Repaint the houses?

[Stratos]

So, that's the question, anyone know If is possible to repaint the houses in DCS? And If yes, where are the needed files to repaint?

 

Thanks a lot.

Edited August 3, 2017 by Stratos
Grammar

[crazyeddie]

Hola Stratos

 

Its quite complicated depending on which version of the game you are trying to change, but this is how it works.

 

Buildings that you can place on a map in the Mission Editor you can change the texture for those quite easily, just open the edm file for that building, find out what the texture it uses are called, find them in the Textures files and do whatever you want to them. You can do that in bmp or dds formats, both work fine but dds is better. The new texture you can simply drop into the Temp Textures file and each time you place that building the game will see the new texture.

 

BUT - and its a big but.

 

That building you have placed will see the new texture, but the game might use that building in hundreds of other places as well as a permanent feature of the map, and they take their textures from a different file, which is VERY small and of very poor quality, and they will continue to use the old texture unless you change that file as well. I have done that and its a HUGE amount of work, it took me many months to do just a few changes, its an awful texture file to work on. Its called block_texture_dds.

 

Some buildings use many texture files, some use just one, but you can do some amazing things with them if your inventive.

 

So, decide which building it is you want to change, find the edm for it, open that, see what texture files it uses, find those, repaint them, and if you instal it in the game temp textures files it will show up.

 

If its not a placeable building them its the block_textures file option only.

 

I am working on a Mod to make 95% of the current Caucasus building placeable in DCS2, I have been working on it for several years with new modern style textures, so you must understand this is not an easy thing you are going to do, it takes a lot of work and a huge amount of time.

 

But it can be done.

[j-tk]

Eddie, your crazy, but your also the hero and modder we need, but probably don't deserve.

[crazyeddie]

Well, I have almost completed my Mod, its huge so its in 3 parts and I am wondering if I should wait until the maps are merged before I release it. Experience tells me wait and try it out myself first when the merge is with us, fixing any issues first. It should work in all versions of the game but it is designed for DCS2 with a mix of modern style buildings and Spanish Civil War/WW2 buildings based on what I would want in my game and what is not already available from other Modders, some good stuff out there already the VPC/Virpil Mod is superb in every respect and you should grab that if you dont have it already, nothing compares.

 

However, I doubt I will ever try to do the block_texture file again, that was a huge pain in the ass for very little reward in terms of graphics value, and who knows, DCS might find a better way to do that, we will see.

[Stratos]

Thanks for the answer CrazzyEddie, rep to you. Anyway it sounds too damn hard to even try it.