greetings, today i come with quite possibly, somewhat of a complex suggestion, but i feel like one much needed for many people to work more accurately, and above all, faster by simplifying things. something similar to the asset viewer of war thunder, but instead, for enlisted, and you can move stuff around / place decals and create & save templates.
to make things easier and give more accessibility for alot of people and somewhat incentivize their entrance into enlisted modding.
without further ado,
today, the suggestion i come with to make thins easier and better, would be some sort of 3d asset viewer.
more notoriously and well recognized from the modding community, something like the virtual area of arma 3 ( many thanks to @Yopsius for the reminder in my last thread )
essentially, a program that allows us to:
- create template of soldiers
as… unfortunately. and currently, creating soldier ( especially when one more than once ) is one of the most time consuming tasks of modders that often than not,
they are time consuming.
and just to get an idea and a reminder,
time consuming procedure
→ place a customizable_soldier / dummy_soldier / X_base_soldier etc
→ place around the cosmetics that you need
→ select one cosmetic
→ type " name " inside the cosmetic info panel
→ select & copy the template / uniquename of the cosmetic
→ select the soldier that you want to dress
→ type " ini " in the soldier,
→ press + in the initial component
→ paste the code previously copied
→ assign the slot of the cosmetic
→ repeat for all the desired cosmetics
( which in fortunate situations, sometimes can be 4/5 up to 8/9 even 10 slots)
Saves, and go off with your day.
which ( not always ) happens that you encounter some type of issue because you can’t see what you are actively putting. and due to how boring and tideous, often than not, errors can happen.
so,
→ recognize there’s an issue.
→ no longer can modify because the initial component info disappears in the editor…
→ so open the explorer folder,
→ go to the main game folder
→ open the usergamemode folder
→ open the mod it self
→ correct through the code the various erros
→ save & restart
( repeat if you haven’t done )
and i forgot to include that without my guide, this would have been time double time consuming as the names are incorrect when there’s a color variation ( such as the german tunic for example ) and most of the time, without that said guide, you have to check the name of where the slots goes )
and redo the whole process…
so, this aims to speed up alot of uncessaries steps into one feature of the program.
How does it work?
simple, there… will be, or should be to the least, various options / tools. and in the soldier tab,
this program will open and will ask the modder which soldier he / she needs to begin with
( between for example, ger_base_soldier - moroc_base_soldier - us_soldier etc )
the usual.
then, to the left, you’ll get the full list per category of cosmetics and modders will have only to drag and drop on the visual soldier. so that once the player is satisfied with a piece of equipment, he will just need to exit the category, and move onto the other.
once he done that, modders will just need to select weapons and give the ammount of ammo and then they will only have to click the save button, and this program will give them each templates ( two ) one for scene blk, and the other for custom profile .johnsons
up until he will be done to customize the soldier
you should be able to combine soldiers based on their pants, and essentially, just select or drag and drop.
then, will need some sort of options to save the current preset in a template that soldiers can copy and paste in the area where they need it.
simple, and above all, you can actually phisically see what you’re doing. ( without the trial and errors parts… )
Additional Features
2nd ) a second feature, the ability to create “custom” cosmetics from rendinsts or animchars from the main game.
for example, move the placement of certain objective ( similar to blender ) more accurately.
or change the position of others placed objects based on preferences.
a bit hard to explain, but here are a few examples:
( a custom pouch grenade us rigger repositioned ( from the front instead of the orginal position in the back ), and a rendinst as headgear )
create new typs of headgears;
or reposition other ones:
( due to… some of them not even being correct when wearing them. or how someone would like them to be )
but generally, creating custom clothings based on others chars or rendinsts.
and last feature;
3rd) being able to equip soldiers with the weapons and ammunitions from the go within the same menu.
because… as much it’s less time consuming, having to give weapons to more than 30 bots can make you lose sanity and time fairly quickly.
next part of this… program / tool that should have, is:
- create template of decorators and decals placement
another task that somewhat relates to customize things, is the placement of decorations ( not as much as the ) & decals for vehicle.
especially since in real time things on the editor are not possible.
meaning that you need to do trial and error quite alot and quite constantly.
because the editor it self as just said, does not refresh in real time.
and… good luck getting the right axes as depending on the bone / node, more than often axes will changes with it and it will be a huge time loss trying to figure out those said axes.
the idea behind would be, you place a vehicle,
hide certain parts if you need within a smaller command inside ( for example, hide the @root, gun_barrel, wheel_l_01, etc. the useful template that comes in some of the non-tank vehicles )
and assemble around your ideal vehicle inside the program ( with their own coordinates ):
( for those who are wondering what the heck is this, it was my attempt in making a police hammer based on the AB-41 )
but first, modders will need to select a part of the vehicle of where the piece that it’s about to being place should follow ( as a " children " in terms of… programming. essentially follow for example, the roof, etc. )
the other neat part of this program should do,
is the ability to place decals better than we currently can.
because worse than the decorats ( which are already time consuming ) even worse are the decals.
decals are next to impossible to get working because you have something like, 9 parameters to check of various axes, rotations and what not.
hence, would be alot better if we could just select and place them. to then save it and get the code similar to the clothings and vehicle decorators above.
the way decals should work and be placed, i was thinking similar to APB reloaded car customization
( or… just like in the current game customization, you select the decal, and just apply it. and then confirm. and do all of that with decals / textures and confirm them while being able to apply them without losing sanity behind some effing coordinates )
and lastly,
- decorators for weapons
which essentially works the same way as vehicle decorators, or clothing decorators, but with weapons gunfix_nodes / coordinates in mind.
a tool ideally specific to create / decorate weapons to make custom things.
so that we can place around our objects making the gun looking like something else, and by the way it is, the program will create / translate coordinates of where those pieces have been placed.
and that is all.
and additional tools / parameters that modders should be able to tweak
-
ability to make invisible certain objects / parts
for example, magazines, the ability to hide stocks, details among clothings etc -
ability to get a color corrector
to retain details and change colors of things.
something slighlty advanced and be recognized by the editor:
especially useful to color rendinsts… since… we can’t color those separately.
before anyone will comment " but you can already do some of these " that’s not entirely the point. the point is to speed up the process, making it a lot much more intuitive and above all, easier.
in conclusion, if any modders feels like i missed something or they think something else should be added, let me know.
thanks for hearing me out.
and… i’m well aware this will probably take decades to do.
but at least something useful and quick for future generation of modders ( if there ever will be any left )
and i would like to remind, no, this is not about importing models from the extern. this is just a tool that could become the base for it, but as far as i intended this thing to work and be, is for things already existing within our current editor.