Possibility of creating a Western Front Campaign

[WatchMan]

Hi all, first off I just wanted to let everyone know that this is my first time posting but I've spent quite a bit of time looking over these forums and some other tank sim forums, (one particular is a forum that is currently modding "T34 VS. Tiger"),. I personally think that SFK42 has always had the most potential and wanted to get into the modding aspects of it, but never had the time. One of the biggest challenges that I face and that many others in Europe and America face is that most of the development along with documentation is currently written in Russian.  By the way I'd really like to thank both graviteam and the modding community at tanksim.org.ru for a great game and great ad ons.

What I'd like to do is get a group of people together from Europe and America to start developing a Western front campaign for this game.  I have no idea if this is realistic or not, but if no one ever brings it up it will never be addressed.

On my end I'm fairly good at 3-D modeling and have a limited amount of experience creating skins for 3-D models. I'm certainly not as good as the people who have already made mods for SFK42 such as steel panzer mod 1.5, but I'm willing to learn and I'm hoping that some other people will jump aboard.

Below is one of the models I've been working on, it's an M-10 Tank Destroyer, I'm also currently doing work on a Sherman Firefly and M4A3.

[Stig]

I'd definitely be in for that, but mirror your concerns that the lack of well-defined english documentation could render the effort stillborn. There are currently a few guys in here who seem to have that innate ability to "get into the code" and figure things out...

but we need to leverage their experience! And that means clear, consise, illustrated tutorials on how to create the vehicles, the terrains, and all the files necessary to create totally new mods/terrain/architecture/campaigns, etc.

[Kyth]

Hi Watchman,

It's not much, but there's some information about importing vehicles in the sticky here:

http://graviteam.com/forum/index.php?topic=60.0

Not having done a lot of modelling, I'm not sure how clear the tutorial is, or whether there are any questions remaining unanswered. That's right, I know not enough to even start asking the questions 

There's a bit more information on the Sukhoi.ru site, about adding in new vehicles. Here's the 'Googlish' translation:

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fsukhoi.ru%2Fforum%2Fshowthread.php%3Ft%3D52974&sl=ru&tl=en&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Regards,

[WatchMan]

Hi Stig, I definitely agree with you concerning some straight forward tutorials. If you know of anyone in particular from these forums who has made some headway in any of the areas of custom map making it would be great to get them in on this. The importing of 3d models is something I'm working on now, what would really help is finding out if there is a way to export existing models from SFH42 into outside programs such as 3DS Max or Cinema 4D, etc. It's not a deal breaker, but it would make things easier. The extension used by SFK42 is ".go" and the object editor is capable of converting ".x" files to ".go" files but I have yet to see any export capabilities.

Kyth, good deal man, I didn't know about that second link you posted, I'm checking it out now. I also have the first link bookmarked and am working through that now. My plan is to import a fully functional model into a mission. The model is extremely simple, but it will include all of the essential parts a tank would have in the game minus a cockpit. Thanks again Kyth

[Kyth]

Hi WatchMan,

Regarding map-making I do know of 2 recent forum members who have gone the distance:

Rends (with the Kursk / Prokhorovka map and missions) and Lockie / Ntalex (the Kubelwagen mission; part of the team that brought us the Steel Panzer Mods).

I have tried my hand at map-making with quite dire results! The actual process is deceptively simple, but to make a good map I think requires a great deal of finesse. 

[WatchMan]

Thanks Kyth, I'll probably follow up on those leads today, however you got me thinking. You mentioned that Rends and Lockie are currently associated with other projects. It would be great if they could come up with a tutorial. Maybe you should give some thought to experimenting with a very simple Western Front map. And when I say simple, I mean the bare essentials. It could be a map created with terrain contours, some simple objects and a tank that can travel around the newly created terrain. That way you could get an idea of if it's do-able from your side. With that being said, I know absolutely nothing about creating a new map, you know a great deal more than me based on other posts I've read. I guess what I'm getting at is that at some point, if a Western Front were created there would have to be someone who was in charge of making maps or implementing other user made maps into the campaign. In addition there would have to be individuals in charge of 3d models, data configuration for model characteristics, historical story lines that would in turn effect the maps and missions, etc. Real potential for FUBAR, but what the heck, there hasn't been a good WW2 tank sim for the Western Front since Panzer Elite over 9 years ago. Oh well, just a suggestion.

[Stig]

The Western Front might be a great vehicle for a tutorial series on "from-scratch" campaign building that includes making totally new maps and terrain/architecture/objects, new vehicles and then generating missions and campaigns for it.

One thing I'd like to try eventually, if I ever get enough of a firm understanding to do it, is to expand on the Desert campaign, fleshing it out with Lees, Grants, Crusaders, Semoventes, M13/40s, other Italian tanks, Bren carriers, etc. There's a LOT more that can be done with the "Accordion War" of North Afika, that's for sure!

[WatchMan]

Well Stig, once some sense can be made out of the .engcfg files, the sky is the limit. It mostly has to do with the comment sections being in Russian. I've started taking select .engcfg files and translating them to english, just to get a better idea of how things work. I also made a complete copy of SFK42 with no mods enabled except for the "PATCH_SFE_UNLOCK", "SF_Objeditor" and the "DecompSFDataPack.exe" program. After that I extracted all of the datapacks found in the "cd" folder and placed them into the SFK42 directory exactly how they would appear in the program if they had never been compressed. The end result is a fully functioning program with a complete directory tree.

Things are making a lot more sense now and I believe that if people can stay persistent with this there's no reason why a Western Front or Desert Campaign or any other campaign can't become a reality. Happy Modding.

[Stig]

First of all, thanks a LOT for your effort. This is what we need.

You, dear sir, now have in your head all the makings of a first tutorial. Can you write up and illustrate with screenshots the "highlights" of the file directory? Starting with the .engcfg file and the directory trees, and then a text explanation of what files need to be modified if one wants to do "X type of modding". Perhaps a list of each for "adding a standalone scenario", "creating a campaign of related scenarios" "adding a scenario to a campaign of existing scenarios" "importing another modder's standalone scenario" "importing another modder's campaign".

If you don't feel you can write well enough, if you contact me (through PM, and perhaps later via Skype) and I'll be all too glad to help. I'd like to get clear on this kind of stuff myself.

If we can show graphically, through screenshots and code snippets, where everything is, what's in the various folders and files, and what needs to be edited when modding... the result will be "Exhibit A" in a group of tutorials that everyone will then be able to use to really blow this system out with new campaigns, mods and vehicles.

[WatchMan]

Hey Stig thanks. Actually I just posted a tutorial covering the basics of how I set up a separate install of SFK42 and how to extract datapacks with a short introductory to the object editor. I can say this as far as .x files; If you can get your hands on Blender 2.4, do so. It's an excellent 3d modeling program with the ability to export .xfiles. It also allows you to create textures and materials, but for that I would recommend GIMP 2, which can create and export .dds files. Hope that helps a bit for now.


P.S. It looks like Kyth is doing a great job with mission creation, I'm hoping he'll think about doing some Western Front Maps.

[Kyth]

Hi WatchMan,

Here's the thing about the maps in Steel Fury: they only represent a 2km x 2km area, so any mission has to take into account this constraint.

The other thing is, there's not much in the way of distinctive objects or foliage that would mark a map as a uniquely Western Front scenario. For instance, the buildings at the moment consist of: one village hut and one 'barn', which do not appear to resemble anything in Normandy or anywhere else in W. Europe. On the other hand, the 'bocage', I think, is possible with some intense effort at planting in the map editor.

I think the main shortfall is in the available building objects (I think more can be added, though). Any town or city battles are out of the question at the moment,

Just my 2 cents worth, 

[WatchMan]

Okay Kyth I hear ya. I like the idea of a Bocage scenario. I was even thinking of doing a mission based on the exploits of Micheal Wittman at the Villers-Bocage. Right now that seems like a very lofty goal, but I figure it gives me something to shoot for. In addition once I get a better grasp of importing objects into scenarios, new models for buildings, other structures, foliage, etc. could be created. If you think of any other things concerning map making and scenario building that might create snags, let me know and maybe I can make adjustments as I go along. Thanks Kyth.

[Stig]

Hi WatchMan,

Here's the thing about the maps in Steel Fury: they only represent a 2km x 2km area, so any mission has to take into account this constraint.

The other thing is, there's not much in the way of distinctive objects or foliage that would mark a map as a uniquely Western Front scenario. For instance, the buildings at the moment consist of: one village hut and one 'barn', which do not appear to resemble anything in Normandy or anywhere else in W. Europe. On the other hand, the 'bocage', I think, is possible with some intense effort at planting in the map editor.

I think the main shortfall is in the available building objects (I think more can be added, though). Any town or city battles are out of the question at the moment,

Just my 2 cents worth, 

The next question being, is it possible as things stand now to create any new building objects, flora, etc. and import them into the system to be used as building blocks?

If the answer to that is yes, then we'd need to identify all the particulars and details and requirements for those objects (3D model format [.go only, or...?], graphics/skins specs and limits, how to create damageable architecture) and then get to work on building them.

The other question I have is:

Is the 2km x 2km limit a HARD AND FAST limit, or just one that the original dev team used? Is there any flexibility to that (e.g., could you elect to create a map 1km by 4km, say, to create a "traverse road" type of scenario?)

Dovetailing on that question... we still need a tutorial on how to create totally new maps from scratch.

[WatchMan]

Okay finally making some progress. The image below is a very basic tank model that I've managed to get into the game. It's well worth the headaches involved to finally get a working model into the game. Kinda fun to just drive the thing around and test it out. My next step will be to put an M10 Tank Destroyer or perhaps a Sherman Firefly into the game.




Just to let everyone know that those are basic skins I'm using as color identifiers for when I do the final skins in Photo Shop. 

[Kyth]

Quite encouraging, keep going WatchMan, 

[norm]

Great, I will look forward to this. Since you are working on a Sherman variant, any possibility of doing a lend-lease one for the Russian campaigns?

[Stig]

Nice job!

How did you get around the .go file limitation? What did you import into the game, and what tools did you use to create the 3D shape?

[Kyth]

Is the 2km x 2km limit a HARD AND FAST limit, or just one that the original dev team used? Is there any flexibility to that (e.g., could you elect to create a map 1km by 4km, say, to create a "traverse road" type of scenario?)

Dovetailing on that question... we still need a tutorial on how to create totally new maps from scratch.

Hi,

Square maps only, I think.

Some answers in the other thread, http://graviteam.com/forum/index.php?topic=1173.0.

As mentioned, there's a quick way to get around this limitation, since the maps are supposed to 'tile'.
To elaborate further:

- Game will give a toot that you've run out of map; there's a text entry for this error message which you can blank out.

- A line of 2D trees indicates the edge of the map; the relevant texture file can be set transparent.

- The weather configuration limits the visibility; there is a haze setting which you can ease up, to let you see for miles around.

A sufficiently flat and featureless map (gentle rolling slopes, sparse vegetation) is practically endless!
Good for epic long-range battles on the steppe! 

Regards,

[norm]

but is there a limit for this square maps.

[Kyth]

Hi Norm,

Not sure where the limit is,

In missions, I've placed reinforcements in the neighbouring 'tiles' and they travel to the battlezone without a problem.
It's also possible to place air support units 10 - 20 km away, ready to strike when triggered.

(Edit)
Hmmm... I stand corrected. Something bad happens after you ignore the warnings... it's 'Mission Fail' if you wander too long outside the edge of the world 

AI Tanks don't appear to have this limitation, though.

Regards,