furrycat's SWAT3 guides

Don_T_Shoot once called me SWAT3's "pure research scientist." It's true that I have investigated many different facets of the game engine, usually for no better reason than that I can.

I will present the results of my findings here, in vaguely chronological order. The documents most recently updated appear near the top. I hope you find them useful.

Reskinning with GSkinViewer
A brief guide to using the GSkinViewer program for reskinning.

Uniform HOWTO
The uniform guide is intended to read more like a tutorial than the document over at [furryclan] HQ. Follow it from start to finish and you will have a skin mod. It may not be the best but making it should give you the knowledge you need to make your own mods from scratch. There's also a more advanced guide for you to check out when you've mastered the basics.

Battlecom notes
I don't use BC any longer but this page is still here with firewall rules for Battlecom sessions and instructions on configuring Battlecom as an NT service which unprivileged users can control.

UV maps with gsmhacking
Simplify your skinning by using gsmhacking to overlay UV maps on your textures.

gsmhacking
Now with Milkshape 3D and UV mapping support.

Making SWAT3 maps with 3D Studio MAX 2.5
A mini tutorial explaining how to use 3D Studio to create SWAT3 world geometry (and even place entities if you're feeling masochistic) using 3D Studio MAX. There is a 95% chance you'll find this useless.

Making SWAT3 weapons with Milkshape
A tutorial designed to explain how to use gsmhacking to convert weapon models made in Milkshape 3D.

Character expressions
See Martin grimace! See Martin scream! See Martin cry! Then understand why.

Why doesn't my mod work?
If that's the question you're asking yourself, check out this guide.

3D Studio MAX weapon modding
Step-by-step beginners' guide to exporting a weapon for SWAT3.

Modding best practices
Some guidelines for making mods that won't cause conflicts with other mods or cause players to get mad at you.

Character conversion guide
How to use gsmhacking to convert suspects to SWAT etc.

GSM file format
Reverse engineering the GSkinMesh file format.

Advanced uniform tricks
All about CAMOs, VISORs and other obscure things.

Command line flags
All the weird and wonderful flags you can pass to swat.exe when starting the game.

GSM flashlight hacking
How to add flashlights to weapons when the GSM is lacking that vital FLASHLIGHT material. This section has been updated to reflect gsmhacking 3's ability to do everything for you...

Console commands
Fun on the SWAT3 console.

Advanced chat HOWTO
This guide, whose title is a misnomer, goes part way to explaining how to modify the element leader's command menu and is the basis on which the modified menu mod is built. The guide is unfinished.

Custom chat HOWTO
This guide explains how to modify your multiplayer custom chat. It tells you where to find cool sounds from SWAT3 (as opposed to creating your own, which requires making a mod) and how to use them in the game.

Feedback

Send any comments to swat3@furrycat.net.