Planning on a major retexture project of XCOM operatives. Ideas welcom

[CaesarInvictus]

Hey all! I've noticed not many people are talking about retexturing XCOM, which is a shame since its one of the things we can actually do if we wanted to. I know how to extract XCOM's textures via Texmod and have the tools and (admittedly, rather basic) skill needed to modify them.

 

Mostly what I'm interested in at this point is ideas for what to do, where the demands are and so on.

 

My first project is going to be picking up where the "military retexture pack" here on the nexus left off and camo-up all the new slingshot DLC armor.

 

After that, I was thinking of doing a:

Marine Corps pack, featuring (unrealistic) logos, detail, and varying kinds of camoflauge to the game in order to build a general feeling that your commanding a company of space marines on a bug-hunt, ala aliens 2, but with a modern feel. The basic guns (and perhaps lasers) will be made black or gunmetal grey, with a bunch of neat little details and personality touches

 

'The XCOM initiative' pack, which would be my reinvisioning of the XCOM armors, again with a lot of little details and touches. Hopefully this would be most in line with the vanilla game.

 

'Warsaw Pact' (Space Russian) pack: Mostly because I feel silly and think that it would be a fun idea. Featuring AK-esque retexturing on the early game guns (including wood paneling! yes!) and a bunch of silly space-russian touches. I plan on naming the power armor "T34" for example.

 

The possibilities are fairly diverse however. If you really wanted me to I could even make your XCOM operatives into S.W.A.T. team members.

 

Currently I'm only limited by one constraint: its hard for me to rip the textures from the game via Texmod because my laptop lacks the necessary keys to navigate textures (trust me, Ive looked around, it simply does not have those functions) so I'll need to scavenge an extra plug-in keyboard or something. Alternatively, if someone could PM me stuff like armor or gun textures, I could get to work immediately, but that's probably illegal.

 

Beyond that I could start today, and am taking requests. Fire away!

Edited July 24, 2013 by CaesarInvictus

[CaesarInvictus]

Another idea is to try a multinational approach with the armors, with each armor being attributed to their own country, perhaps with multiple retextures to let you mix and match them as you pleased. Something like:

 

Russian 'Spetsnaz' suits:

Carapace/Titan

 

British 'SAS' suits:

Skeleton/Arch-Angel

 

American 'SFOD-D' or 'SEALS' suits:

Carapace/Titan/Ghost

 

etc, with each individual suit being its own texture package for texmod to load as it pleases. That ought to please everyone if the aforementioned 'pack' idea is unpopular

 

This method would also lead to much faster released as well.

 

I really want to do a Sam Fisher type retexture of the ghost armor! Gah, so many possibilities.

 

Edit: that way if you really wanted to you could tailor your armor textures to fit your current all-star squad. That would be awesome !

Edited July 24, 2013 by CaesarInvictus

[CaesarInvictus]

Update: I've extracted all the textures I need at the moment. Can't wait to give a teaser. Stay tuned to this thread to see a sampling.

 

Early proof of concept screenshot on a modded AR. I wanted to go for a mixed M16/Aliens Pulse Rifle. What I ended up with was this...thing.

http://i.imgur.com/rzCRquu.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/XQZI3Vn.jpg

 

I'll probably trash it and try for something better but hey, baby steps right?

Edited July 24, 2013 by CaesarInvictus

[Amineri]

This looks good.

 

Something you may be interested in -- I'm not sure how it would interact with Texmod, as I'm not sure if it could distinguish between the textures, but it's possible to duplicate the various armor kits.

 

I'll give an example of how I duplicated the Deco_Kevlar0 kit (the one that came with the Day 0 DLC).

1. Created a copy of the Deco_Kevlar0_SF.upk, renamed as Deco_Kevlar2_SF.upk
2. Hex edited the string Deco_Kevlar0 to Deco_Kevlar2 inside the new file Deco_Kevlar2_SF.upk
3. Placed the new Deco_Kevlar2_SF file in the DLC_PackIn/CookedPCConsole folder
4. Edited both XComEngine.ini and XComContent.ini (in the DLC/PCConsole/DLC_PackIn/Config folder) to include load commands for Deco_Kevlar2_SF
5. Edited the same merged files in the My Games to include the load of Deco_Kevlar2_SF

What this did was create 3rd armor kit that was visually identical to the number 1 kit. (as I recall the kits were labeled 0, 1, and 2). If Texmod can tell the difference between the textures in the two files then you could modifiy each one separately, leading to 2 (or more) different looks.

 

If Texmod can't distinguish between the two copies, it might be possible to hex change the texture name in the upk file. For Deco_Kevlar0 I believe it was 'MInst_Deco_Kevlar0". I have no idea how Texmod distinguishes between different loaded textures, so can't provide much insight there.

[CaesarInvictus]

That's fascinating, and potentially groundbreaking stuff right there.

 

As for Texmod, its a relatively simple injector tool. From my limited understanding it looks at loaded textures in the game, and extracts what it sees. So I'm not sure but I'm inclined to believe that it would call the same texture for the kevlar, because we havent changed what texture the .upk file calls up. At least in theory anyway.

 

Hex changing that texture file name miiight do it- but we would need to be ever-so-careful about it. Since Texmod is an injector I am unsure if we can add new content to the game directly (a new kevlar file unbound to any other kevlar files) and have it be called up for a modded new armor.

 

Ultimately this would require research, and I'm limited in a few ways: I dont know anything about .upk or hex editing, and so on.

 

Texmod is great for replacing content but of dubious worth for adding new content, basically. I'm mostly worried the new content wont be put in its proper place.

 

Anyway all that said I'm going to be working on the DLC helmets/hats/whatever very soon. Ideas and suggestions on those would be nice. I'm mostly trying to add camoflauge pattern to them, but while I'm there there's no reason not to have some fun !

 

Edit: assuming it could be done perfectly with no bugs I would eagerly take up the cause of making nation specific retextures for every country part of the XCOM project, at least for the kevlar's

 

Mostly just by using nation specific camo patterns, patches, etc, but still

Edited July 24, 2013 by CaesarInvictus

[CaesarInvictus]

Assault Rifle now finished. I went for a cool sleek tactical look. Note the new detail! Now in the glam-shots with this thing you'll be able to enjoy a very sleek pseudo-futuristic weapon. Early game just got a lot more cool.

 

http://i.imgur.com/PTiEeCI.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/1dCRs88.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/7bsmkWb.jpg

"This is XCOM Tactical division. Thanks for the new toys, Central."

 

Bonus!

http://i.imgur.com/Ds2i84n.jpg

Edited July 25, 2013 by CaesarInvictus

[CaesarInvictus]

I'm doing the heavy's LMG next but its not quite coming along as well as the AR did. Any ideas?

 

Gosh come on this thread is dead in the water. Get some chatter going people!

 

I swear you can ask me to put stickers onto these guns and i'll do it. I really want to get some feedback and ideas bouncing around in here!

 

Edit: I might even be able to edit the UI... now there's a cool idea! Change those blue lines to yellow or whatever.

Edited July 25, 2013 by CaesarInvictus

[FrostwolfV]

Personally, I'd love to see a pack that's more low-tech than high-tech since I have a love for late 90s to early 2000s NATO gear but I don't feel that's really feasible given the models the game shipped with. You're making pretty darn cool things happen anyways, though, so props to you.

[CaesarInvictus]

You mean on the later sci fi armors and weapons? It would be hard to make the current 'tier one' armors -lower- tech than what they already are.

 

Not sure, honestly. Again the models would be uncooperative as would... logic. I can only make a laser rifle look so realistic before things begin to get silly.

 

In my dreams I would have the ability to import models into the game, set up new unique guns and armors for specific countries, add unique stats and abilities to them...

 

But no, I have to work within the realm of the possible. If I'm very fortunate the above theory will be true and we can create new 'Deco' options with unique textures, which will again be rather limited in nature (the current 'deco' options leave much to be desired) but still, better than nothing.

 

If not, I'll simply try to make do with what I have and create the very best mod possible for all of you :D

 

Currently I'm working on the heavy LMG and trying to figure out how to make stuff use (or in my case, stop using) custom colour tints. I actually know what manipulates them but I just havent figured out how to add new patterns, for technical reasons.

 

I've also done some very, very cool work on the default 'Assault' Deco - the model pieces that get added to assaults when they are promoted. It's awesome, but I'll wait to show that off.

[Amineri]

In my dreams I would have the ability to import models into the game, set up new unique guns and armors for specific countries, add unique stats and abilities to them...

 

I've also done some very, very cool work on the default 'Assault' Deco - the model pieces that get added to assaults when they are promoted. It's awesome, but I'll wait to show that off.

 

I've (with johnnlump) tried quite a few ways to try and trick the current system into loading in additional weapons (and armor), and so far have pretty much failed.

 

The best we were able to do was to create a new item that when loaded out looked and functioned exactly like a Sniper Rifle. The goal was to re-use the sniper rifle model but give different stats, but that turned out to be beyond our capabilities.

 

Ultimately the root of the problem seems to be the way that weapons and armor are handled in XCOM. Each weapon and armor requires it's own class defined in the XComGame.upk, as an extension of the parent XGWeapon or XGArmor class. For example, there is an XGWeapon_AssaultRifle class. It doesn't do much except define as a default a few values. However, one of those critical values is the item ID, which sets all of the stats for the item. Since the ID is "baked in" by being the default variable, changing the value is not 'safe' during a load / reload operation.

 

Since we definitely haven't figured out how to add new classes, this means that any dreams of adding new weapons and armors with unique looks and stats are so far unrealizable.

 

The deco kits and hair/helmets seem possible, as those were planned to be extensible for DLC-purposes. That's just a question of making the new model and texture files and editing some config files.