Additional AI Vehicle Possibilities

[MajorMagee]

This should be the last of the eight different Stug III 40L43 I had planned.

 

Edited April 10, 2023 by MajorMagee

[MajorMagee]

Meanwhile I keep adding variations as fast as I complete the ones I had originally planned.

 

53 to go out of 172 on the list.

 

(it was 71 to go out of 154 a week ago)

 

Oh look, it's the classic, I'll be done in two weeks...

 

Edited April 15, 2023 by MajorMagee

[MajorMagee]

One of my reference books had this scheme for the Spring of 1945 near Berlin.

 

[jollyjack]

nice, the rust ... a few holes and dents would look nice too. Damage setting?

[LukeFF]

2 hours ago, jollyjack said:

nice, the rust ... a few holes and dents would look nice too. Damage setting?

 

Rust? Please no - people have this fallacious idea that tanks and other vehicles were being driven around in the war that looked like they'd been sitting in a junkyard for a decade. Mud, dust, and dents are an entirely different manner.

[MajorMagee]

Looking to fill in the full matrix so every type is represented with every color scheme, the project list has now grown to 257.

 

 

If you include the paint kit files, the totality of the project is now approaching 10GB!

I guess I need to rethink how I'm going to go about publishing this body of work when it's done.

Perhaps as different collections with all of the vehicle types represented together in one color scheme?

Or, would it be better by each vehicle type with all of their color variations together to pick from?

Inquiring minds want to know...

 

 

Edited April 24, 2023 by MajorMagee

[MajorMagee]

Progress on some of the soft vehicles tonight.

 

[MajorMagee]

A little something to hold your interest since this project seems to be growing faster than I can complete it. For example, I just discovered a picture of a Horch in three color camouflage, when I originally thought that they were only ever done in solid colors. 

 

 

 

[Leon_Portier]

huh, gotta look into this

[IckyATLAS]

MajorMagee incredible work. Congratulations. I have a small question, is it possible to also skin the static objects of vehicles or planes?

[MajorMagee]

I've not checked, but there is no reason to think you couldn't.

[MajorMagee]

Restructured everything this weekend to eventually make publishing this a bit easier because the overall size has grown to unreasonable proportions (323 new AI vehicles represented). Common paint schemes are now grouped together into their own packages.

 

Ambush - Three Color With Dappled Spots (35)

BON - Battle of Normandy by MarcoPegase44 (10)

DGDY - Dark Yellow over Dark Grey (25)

DGOG - Olive Green over Dark Grey (25)

DGRB - Red Brown over Dark Grey (26)

DY - Dark Yellow or Yellow Brown (28)

DYOG - Dark Yellow Olive Green (35)

DYOGRB - Dark Yellow Olive Green Red Brown including various Tiger skins by JV44HeinzBar (41)

DYRB - Dark Yellow Red Brown including a Tiger Skin by JV44HeinzBar (36) *

HT - Hinterhalt-Tarnung by DetCord12B (12)

Other - Various, including a M4A2 skin by JV44HeinzBar and some unique Allied vehicle schemes (11) *

Tri-Color - Three Color by DetCord12B (21)

WW - Winter White including several Tiger and M4A2 skins by JV44HeinzBar (18)

 All Packages Complete, including a representative parade mission, as of 17 May 23

 

Each will include its own color scheme specific Parade Mission, and an index of the overall collection to help mission developers know what the new options are. For example they can publish a mission that stays within one color scheme (common look across all vehicle types within the same unit), or they can mix-and-match schemes by accessing multiple packs.

 

Since you can leave these installed with, or without mods enabled and the mission will still run it would be best to leave all the different sets installed (as if it were part of the base game) just to cover any future missions that might be produced that call any part of these out. If the mission calls for one of these new vehicles, and you don't have it installed first it will typically just crash out with a luascript error.

 

Working on finishing the Dark Yellow Red Brown package this week

 

 

 

 

Edited May 18, 2023 by MajorMagee

[MajorMagee]

In the home stretch now. Working on camo colors oversprayed on the base Panzer Grey as was done as a field expedient during the transition to the three color system on a base of Dark Yellow in 1943.

 

 

 

[MajorMagee]

Just completed the last of the artwork. Still have to finish the parade missions, and then package for publication. Two weeks?

Edited May 14, 2023 by MajorMagee

[jollyjack]

looks fantastic!

[MajorMagee]

A quick check in game and everything works together without any errors or crashes.

 

[IckyATLAS]

On 4/29/2023 at 1:53 AM, MajorMagee said:

I've not checked, but there is no reason to think you couldn't.

Once you have finished this incredible paint work package could you check if skinning objects like static planes, tanks, vehicles  is really possible?

[migmadmarine]

I can't imagine you've found a way to have these appear in career mode?

[MajorMagee]

I don't know, but it seems like it would just be a matter of the builder of a new campaign referencing them. When they are installed they appear in the STEditor just the same as all of the base game AI vehicles. Since these work without needing mods turned on the biggest risk for the mission/campaign builder is that the end user may not have them installed and that would probably crash the game.

[MajorMagee]

What's a little more scope creep at this point? I just realized I could put matching paint scheme skin textures for the user playable vehicles in the packages as well...

[migmadmarine]

Sorry, I hadn't realized this was in the TC section rather than the main Il-2 mod section, I meant having these as ground vehicles in the generated career mode missions, not scripted campaigns. I imagine that is too deep into generator templates to be tweaked. 

[MajorMagee]

On 5/18/2023 at 7:01 AM, MajorMagee said:

What's a little more scope creep at this point? I just realized I could put matching paint scheme skin textures for the user playable vehicles in the packages as well...

 

Okay, so 3 days later there are now 5 sets of matching skins for the user playable _PzIII-M, _PzIV-G, _PzV-D, _PzVI-H1, _Sdkfz184, and _StuGIII-G. The custom skin naming format is PzIIIM-XX, PzIVG-XX, PZVD-XX, PzVIH1-XX, SdKfz184-XX, and StuGIIIG-XX, where XX is the appropriate color scheme code letters. (Ambush, DY, DYOG, DYOGRB, and DYRB)

 

Here are a couple of quick examples of Ambush and DYOG on the PzV-D.

 

 

 

and a mix of AI and User vehicles with the Ambush color scheme.

 

Edited May 21, 2023 by MajorMagee

[MajorMagee]

DYRB AI Parade with matching User Playable Panther.

 

[moustache]

nice skins overall, but do you have to activate the mod to be able to use the skins of the tanks playable by the player? or are they downloadable out of mod?

[MajorMagee]

I was not planning on publishing them separately since they were intended to match the new Ai textures, but that's always a possibility.

 

p.s. Now available here https://www.mediafire.com/file/krc36o6a0fuxbwe/Player_Skins_From_AI_Expansion_23_May_23.zip/file or through the AI Expansion mod publication location.

 

Edited May 24, 2023 by MajorMagee

[MajorMagee]

Published here.

 

 

[352ndOscar]

Congrats on completing this project!

[Leon_Portier]

If I would use the mod in a mission, would it still work with players that don't have the mod?

[MajorMagee]

Most likely they will get a luascript error, and the game will close. No real harm done, but a harsh reminder that you need to have the new AI vehicles installed. What is nice about these, is that you do not need mods enabled for the new AI vehicles to be usable.

[MajorMagee]

Sorry to say, I've had a quality escape that requires a patch to fix (see first post on the Official Mod page for the link).  I noticed that some of the New AI vehicles were impossible to kill. It turns out that I had a recurring typo in 129 of the text files caused by the automation I was using to speed up editing. 

[MajorMagee]

On 4/27/2023 at 4:48 PM, IckyATLAS said:

MajorMagee incredible work. Congratulations. I have a small question, is it possible to also skin the static objects of vehicles or planes?

Okay, I looked into this, and the static blocks do not use their own skin texture folders. Their mgm files point back to the original game textures, so without being able to edit the static mgm file, or create a new one from scratch, there is no way to customize their skins. Otherwise, I've tested it, and the rest of the file structure can be successfully edited with new names to expand the selections.

[MajorMagee]

I've now added Stonehouse's enhanced AAA effects as an option for the AI Expansion linked above.

 

 

[WitchyWoman]

We may have to wait on using AAA until Stone can update it, which he does plan to after his trip.

[MajorMagee]

On 5/27/2023 at 7:41 PM, MajorMagee said:

Sorry to say, I've had a quality escape that requires a patch to fix (see first post on the Official Mod page for the link).  I noticed that some of the New AI vehicles were impossible to kill. It turns out that I had a recurring typo in 129 of the text files caused by the automation I was using to speed up editing. 

 

Just discovered four more text files with the issue from last May. The luascript fix has been updated here. 

 

[MajorMagee]

Working on a few more.

 

Like the Bovington example.

 

 

Service To The Line,

On The Line,

On Time!

 

 

Edited September 24, 2023 by MajorMagee

[MajorMagee]

Like the Musée des Blindés example.

 

 

Service To The Line,

On The Line,

On Time!

 

 

 

Edited September 23, 2023 by MajorMagee

[MajorMagee]

Tonight's installment is LTC Patton's tank.

 

 

Service To The Line,

On The Line,

On Time!

 

 

Edited September 25, 2023 by MajorMagee

[MajorMagee]

Another pattern from the Bovington collection.

 

 

One more (Mk5 female) will complete the set I had planned.

 

Service To The Line,

On The Line,

On Time!

 

 

Edited September 26, 2023 by MajorMagee

[MajorMagee]

Here's the Female as Bovington's "The Flying Scotsman".

 

 

 

Time to upload these as another AI Mod package.

 

Service To The Line,

On The Line,

On Time!

 

[MajorMagee]

Another mod package was added to the original post with five new WW1 AI tanks.