The problem:Many missions and Campaigns one downloads requires enormous skinpacks to play. And even if you do not download these skinpacks, and the game uses the default skins, still, markings have been switched off for many planes that should have had custom skins, and you end up in a sky full of unmarked planes.
With the revision of all the markings in the game in Modact3, and with the expantion of the FBDSM default skinmod, there is less and less reason to not use default skins and markings. In many cases now, the default markings look more authentic than many marked skins! And newer default skins routinely beat the pants off a lot of older custom skins that come with especially older mission and campaign packs.
So, it is possible to open every mission file, and to delete all the entries for custom skins and markings off. But what I you have thousands of missions to do like that? What if you just started such a campaign, and you want to edit that whole campaign quickly, before you get disgusted and loose interest?
Here is how!
The Solution:Step1: Download the freeware app called TextCrawler here
http://www.digitalvolcano.co.uk/content/index.phpit is free and it is safe. Download it and install it, and then move on to step 2. TextCrawler is one of my top 10 modding tools by the way. It can be extremely powerfull if you can push it.
It is currently only supported up to Windows XP, but I am sure you can find a way to make it work with newer systems, in compatibility mode or whatever.
Step 2:You have installed TextCrawler, and now you have launched it. Before going further, best to make a safety copy of your whole
Missions folder in you IL2 install.
Now, you have to point TextCrawler at the mission, or missions, or campaign, you want to edit. Since the purpose of this tutorial is to edit multiple files at once, I am going to edit the entire Missions Folder at once. But you can point it at any specific folder in Net,Campaigns, Quick , or Single that you want.
So, at the top of the TextCrawler gui, I am going to select "Input Folder", and to the right of "Start Location", I am going to hit the browse buttons and browse to my game and select the missions folder.
Then, I am going to look at the "file filter" setting (right below "Input Folder" tab). I am going to write there:
*.mis
, instead of whatever was in there ( probably *.txt or something)
And lastly, I am going to select "Scan Subfolders", if it is not selected already.
Now we are ready to move on.
Step 3:Moving on to the section below where you cose your target folder.
This section has tabs at the top, "Standard" Regular Exression" :Fuzzy Search" ect...
Select "Regular Exression"
A space will be there where you can enter your Regular Expression, called "Reg Ex:"
also on the right side are little selection boxes, make sure "Case Sensitive" is not selected, "MultiLine Anchors" is selected, and "Dot Matches Newline" is not selected.
Now, first, we will get rid of the custom skins. Enter the following into the RegEx window:
^.*Skin[0-4].*$
Leave the "Replace" window Blank
And Hit "Find"
wait for TextCrawler to finish finding all the lines in all the files that starts with "skin0" to "skin4"
Now, hit the "Replace" button. It will scan them again, and ask you if yo want to Replace x amount of lines founs in y amount of Files. Say "Yes"
TextCrawler will now carry out the operation. When it is finished, hit "OK".
Step 4:Now it is time to make all planes have their Markings "On". Go back to the RegEx window, remove the previous entry, and enter
^.*numberOn[0-4].*$
This will find all the entries regarding markings. When it has finished finding them, again hit "Replace" and confirm untill it is done.
And that is that! If you want to also delete all entries for Pilot Skins, carry on to step 5.
Step 5 : (Optional) If you want to also delete all entries for Pilot Skins, Same as step 4. Only, enter
^.*pilot[0-4].*$
Repeat needed steps.
TIP: If you want to also disable the use of the horrible horrible horrible noseart stickers in stock IL2, do the same, but your RegEx will then be:
^.*noseart[0-4].*$
Extra:Using TextCrawler, you can also quickly edit planes out of a campaign that you may not have. There are some pretty obscure mods out there!
BUT BEWARE: You will also have to change the loadouts for this plane if the plane you replace it with does not have the same loadouts!! this can make it very tricky. You are on your own there. I tend to avoid this. If a campaign uses modded planes I dont have in UP3, i tend to send it on it's merry way to the Recycle Bin...
Point TxtCrawler at that folder, Find the offending plane's entry in one of the mis files. Say it is
Class air.P_51sittingduck
Select the "Standard" Tab for TextCrawler, and paste in
Class air.P_51sittingduck
, and hit find
Then figure out which plane from your air.ini you want to replace it with. Say for example, air.P_38J
Just select "stadard Replace" in TextCrawler, and past into the replace window
Class air.P_38J
And hit replace.
There it is, hope this helps someone out there! Remember some campaign builders actualy have nice skins for some missions. The methods I describe above are pretty sledge-hammer-ish, so take care.
Cheers
CirX
Author
Topic: Editing all Missions and Campaigns at once for default Skins and Markings (Read 5219 times)
