Aces' Artwork: IL2-MAT Manager v2 WiP

[Aces]

Hi all,

And here' my WIP for the next version of IL2-MAT Manager. I'm really hoping that the next game version will support the new instant markings load, one program solution.





Cheers and regards

Aces

[CrazySchmidt]

Mate I like the new look! nice.

Cheers, CrazySchmidt.

[Aces]

Thanks m8,

I switched colour for the UI in v1.94 my first post PF version. Below is a reduced size screenshot of the WiP program version UI.



Cheers

Aces

[UberDemon]

Aces,

I was thinking about this. Is there any chance that perhaps I could add a very light integration with some of you work in UQMG?

Here is what I was thinking. Your work is far too advanced for integration with UQMG... I mean, the graphical stuff you are covering is freaking amazing... however, I always thought about the possibility of some simple substitutions in UQMG that would say, substitute a country for another... not going into the extreme details of your app, but something like:

Instead of Rumania, use Croatia, and UQMG would basically take care of substituting the files in the cache directory. Or say, instead of UK use Brazil, something like that.

The scope I am thinking of is just of one set of country markings for each additional country, but not much else.

Is this something you think would be a worthy cause? Basically I'd have to do the coding, and I'd use your files/knowledge to try to get the integration going. Maybe a lot to chew, but maybe something worth looking at.

Anyway, thought I'd throw that your way.

[Aces]

Hi m8,

I'd already had a few thought on this following our brief previous discussion.

What I was wondering was if we could find a way to link the selection of markings according to the mission options. My first thoughts are that IL2-MAT manager uses an ini file located in the IL2-MAT Manager folder called "conf.ini". This stores all your choices of markings so, if I sent you a list of all of the possible settings for each option then maybe you could write to IL2-MAT Manager's ini file. Then all the user would need to do is fire up IL2-MAT Manager and then quit so that it copies all the markings TGAs and their MATs according to the settings of the ini file.

Most, if not all, of the possible option settings are pretty intuitively named (I have to do that else I'd be lost myself" . As an example, lets' say that UQMG sets the year, the nationality etc. then this would reference to the appropriate MAT Manager options. I could change the names of any option choices as stored in the ini file if they needed to be more specific.

The easiest way is for me to take the appropriate section of my VB source code and send it to you along with the conf.ini file and we could work from there.

Perhaps UQMNG could write a value to IL2-MAT Manager's conf.ini to let MAT Manager know that UQMG has changed it's settings and I could detect that and have MAT Manager know to copy the files on exit. At the moment if you open MAT Manager and quit without making any changes then it doesn't have any file copying to do but I could read in the value set by UQMG into MM.

Or better still have an option in UQMG to launch MAT Manager on exit (having already setup MM's conf.ini with the relevant markings options).

CrazySchmidt m8, I'd be very happy to send you the same info as UberDemon if it's of interest to you m8.

How does this sound to you chaps ?.

Best Regards

Aces

[CrazySchmidt]

Yep, I'd be interested in having a look at this Aces definitely.

EDIT:

Ok, I've been thinking about this some more and the ini file sounds logical and straight forward to me.

Aces, would Mat Manager have start up as such, could there not be a module of code (or in fact use the existing module of code that handles the copying portion of what Mat Manager does now), either used within the mission builder utility itself or works silently from within Mat Manager and is called from the mission builder utility, or perhaps as separate exe file? This would read the ini file for instructions and then perform the requested tasks. I think there is probably a number of ways to go about it, what is probably most important is avoiding recoding something that has already been written.

I think also that the Mat Manager front end should only be visible to the user during the copying process if requested by the user, this would produce a more seamless action I feel.

The other thing I have always thought would be a great Idea is to have the ability to show the markings on blank skins inside the mission builder skin preview window. What file type are the MAT files, are they tga? How many are there also? The only way I can see of doing this would be to use a more VB friendly image format say bmp or jpg and embed the images over the skin preview window. I'm sure this would be a great feature to add but a huge amount of work depending on how many files we are talking about.

Let me know your thoughts guys.

Cheers, CrazySchmidt.

[Aces]

Okay Ian,

I'll get something together containing my source code and the ini file and send it to you both.

The source code will identify all the possible alternative values for all of the options as stored in the ini file.

If MAT Manager launches with these settings then the appropriate graphics and MAT files for these options will be copied when MM exits.

As an example if you write to the MAT Manager's ini file

[Weathered_USA_Markings]
USA_Index=USA 1942 (Yellow) Faded

You will get the faded USAAF White Star with a yellow border in place of the normal white star.

So perhaps if you were writing a 1942 mission for the USSAF then this would be a nice choice of white star.

Choice of markings could be "theatre-dependant" eg. my Faded options for Luftwaffe, British, Australian, New Zealand, Free French, Japanese and USAAF/USN would be fine for Desert and/or Pacific scenarios.

Some markings such as my Luftwaffe late-war solid, non-outlined numbering would work nicely for certain aircraft types in late-war scenarious and my VVS red star options all have approximate usage ranges attached to them.

Another example could be the use of Bulgarian, Czech, Free French, Yugoslavian, Croatian, Slovakian National Uprising, Finish low visibility, Chinese or Belgian etc. as alternatives for other theatre and wartime periods.

Basically, IMO, the most appropriate markings options to "parse" to IL2-MAT Manager would be the national markings and number styles by theatre and wartime period. I have an extensive number of Luftwaffe national markings options and single-engined fighter numbering styles as well as VVS fonts and red-star styles. There's also a large number of alternative Japanese "himomaru" options with various stages of weathering, flaking and/or fading as well as clean types.

The Luftwaffe and VVS national markings options have a possible three stages of weathering, clean (game default), lightly and heavily weathered.

Other options such as emblem sizing, randomising of numbers/letters, hakenkreuze sizing and stab markings are probably best left to the user to choose directly in MAT Manager. Of course the user would always be able to over-ride the settings passed by Mission Mate or UQMG if they wished to do so.

I think the above would be really nice especially for offline campaign flyers who would have the option of composing a mission and then have a set of markings options for the year, theatre and nationalities automatically selected for them in MAT Manager.

Cheers guys

Aces

PS.

I know what you mean by the IL2-MAT Manager front end being only visible after the copy process but MAT Manager must be launched and exited at some stage for the choice of markings files to be copied. Logically, IMO, MAT Manager should be lauched as an option after UQMG or Mission Mate exits. If the user has chosen an option in your programs to enable markings options to be fed to MAT Manager. There would also need to be an option in Mission Mate and UQMG to browse for and store the location of IL2-MAT Manager (by default C:\Program Files\IL2-MAT Manager) so that the location of MAT Manager's conf.ini was know assuming that UQMG or Mission Mate couldn't locate it in it's default location.

Regarding displaying the markings, there are currently in excess of 65,000 MAT and TGA files so building an interface to preview the markings would be quite a lot of work. As for displaying the MAT Manager front-end that would be okay if Mission Mate and UQMG just ran IL2-MAT Manager. I feel the writing of settings to MAT Manager's ini file should be made before launching MAT Manager though.

What could be done perhaps is that we could grab some "sample" screenshots of markings option combinations set in the games' dogfight arming screen and use these within UQMG and Mission Mate as previews as to how a combination of MAT Manager Markings would display. Eg. I could capture and resize a small BMP / JPG of a Bf-109 showing a particular numbering style option, hakenkreuze and Balkenkreuze combination. We would need to agree on a size for this graphic and I would then re-size such images to fit into your UIs. There could of course be many possible combinations of these as I have 30 possible Luftwaffe coloured numbering styles and about 20 different Lufwaffe balkenkreuze/hakenkreuze combinations but some would be in-appropriate such as later war number styles and early-war national markings so this would reduce the permutations down a bit

[UberDemon]

Aces,

It is probably possible. UQMG though, generally stays running on the background with IL-2 running at the same time, it is accessed with Alt TAB so people can easily build a new mission in seconds, like QMB.

I am thinking of a completely different type of approach, however, which probably will take more of my time, however it is a request from some users, and a personal "want" of mine as well.

Would it be OK for me to use some of your graphical files (the only ones I would use would be the additional country markings - none of the other ones would be used.) and of course the mat text files, but those can be extracted from IL-2 itself.

I started meddling with the mat files early in the IL-2 Sturmovik beta, so I am quite familiar with how they work.

With the interface it would be just a matter of substituting graphical files for the country markings, once a mission is generated, because to use UQMG it uses a way to clear the IL-2 cached memory, when the planes are loaded, they would be able to use a new country marking... say Croatia instead of Slovakia.

Obviously I'd put a huge credit for your graphical work! But let me know if that is cool. If not, that is cool too. After all it is your work. I may convince my wife to do some graphical work for me...

D/UD

[btw when i mean substituting the files, i mean that they would be in the uqmg directory, so it does not require any work on your part. uqmg would take care of doig the substitution for the country marking... just something fun for people that want to use their country marking without necessarily using a skin...]