Making new roundels and fin flash for aircraft?

[RogerSmith 72]

I'm making a simple mod that adds fictional countries to the list of "Services". How do I add them? what size, format, etc do the TGAs have to be?

[Wrench 9,847]

good place to start, is TK's own Decal creation tutorial.

 

http://combatace.com/files/file/345-strike-fighters-decal-tutorial/

 

as to 'services', you'll need to extract and edit the Nations.ini, found in the FlightData.cat

[RogerSmith 72]

thank you very much. Now I can continue with my fantasy stuffs

[Wrench 9,847]

continue with my fantasy stuffs

 

mine don't usually involve airplanes ... but what the hey, right???!!!

[RogerSmith 72]

hmm, I've added "OSEA" to nations and added a folder "OSEA" in decals, but the decals aren't being picked when I pick OSEA in my list. No decals, totally blank skins. the TGAs are named "InsigniaWingL", "InsigniaWingR", etc, etc. Am I doing something wrong?

[Wrench 9,847]

national insignia are always Level=1

 

can you post the decals.ini?

[+EricJ 4,244]

hmm, I've added "OSEA" to nations and added a folder "OSEA" in decals, but the decals aren't being picked when I pick OSEA in my list. No decals, totally blank skins. the TGAs are named "InsigniaWingL", "InsigniaWingR", etc, etc. Am I doing something wrong?

 

You don't need a WingL and WingR, you just need one roundel, and its like this on the decals.ini:

 

[Decal037]

MeshName=LeftWing

DecalLevel=2

DecalFacing=TOP

FilenameFormat=FA-18C/VFA34/D/USNWing

Position=-3.65,-2.5

Rotation=15.0

Scale=0.9

DecalMaxLOD=4

 

[Decal038]

MeshName=RightWing

DecalLevel=2

DecalFacing=BOTTOM

FilenameFormat=FA-18C/VFA34/D/USNWing

Position=3.65,-2.5

Rotation=15.0

Scale=0.9

DecalMaxLOD=4

[RogerSmith 72]

is there a way to make it where all planes (stock and mod) can pick the country and use the roundels for all skins?

[+EricJ 4,244]

One thing I'd suggest is adding whatever nation to "OSEAN" (or whatever nation it is) to each aircraft, and it maybe should work like that, or prepared to do some extensive ini editing for each plane.

[Wrench 9,847]

hint: userlist.ini

 

http://combatace.com/topic/60726-the-userlistini/

[+EricJ 4,244]

Thanks Wrench, it was on the mind but didn't make it to my fingertips... ;good:

[KeyboardChap 5]

You need a number with the insignia that matches the number of the nation in the nations list. e.g the USAF is Nation 001 and it's insignia is Insignia001.

[Wrench 9,847]

not necessarily!

you can add OSEAN to the Nations.ini, but have the roundel residing in the /Decals folder, and it'll still work, based upon Exported=TRUE statement in the data ini, and OSEAN exisiting in the userlist.ini

 

(of course, not knowing what bird he's modding...extraction of the data ini, and userlist, and placement in the aircraft's main folder is a must)

Edited July 31, 2012 by Wrench

[RogerSmith 72]

well I got it to work on one plane. But I have to edit every single plane's Decals.INI? that's a lot of work. Dunno if I'll ever finish this

Edited August 1, 2012 by RadPig94

[Wrench 9,847]

But I have to edit every single plane's Decals.INI

um, not really

As 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 percent of stock 3W aircraft use decals, adding OSEAN to the nations.ini will allow it to show on the Servie Selection box on the single mission screen. And, as 90+% of all aircraft (not counting nation specific mods and/or nation specific DLCs, or the few non-exported aircraft) were exported to somebody, it may show.

 

IF .. and here's the big if... the game engine is designed to LOOK into folders 1st, and the cats 2nd. As the fantasy nations don't exist in the ObjectData***.cats, with the other decals, they MAY show if said decal is existant in the main /Decals folder (ie: the root, Objects/Decals -at the top of the tree).

Odds are, it won't.

Hence, as I suggested earlier, each and every AceCombat modded aircraft will need to have their correct national marking (aka "Insignia") residing within each and every decals folder.

 

and extracting the userlist for each and every one of the 'to be modded' aircraft, placing in the appropriate aircraft folder, editing to add whichever country it's attached to; cross-checking/double/triple checking data inis for the 'to-be-modded' aircraf to check for exported=true (and I'm sure for your use, most aren't exported). Could wind up as a hell of a lot of work just for console game planes! (my opinion only, of course)

 

Alternatively, you can keep the aircraft with their 'nation of origin', and just call the nation in the skin textureset.ini. Like my "Global Sediton" skins -- they're still classed as 'Soviet' for nation.

This, from the GS MiG-21MF textureset.ini:

 

[TextureSet]

Name=Global Sedition

Nation=Soviet

Specular=0.400000

Glossiness=0.400000

Reflection=0.000000

 

it all depends on how which nation is Blue, which Red, and how much effort you want to expend

[+HomeFries 29]

Guys,

 

Please correct me if I'm wrong here, but you don't need to add OSEAN to userlist.ini in order for the nation to display. You need only have a skin assigned to that particular nation (textureset.ini) for that nation and its squadrons to be picked up. Leaving OSEAN out of the userlist will also avoid the possible unintended consequence of having OSEAN show up as the default nation (i.e. OSEAN is alphabetically ahead of US Air Force and will show up first when the plane is selected for single missions).

 

Bottom line: to use a level 0 (national) decal, you need the country to be entered in nations.ini. AFAIK, this is the only way to get the OSEAN national insignia to display on a stock aircraft. Likewise, for level 1 (squadron) decals, you need the entries in SquadronList.ini with the proper nationname associated with the squadron. Finally, you need a 3 digit number on the end of each TGA file that matches your entry number in nations.ini (level 0) or your squadronlist.ini (level 1).

 

 

@RadPig,

If you're looking to add to nations.ini and squadronlist.ini, give this thread a look. We're working on a consolidated, standardized squadronlist.ini, and if you're looking at doing a full-blown Ace Combat/What-if line (including campaigns, missions, etc.) it would be beneficial to get these entries in while we're still figuring out the slots. The only thing I ask is that if you decide you want the squadron entries in a number less than 999, that you follow through and do the decals for the squadrons/airframes.

[RogerSmith 72]

that's a lot of work, and I don't think there would be enough people who would appreciate Ace Combat stuff