Head Shot Training Mod

[Led]

Hi guys, I had an idea for a mod to help with head shot training--
is it possible to adjust unit skins so that the main body is transparent, and the head is orange?

It would be like sniping basketballs, I guess

Buck/Led

[aeria.]

It's possible if I can get TGA files transparent and I'm not that much of a genius when it comes to TGA files.

Pretty smart idea, I'd like to see that outcome.

[Radical_Pi]

I might be able to do it if I can come up with a way to create msh files. If there is still a modeler on here, perhaps you could remove the surfaces for everything except the head in XSI?

btw: TGA can't do transparency If all else fails, would a white body work?

[aeria.]

As I suspected I don't think there's anymore modelers around here. You can give GameToast a try, since they still have a fair amount of modelers.

[Led]

ya, white, or maybe just leave the body alone and go with an orange head?

[MileHighGuy]

actually all you have to do is hex edit the msh to allow transparency and skin the parts you dont want black in its alpha channel and then skin the head orange

[Radical_Pi]

Care to demonstrate? AFAIK TGA doesn't have an Alpha channel

[MileHighGuy]

If you want to enable transparency, open up your .msh file with a hexeditor and find the name of the texture to which you're going to give transparency (search for .tga), say it's rep_inf_sharpshooter_cape. Once your cursor is on the name of the .tga, move it back a few places to where it says HBATRB - place your cursor on the place immediately after the last "B." The next 8 places should be "04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00."  Change that to "04 00 00 00 04 00 00 00." Then save the mesh file and give your actual texture an alpha channel.

and actually i think you delete the parts of the skin in the alpha channel thant you want transparent, but i am not entirely sure because i have not tried this myself.

theres some more info here > //http://www.gametoast.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=12338&p=217405#p217405

just disreguard the cape part as that does not apply here

and here is a good hexeditor that also works on vista > //http://www.chmaas.handshake.de/delphi/freeware/xvi32/xvi32.htm

[Maveritchell]

Care to demonstrate? AFAIK TGA doesn't have an Alpha channel

TGA does support alpha channels/transparency; it's used a lot in Battlefront.

I'm sure you could find several models that use a different texture for the head than the body, and then you wouldn't even have to bother with anything more than a completely black alpha channel on one texture (and of course the mesh will need to support transparency).

[Radical_Pi]

I get munge errors when I try to use an Alpha channel TGA

[MileHighGuy]

what program are you using? if  you are using gimp, it may have saved in the wrong tga version. what i do to fix this is save again in paint.net

[Radical_Pi]

yeah, I'm in GIMP. I'll try paint

woot found the problem! TGA compression breaks it. What sides do you want changed? Do you want weapons changed also?

[Maveritchell]

woot found the problem! TGA compression breaks it.

RLE Compression - the leading cause of "why does my map crash when I edit a skin?"

It is mentioned a number of times in threads at GT, although to be fair it is not linked to in that specific thread above. It might be worth your (the collective "you" here) while to check out the Battlefront 2 "Everything you need" thread - the games are similar enough that many of the sections will carry over in their entirety (especially the model-related ones).

[Led]

Hey, that's cool.

Standard sides, just want to practice head shots--

Thanks,
Buck

[MACH]

I think it would be a good training practice to have Recon droids as targets.