Tutorial: Creating and Adding Squadron Patches to your Install
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@RAM22:
I’ve even stole some of your Avatars if the texture is big enough…
Didn’t use mine. No wonder you were banned.
Dis’ a legend like Ara’, and suffer the consequences.
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I cannot figure this stuff out. I have a couple of real patches if someone would please help me with this. I am a total dummy when it comes to this stuff.
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I sent you a PM.
C9
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Dissident.
(As always)
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Long live to FREEFALCON TEAM my friend……!!!:drink:
:rofl:
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:bdance:
Long live OUR friend, Toro…!
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K so I’ve managed to add a squadron patch for the logbook using F4ResManager & now I’m trying to add a squadron with the same patch using Mission Commander… For some reason the patch won’t show up when I look at the squadron in the campaign menu… I’m not sure what I’m missing here but I know my patch is not the only one having this issue… 1st_VFW patch also doesn’t display when I choose it so I’m really wondering what I’m doing wrong… Tried RAM22’s method but when I flip the patch vertically it will also display the patch on its head within the logbook, yet still nothing in the campaign menu… Has anyone else got this to work in 4.33?
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Tried RAM22’s method but when I flip the patch vertically it will also display the patch on its head within the logbook, yet still nothing in the campaign menu… Has anyone else got this to work in 4.33?
To have the patch in your logbook you do not need to use the entry from the patches.idx.
You can simply take your patch and put it in your User>Patches folder. It does not need to be flipped vertically.
You will have issues with MC, but it’s not a MC issue, it’s the BMS patches.irc file inside the patches.idx, it is corrupt.
If you give me your stuff, i.e., the patch.tga I can get it in the files with a corrected patches.irc file so it will work for you in MC.
Once that is fixed, then you can use the patch that will be in the patches.idx to put the patch in your Logbook and in MC.
Cheers,
C9
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@Cloud:
To have the patch in your logbook you do not need to use the entry from the patches.idx.
You can simply take your patch and put it in your User>Patches folder. It does not need to be flipped vertically.Oh boy if I’d known that it would’ve saved me quite some time though it works perfectly fine too with F4ResManager…
@Cloud:
You will have issues with MC, but it’s not a MC issue, it’s the BMS patches.irc file inside the patches.idx, it is corrupt.
I noticed that by unpacking patches.idx with f4restool after using F4ResManager & yeah, a lot of entries are screwed but the one for my patch looks to be correct in patches.irc, i.e. [LOADTRANSIMAGE] mypatch “mypatch.tga” 48 48 which is correct for 96x96 pixel patch… In MC it displays correctly but just not in-game…
@Cloud:
If you give me your stuff, i.e., the patch.tga I can get it in the files with a corrected patches.irc file so it will work for you in MC.
Well let’s give it a try then
My patch in tga format : created by taking the original, rescaling, saving as tga (32-bit color I think), loading in into F4ResManager, export it back making it 16-bit, then load back in the 16-bit tga…
The original patch in png formatThanks in advance!
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Files sent!!!
C9
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Ok so, after a lot of trail & error I’ve figured out the following:
If you’re planning on adding squadron patches that show up in the squadron patch area within the campaign menu, you must keep in mind that your patch has to have an id between 70001 & 70256 in the imageids.id file. Also, very important cause this was my problem, you must put your entry ( [LOADTRANSIMAGE] YourPatch “YourPatch.tga” X X ) within the first 256 entries of patches.irc, otherwise your patch will not show up in the squadron patch area on the campaign menu, though it will still show up in your logbook! This took me a quite some time to figure out…
If any BMS devs read this, I strongly advise to change the 8-bit reference which only allows up to 256 patches, to change it to a “short int” (16-bit) effectively giving 65536 possibilities… Of course that’s a lot, but it’ll solve all issues that I’ve been having & possibly others in the future, as well as allowing more than 256 patches that can be used as squadron patch… Obviously I understand that this is a very low priority but if the day would come that the patches & everything get revised, it would be nice if you could allocate that extra byte
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Hey folks. Does anyone have any input on this issue? Followed the instructions, 96x96px, 72ppi, added via F4ResMan. Confused, can’t seem to get it going.
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Hey folks. Does anyone have any input on this issue? Followed the instructions, 96x96px, 72ppi, added via F4ResMan. Confused, can’t seem to get it going.
Your attachment is invalid, cannot see what you are describing - check out this post and edit your reply above, make sure your file is valid format accepted by this site else zip it up: https://www.benchmarksims.org/forum/showthread.php?40333-file-formats&p=552793#post552793
What are you specifically trying to do? Add Squadron Patches that can be seen in a Campaign? Or a Squadron Patch just for displaying in your Logbook Profile? Or are you trying to add a custom Pilot Picture to your Logbook Profile?
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Your attachment is invalid, cannot see what you are describing - check out this post and edit your reply above, make sure your file is valid format accepted by this site else zip it up: https://www.benchmarksims.org/forum/showthread.php?40333-file-formats&p=552793#post552793
What are you specifically trying to do? Add Squadron Patches that can be seen in a Campaign? Or a Squadron Patch just for displaying in your Logbook Profile? Or are you trying to add a custom Pilot Picture to your Logbook Profile?
Sorry about that. I just used the attach image system. Let’s try this here with a direct link to the photo: https://photos.app.goo.gl/KtXUqJhMvAu2dQFj8.
Alternatively, I’ll describe the issue. I went through and added the patch to the logbook system without a hitch. Looks perfect as 175_FS.tga. However, for the campaign version, I had some issues so I created 175TH_FS.tga. The image is there and looks correct, transparency works…however it is offset by 50% to the right and bottom (X and Y) and therefore aligns outside of the box.
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When you open your patches.idx file, in the patches.irc file that you open with Wordpad or notepad, to add 175_FS.tga needs to specify half the size of the .tga file.
So if your patch is 96x96 the following is what the entry should look like:
[LOADTRANSIMAGE] 175_FS.tga" 48 48
C9
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Even if you try to edit “patches.idx”, it cannot be edited because the character code is incorrect and it is not displayed correctly.
You are absolutely correct on the fact that the file is corrupt. It’s not the character code, it’s just all jumbled up for some reason. It can be edited if you clean it up, it works correctly.
I cleaned it up in 4.33. Why they haven’t addressed that file is beyond my comprehension? And why it’s in that condition, I can’t tell you that. But the tutorial is still correct!
C9
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Does that mean you need 4.32 “patches.idx” to edit correctly?
Pretty sure is was messed up then also. But I edited it and sorted it out. I have a copy, but I think BMS added more patches since then? Haven’t checked in quite some time.
I’ll take a look and let you know!
C9