How do I edit the texture of a vehicle?

Suppose I wanted to change the texture of an IFT-X. Can I just edit its .TGA in the BF2_ModTools/assets/sides/rep/msh as I want or do I have to do something else, like creating new folders, copying files and stuff like that?

viewtopic.php?f=27&t=12729
Do dat 1st. Then edit the .tga files in the new folder('s/s') MSH folder that correlate with the respective vehicle.

Thanks Marth!

You can also create a custom side .lvl that only contains your custom skin and load it before the stock vehicle that the skin applies to in your .lua. That is if you're only planning to change the skin and not do any major ODF changes, of course.

Hmm, actually that's exactly what I wanna do, just edit the texture, not the ODF. But how do I load it to the vehicle via .LUA? Do I have to write some sort of code?

The process is actually very similar to making a load screen .lvl. Set up your side the way the tutorial shows, but the only files you will need are the side REQ and the reskinned .tga. Reference the .tga name in your REQ file, and that's basically it for the set up. Then you simply load this side .lvl in your lua the way you would with any .lvl file, but make sure the line goes before the line that loads the stock vehicle whose texture you are changing.

Here's the tut AQT is referencing:

Reducing Side File Size

Hope that helps.

Since vehicles are part of a side, it's no different to setting up a unit skin...In future, it might be a good idea to look through the FAQ, because there's a chance what you're wanting to do will be in there.

I wasn't aware that tutorial even exists. Otherwise, I would have linked to it.

Ok guys, I edited the textures, munged the sides and followed the turorials but I still don't see the edited textures on the vehicles ingame.
Here's my lua: I've already tried loading the edited sides (cin,ren,aln,imn) before the stock ones, after them and with the little dc: in both cases but stilll no result.

Is there something I did wrong?

GAB wrote:Is there something I did wrong?

No one here is a mind reader, you must tell us what you did in detail for us to know that.

The most common mistake people make when creating custom sides is that they forget to make a new folder in _BUILD/Sides with a 'munge.bat' in it, you need one for each custom side. Your side is not compiled and copied over to addon without these folders and batch file.

Your LUA looks ok but you could load all custom vehicles from the same lvl file(one side) if you wanted to keep it simple. The lvl file does not determine which team a vehicle is used for, this is done in ZeroEditor.

I did create these folders with the batch files as one of the tuorials above said but no changes ingame.

I'll see what else I can do here...

Here's a working texture mod example for a shipped BARC speeder.

LUA (commented):


Side files:
http://www.mediafire.com/?a5b933c3pb138cu

Contents:

• 1. Side folder named 'qer'
  2. qer.req

  • Code: Select all

    ucft
    {
        REQN
        {
            "texture"
            "barc_speeder"
        }
    	
    }

  3. msh folder which contains barc_speeder.tga, a modified texture with the same name as the shipped texture.

Ingame screenshot: Just follow the same setup for whatever vehicle you're working with.

All right, it worked now! Thanks a lot Ace.

Now, here's why I think it wasn't working.

On the Reducing File Size Turotial, it says that you have to create a .REQ for each of the textures, then create a side .REQ that calls these texture .REQs (or I misunderstood the whole process). Just creating only one .REQ that directly calls the textures did the trick.

I think this is the main reason it wasn't working for me.

You can use the multiple REQs method as long as you load the name of the texture REQ in your lua. So that it looks like this: The reason why some people might want to use this method is because it allows you to choose which texture you want to use without creating multiple sides for each texture. For example, perhaps I only want to use a.tga in one mode without using b.tga and c.tga. So I just load the texture REQ for a.tga instead of using the single side REQ method, which would load all three.