TE Skin Question - How Does a TE .skn File Work?
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Hello All,
I read in Mission Commander about the priority order F4 BMS uses to assign a skin to an acft in a TE. The highest priority goes to a TE that has with it a “.skn” file with the same name as the TE (e.g. : MyTE.skn to go with MyTE.tac etc). If that is so, I’d like to use this method to always assign a specific skin to my F16s in some TEs I am creating, by making a .skn file for each TE with the appropriate data.I saw only a few TEs in the original Korea Theater that have or use a .skn file. Here is one example from the …\Data\Campaign folder “TE_BMS_12_C-Plan2_Transfer.skn”:
1 1 1978 1 1 7 3
From looking at all the .skn files (~6) that were there in the …\data\campaign folder, I deduced that the number on the first line of the file (“1” in this case) is the number of items listed in lines 2 through (however many lines you add to the file). What I can’t deduce is the meaning of the numbers on each line. In this example, it shows:
1 1978 1 1 7 3
Each line shows the same format, using space for a delimiter: a “1”, followed by a 4 digit number (the Model number perhaps?) then 4 following numbers (in one case it was 0 -1 -1 -1 for instance).
- Does anyone know what these stand for and what action they cause in F4 BMS?
- Anyone know a tool to produce a .skn file or are they just created manually?
Thanks in advance to any BMS gurus or skin gurus that might give a quick explanation of the .skn file format.
Regards,
TC2P.S. I have searched this forum extensively, and the interwebz and have yet to find any reference to Falcon 4 BMS .skn files.
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May be a dumb question, but are you familiar with the “camo” file?
If not, there are some answers that camo file can control skin set by type, country, and sqdn no.
More info available if I’m not barking up the wrong tree. -
Thanks @eddropper. Yes I am. According to what I read on Mission Commander, first priority is a .skn file, 2nd is the camo.cfg file. Third is whatever was set when the scenario was generated (if, for instance, the squadron doesn’t have a skin defined in the camo.cfg file). A few squadrons are hard-coded for a specific default skin.
If the .skn file has a higher priority than the camo.dat file squadron skin setting, then that would allow me to make some “scenario-specific” skin settings that may differ slightly from the camo.cfg file’s squadron defined “default” skin.
Appreciate the info and for stimulating the discussion.
R/,
TC2 -
Okay. I think a vid of function is in order. I’m not sure about what you are mentioning. You may either know better than I do about skin sets, or may be still a bit confused. In a minute or so, I will give some example of what I mean. There is some easy edits in Mission commander that control skin sets. Hold on a sec.
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@eddropper, Thanks! Great video (worth linking) to help understand how the camo.cfg file works and how to use Mission Commander to change skins. Thanks to your info, I was able to work out what I needed to do using camo.cfg and will not have to resort to using .skn files. That will save some time and effort.
Of note to all, when using Mission Commander, I found that MC displayed skins from the …\Terrdata\Objects\KoreaObj folder, and NOT the …\Terrdata\Objects\KoreaObj_HiRes folder. I am not aware if there is a setting for MC to force it to use HiRes textures or not, or if so, where that is or how to change it (@Falcas?) So if the .dds files in your two folders differ, and you use HiRes object .dds files in your Falcon 4 BMS setup, what you see as skinsets in Mission Commander may not match what you see for skins in the game (pun intended) if the skinsets differ between these two folders.
Regards,
Tomcattwo