I'm a professional modeler/texturer/animator...

[davidsirmons]

...and have researched at length what's involved in creating and incorporating new models/units with unique functionalities. I'd like to create my own race as I did for Homeworld2 ( it was a "Unicron" faction - yes, Unicron, as in Transformers) which was able to build unique units I'd created. Now, for SupComFA, I'd like to create a new race which is based on living energy, with units looking like the following:

commander:
http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/xSnYjnNvLLw/maxresdefault.jpg

random units:
http://staticmass.net/wp-content/upload ... s_head.jpg
http://www.artofvfx.com/TDH/TDH_DMITRY_ART_06.jpg

power production units:
http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18dbmt1 ... iginal.jpg

I've worked on published games, and was obsessed over TA years back. There was no way I ever found to get new units into that game, so I gave up the idea. Now, with SupComFA, the ability is at least minimally there, though the process as I've studied it is so unapproachable and obtuse it's literally forbidding. And that pisses me off. Has anyone had the amazing idea to create a user-friendly front end for unit setup and scripting? Line editing of text files is cumbersome and unbelievably frustrating. I can't imagine that after so many years and such devoted following as SupCom has received, that no-one has pursued such things. It was the creation of such a utility that finally allowed me to get models into HW2. If anyone has info on such a utility, please let me know.

[Retnut]

The problem you're running into is not unexpected: games are written by software developers and software developers don't need front end GUIs for scripting. That said, SC isn't hard to mod. The unapproachable stuff you're battling right now is mostly boilerplate -- learning to distinguish between the boilerplate and the stuff you need to work with is half the battle.

As far as available front ends, the only one I'm aware of is ZeP's unit blueprint editor. It's an editor and not a full-fledged unit creation wizard so don't expect miracles.

If you're serious about this, you will either need to learn how to mod FA or find someone to implement your ambitions for you. The former is something you can get done in a weekend while the latter will be no small feat unless you can demonstrate your ability to bring something to the table above and beyond the Nomads project (which you should definitely check out; they've implemented an entirely new faction, balanced it, and integrated it into FAF).

If you want to learn, or see what's involved in learning, this will be an invaluable resource: http://forums.gaspowered.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2318
To get started with a hands-on, by example tutorial: http://www.hyperimpact.net/downloads/Su ... torial.zip (direct link to download; it contains .doc and .rtf versions of the tutorial text/images as well as source code).

The old GPG forums aren't as active as they used to be, but they are a good archival resource and there are some folks fielding questions in their modding forums that don't post here on the FAF forums. General mod discussion, mod development support. SC2 stuff gets posted in the same place so be sure not to get mixed up.

[johnie102]

Could you post a link to your Homeworld faction? I would like to see what it looks like.
One of the creators of the BlackOps unit-pack OrangeKnight is currently very active on the Planetary Annihilation forums. Perhaps you can send him a PM there asking some general tips on how to mod units into the game in SupCom.

[davidsirmons]

Thanks for the info.

Johnie102, I don't have anything posted online, but have collected a bunch of screencaps if you'd like to see the things I've made for the Unicron race in HW2. I can send them via email or some other method if you wish.

[Ze_PilOt]

http://forums.gaspowered.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=18456