When I join a new unit, I always keep an eye on the skins for the aces to see if they appear when we change aircraft. On several occasions I have found that the label on the skin does not match the label used for the pilot in the game, especially if he is a big fish with a number of aircraft skins in different units. I usually just change them but I thought I should share so that no one will miss out on seeing these wonderful skins when these pilots are encountered.

The one I found yesterday was Max Ritter von Muller. His Alb DIII early for Jasta 28w was mislabeled as _Max Ritter_von Muller. The label used for him in the game is _Max Ritter von_Muller. If these don't match, the skin for this machine will not appear and he will just a default skin. Simply change the label and you get to fly with, or against, him is his beautiful red Albatross. All the other machines assigned to him match this label, unless I missed one.

I will continue to post these errors as I find them and invite you all to post these errors as they are found. Let's not miss out a single one of these beautifully done skins because of a typo.

That would be my mistake. After making so many, I put the "_" in the wrong spot. Just rename the skin to "Off_Alb_DIII_early_ace_t_Jasta 28w 1917_Max Ritter von_Muller" and all will be good.

Thanks for pointing this error out, and by all means... find more, post more. Hate to see our work not shown in the game over something as simple as this.

OvS

will do skipper

Where does one make this change? Sorry for my ignorance.

S!Blade<><

you can find the skins folder here... the skin will be there provided you have downloaded and installed the skins pack.

X:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\campaigns\CampaignData\Skins

Blade M: once you find the skin in the file you just left click it and rename the image.

Thanks to both of you, I found and changed it.

S!Blade<><

Thinks that's Right Click and rename

Found another in Jasta 28w. The Alb DIII early for Emil Schafer is labeled:

_Karl Emil Schafer

should be:

_Karl Emil_Schafer

Thanks jerbear. I am windering though? Will these resort back to the wrong way when ever OBD makes another update?

S!Blade<><

No, they won't. Best just to rename the ones that are found and keep coming back to check if there is more. I'm sure there are more. We had so many, it was easy to make small mistakes like where a '_' went, or a mis-spelling.. .etc.

I have found several more. I looked at German pilots only. My only method was to confirm that an underscore immediately preceded the last name (or last hyphenated name). The following ones do not have an underscore where needed:

Alb DIII Jasta 3 17 Carl Menckhoff (there's a second one that is proper (Carl_Menckhoff) so if I just delete the one without the underscore it should be OK, correct?)

Alb DIII early J2 17 Gustav Kinkel

Alb DIII J3 17 Hans-Joachim Rogalla von Bieberstein
Alb DIII early J3 17 Hans-Joachim Rogalla von Bieberstein
Alb DV later J3 17 Hans-Joachim Rogalla von Bieberstein

Alb DIII early J26 17 Rudolf Weckbrodt

Alb DIII OAW J3 17 Carl Menckhoff

Alb DV later J11 17 Carlos 'Karl' Meyer Baldo
Alb DVa J4 17 Carlos 'Karl' Meyer Baldo
Alb DVa J4 18 Carlos 'Karl' Meyer Baldo
Alb DVa J11 17 Carlos 'Karl' Meyer Baldo
Fok DVII J4 18 Carlos 'Karl' Meyer Baldo
Fok DVII OAW J4 18 Carlos 'Karl' Meyer Baldo
Fok DVIIf OAW J4 18 Carlos 'Karl' Meyer Baldo

Alb DV later J23 17 Maximilian Edler von Daniels
Alb DVa J61 18 Maximilian Edler von Daniels

Alb DV later J35 17 Joachim von Stein zu Lausnitz

Alb DV later J37 17 Ascan Klee Gobert

Alb DVa J4 17 Viktor von Pressentin von Rautter
Alb DVa J4 18 Viktor von Pressentin von Rautter

Alb DVa J7 17 Paul Huttenrauch
Alb DVa J7 18 Paul Huttenrauch

Alb DVa J16 17 Karl Schattauer

Off_Alb_DIII_early_ace_t_Jasta 18 1917_Paul _Strahle.dds

There is a space after "Paul" that shouldn't be there.

If there is a dupe with a near identical name that looks correct, the incorrect one cane be deleted. When we add corrected skins to a patch, it just adds the skin. It doesn't delete the original file.

Best to just keep this thread going and correct the names as we find them. To make a patch to add corrected skins would balloon to massive size in no time.

I am afraid that what I started may cause more problems than it solves. I would not go hunting for errors in my skin files. I would only check for them as you are going through a campaign for that Jasta/Squadron/Esc. If you get a new ace assigned to the unit who does not have a skin, just check the skin files to see if there is one for him in that period, with that aircraft type that is not appearing in the game before I made changes. Usually there is another skin for this ace, either in that unit or another one. I would then compare them to see if there are differences in the spacing for the one that does not appear. Then and only then make a change.

Example is the first change I made in the beginning of this thread for Max Ritter von Muller. There were other skins in Jasta 28w that WERE appearing so I knew that this one was wrong.

Please be VERY careful before you start making changes to you skin files. Have some evidence that there is a problem before you make changes.

Would it be possible for someone to write piece of code/patch to correct the incorrect skin names that have been found and then put the code/patch on the mods page?

Surely people could post in this thread all the incorrect skins they have found (along with the correct names) and these could then be incorporated into a single patch?

Unfortunately I do not know how to programme otherwise I would offer to do this myself.

I realise it would potentially be a massive undertaking?

I never said that. I said I'd rather not because it will balloon the size of the patch quickly.

OV

It may be possible to have a routine that backs up the skins folder and then creates a new one with all the proper skins. Of course anyone who created custom skins directly in the original skins folder, would have to copy them back from the backup copy.

How do you feel about that approach?

Best Regards

Here's another factor to consider. ArisFuser discovered that they need to be DST1 files and at least one was not, so there may be others.

See page 5 of this thread: link

AHHHH! Sorry OV...looks like I started a snowball over a couple of small human errors. I don't think this is a major problem for anyone to get excited about, just something to keep an eye on. A little proof reading as you go.

Hi Robert. I think a routine that cross-checks the actual names in the datafile to the skins in the folder would be great.

We tried this visually, and were asked to make absolutely sure we were correct with out work, but man... I guess mistakes still slipped by. There were just so many skins, over 4K I think?
That kind of routine would be great and could give you as a user a list to make your own corrections.

I will eventually speak with Pol and see if there is a way we can a patch to just the skins folder. Meaning, instead of burdening the main game patch, maybe offer a seperate update patch to the skins. It's hard because as you can see.. you'll get a patch, to a patch, to a patch.... etc. But it needs to be done, there are already enough errors to justify the need for it.

OvS

Guys, I'm not offended at all. I appreciate you guys finding these issues and bringing them forward. It's important. As you can imagine (and I'm sure any of the team that spent all our time making these skins for the game feels the same) it's heart-breaking to think that even one of my works would not be seen because of a spelling error or that I put a space somewhere... etc.

So please, have at it. When you find 'em, post 'em. We'll eventually work something out to get better system to correct it for you, but for now.... it's manual, done by the user.

All the best,

OvS

Found a new one: Jasta 5, Alb DIII early. Both Joseph Mai and Hans Berr are assigned the same skin with the "all seeing eye" on a pyramid, Masonic, I guess. I don't know for sure which is correct but on the net I see models with this symbol used for Mai so I suspect it s Berr that is not correct because none of his later skins shows anything like this. Mai isn't using it later either though, uses a quarter moon after this aircraft.

That one is ok. Hans Berr and Joseph Mai share that plane at one point. You won't see them flying it at the same time.

OvS

COOL, THANX.

Well jerbear now that you have started this are you going to make a list of changes to be made for us OCD types to fix things?

As I find them.

New one Maximillian Elder von_Daniels Albatros DV later Jasta 23 and DVa Jasta 61, should read Max von_Daniels to appear in the game.

True story. One needs to rename the skins in the skins folder.
Cheers,
shredward

Stumbled onto a new one. Jasta 29 - DVII for Siegfried Westphal is mis-labeled Westphall. Should be Siegfried_Westphal. Westphal is the DVII taking off with the Fleur de Lis on the fuselage.

Would be nice to collect all the wrongly spelled skins confirmed so far and create a pack....

If someone can provide me with two files, one containing the bad names and one containing the good names, I could probably write a routine that could be run to rename the faulty files correctly.

Excellent !

Excellent x 2!

I understand that the skin name needs to match the pilot name in order for the skin to be used in the game.

Is there any disadvantage to leaving the improperly named skin file where it is? Can I just copy the file with the incorrect spelling to a new file that uses the proper spelling and be OK? In other words, is it bad to have two skin files for one pilot if one of them isn't used anyway because the name is incorrect?

Each time that I reinstall I copy additional skins (obtained from the mods site) into the game. I could just add the corrected ones that have been identified in this thread, copy them in too, and be done. However, this won't work if also leaving the current improperly named files in the game will cause problems.

It won’t. The dud skin just sits there as a turd. However, it does take up space, and there is no advantage to leaving it in the folder
Cheers,
Shredward

That's good to hear.

It's definitely better to rename the files if it's going to be done only once. But the same task needs to be done each time I reinstall.

Robert's mod would be great. I guess that the advantage of leaving them there is that it's easy, (I know, I'm lazy), I can make changes by myself when new ones are discovered, and it takes up just a little space.

It seems to me that there's another advantage to having two skin files (the original one with a questionable name and a duplicate with a corrected name) for certain pilots - it doesn't require any testing.

I found over 20 file names that seem to be missing a required underscore (see my Dec. 31 post in this thread). Testing them all would be a big task. If I just add a second file for each of these pilots (with an underscore where it apparently needs to be) one of the two files should work and the other one will just be ignored.

Deleting or renaming the original files could potentially cause problems, but just leaving them where they are seems to have no downside.

I noticed a similar but different issue when flying near Verdun in early 1917. Georges Madon from Esc 38 still uses a Nieuport 17 with Lewis in 1917 while the rest of the unit has switched to Nieuport 23. Madon has a unique N17 skin for 1916 but not for 1917. Since the squadron doesn't have a N17 skin for 1917 either, Madon actually switches to default N17 Lewis skins that has British roundels on it.

Flying in Jasta 7 I ran into Madon quite a few times and decided to fix the skin by copying the 1916 skin and naming it Off_nieuport17_Lewis_ace_t_Esc 38 1917_Georges Felix_Madon

Nice catch!

Generally speaking, custom skins and corrections would be easier handled in a mod. I say this because every time you have to re-install woff, you loose all the changes you made to the skins folder unless you kept a backup somewhere. With a mod, you just reactivate it after the re-install.

Just a thought.

Very true.

Yes, these will be backed up for reinstalls. I already copy several additional skins files each time I reinstall (Sandbagger's and Jerbear's) so this will just be another batch.