Cockpits and Mats questions

[TanGO]

Hi, I have learned all the references to cockpits implementations from the tutorial.
I have some questions about that...

A single: I take the cockpit definition of the desvastator (this is a example), I do changes on it, singles changes how radar position in RADA chunk but the game don't is takeing those changes..., I'd put the new desvastat.iff on \cockpits of course, but the game don't read that.
I forgot something?

A more complex:
I do changes in Mat 953, that read the direct3D "SOFT" chunk in my test (they invert the soft/hard! ), well, the only changes reflected is the afterburned/gun energy and the decoys images, all others images remains the same of the default SO game (I change all images in my 953 mat of course), tutorial say that some images are built-in EXE file (obviouslly this is happen):
....
.... "This means that if you wish to replace the graphics for these components, you need to change the image references so that the game reads data from a MAT file which does not have a hardcoded copy"
....
....
The question is how I can do that?

Thanks

 

[Eder]

I'm not sure about your simple question, so I'll just answer the complex one

Some of the stuff that's in mat # 953 is hardcoded, so even if you edit the whole mat, only certain parts will show up... to use a non-hardcoded mat, replace all cases of "953" you find in the cockpit iff file with some weird number (I used 99990000 onwards in Standoff's case, I think). Now just rename your mat # 953 to 99990000 or whatever, and it should work - the game will look for a hardcoded copy of that file, but it won't find it, so it will use the version in \mat instead.

Oh, and as you said, you gotta replace the mat references (953 for 99990000 in this example) in the cockpit file only in the SOFT chunks... changes to the HARD chunks aren't necessary unless you want to play in software mode.

 

[TanGO]

Thanks Eder, That's I was testing, but you now if I can not solve the single question, I couldn't test it!

Somebody have any idea on why the only copy of a file cockpit in \cockpit folder don't work?

Thanks

 

[Quarto]

I'm not sure... it should work. If you're using multiple copies of SO, are you sure you put it in the right place? I wish I could offer more ideas, but that's the only possibility I can think of right now.

 

[Eder]

The only other thing I can think of is... make sure WCPPas is compiling to the right place. Since it's a iff, and not a mission source, it might compile the file to WCPPas's folder, so make sure the file you're modifying is the one that is in \cockpit.

Also, are you sure the game's not reading the file? Try some more dramatic changes, or things that you know will crash the game If nothing happens, then you'll be sure that the game isn't using the modified file at all.