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

[CaesarInvictus]

Thanks Neonin, I love your Icon work. I think Im currently running your USMC and flag mods :D

 

Edit: and yeah, I feel ya on the balaclava front. Unless there's some serious demand for it I think I'll cut it from the pack. It was always going to be optional but ive tried 9 revisions and none of them are looking good. I think nows the time to concede defeat.

 

I'm tempted to try for full face camouflage though. Call me crazy but the way the texture works that might actually end up working better.

 

Release is IMMINENT by the way. I'm waiting on getting the new body armor tints done. My logic is that I can always release patches for the guns or whatever later. They are all usable right now.

 

NOW is the time if any of you have any suggestions to give.

Edited August 2, 2013 by CaesarInvictus

[Neonin]

USMC was blacklimoband, not me. I did the British version and one of my own ;) Glad you like the flags :D

 

Face camo would be something I'd definitely try out, and makes sense with regards to the game too.

[CaesarInvictus]

So, as it turns out, doing tintmapping takes around about an hour for a male/female armor set.

 

Interesting:

 

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

http://i.imgur.com/bAp0AxA.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/AWfP0b1.jpg

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

 

"Thank god, the XCOM hello kitty commandoes are on the scene!"

 

http://i.imgur.com/blt6iUu.jpg

 

"...And their friend: horrifying russian death tank of sin and doom."

 

Weirdly the chest armor pieces adamantly refuse to be coloured, even though I intended them to be. Is that okay with everyone or should I try to fix it more for the release?

 

I'll need to do testing and close study to make sure my tints aren't taking any details away from the armor. Less is more with these things after all, but so far I actually like the look.

[Amineri]

Downloaded and installed the texture packs and can confirm everything looks good.

 

In particular I like the new tint overlays. They help make the characters distinctive on the battlefield without looking like a garish eyesore.

 

However I noticed that the Pistol and Rocket Launcher didn't get any texture love?? The screens above show a re-textured pistol -- did you decide not to release it? My accessories are starting to clash ... ;)

[CaesarInvictus]

The pistol is actually from the military retexture pack. I do plan to do my own pistol, and I have a WIP rocket launcher, but they were in no state for release and I figured it would be better just to release what I had now. I'm thinking I'll write the text "Last Rites" on it, in honor of all the failed last stands I've had with the pea-shooter.

 

I'm not even really sure what to do about the rocket launcher. Its texture is surprisingly sophisticated

 

A simple colour swap would be simple enough, but the problem with the rocket launcher was it had a simple one-tone colour to begin with. If I just turned the green black it would be pushing the problem away.

 

It's also fairly true to real world rocket launchers, so I cant think of many models to emulate for it.

 

As always I'm open to suggestions. The Launcher is in fact on the menu for version 2.

 

Version 2's planned scope:

-The laser weapons!

-The basic pistol and Rocket launcher

-All of the slingshot DLC Helmets

-Optional Green Berets, because I'd wager someone somewhere is really itching to pull a SSgt Barry Sadler.

-Various bonus gear retextures, potentially something similar to the russian spetsnaz bonus (I have some ideas in mind for a US SFOD-D or Navy Seals gear set, as well as a SAS gear pack.

 

The good news is that I'm not opposed to incremental releases. When Im happy with the state of a weapon or armor I might add it onto that nexus file page I've set up. Keeps the file visible, makes people excited.

 

Remember this is just phase one of the XCOM retexture project. I've already ripped the files for the Skyranger and Raven interceptors. I'm of the opinion that the UI itself can and should be changed via texmod, or the icons at the very least.

 

Depending how moddable the UI really is I -might- be able to do some brilliant things. Even if its just buttons and so on though, there's magic to be had.

 

And, once I feel this iteration of the XCOM group is wrapped up nicely, I might start working on more themed X-Com projects. There's been this niggling desire in the back of my head to try an eastern europe themed take on XCOM, a what-if scenario where Russia/the Ukraine front most of X-Com's materials. For example, I would model the raven on the Su-37: http://www.military-today.com/aircraft/sukhoi_s37_berkut_l2.jpg

 

But, since that's all ephemera, it exists as starstuff until the serious pack gets done. Assuming it gets done.

[CaesarInvictus]

By the way, a word of warning:

 

This is unlikely to happen soon since I'm not screwing with overall texture resolution at all, but back over in Mass Effect land, Texmod has a problematic history with its users. It doesnt cause bugs or anything, but eventually if you load too many textures, your game gets increasingly clunky and awkward. Right now its fine, but at some point we will reach a maximum overhead for how much memory xcom will be allowed or capable of juggling.

 

Symptoms of this include really long load times, memory-related lag, and occasionally random crashes when the cieling gets hit and windows kills the program for being too large.

 

My combined textures equal around 30 MB, so its no problem; it was an issue over for that game because the retexture community kept looking for HD textures, which exacerbated the problem immensely.

 

XCOM is a smoother game overall, much less demanding resource wise, so we should be fine. But its something you all should know about. If its any consolation this is true for any kind of modding, games always have their limits. We dont know what those are for X-Com, but they're out there.

[Amineri]

So I tried duplicating my DLC_PackIn folder, then removing all but the Deco_Kevlar0 upk entry. I then changed all instances of Deco_Kevlar0 to Deco_Kevlar3 in both the Deco_Kevlar3_SF.upk file (renamed) and in the GlobalPersistentCookerData.upk in an attempt to get a copy of the deco mesh to load but with different copies of the textures (so that TexMod could replace them separately).

 

As a control I have a copy of the Deco_Kevlar0 upk renamed as Deco_Kevlar2_SF.upk in the original DLC_PackIn folder. I have been able to get this to duplicate, but since it references the same meshes as Deco_Kevlar0 TexMod replaces them both with the same texture replacement. Some later change of mine appears to have broken it.

 

My log file is reporting the following errors upon trying to load Deco_Kevlar2 and 3:

[0014.66] Log: ------------------ Fully loading ../../XComGame/DLC/PCConsole/DLC_PackIn\CookedPCConsole\Deco_Kevlar2_SF.upk
[0014.67] Error: (AddNetObject) Objects XComArmorKit Deco_Kevlar0.ARC_Deco_Kevlar2 and XComArmorKit Deco_Kevlar0.ARC_Deco_Kevlar0 have duplicate NetIndex 0
[0014.67] Log: Failed to find Package Deco_Kevlar3 to FullyLoad [FullyLoadType = 0, Tag = Command1]

The Deco 2 has a duplicate Net Index, and Deco 3 isn't being found.

 

This appears to be the issue that is preventing the second copy from loading (resulting in no armor kit at all being displayed). The only reference to the DLC_PackIn foldier was in XComDLC.ini, where I added an additional line in an attempt to get the new folder added to the loadlist, but that apparently failed:

[XComGame.XComDLCManager]
DisabledDLCPackages=DLC_PackIn
DisabledDLCPackages=DLC_Day060
DisabledDLCPackages=DLC_Day090
DisabledDLCPackages=DLC_Test

The game is attempting to load Deco_Kevlar2 and 3. From the log:

[0008.74] Log: ------------- AddPackagesToFullyLoad: fullyloadtype 0 for Command1: Deco_Kevlar2
[0008.74] Log: ------------- AddPackagesToFullyLoad: fullyloadtype 0 for Command1: Deco_Kevlar3

Edited August 3, 2013 by Amineri

[CaesarInvictus]

How would you all like me to go about making Carapace look?

 

I'm thinking of going through a bunch of classic power armor archtypes for inspiration. I was wondering if anyone had any specific ideas?

 

No previews or progress so far, sorry. Real life came knocking at my door.

[CaesarInvictus]

WELL JEEZ AREN'T YOU ALL CHATTY!

 

:tongue:

 

I finished the pistol. I wont release until 2.0 though, because I feel like releasing in bundles will have greater impact. But it looks preety darn good!

 

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

http://i.imgur.com/qbpmU4j.jpg

 

You should really speak up, I swear I'm actually listening to what you guys are requesting.

 

Man skyrimnexus gets flooded with people, and the military retexture project still has people crawling over it. Come on, send me some action! Raah!

 

Edit: I think I might try to do some kind of honeycomb patern for the carapace armor. Give it that futuristic feel instead of just 'alien' steel frame. With human junk jerry rigged or welded on.

Edited August 7, 2013 by CaesarInvictus

[CaesarInvictus]

New WIP, something for those silly looking super-glowy gold visor things that I dont see anyone use:

 

(Highly beta preview, I threw these together in around an hour, heavily influenced by Blacklight)

 

http://i.imgur.com/6so09X4.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/lH0OsJg.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/y1S2vLS.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/6DRjklu.jpg

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

 

Neat, right? But it needs work. The blue on the last two needs to go obviously, but there's something else that's just not here yet...

 

Maybe a skull motif? I dont know. Something, anyway.