Questions for creating and adding skins for ground units

[rwbishUP]

I was curious to where I could find details on creating skins for ground objects/equipment? For example, I grabbed a copy of the "RSZO_SMERCH_Base.dds". And made some new skins for it, i.e. Kuwaiti, Armenian and some fictional camos. Just to break up the mundane look a little bit. And, if I can do it, I plan on making skins for a lot of other ground units that only have a default paint job.

But, I need to learn the requirements to create the new description.lua and point it toward the textures location.........I think that's what I mean. Anyway, does anyone know of a forum post or tut on linking new asset skins to DCS so they'll be available in-game? Thanks

Edited July 28, 2023 by rwbishUP
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[ggrewe]

Hi rwbishUP

I'm still a total noob at livery creation - but have being trying to learn the process & understand your frustration.

I am also learning by editing vehicle liveries i.e. adding decals & colourizing existing liveries etc.

Looks like you know how to extract & edit the texture files to create the new liveries, in this case the Smerch (RSZO_SMERCH_Base.dds)

To create the description.lua you need to load the model in the ModelViewer2 & extract the description.lua from there.

   ModelViewer2.exe can be found in the main DCS folder e.g. DCSworld/ bin/ ModelViewer2.exe

   Can take a little while to load, once loaded go to "File" & "Load Model", navigate to the model.edm you want.

   Most modern vehicles can be found in DCSworld / Bazar/ World/ Shapes/ Smerch.edm (this is for the specific Smerch model you want)

   Once the model is loaded you press L Shift + L Cntrl + L Alt + G

   This will bring up a dialogue box to save the description.lua - choose a place to save to & open with text editor (e.g. Notebook,  Notebook++)

   You now have the full description.lua for all the textures & roughmets etc - but in your case you only need the text for the one you have edited "rszo_smerch_base"

   This is at the top, so you can delete all other text between the brackets { } so that you are left with:

                livery = {
               {"Rszo_SMERCH",  DIFFUSE,  "rszo_smerch_base", false};
                              }

   A very rough description of what the text means, from left to right:

          "Rszo_SMERCH",          this is the name of the file

           DIFFUSE,                       this is the type of texture

          "rszo_smerch_base",    this is the dds file name (one you edited)

          false};                            this tell the lua to use the file or not (false=yes, true=no)

   Lastly you need to create the Livery Folder Name to add the various liveries you have created (in sub folders) with the  dds texture & description.lua. inside each one.

   This is usually the texture name, in this case smerch_9K58. So in the Liveries folder you will add a folder smerch_9K58 & within that you can add your various livery sub folders   (e.g.Kuwaiti, Armenian etc)

   The livery description in game will read this sub folder as the description.

   For simplicity, you can keep the same dds texture description  ("rszo_smerch_base",) & just drop each of your edited textures into each sub folder, with same description.lua.

  To help, I have attached the smerch_9K58. livery folder with a Sub folder called "Test 1" with an existing dds texture & description.lua, which you can use to simply drop your rszo_smerch_base.dds textures in for livery you have already created - just create a copy of the "Test 1" for each & re-name to what you want.

 Also a link to a helpful video: DCS Custom Livery Creation | The Basics by Ditch3r

 Hope this helps

smerch_9K58.zip

[rwbishUP]

@ggrewe Hey, sorry it took me so long to reply. I hadn't got any replies myself so I figured I was just outta luck. Thanks for the info and directions, I'm trying to do a couple different skins for the MaxxPro MRAP now. I know there's not much in the line of different paint schemes that you see on them irl. But, I'm just trying to do a few different shades and paint conditions on it. I can't seem to find the right file that I need to load into Model Viewer for it. Thanks for the SMERCH file, I have actually found a lot of real world SMERCHs with desert paint jobs on them. So I'm glad to finally be able to use the ones I made. I'm slowly trying to add some skin variety to ground units, once I get some ready I'll share them with you and upload them to the repo.