Tutorial: Creating and Adding Squadron Patches to your Install
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ATTENTION: This Tutorial was copy and pasted verbatim from the GF website. I will Update it as I have time today. EDIT: Updating Done
BMS issue: At this time, you cannot place your patch directly into your Falcon BMS 4.32\User\Patches OR \Falcon BMS 4.32\Data\Art\patches folders and display them in your Logbook as per this tutorial, Coding needs to be done to link the User\patches folder to read the artwork to display it in your logbook. The tutorial was written as to how the other Falcon versions worked at the time.
So, the only workaround is to add them into the patches.idx and reference them with the image.ids file which this tutorial covers.
I personally like to make patches out of cloth artwork, they look more authentic then regular painted patches plus their a lot more nostalgic. Of course sometimes you can only get painted artwork.
Basically I Pilfer any patch that I like from the net, I’ve even stole some of your Avatars if the texture is big enough. :happclap:
The artwork MUST exceed 96 x 96 pixels.
Okay, I picked a patch I have that I want to add, it’s is the VFMA-333 patch, its a USMC patch for the F4J USMC, I open it in Irfanview to look at the size and it is 216 x 221.
Rename the file to VFMA333, you want to have the name of the patch in ALL CAPS, avoid using characters other than number/letter. It makes things easier.
Open the file in Photoshop, in this case I’m using PS7. Once the patch is open you want to resize the patch as close to 96 x 96 as possible. Select Image>Image Size and the box to resize will open. The size is Width 216 Height 221, make sure the box “Constraint Proportions” is selected. Change the value that is the largest to 96, in this case it is the Height.
Original:
Changing size variables:
After size change, the art has now shrunk:
Zoom in on the artwork so you can see it better, select Image>Rotate Canvas>Flip Canvas Vertical, like so:
TIP: It is best to have the art resized to it’s final size and flipped vertically at this point so that when you do the cleanup work you don’t have bleed over. What I mean is when you Zoom in and out of the original art that is not at it’s final size that will cause the art to bleed outward in Photoshop.
At this point, if this was a truly circular piece of artwork you could use the Eliptical Marquee and encircle the art and copy it for further processing. But it is not totally circular so we will have to just deal with the entire square piece of art.
Now do a Select>All then Edit>Copy:
Now we’re ready to do the real work. :happclap:
Select File>New, when the box appears name it as above, VFMA333 so that it has it’s final name and we don’t have to futz with that any longer. Some PS versions will adopt the size when you do a File>New if you have a piece of art on your clipboard. Some versions don’t so make sure the size is correct, Width 94, Height 96. At the bottom make sure Transparent is selected:
Once you click OK the new canvas will appear, it will be checkerboard, zoom in and the do a Edit>Paste:
You can get rid of the other art file that we worked with previously.
Now we need to make the outside black border area around the patch transparent. Select the Pencil tool, not the brush. The brush works just like a real paint brush and does not cover each pixel completely so you have to click repeatedly to cover each pixel. The pencil is solid and will fill the pixels with just one click most of the time. Select the 9px point to cover a good amount of area to begin with:
To remove the outside black border area around the patch and make it transparent you select form your Swatches “RGB Magenta”, it’s in the top row, the 6th box from the left(Pink, for Mower, lol)
Fill in the outside black area with the pencil, here it is almost finished:
Now select the 1px size pencil to finish up:
You will find that you can be very meticulous as much as you like to make it extremely clean or not. Also you will see that no cloth patch artwork is ever completely even side to side or top to bottom, they are all irregular.
Alright, I feel I’ve done a good, mostly quick job so I will settle for that, I will look in game once I have it there and decide if I want to clean it up any more:
I usually zoom out to the original size, then do a File>Save, make sure it is in .TGA(targa) format:
When you click on Save a box will appear, check 16 bits/pixel and click OK. Try to remember where you saved it!!!
Alright, THE BEST PART, we need to put it into Falcon.
The tool you use is Resource Editor(old outdated) or Khroniks new F4ResTool, I currently use Resource Manager, so those of you who want to accomplish this will need to get and learn how to use F4ResTool below.
Link for Khroniks F4ResTool: http://www.mediafire.com/?0nbhj9cg2455mfg
Navigate to your install to the “X”:\Falcon BMS 4.32\Data\Art\resource and open/unpack the patches.idx file, once open this is what is contained in it or similar, of course this is a patches.idx from FF. Copy and paste your art file VFMA333.tga into the file, then open the patches.irc, it’s opens with Notepad or Word Pad.
Go down to the bottom of the list and copy the entry [LOADTRANSIMAGE] and paste below the last entry.
Space over once and enter the name of the art, VFM333, then a space and in quotes enter “VFMA333.tga” after that is the size of the art divided by 2 and rounded up. So 94 x 96 divide by 2 equals 47 and 48, enter that with a space as shown:
Once the text line is in the patches.irc don’t forget to do a File>Save.
Save/Pack the patches.idx file.
In the “X”:\Falcon BMS 4.32\Data\Art\patches folder, open the imageids.id file in Word Pad or Notepad. At the bottom after the last entry add the name of the patch, VFMA333(all caps), tab/space over under the number row and add the next number in the sequence, one up from the previous patch number which will be for our patch “70099”
Don’t forget to do a File>Save of the imageids.id file.
The patch is now in your Falcon install.
At this point you can go into Falcon and access the patch in your Logbook by clicking on the patch there in the upper right hand corner and scrolling down the pop up list and selecting it and clicking on Load:
Adding a patch to a Squadron with TacEdit to display on Campaign Selection screen
ATTENTION: At this time there is a limit on the number of patches that can be contained in the BMS patches>imageids file. I have to take another look at it and post the max amount. This only applies to being able to assign the patch to a squadron, not the actual displaying of the patch in your Logbook.
Open up the .cam file you want to use and go to the Units page. Select the aircraft you want to add it to by double clicking on it so it’s Squadron box appears. On the Squadron Page in the Squadron Patch box enter the last two digits of the number -1 of the patch that you entered in the imageids.id file. In this case it was “70099” so we take “99 - 1 = 98”. Enter “98”.
Do the normal TacEdit Save and you can now go look at in the Campaign Select Squadron Selection page. In TacEdit I added it to an F4ESK Squadron at Seoul and I renamed it 333:
Feel free to either post questions, especially if you find something I may have missed. Or you can PM me.
EDIT1: If you just want to make a patch to display in your Logbook only, not for entering it in Campaign via TacEdit, follow the beginning steps to create the .tga(targa) file, BUT DO NOT FLIP IT VERTICALLY, SKIP THAT STEP.
Place the finished, in this case VFMA333.tga file into your “X”:\Falcon BMS 4.32\Data\Art\patches(not the art>resource folder). You don’t have to add it to the imagesids.id file list either.
It will appear in the pop up box in your Logbook by simply calling the name of the patch file in the patches folder and you can select/load and display it in your Logbook.
EDIT2: This tutorial is how you would also add a Pilot pic except you would be dealing with the Pilots.idx in the “X”:\Falcon BMS 4.32\Data\Art>resource folder and the imageids.id file in the “X”:\Falcon BMS 4.32\Data\Art>resourse>pilots folder. The 96 x 96 dimensions apply to these also.
RAM22
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Big thanks, Ram!
I’ve had some fruitless attempts at adding a squadron patch in the past. So I’m gonna give this one another try tonight!
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Sure, if you run into issues let me know.;)
I already updated the file paths to match BMS. Don’t think I missed any, I hope, lol.
RAM22
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Great tutorial RAM. Thanks a lot.
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Thanks a lot RAM for the tutorial, it seems quite understandable. I will give it a try this weekend, if i find a little time.
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I made the tutorial, and it works, but with some small clarifications:
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When you unpack the “patched.idx” or “pilots.idx”, you have to check the “Explore after unpack” checkmark of f4Restool.
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You have to open the “patches.irc” or the “pilots.irc” files that are present on the new windows explorer window that f4restool will open when it unpack the .idx file. The first time i tried opening the .irc files that were on the “C:\Falcon BMS 4.32\Data\Art\resource” folder, and those files are empty.
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I made this just for the pilot logbook, and still i did have to flip the images vertically, both pilot and patch images, otherwise they would be flipped inside the sim on the logbook.
Again, thanks RAM for the tutorial. :bowd:
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1 & 2 - F4Restool was released after my tutorial was written,
3 - The not having to flip the images refers ONLY to being able to put a patch into the patch folder of a Falcon root install. BMS does not have this ability at this time and I noted it in the second paragragh: BMS Issue, also is noted at the end of the tutorial under EDIT1.
Thanks and glad you were successful.
RAM22
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Thanks Ram22,
excellent guidance. Would never have managed without. -
Thanks Ram22,
excellent guidance. Would never have managed without.COOL and you’re Welcome,
Take Care,
RAM22
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FYI,
there is a bug in all BMS versions up to and including 4.32 U2, the number of patches/pictures in the logbook is hardcoded with a much too small limit. Hence sometimes pictures will not show up, even if they are created correctly, the internal picture list will just randomly replace pictures which have already been loaded.
The upcoming U3 update will fix this bug.
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Upcoming? Eta? :drink:
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3 to 4 weeks :mrgreen:
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Hi,
I would like to change the name and the patch of an existing squadron in the KTO campaign to add those of my squadron, just like RAM22 showed in the tutorial. The thing is that I can’t do it with Tacedit because it doesn’t show the units at all. By using Mission Commander, I was able to change the name and the patch and then I saved the file (save0.cam). But when I start the campaign, it’s still the old squadron.
Do you know how this can be done? Thank you
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sorry but i did a bad manipulation…
can anybody upload for me the original files of :- imageids.id
- patches.idx
- patches.rsc
- patches.irc
thank you very much
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InkBlue, if you open the link in my sig below, I’ve put them in a file OrigPatchFiles.zip
Not sure version matters but these are from my Update 4 install.
You’ll just have to put them in the two original directories.
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thank you very much
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Excellent guide ram22 … good
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FYI,
there is a bug in all BMS versions up to and including 4.32 U2, the number of patches/pictures in the logbook is hardcoded with a much too small limit. Hence sometimes pictures will not show up, even if they are created correctly, the internal picture list will just randomly replace pictures which have already been loaded.
The upcoming U3 update will fix this bug.
I’m still running into this problem with U4.
For example, I’ve tried setting patch ID 97 and end up with absolutely no picture. Same thing with 103. Below 58 appears to be working just fine though.
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Can someone send me the original “patches.irc” file? I think the one Thommo posted in his thread isn’t correct. It looks nothing like the one Ram22 has in his pic.
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So nobody has this file? I messed up by not copying the original like I should have.
I guess I will have to do a full install again.