:26 AM

#

as it says view output

#

hit the output button and it should open the log file

tame heath Sep 16, 2018, 1:27 AM

#

window on right is the output lol

#

or https://pastebin.com/Y3PrfnWS

full quarry Sep 16, 2018, 1:28 AM

#

alright then open the other log too

#

are you packing with noisy output?

tame heath Sep 16, 2018, 1:28 AM

#

yes sir

#

the price i pay for reformatting my pc

#

rebuilding DustyRoads\config.bin.cfgPatches.units[]=...(altered)
Checking cfgSurfaces and clutter...cfgSurfaces,cfgSurfaceChars,or clutter is not defined

#

stuck on thos

full quarry Sep 16, 2018, 1:30 AM

#

well it seems you dont have at least one of those in your config then

#

free or subscriber mikero tools?

tame heath Sep 16, 2018, 1:30 AM

#

free dont bother with MT

full quarry Sep 16, 2018, 1:30 AM

#

?

#

MT?

tame heath Sep 16, 2018, 1:31 AM

#

Mikero tools

full quarry Sep 16, 2018, 1:32 AM

#

i dont quite understand the sentence above

#

this is btw more a #arma3_terrain issue 😄

tame heath Sep 16, 2018, 1:33 AM

#

OMG

#

i thought this was Terrain LAWL

full quarry Sep 16, 2018, 1:34 AM

#

well its quiet at this time of night so its alright

#

since you are making such a big project I would suggest the investment on the Mikero tools. You would get more upgraded PBOProject with better checking etc

hardy atlas Sep 16, 2018, 11:04 AM

#

So I borked my SMDI export settings on substance painter, And it's been so long since iset em up that I forgot how to get em right. Anyone got the right ones for me?

rose sierra Sep 16, 2018, 11:28 AM

#

https://i.gyazo.com/58616058b098ca7b5077b62798666c6b.png This one seems to be working well for me

#

Courtesy of soul assassin

hardy atlas Sep 16, 2018, 11:41 AM

#

@rose sierra https://imgur.com/a/vUbJufF

#

check out that

#

Was having no issues the other day, I don't know why it wants metal roughness

rose sierra Sep 16, 2018, 11:43 AM

#

My guess would be to make sure you have the texture sets its moaning about in the the console

#

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1l1dqFMC6bVRY1KImKmkUS6KrKPaeJ-x6 Thats the template i use. Chuck it in Documents\Substance Painter 2\shelf\templates

hardy atlas Sep 16, 2018, 11:48 AM

#

Oh yeah ty, I heard this has some issues though right?

rose sierra Sep 16, 2018, 11:51 AM

#

Not sure, Ive used it for a few small models and had no real trouble with it. Im certainly no expert with it

hardy atlas Sep 16, 2018, 11:58 AM

#

Ah well, that worked perfectly either way. Ty haha

gritty onyx Sep 17, 2018, 8:49 AM

#

How do I go around getting a texture file with multiple layers of skins then just the one?

frozen blade Sep 17, 2018, 8:50 AM

#

what?

hardy atlas Sep 17, 2018, 12:06 PM

#

Your gonna have to elaborate a bit on that 😄

#

Are you referring to multi materials?

full quarry Sep 17, 2018, 2:58 PM

#

no he wants a template file

#

and those are created manually

#

they do not magicallly just appear from somewhere

golden niche Sep 18, 2018, 5:03 AM

#

k, back to resource optimization question.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/484746956858589184/491471387232305153/unknown.png
(PP means polyplane, GEO means branches geometry)
Let's say I have a tree with 5 LODS. If LOD1 polyplane's res is <=2k then in theory all similar types of model's textures could be arranged within 3 corresponding atlases (_ca, _nohq and _mc) instead of ~30 separate files. But if atlas is gonna be say square 4k, then in most cases not all of it's area is gonna be filled with useful information. For example, if, in relation to above picture, there is only BARK1 texture -- what is more preferable: having everything within 4k texture but with lot of empty space or having 2048x4096 atlas with 90% area utilization + separate 1024x2048 bark texture?

frozen blade Sep 18, 2018, 8:44 AM

#

single 4k texture

#

that being said, i don't think you need to have the same texel density between bark and leaves, so you could use a ton more of the UV space that is left available

golden niche Sep 18, 2018, 8:45 AM

#

even if 2048x3072 of it contains no useful info?

frozen blade Sep 18, 2018, 8:46 AM

#

i never tried 2kx3k textures, but i would stay away from anything that it isn't 1:1 and 1:2

golden niche Sep 18, 2018, 8:46 AM

#

no

#

i mean texture itself is 4k square

frozen blade Sep 18, 2018, 8:46 AM

#

ahh got it yeah

golden niche Sep 18, 2018, 8:46 AM

#

but it contain 2048x3072

#

yeah

frozen blade Sep 18, 2018, 8:46 AM

#

but why would you have so much wasted space to begin with?

golden niche Sep 18, 2018, 8:47 AM

#

i mean in theory, i'll try to avoid such things

frozen blade Sep 18, 2018, 8:48 AM

#

that is more than 1/4 of the entire available uv space

golden niche Sep 18, 2018, 8:48 AM

#

yeah

frozen blade Sep 18, 2018, 8:48 AM

#

can you show the UV islands

golden niche Sep 18, 2018, 8:48 AM

#

so is it still better performance wise to have so much space wasted or just dump it to separate file?

#

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/484746956858589184/491471387232305153/unknown.png

#

if there is no bark2 and bark3

#

that's a draft of layout

frozen blade Sep 18, 2018, 8:51 AM

#

question, since i haven't dicked with trees

#

why do you need to lower manually the textures for individual LODs

#

when the game engine mip maps it itself?

#

i mean it is counter intuitive if you ask me

golden niche Sep 18, 2018, 8:53 AM

#

they are not handmade

frozen blade Sep 18, 2018, 8:53 AM

#

as far as the knowledge about the engine goes

#

the main resource thing is loading and keeping texture file in buffer

#

the more textures loaded at the same time, the worst

golden niche Sep 18, 2018, 8:54 AM

#

count wise?

frozen blade Sep 18, 2018, 8:54 AM

#

yeah

golden niche Sep 18, 2018, 8:54 AM

#

well, memory wise also probably

frozen blade Sep 18, 2018, 8:54 AM

#

yes and no

#

as in it is always advisable to have a single 4k texture rathern than 2x2k textures

golden niche Sep 18, 2018, 8:55 AM

#

count makes more impact, right?

frozen blade Sep 18, 2018, 8:55 AM

#

yeah count makes the most impact

#

that is why for instance last LODs for buildings using multimats

#

is actually a single CO texture file that has the multimats baked into a single UV sheet

#

that is why it is advisable to drop RVMAts for last lods for whatever model you have

golden niche Sep 18, 2018, 8:56 AM

#

so, in theory, if we're talking co only (other maps may have different layout), it's better to have square 4k texture with more than 3/4 of UV space wasted than 1024x2048 + 2048x4096 separate textures?

frozen blade Sep 18, 2018, 8:56 AM

#

so the engine loads just the CO, and not the other maps used by the rvmat

#

yes ^^

#

but while for games that have both first and 3rd, it is ideal to have the same texel density across

#

for some stuff like trees, i would kick that rule in the shins and push the resolution to either bark or leaves

golden niche Sep 18, 2018, 8:58 AM

#

hm, i see

frozen blade Sep 18, 2018, 8:58 AM

#

making sure i fill that UV and make use of the available space

#

i mean for 1st person shooter only, the texel density is higher towards the camera and to the side you are seeing

#

for weapons anyways

#

one could do it for A3 as well, separating the UVs for pilot from the rest

#

but that would mean using different textures for 1st and 3rd and that is bad for performance

golden niche Sep 18, 2018, 9:00 AM

#

isn't texel density still depends on how it is mapped (to certain degree)?

frozen blade Sep 18, 2018, 9:00 AM

#

it is to some degree

#

say i want a texel density of 1 pixel per sq cm

#

then depending on the size of my object

#

i either split it into several parts or increase the texture resolution

#

real example - having higher resolution accesories than the weapon it is using said accesories

#

my case, having to split some parts from the AKMs across 2 UV sheets

#

to have the desired texel density

#

but that said, for stuff like trees, it doesn't count that much

golden niche Sep 18, 2018, 9:02 AM

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yeah, these polyplanes have different texel density in different lods (obviously) but they still are within single atlas

frozen blade Sep 18, 2018, 9:03 AM

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you will almost always be closer to the bark than the leaves

golden niche Sep 18, 2018, 9:03 AM

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so if i had say a tree with freaking 30+ separate maps+ rvmats and shit (raw output from the software) and after manual cleaning it will have 3 atlases: _ca, _nohq and _mc + 2 rvmats (for bark and polyplanes) that should be significant?

frozen blade Sep 18, 2018, 9:03 AM

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again, i don't get why you need to have that LOD setup on an atlas

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especially since the texture is getting mip mapped

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so you have the LOD1 @4k

golden niche Sep 18, 2018, 9:04 AM

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because it is generated that way

frozen blade Sep 18, 2018, 9:04 AM

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the game will lower the texture down for you incrementally - 2k, 1k, 512 etc

golden niche Sep 18, 2018, 9:04 AM

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different lods have different geometry

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like, polyplanes are being generated at different points of hi poly tree

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so they look different

frozen blade Sep 18, 2018, 9:05 AM

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ok i won't argue here, but that 512x512 resolution for LOD3

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will be already mipmapped by the engine 3 times by the time it reaches that LOD

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not sure if that makes sense

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and as i said, i have nil experience with trees

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@fresh hill might put his pennys into this one for instance

golden niche Sep 18, 2018, 9:07 AM

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well, game switches lods on trees pretty aggressively

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from your general experience, what LOD3's resolution should be?

frozen blade Sep 18, 2018, 9:08 AM

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you mean in terms of texture resolution

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or vertex number?

golden niche Sep 18, 2018, 9:08 AM

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texture

frozen blade Sep 18, 2018, 9:09 AM

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again, the engine mip mapps it itself

golden niche Sep 18, 2018, 9:10 AM

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another question, i've heard arma can utilize only certain amount of video memory, is that correct?

frozen blade Sep 18, 2018, 9:11 AM

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not really

golden niche Sep 18, 2018, 9:11 AM

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again, the engine mip mapps it itself ah, so even if LOD3's tex res would be 4k it's irrelevant because engine would just switch to 128 or whatever it thinks fits, am i getting this right?

frozen blade Sep 18, 2018, 9:11 AM

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yeah ^

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so for instance, until recently 4K textures for arma wouldn't work

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because the game would mip-map these first, and poorly

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also if you set ingame texture settings to lower than high

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everything will be mip mapped to 2k anyways

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so there is an advantage here, being able to allow the user to set the texture resolution to lower if their rigs cannot handle these

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again, i am talking about things that is worth the 4k textures

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in general 2k is the aim

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but for bigger stuff like tanks

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you will always end up with several 2k textures

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which is worst than having a single 4k

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i would have a look over the way trees are done in A3 to be honest

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i doubt they have the atlas spread the way you have these based on LODs

golden niche Sep 18, 2018, 9:17 AM

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small trees and bushes looks really good with 4k, but i'll try to stick to 2k, since then with 1 bark texture the whole model fits to 3 2048x4096 atlases (ca nohq mc) nicely

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well, i have almost none modeling skills, and they are probably mostly handmade

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https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/484746956858589184/491539298882158592/unknown.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/484746956858589184/491539384953470976/unknown.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/484746956858589184/491539467048583168/unknown.png

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i think that's the best i can

full quarry Sep 18, 2018, 1:17 PM

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it is possibly you will run into issues trying to fit both CA and CO into same texture

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it will either be CA or CO with 1 bit alpha

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and can cause rendering issues

golden niche Sep 18, 2018, 2:30 PM

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i'm not quite sure about whether i'm gonna stick to ca or use co

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but there shouldn't be any issues if it's ca and some part of it contains just plain color?

fresh hill Sep 18, 2018, 3:27 PM

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I would advise against merging the bark texture with your branches. The mipmapping will cause unwanted color bleed at farther distances.

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Going with two sections per tree per lod is perfectly fine IMO.

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Last lod excluded, that once should be just a single section.

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Re: what @frozen blade said: i doubt they have the atlas spread the way you have these based on LODs
Correct. Only the last lod of all trees is merged into an atlas. I doubt that actually brings any benefits (going on my understanding of things in A3).

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The only area in the engine where I know that an atlas benefits are particle effects. All PFX using the same .p3d in a scene go in the same draw call (probably some higher split limit at around 128, but im just guessing that bit)

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Thats why all pfx usually are on a single universal.p3d. 😃

silver gull Sep 18, 2018, 5:55 PM

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seems to me like draw calls for particles are the least of their problems. The particle lags primarily happen due to inefficient alpha blending or something (very noticeable when particles or effects are super close to the camera)

golden niche Sep 19, 2018, 5:31 AM

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thanks for the info, guys

coarse scaffold Sep 20, 2018, 1:19 PM

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Could anyone share correct Substance Painter export preset for ARMA 3?

severe rune Sep 20, 2018, 1:21 PM

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Am also interested. I made something that kinda works for me (atleast as much as you can do with the PBR spec/gloss shader) but I have no idea if that can be called "correct". I'll share when I get home

hardy atlas Sep 20, 2018, 2:06 PM

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@severe rune @coarse scaffold

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https://drive.google.com/open?id=1d4qUH4uKVqnZxPwDGSXxgUk7oa7syPfD

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That is the arma 3 template for substance

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There is a Spec Gloss Non PBR shader available on substance share too

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If you just want export settings

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https://imgur.com/a/Z4UzgPT

severe rune Sep 20, 2018, 4:05 PM

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My is essentially the same. But I use the "Input Maps" for Spec/Gloss/AO instead of "Converted Maps". What's the difference?

silver gull Sep 20, 2018, 7:06 PM

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there is no correct... if you do your stuff in PBR you have to do some serious adjustment to everything - it's not just a little bit of renaming maps and shuffling channels

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only "correct" (as in WYSIWYG) is ianbank's A3 shader - i heard someone mention it doesnt work for the latest version (?)

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imo it's much easier to work in PBR metal rough and convert from that, vs. PBR spec gloss. You just need to pull a non-pbr specular channel with it that you use just for export

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and switch on "legacy enhancement methods" as in baked in lighting and stuff... because without it stuff looks awefully bland in Arma.

hardy atlas Sep 20, 2018, 7:22 PM

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The non PBR spec gloss shader works pretty well for me

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I think the A3 shader is kinda borked and has issues

coarse scaffold Sep 20, 2018, 7:23 PM

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Do you use any particural rvmat that will make look ingame model as similiar as possible?

hardy atlas Sep 20, 2018, 7:25 PM

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Nah I normally just grab one from samples which is similar to what I am trying to make then fiddle with it lel

coarse scaffold Sep 20, 2018, 7:25 PM

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I hope that next engine will make use of PBR

hardy atlas Sep 20, 2018, 7:26 PM

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Enfusion supports PBR I believe

coarse scaffold Sep 20, 2018, 7:28 PM

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Now we just wait for next ARMA

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😉

hardy atlas Sep 20, 2018, 7:29 PM

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Just a few more decades 😄

plucky onyx Sep 20, 2018, 10:38 PM

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and switch on "legacy enhancement methods" as in baked in lighting and stuff... because without it stuff looks awefully bland in Arma.

@silver gull can you expand on this?

silver gull Sep 21, 2018, 2:11 AM

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what should i expand on? PBR diffuse technically should be void of any highlights or shadows because it's physically wrong. Legacy shading with poor specular/gloss/normal requires it because reflection and stuff has not the same impact

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just look at legacy shader games to get what i mean... all Stalker games for example.

ionic idol Sep 21, 2018, 9:30 AM

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could you guys possible make green hex textures for the rest of the csat vehicles?

digital mantle Sep 21, 2018, 10:11 AM

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If you're asking for someone to make textures for you @ionic idol #creators_recruiting is the place to ask.

nocturne lake Sep 21, 2018, 1:16 PM

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@plucky onyx basically, the difference is that Arma uses Diffuse maps instead of Albedo maps

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Diffuse is pretty much with the Ambient Occlusion "multiplied", and the Curvature map "overlayed" over the top of the Albedo map to give the surfaces more definition in rendering environments that don't use full PBR

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There are also some colour adjustments to e.g. bare metals, since you no longer rely on specular reflection to colour the metal

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you might notice that scratches are usually totally black in Albedo, but white/grey in Diffuse

hardy atlas Sep 21, 2018, 7:01 PM

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Useful link

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https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-modeling/stemcell/stemcell-3d-modeling-workflow/stemcell-textures-materials/diffuse-specular-vs-basecolor/

plucky onyx Sep 23, 2018, 4:35 PM

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Are there any good general practice tips on getting as close to 1:1 between Arma and Substance Painter as possible?

hardy atlas Sep 23, 2018, 5:06 PM

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Non PBR spec gloss shader and good export settings and a non PBR workflow. There is an A3 shader but it is buggy and borked for some. This should get it very similar and further adjustments can be made via the rvmat

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at leas that is how I work

plucky onyx Sep 23, 2018, 5:18 PM

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Hmm. I've been texturing my plane with PBR so far. Am I SOL?

I'm really struggling with figuring out how to get it to look even sort of right in Bulldozer. Using the export settings and converted maps recommended above here, this is what I get:

Substance Painter: https://imgur.com/a/RSPXVlw
Bulldozer: https://imgur.com/a/SaUumJE

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There's a tremendous amount of detail loss in the albedo, the spec/gloss maps don't work practically at all, there's some weird shadow issue (but that might be LODs), but at least the normals worked right.

full quarry Sep 23, 2018, 5:21 PM

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all the bright worn edges are using metalness in SP?

plucky onyx Sep 23, 2018, 5:22 PM

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The worn edges are present in both base color and roughness in SP

full quarry Sep 23, 2018, 5:22 PM

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are you using NOHQ as normalmap suffix btw?

plucky onyx Sep 23, 2018, 5:23 PM

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Yes the suffixes in the export settings are as recommended: _ca, _nohq, _as, and _smdi and the file type is .tga

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alpha information also works properly, so I've got normals and alpha working right now

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I'm letting bulldozer convert from .tga to .paa

full quarry Sep 23, 2018, 5:24 PM

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does substance painter export normalmap with the right Y direction?

plucky onyx Sep 23, 2018, 5:25 PM

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yes, the vents in the above pics are only present in the normal and AO maps, and look as they should

hardy atlas Sep 23, 2018, 7:54 PM

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Yeah you can choose normal map y direction

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what are your export setting?

plucky onyx Sep 23, 2018, 11:04 PM

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@hardy atlas @full quarry Here are my export settings:

https://imgur.com/a/4HghrPs

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I just went through the whole process again to make sure I'm not missing anything; same result.

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New comparison screenshots for reference:

https://imgur.com/a/UwPWIVY
https://imgur.com/a/mEAH7F5

full quarry Sep 23, 2018, 11:06 PM

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cant really help with that since I dont use SP

silver gull Sep 23, 2018, 11:06 PM

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substance has directX or OpenGL option for Normalmap. You must use DirectX version

full quarry Sep 23, 2018, 11:07 PM

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Just had some ideas to throw around.

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I think the normalmap is in right settings but something definitely is off at the round parts

hardy atlas Sep 23, 2018, 11:07 PM

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https://imgur.com/a/ZMpRYyi

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my export settings

plucky onyx Sep 23, 2018, 11:08 PM

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looks like mine are the same as yours, except I'm doing _ca with opacity

silver gull Sep 23, 2018, 11:08 PM

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propable mesh then. Not triangulated properly, and normals not or wrongly calculated (during bake)

hardy atlas Sep 23, 2018, 11:08 PM

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Make sure all the colour you need is on your base color and not diffuse

plucky onyx Sep 23, 2018, 11:09 PM

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I'm not so much worried about the mesh because I can fix that and know how. What worries me is that the appearance of the textures isn't even close to what it should be and I have no idea where to go to fix it

hardy atlas Sep 23, 2018, 11:09 PM

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as for the normals. yeah I am not sure whats going on there as it looks fine in SP

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https://drive.google.com/open?id=1d4qUH4uKVqnZxPwDGSXxgUk7oa7syPfD

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try using the arma 3 template

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for SP

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also that looks like more of an AO issue than normals

silver gull Sep 23, 2018, 11:11 PM

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your textures look wrong because your mesh is wrong (if that assumption is correct).

plucky onyx Sep 23, 2018, 11:11 PM

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My normals are not wrong, if that's what you're thinking

hardy atlas Sep 23, 2018, 11:11 PM

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are you using the same file for subs and obj builder?

plucky onyx Sep 23, 2018, 11:12 PM

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Yes

silver gull Sep 23, 2018, 11:12 PM

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have you retriangulated in object builder?

hardy atlas Sep 23, 2018, 11:12 PM

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https://imgur.com/a/gnapg4F

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check your maps look like that

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it can be easy to bork the AS map

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export your CO using the unreal engine 4 preset and see how different it looks

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if at all

plucky onyx Sep 23, 2018, 11:17 PM

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_AS: https://imgur.com/a/FgM6BSQ
_CA: https://imgur.com/a/0aI5lIH
_NOHQ: https://imgur.com/a/PykXOfk
_SMDI: https://imgur.com/a/2Dbywop

hardy atlas Sep 23, 2018, 11:18 PM

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The edge scratches should be visible in the CO as we are working non PBR

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or CA

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I suggest bundling your layers into 1 folder

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saving as smart material

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actually wait

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just go through your layers

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and make sure base colour is being used

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and not diffuse

plucky onyx Sep 23, 2018, 11:19 PM

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How do I check that? Do you mean in the SP layers window?

silver gull Sep 23, 2018, 11:20 PM

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so what do you actually perceive to be wrong Jester? Is it the shadow and shading artifacts you see? Or is it that the colors and details just look bland ?

hardy atlas Sep 23, 2018, 11:20 PM

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https://imgur.com/a/XMldZyO

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the shading artifacts we can sort next

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this is regarding the blandness

plucky onyx Sep 23, 2018, 11:21 PM

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The colors look bland and the detail is completely absent

hardy atlas Sep 23, 2018, 11:21 PM

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so if you look there i have the base metal (material under scratches) assigned in the base color and diffuse

plucky onyx Sep 23, 2018, 11:21 PM

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The shadow artifacting is from the ShadowLOD I assume and a seperate issue

hardy atlas Sep 23, 2018, 11:22 PM

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you need to go through your layers in substance

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and make sure for everything that is going on the CA

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the Base Colour is the same as diffuse

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if the diffuse is black and its a metal then it means it is a PBR material so you need to set base colour to a metal grey

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you are using a non pbr shader right?

plucky onyx Sep 23, 2018, 11:23 PM

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I'm using PBR Metal Rough with Alpha Blending

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Hence the converted maps on export

hardy atlas Sep 23, 2018, 11:23 PM

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yeah thats an issue

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well it just makes life difficult

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use the non pbr spec gloss shader

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arma uses spec gloss

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and non pbr

plucky onyx Sep 23, 2018, 11:24 PM

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I understand that but I see elsewhere many people using PBR -> spec/gloss for Arma with success

hardy atlas Sep 23, 2018, 11:24 PM

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It's not worth it imho. It just gives you an inaccurate representation of what your final result will be.

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it is easy to switch shaders on the fly

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its like painting a picture in a red lit room when it will be shown off in a gallery with green light

silver gull Sep 23, 2018, 11:27 PM

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doesnt matter what shader you paint in. Important is the exported end result

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Arma (as i already said some days ago) is diffuse heavy.

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You cant rely on normals alone to do the trick. You have to also paint the highlights in your CO/CA map, otherwise they will just be bland

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also, PBR specularity (or roughness) doesnt work properly in arma. Arma requires more contrast in specular/gloss channel

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add curvacture map to your diffuse (overlay blend mode), add AO map (multiply). Make sure any scratches or whatever material subtleties are not just in metalness/roughness channel, but also in diffuse