She's hot!

Isn't she?

[img]http://www.geocities.com/krake09/pink5.txt[/img]

Just to point out that first progress is already being made regarding skinning... not very practical yet without templates or access to the original artwork, but at least it's not all encrypted like in Il2. There's also a new water texture for the low settings available somewhere.

- Caretaker

weird stuff

Can you elaborate on this ? What would be the name of the texture file, where in the files tree would you put it ... etc etc ?

From what I found out, it works like this:

There is the Bazar/TempTextures folder. If the game finds a texture in it, it uses it instead of one which is contained in the .cdds files. The name for the water texture for example is sea-256m.bmp. The engine doesn't care for the resolution by the way - the above A-10 is covered by lots of 64x64 textures So if you have a replacement water BMP, just put it into that folder with the respective name, and it works.

The tricky thing is still finding out the name and function of all different texture files. Many are simply identical to how it was in Flanker2 fortunately the .cdds files or the .cmd files for the shapes also contain the names of BMP's or TGA's.

Still some way to go I guess, but given that the game isn't even out yet I think it's no bad start to know we can get graphics into the engine

- Caretaker

Why do people feel the need to mod a sim? LOMAC is not even out yet and everyone feel they can do better on the water, explosions, aircraft, yada, yada, yada...I don't see why the developers even try.

I already see the demo mods allowing wrong weapons loads, released modes and other things... I just feel people are taking a great "painting" and applying their own "brush strokes" because they think they can do better.

O'well I've stared my book and I'm going to back away from the sim forums when LOMAC is released because I hate to see all the work (I and a lot of others) have done on this sim just to have it ripped to shreds and a "jet fighter6" being made.

Believe it or not, but some people can do better than the developers, if only because they can disregard the time factor. I've seen what people were capable of in WW2 Fighters, Il2, and especially Flanker2 - which would not have looked half as good without 3rd party artwork. It's true that sometimes some weird stuff gets available, but that's no different then designing stupid missions with the in-game editor and making them available for download.

I'm certainly no believer in opening up everything, like some people demand (together with the popular, but wrong argument that "only open architecture ensures longevity" and such stuff...). But artwork is non-critical, doesn't cause compatibility problems, and most of all, it's totally voluntary

I can understand that from the developer's point of view, this might seem like abuse of their product at times. But that's a professional risk, and I'm pretty sure they can live with it (and many have helped such developments in past sims or other games).

- Caretaker

..and what's up with griefing those who wish to put the time and effort into improving a sim?

developers have time and budget restrictions - the community does not - and community effort is what takes a sim from what was financially feasible to create to as good as it can be.

when it comes down to it, it really is none of your business whether someone wants to mod it or not. Don't like modding, don't do it - but don't be giving others crap because they want to.

Cheers.

Brad, this is my opinion you don't like it don't read it and respond to it! I can give my opinion any time I damn well please, I have never seen you hold back any of your opinons on sim matters!!

I can understand the art work...I guess but, when everyone what's a sim to be "as real as it get" then mods the sim to be unrealistic get me.

Yeah, I experienced it by myself with a personnal sea texture and was "shocked" to discover it was actually working :p !!! The "unofficial patch" actally showed the way to go . But thanks for your confirmation .

Dice, your not alone in your thinking. A question for you though. Do you know of any file checker or punkbuster type of setup for Lomac. If someone want pink dots on thier plane in single player then fine hack away, but its multiplayer where mods/hacks cause a problem.

Caretaker, I agree but as long as the hacks, mods, whatever are kept in single player and multiplayer is clean then there should be no problems. Its up to ED to make sure Multiplayer can not be tampered with though and I hope something has been put in place.

so, it's ok to give others grief when it comes to what they want to do, because you want to do so?

I hope you can see how that is hypocritical

I hope you can also see that by the time i've read your opinion to decide i don't like it it is already to late to not read it.

Not sure what you mean about me not holding back? I'd like to point out that there is a difference between objective and constructive discussion to just plain complaining.

What about Il-2 that allows SKINS downloads in multiplayer? I think skins are something that should be allowed/promoted, so squadrons can have their own unique planes. If LOMAC is going to be a multiplayer game, we need these options.(Even if our skins look like something outta cartoons!)

Tell that to the people who made Falcon 4.0 the incredible sim it is today. Those dummyheads. They should never have modded the perfect Falcon 4.0....

Sorry, but you missed Dice's point. He obviously spent a good deal of time gathering resources for the A-10 and making sure that it was as close to real life as ED's deadlines allowed. Now to have some of this work taken away, obviously does not sit well with Dice.

The problem with F4 and what the modders did was different and not comparable with the LOMAC demo so far.

Hmm,

This one risks becoming an agressive flame war, which we don't need...

But, here's my thoughts:

Dice-man - you were perhaps a little aggressive in the 'tone' of your first comments.... This whole forum is clearly full of people trying to tweak the demo.

It is also worth pointing out that all these mods/tweaks are likely to increase sales, as the original demo was pretty limited, and this will only confirm peoples' interest, and get them hooked.

It is also probably the case that a fanatical fan is likely to be able to devote the un-economic time and research to implement stuff that the dev team cannot.

And if you didn't want it tweaked, then putting out xml code was not really the most sensible of moves, was it??

Bottom line - whatever people wanna do - let them have fun. The only sensible objection, surely, is the point about multi-player issues, and IL2 FB has shown how to achieve fairness/stability there, with server-side ability to set a variety of restrictions.

Hmm maybe this would have all been less controversiol if I hadn't chosen the A-10 after all... :p

Still don't see the big problem though. Yes you can do stupid things, but again the game has enough options built in that are also "stupid" from a realism POV (unlimited ammo isn't exactly more sensible than firing R-77's with a MiG-29A).

The only really valid concerns I understand are from the online community. But even that shouldn't be taken too serious IMHO. Granted, I'm an offline flyer primarily. But after seeing the many discussions about cheating in Il2 - which was about as cheat-proof as any software can get - I couldn't care about flying with people I can't trust anyway. Seems to me that's the only protection that works.

- Caretaker

Beta, I think skins and textures are great, no argument there, but its when people start messing with flight models,weapons,etc that start to screw things up. If its single player then great, have at it. If its multiplayer then we have a problem unless there is some safeguard to keep things on a even playing field.

"Why do people feel the need to mod a sim? LOMAC is not even out yet and everyone feel they can do better on the water, explosions, aircraft, yada, yada, yada...I don't see why the developers even try."

I think I understood his post just fine. What makes a developer anyway? Eh? Good dang question.

Everybody is entitled to an opinion. I respect Dice's opinion for what it is. I just happen to disagree with it. Strongly. In fact, his opinion sounds evil to me. Dice-man, are you sure you aren't Darth Vadar in disguise?

being able to do custom skins is IMO not something to get cranky about. Squads are going to want to be able to put together their own squad skin, groups that want to put together acrobatic teams will want to be able to put together their own skins.

Now, the only issue i can think of with skins is if someone replaces a nice camo skin with a bright pink one to help them aquire the aircraft as a target - that would be cheating, but i'd be really suprised if the devs didn't checksum the skins to prevent replacement of the defaults and also give players the option in a multiplayer game not to download skins, with a little in game verification of such.

I think the original poster was simply informing us that he's working out the skinning functions and that there is some hope the user community will be able to create custom skins - something we've not had a reply about from the devs for quite some time.

Sorry for starting this and not being involved in the debate but I'm very busy toady.. hope to be able to post later today or tomorrow...I'm not hiding!

heheh no worries

The only real problem here is that a pink Hog and a Hurri with wide white sidewalls is just wrong ... demented ... evil ... sick ...

Have some standards, Man! If it had been a pink Mig-29 and a Mirage with wide white sidewalls, it would have been OK.

...and fuzzy dice on the mirror....

One of the greta things about FB over IL2 is the ability to use skins offline. There's some really great work (hisorical and otherwise ) over at Il2skins.com. 3rd party artists can spend more time on a skin than the developers can. Just take a look at Compans Hurri skins in this thread, they are amazingly detailed. The dev's cant spend this ammount of time on a single aircraft.

http://oldsite.simhq.com/simhq3/sims/boards/bbs/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=98;t=003503;p=1

I think skinning and maybe basic GFX mods are great, but everything else should be locked down tight IMO.

FB has this 100% right.

MOG

Dice-man, sorry but...
as much as you'd like others to respect your personal opinion about modding a game/sim, as much should you be able to respect others freedom to work at such things, don't you think so?

As much as you say that if someone doesn't like your opinion, he doesn't have to read/answer it ; as much is anyone else free to think the same way, you don't need to read their threads nore post in them if you disagree with them.

Nobody forces you to download those mods either, so where is the problem?

We don't even talk about the promotional value of those edited missions/mods etc... The imported low res sea water, the additional vehicles and weapons ; this whole modding event is imho a tremendous promotional machine, for mainstream and hardcore sim players. The arcardish players got some more toys to play with, the advanced players got more challenge until the final release, and thus keeping the interest for Lomac high! Thanks to the modders!

And hem...
"I already see the demo mods allowing wrong weapons loads, released modes and other things..."

As far as i seem to remember from the different forums, the original A10 loadout in the demo release is wrong (or modified) in first place (zuni rockets). Does it stop you or anybody else to have fun and still play the demo? No.

My post is not meant the hostile way, but more as some food for thought. =)

My two beers,
Stealthsnake

"Nobody forces you to download those mods either, so where is the problem?"

The problem is when these mods/hacks are used online to gain an unfair advantage. If its single player then there is no problem, but online we have a big problem. I know the offline crowd could care less what side effect there is from these mods, but at least have the respect for those who play online and what effect these mods have. There are other groups in these sims other than single player and just because your not a part of the online crowd doesnt make it less important.

never! muhahahahaha

Seawolf, although i understand and agree with your points, they have absolutely nothing to do with the edited missions and mods from the demo, which Dice-man was primarily referring to. The term multiplayer or online playing wasn't even used until your very own post.

Though, i just realized his personal involvement in the sim, so i guess his comments were more meant as somekind of protecting attitude about the sim in general.

Anyways, i believe that anyone is entitled to do whatever he wants with his sim as long as he doesn't affect (in a negative manner) anyone else's pleasure at flight simming! =)

Cheers, Stealthsnake

edited : some typos

I think what happened is ED never intended folks to be able to mod the demo like they have, but since there is no way of stopping it and ED obviously wasnt concerned enough to lock those people out of the demo its kind of a no harm, no foul type of deal.
I prefer to wait for the mission builder because I know nothing about these files, but thats just me.
I think Diceman, being directly involved with the real A10 program, wants to see more realism involved and I cant say that I blame him.