Community Upgrade Project - CUP

[taro8 806]

I am not familiar with Substance Painter, I use Quixel Suite myself, but I suppose the issues will be the same. Quixel is PBR-Based, which is not supported in Arma, so the results will look different, but with a bit of extra care, youcan use it very effectively. I suppose SP is the same.

 

Are you on Discord?

Indeed, the Substance Painter 2 is PBR based. It's a big change for me as I'm used to creating textures solely in Photoshop. I do not know the workflow on how to prepare textures from SP2 so they work in Arma, also I'm new to SP2 so I do not know any tricks for exporting etc. Any help in this regard is very much welcome.

 

As for Discord, yeah got an account there.

 

EDIT: For interested: I did not made any changes to the UV maps or the model (only prepared it so I can use it in SP2). This means that if I ever manage to get the exported textures into something Arma can use, they will be 100% compatible with the old model. They will not require any model or UV map changes. I'm not sure about rvmaps as I never edited those.

[Undeceived 392]

Hey folks. I have been testing out Substance Painter 2 and decided to try it on the M1 Abrams as I read that you complained about the old textures. Note that I have no idea if its possible to translate what you see on the screenshots into Arma. I'm new to SP2 and the textures I can export are very much different from what I have experience with. This just a quick dip into SP2 so don't expect much.

 

 

 

Wow, that is what rough metal looks like!

[taro8 806]

Wow, that is what rough metal looks like!

Yeah, SP2 is very good at creating a rough looking texture like this. Also, it is rather easy to achieve this effect. The dirt is also generated instead of painted by hand, its a great starting point for any tweaking by hand. It also allows for easy creation of variants.

 

The question is: will it be possible to translate what I showed into Arma will trying to make it look as in the previews.

[hcpookie 3770]

I guess I need to have a look at what format the SP2 files export as.  I know the Arma file format is TGA-based.  The PAA's are just special compressed TGA's.  You can also render PNG and JPG as I recall, but I was led to understand that these formats receive a conversion to TGA that happens behind the scenes so it isn't the best approach.  I think it can affect frame rates or possibly load times.

 

The layers are all described in the BIKI although getting them all together can be somewhat confusing.  I recently learned the AS layer (and I think the SMDI layer???) can be created directly from the texview tool by simply naming the output w/ .AS... which is immensely helpful :)

 

Not sure if this info is of use to you or not.  I think will be the biggest thing is making sure the new textures align with the underlying texture map, but that's supposed to be the magic isn't it :)

[taro8 806]

Good news everyone!

 

I managed to cludge something Arma can read! There are number of issues, since I did the texture creation using a PBR (Physics Based Rendering) shader, so once I switched to non-PBR it looks different and some part look just wrong (the exposed steel turned completely white. However this is not such a big problem, the most important part it works and getting the textures into arma format is rather easy.

 

Note that I did not touch the model or the UV maps. This means that any texture I get from the SP2 is 100% compatible with the models with do not require any tweaking. It's only a matter of figuring out how to make the textures look good in non-PBR shader Arma 3.

 

Overall it was a decent first attempt. The dirt looks sick though.

 

NOTE: I only did the hull and the most of the turret. Wheels and stuff on the turret is unchanged. I also didn't bother with any details. I only wanted to see if it will work.

 

http://imgur.com/a/Is3ac

[hcpookie 3770]

That looks good - yeah baby steps like you said :)

 

So this is what you're using yes?

https://www.allegorithmic.com/blog/substance-painter-2

 

Since I can't d/l it directly I'm kind of useless.  I was hoping it would be a bit lower cost as most all of my models need some TLC in the paint department.  I suck at textures.  I guess I need to find out how to get a student copy... LOL

[taro8 806]

Another attempt. This time I used different maps for the SMDI and I must say it looks pretty damn good. There are still issues like dirt reflecting light, or tank having a gloss underneath, but it's better then the last time. I also painted over some of the hinges in order to not leave them bare steel.

 

This time I exported pretty much all of the textures. I only left tracks unchanged as there were some major issues with them in SP2.

 

I say: we are getting there.

 

BTW: All textures are 1k.

 

http://imgur.com/a/GklI6

 

EDIT: Took another swing at the SMDI. This time I decreased the overall glossiness of the tank and made sure that dirt does not reflect light at all. It required some faffing about in PS to merge the dirt masks from SP2 with specular maps, in addition to some brightness/contrast tweaks. Overall the Abrams now looks pretty good considering I did no detail work at all.

 

http://imgur.com/a/wSC9M

 

 

EDIT 2: I tried redoing the TUSK, but even though I made all the colors all the glossiness all the speculars the same in the game the TUSK parts are brighter for some reason. I tried numerous times. This leads me to believe that the TUSK component's RVMAT is set up differently. I have no idea how to deal with those.

 

http://imgur.com/a/yvvX7

[hcpookie 3770]

I don't know much about RVMAT's other than experimentation.

 

RVMAT's can be edited in notepad (unless they are binarized in which case you must unbin them first).

 

You can also edit them in Oxygen and see the results immediately in Buldozer.  Makes it handy to monkey with values 1x1.

[NeoArmageddon 957]

@taro8

Can you maybe compile a small guide how to get a p3d model into SP2 and reexport it? I have a SP2 license aswell but never really looked into using it for A3 objects (yet).

[Ltf 381]

Another attempt. This time I used different maps for the SMDI and I must say it looks pretty damn good. There are still issues like dirt reflecting light, or tank having a gloss underneath, but it's better then the last time. I also painted over some of the hinges in order to not leave them bare steel.

 

This time I exported pretty much all of the textures. I only left tracks unchanged as there were some major issues with them in SP2.

 

I say: we are getting there.

 

BTW: All textures are 1k.

 

 

EDIT: Took another swing at the SMDI. This time I decreased the overall glossiness of the tank and made sure that dirt does not reflect light at all. It required some faffing about in PS to merge the dirt masks from SP2 with specular maps, in addition to some brightness/contrast tweaks. Overall the Abrams now looks pretty good considering I did no detail work at all.

 

 

EDIT 2: I tried redoing the TUSK, but even though I made all the colors all the glossiness all the speculars the same in the game the TUSK parts are brighter for some reason. I tried numerous times. This leads me to believe that the TUSK component's RVMAT is set up differently. I have no idea how to deal with those.

 

Is that erdl camo? As I know US uses a different camouflage on vehicles which contains black, brown and green

 

 

 

 

Textures looks nice and dirty though

[taro8 806]

@taro8

Can you maybe compile a small guide how to get a p3d model into SP2 and reexport it? I have a SP2 license aswell but never really looked into using it for A3 objects (yet).

 

You do not export models from SP2, only textures. So

 

* If you have unbinarized p3d model you load it into the blender using Arma Toolbox addon.

* Once you load in the model, delete everything except group/object 1

* Select group 1 and go into edit mode

* Now the harder part: with nothing selected go into material tab (among the modifiers, render settings etc. it has a little circle/sphere icon) and select one of the materials, then use the "Select" button (you must be in edit mode) and blender will select all of the faces that are assigned to the selected material. Press P and separate selected faces by "Selection".

* now you will have a new object that should have all the elements that are textured by a single PAA file (m1abrams_01_co.paa, m1abrams_03_co.paa etc.)

* go into that new object and find the material its assigned to, it should be something like "Arma Material 00x"

* now figure out with texture file is responsible for texturing your new object, its not that hard to do

* once you know with texture is used by the object rename the material to the texture name, but without the map ending (_co, _nohq, _SMDI) so you get something like this "m1abrams_01". This step is important as it makes you life easier in SP2 and makes map exporting much much easier

* go back to the "1" group and separate next material until you cover all of the textures

* you will most likely end up with more materials than textures, so delete every unused material, so it doesn't clutter SP2

* once you have everything done, export model into .fbx format

 

* import them model into SP2

 

* I would suggest importing the _nohq texture from the old textures and using it for baking all other textures

* download and use blinn phong shader

* add glossiness and specular channels

 

* proceed with texturing

 

* when you are ready to export, use settings like this

* after exporting you need to edit the SMDI map

* open in PS, make the red channel completely white

* in the GREEN channel, select everything and adjust brightness/contrast with legacy on, contrast +50

* now adjust GREEN channel it again (separate step) with legacy off: brightness -150

* with the BLUE channel: select everything and adjust brightness/contrast with legacy on, contrast +50

* adjust BLUE channel again with legacy off: brightness +150

* convert textures to PAA

[taro8 806]

 

Is that erdl camo? As I know US uses a different camouflage on vehicles which contains black, brown and green

 

I didn't notice it, but the camo pattern I used was a 4 tone instead of 3 tone. Thanks for catching this. I can did a quick fix (basically replaced the yellowish khaki with other colors). The geometry of the camo might be a bit off, but it's 3-tone now (black, green and brown). Note that some of the olive green underpaint is still coming through, just to give it nice effect, I changed the blending to limit this a bit though.

 

I also did the desert variants.

 

http://imgur.com/a/nbVdp

[dragonfire43560 27]

Are there any plans to make vehicle sights, specifically tanks and apcs, more accurate to real life?

 

Many of them are somewhat close but are still off in certain respects. 

 

For example a lot of the russian tanks/bmps have zoom when in real life they are at a fixed optic level. The T72/BMP/T55 commander periscope isnt bad at all (except for the fact that it can zoom, which it shouldnt be able to), but the gunner sights on the T72 are off. 

 

It should look like this

 

http://www.steelbeasts.com/sbwiki/images/2/2a/T-72M1_GPS_sight.jpg

 

 

Im sure you probably know, but the red circle is for lasing targets and the red hemicircle at the top indicates a round is loaded. 

 

The zoom level you see in that screenshot is what you get in a T72, no fancy zooming in or out. Its actually a very limited tank as far as optics are concerned. 

 

 

 

M1A1 commander view is modeled correctly with the machine gun view, but the M1A2 is supposed to have its own unique persicope with thermal vision

 

 

The BRDM and BMPs use the wrong sight and again have zoom capability when they shoudlnt

 

 

The bradley sight is wrong. I think you guys have it using the M1 abrams style sight. In reality its got its own unique sight with a two stage zoom level. RHS has that represented pretty well. 

 

 

RHS does a pretty good job of making their sights realistic. If you want an example of accurate sights, look at how they do it. Or reference steel beasts if you own that game.

 

 

Please dont take offense to any of this, i love your mod. Just wanna see it improve :D

[dragon01 902]

If you want realism, use RHS. CUP only gives you ArmA2. :)

[dragonfire43560 27]

If you want realism, use RHS. CUP only gives you ArmA2. :)

 

Its not even "realism" its more "authenticity"

 

 

A little touch up here and there never hurt anyone. 

[bars91 956]

I didn't notice it, but the camo pattern I used was a 4 tone instead of 3 tone. Thanks for catching this. I can did a quick fix (basically replaced the yellowish khaki with other colors). The geometry of the camo might be a bit off, but it's 3-tone now (black, green and brown). Note that some of the olive green underpaint is still coming through, just to give it nice effect, I changed the blending to limit this a bit though.

...

 

Holy smokes! That's some fast progress there! REALLY impressive!

 

Just 2 REALLY MINOR points:

-2K textures would be really cool to have, if you are able and wish to do so (I believe vanilla A3 uses that)

-turret should be less full-on muddy dirt and more dusty dirt, if that makes any sence  ;)

 

Then again - MASSIVE improvement over the originals in every way!

 

Some references from this year:

 

 

 

 

[taro8 806]

Hey bars, thanks for the reference photos. I noticed that my initial camo was really dark and on overcast Everon it was pretty much black. I decided to change the camo colors in order to match the MTVR colors. However your photos showed me I may have went too bright this time.

 

Arma 3 uses 1k for most of the maps. I can export 2k color textures no problem though.

As for the mud, yeah, can do that, but tankers walk over the hull so some mud is bound to stick. Not sure if its worth it though, darker dirt nicely contrasts.

 

http://imgur.com/a/aPoyR

 

Does anyone have a seamless 3-tone camo texture that would be needed? The beauty of SP2 allows me to simply swap the camo (even keep the one I just showed). However the one I used was initially 4 tones and after converting it to 3 tones the spots look a bit off.

 

BTW: I have noticed the biggest issue with Arma 2 textures and the reason they look weird in Arma 3. It's not the resolution or texture colors. For the most part is the speculars. With my textures there is some really nice reflection going when you move around. A2 models lack that. This means that even if you only use SP2 to create some basic paint speculars it will go a long way in improving the look of the models.

[sparfell_19 188]

Improve tank sights

 

Hi ! If you could make a ticket on the feedback tracker and give as much informations as possible it would be nice. The issue may be adressed in the futur.

http://dev.cup-arma3.org/

Thanks by advance

 

 

M1 textures

Hi ! Nice textures !

You should join us our discord server and introduce yourself there : https://discord.gg/0WqE6NaD5yKT281F

We'll be glad to have you ;)

[Ltf 381]

Does anyone have a seamless 3-tone camo texture that would be needed? The beauty of SP2 allows me to simply swap the camo (even keep the one I just showed). However the one I used was initially 4 tones and after converting it to 3 tones the spots look a bit off.

 

It's from here:

 

https://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1419739

 

 

 

[taro8 806]

Thanks, tlf! It was exactly what I needed!

 

I really hope I got it right this time around. I went through, like, 11 versions of the woodland camo.

 

This time the color map is in 2k resolution (normals and such are in 1k).

 

http://imgur.com/a/92Q3l

[bars91 956]

Hey bars, thanks for the reference photos. I noticed that my initial camo was really dark and on overcast Everon it was pretty much black. I decided to change the camo colors in order to match the MTVR colors. However your photos showed me I may have went too bright this time.

 

Arma 3 uses 1k for most of the maps. I can export 2k color textures no problem though.

As for the mud, yeah, can do that, but tankers walk over the hull so some mud is bound to stick. Not sure if its worth it though, darker dirt nicely contrasts.

 

Woops - my bad. 2K texture thing somehow stuck in my head after some discussions...  :ph34r:

 

About those photos: great thing about them, besides quality and minimal color correction, is that they are actually from eastern Europe.

So you can pretty much match them 1:1 for Everon/Chernarus and be good on other maps (provided they sport a standardised ambient lighting setup)  ;)

[Ltf 381]

Thanks, tlf! It was exactly what I needed!

 

I really hope I got it right this time around. I went through, like, 11 versions of the woodland camo.

 

This time the color map is in 2k resolution (normals and such are in 1k).

 

 

Camo looks a little light but you definitely nailed it 

[Chairborne 2594]

Quick question, are you also correcting the RVMATs and SMDI maps too?

[gaspasar 12]

question, are the Cup vehicles ACE repair/refuel/ammo compatible?

 

tested with ACE 3.7 and the ACE 1.7 Compat  EDIT: CBA 3.1 used

all the Cup repair/ammo/refuel vehicles behave like vanilla vehicles. not like the ACE HEMTT repair/refuel/ammo.

 

is this intended?

it whould be nice to have them behave like the vanilla vehicles in ACE.

[taro8 806]

Quick question, are you also correcting the RVMATs and SMDI maps too?

Only SMDI as they are something I can actually edit and are crucial in creating that glossy painted look. The SMDI is just a texture.

 

I plan on reworking the color of the woodland camo, but I need to create a new material for this, so I have control over each camo color separately. I think all the last version needs is a slight shift of the green color.

 

All right, first off: I figured out a super lazy way of adding details from the old textures on top of my new ones. I just took the desert textures (since they are pretty much single color), desaturated them and put over the new textures as an overlay.

 

Now, the overlay meant that the texture got a touch darker, so I applied a layer that simply made everything (except dirt) brighter. The previous preview also had the brightness correction, with is why it was so bright, but it didn't yet have the texture overlay. Now I also tested the previous texture (without overlay) without brightness correction and the tank was really really really dark when sky was overcast.

 

Ok, so try to not confuse the screenshots.

 

New brighter textures, with detail overlay:

 

http://imgur.com/a/zFxE8

 

Old textures, without detail overlay (with would make things even darker), and without brightness correction (notice how dark it is at the overcast):

 

http://imgur.com/a/RzHC9

 

 

It's a really hard balancing act: the darker textures look closer to the photos, but tank gets nearly black at the overcast and soldiers stick out like sore thumbs. The brighter texture with correction seem to fit better, but the green color looks off. I will need to create a new material using the new texture to gain the ability to adjust each color separately, but it's something I never did before and need to figure out.