Here's the tutorial I have came up with, for Vector Thrust that focuses on how to add custom skins.
We'll start with the F-15C Ragriz here; I wish to put it in the main campaign as an extra skin for the F-15C.
First things first, there is some organization and architecture rules to follow:
-The Campaign mode is responsible for dictating the useable planes, useable paintschemes, and missions.
-The Plane files ( as referred to by the Campaign ) themselves hold the data about Weapons.
-Weapons refer to Projectiles and Reactors ( trails / engines for the missiles ),and so on.
So, naturally, the first thing to do would be to place the skin in the folder it belongs to; here, precisely, the F-15C.
The "root" folder refers to the folder where Vector Thrust is located ( by default: C:/Program Files/Desura/Common/vector-thrust/ ).I will refer to this folder as "root" as we don't need any other interaction with other folders.The Planes are located in root/Objects/Airplanes/
You can find the F-15C folder; go in there and drop the F-15C_Skin_razgriz.dds in there along with the others.
But, that won't be enough alone. The Campaign file must be modified in order to allow this new paint scheme.
Go in "root/Campaign/" and you'll find "AlphaC1.cmp". the .cmp file is the format used by Vector Thrust for Campaigns; and is a simple text file.Open it with any text editor you like ( though I use Notepad++ for a clear view ); and find out the planes entry area.
« « [PlayablePlanes]NumPlanes = 9
entry_1 = "J-35J"
entry_1_State = "3"
entry_1_CantSell = "true"
entry_1_Weapons_OwnedOnlyFirst = true
entry_1_NumSkins=3(...) » »
You can locate entry 6 which refers to the F-15C.We need to tell the game this plane can use multiple skins.For that, add to the end of the entry six:
« « entry_6_NumSkins=2 » »
You will then get:
« « entry_6 = "F-15C"
entry_6_State = "2"
entry_6_Price = "1000"
entry_6_Weapons_OwnedOnlyFirst = true
entry_6_Weapons_2_Price = 30000
entry_6_Weapons_3_Price = 30000
entry_6_NumSkins=2 » »
But then, we need to manually tell it the skins, now. In order to set the skins, we just need to tell the game which texture files to use;There are two lines per skin, the first being for the main colour job; the second being for the Specular mapping; basically, the shines.
« « entry_6_Skins_1_Dif="F-15C_Skin1.dds"
entry_6_Skins_1_Spec="F-15C_Spec.dds" » »
We'll just copypaste this and make it so the second skin will be for Razgriz; since now that the plane can use multiple skins, it needs to know which one is its first/default, and which one is the second.So, for multiple skins, I always use the same Specular shine texture as the first, anyway.We then get:
« « entry_6_Skins_1_Dif="F-15C_Skin1.dds"
entry_6_Skins_1_Spec="F5C_Spec.dds"
entry_6_Skins_2_Dif="F-15C_Skin_Razgriz.dds"
entry_6_Skins_2_Spec="F-15C_Spec.dds" » »
IMPORTANT NOTE: Some planes which have only one colour will not have a "entry_X_NumSkins" since there is only one; the tutorial here explains how to add a skin to a plane which had only the normal colour!
If you see no "entry_X_Numskins", it means this plane had only one colour and you'll have to enter the ammounts of skins it uses yourself.
Moreover, if you set a plane from a single skin to multiple skins, then you will have to set the "Skin_1" to be the normal colour it had before; it's only from "Skin_2" that you can type your own texture file names, and for 3, 4, and so on.
The end result eventually will look like this:
""entry_6 = "F-15C"
entry_6_State = "2"
entry_6_Price = "1000"
entry_6_Weapons_OwnedOnlyFirst = true
entry_6_Weapons_2_Price = 30000
entry_6_Weapons_3_Price = 30000
entry_6_NumSkins=2
entry_6_Skins_1_Dif="F-15C_Skin1.dds"
entry_6_Skins_1_Spec="F-15C_Spec.dds"
entry_6_Skins_2_Dif="F-15C_Skin_Razgriz.dds"
entry_6_Skins_2_Spec="F-15C_Spec.dds"""
If you want to add even more skins ( for example; a homemade one, ISAF one, UPEO, Belkan, bright pink, Z.O.E. Red, whatever ), you just need to change the ammount of skins allowed for the plane, and add the appropriate declarations for more skins; just like for adding the second one here.
Note: an important remark is that the Battle Scenario Mode ( as of Alpha 0.1900 ) always uses the default plane colours; the first skin; and you can only view the multiple skins in the hangar when going in Sortie, not in the buy/sell mode.
And of course, those will be exclusive to the campaign we just modified; if you use another campaign story, you'll have to input the custom skins yourself.
