Solved Patches and Pilot pictures
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I’m trying to look for these pictures so as to view them via MS Photos to choose one but can’t seem to find them in the BMS directory. Any help?
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@Atlas
Hello Atlas.It is very easy to add a new pilot picture or patch that shows up just in the Logbook. There is a Tutorial in the BMS User Manual : Chapter “9.7.4 Pilot Pictures & Squadron Patch” that shows how to do this.
It’s a bit harder to change patches and pictures that show up in the Logbook AND in the Squadrons Info in Campaigns and TEs. But it can be done. See below.
The pictures are embedded (packed) in resource files located in the …\data\Art\resource folder (for example, patches.rsc or pilots.rsc). Each theater can have its own Art folder as well (…\data\Add-On YourTheater\Art), so different theaters can have different artwork, including patches and pictures. In order to unpack and view the pictures, you’ll need a tool: f4ResTool.exe.
Put it into the \resource folder of your choosing, and double-click on the f4ResTool.exe file to open it. CAUTION: When f4ResTool first opens, it defaults to your FALCON4 (original game) folder - you MUST change this to the folder where you are working - if you don’t, you could mess up your ORIGINAL Falcon4 (not BMS, the real Falcon4) folder and you do not want to do that!
Using F4ResTool, unpack the .rsc file you’d like to see to the local folder you are working in. The tool will unpack the pictures (they are all .tga files, 16 bit, no RLE compression, and vertically flipped, with pure magenta backgrounds for transparency), and an internally packed .irc file (text-readable) which is a file that tells Falcon what is packed within the .rsc file. There’s also an .idx file for each type in the resource folder, which is a non-readable index file for the resource file.
It’s a bit of black magic to be able to replace patches and pictures but it can be done. Here is a tutorial I wrote: “Tutorial: Creating and Adding Squadron Patches To Your Install” that tells you how to do that. Pilot pictures are a bit harder to do - I have only been able to replace those by overwriting an existing pilot picture file with my own picture - I haven’t yet found how to add additional pictures to the pilots.rsc.irc.idx files and get them to show up in squadrons in TEs or campaigns.
PLEASE make sure you back up your original files before messing with these!
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Tomcattwo
(VoiceClone) -
@Tomcattwo Thanks for that info! I’ll be copying those files to a different location and working from there just to be safe!
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@Atlas
I just updated my post above. It’s easy to put new patches and pictures that show up just in the logbook. See BMS User Manual Chapter “9.7.4 Pilot Pictures & Squadron Patch” that shows how to do this.Regards,
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@Tomcattwo I’m trying to download that .exe file but it says site can’t be reached?
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@Tomcattwo Got it, thanks!
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