How to make an addon

[hardrock]

<span style='color:green'>Update July 06: ofp.info links fixed</span>

Since this question appeared several times, I&#39;ll post here what you need to make an addon:

Check out here if the addon doesn&#39;t already exist in good quality.


Necessary tools:
Oxygen Light (3D modelling tool)
If you hear somebody speaking about "O2", that&#39;s the same
Oxygen Viewer (necessary for Oxygen Light)
TexView (to convert TGA-files into OFP&#39;s texture format)
WinPBO (Tool to pack/unpack PBO files - OFP&#39;s addon format) <span style='color:green'>updated - replaces the following two</span>
MakePBO 1.1 (To pack all files into OFP&#39;s addon format) <span style='color:red'>old school</span>
PBO decryptor 1.5 (To unpack OFP&#39;s addon format) <span style='color:red'>old school</span>

It&#39;s also good to have a graphics program like Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro to make textures, since this won&#39;t work very well with MS Paint. Also many of the texturing tutorials are written for these programs.


Tutorials:

Addon making/Modeling
Brsseb&#39;s tutorial pages (Very good tutorials about installing Oxygen and making addons)
Colonel Klink&#39;s tutorial pages (more advanced tutorials on making addons)
OFPEC tutorials on making addons
Marfy&#39;s texturing tutorials (advanced tutorials on how to make good-looking textures)
Oxygen tutorials
Status_cz&#39;s Oxygen tutorials
3D Studio Max Tutorials <span style='color:green'>new</span>

Texturing
2D Art/Skinning Tutorials <span style='color:green'>new</span>
Texturing Videos <span style='color:green'>new</span>
Painting worn metal textures <span style='color:green'>new</span>
Skinning Tutorials <span style='color:green'>new</span>
Digital Art Resource <span style='color:green'>new</span>


Samples:
BIS sample models, but read the readme first&#33;
BIS commented config.cpp 1.91


Links:
OFPEC (_The_ site about editing in OFP)
Breathe (BIS official addon-making website)
TheAvonLady&#39;s OFP FAQ (covers nearly every question about OFP)
These forums


When you once are more advanced on making addons, you may also need:

Other useful tools:
ODOL Explorer 2.0 + Update to 2.44 (to open and learn from binarized models, but don&#39;t copy them without permission&#33; )
PAATool (Texture conversion tool with better quality than TexView, but without preview)
OFPAnim 0.98 and the update on 0.981 (Tool to make OFP animations)
CfgCheck (Replace all tags in a .p3d&#39;s texture paths / convert bin to cpp - only unicode) <span style='color:green'>updated</span>
Chris&#39; OFP Script Editor 3.1 (script editor with ofp syntax highlighting and many tools and functions) <span style='color:green'>updated</span>
Patch Generator 1.0 (easily create patches for updates of your addons) <span style='color:green'>updated</span>


Resources:
Camouflage patterns of the world <span style='color:green'>new</span>
Camouflage nets <span style='color:green'>new</span>


If there is anything missing in this list, I&#39;ll edit this post.

[Ex-RoNiN]

If you call the thread "How to make an addon", then it might be more useful to say more than just what tools you need

You could make a small tutorial in which you make something easy, like a re-skin or editing/making a new model

[Ironsight]

Tool to add:

P3D Texture Swap Utility retexture utility

There are a lot of tools on this site Click here

[hardrock]

Tool to add:

P3D Texture Swap Utility retexture utility

At least for me this tool doesn&#39;t work properly, so I didn&#39;t add it to the list.

[Ironsight]

Tool to add:

P3D Texture Swap Utility retexture utility

At least for me this tool doesn&#39;t work properly, so I didn&#39;t add it to the list.

It worked earlier for me but lately I got some errors, but it is a handy tool ***

[Sole]

I personally prefer StuffPBO for packing a folder into a pbo.

a. Because it leaves everything uncompressed. (I don&#39;t like compressed pbo&#39;s, thats where we got Winrar/Winzip for.)

b. It doesn&#39;t have the LSD-tripping interface

You can grab it from this page on opflash.org (scroll a bit down).

[m21man]

To make an addon, you also need a good graphics editing program. MS Paint is not a suitable program. Adobe Photoshop is the most common program used, and Jasc Paint Shop Pro is another common program. If you don&#39;t want to buy one of these (You cheapskate ), then you can use the the GIMP.

Quote[/b] ]b. It doesn&#39;t have the LSD-tripping interface

That&#39;s the best part .

[Tomislav]

what progs do you need to reskin vehicles,
some tell me that i need photoshop additionally

[m21man]

@Tomislav - You need Photoshop, most texturing tutorials are for it and it&#39;s a very good program.

[hardrock]

a. Because it leaves everything uncompressed. (I don&#39;t like compressed pbo&#39;s, thats where we got Winrar/Winzip for.)

Ever tried to click "Properties" right beneath "Select dir." (in MakePBO)? There you can choose which files you want to be compressed.