I’ve been working on a ‘personal’ project for a recent change of pace. A personalized skin for SWAT 4, the proper name of it would be ‘[SAS]_Spidey01’ but there’s not a lot of room visible in the loadout menu, maybe 9-11 char at the most.
The first prototype is based on the United States Navy’s Working Uniform, the armour is currently a hybrid of the light armour vest from my teams ‘SAS Black’ skin, Miles made that armour vest and it is one hell of a great design! I’ve incorporated elements of the no armour vest, which is basically the games rendition of an Omega Elite Tactical Vest from Blackhawk. So the vest design actually combines two of my favorite kits lol. I’ll probably use it for both my skins light and no armour setups; a few modifications perhaps, depending on how the game lays out the ‘pouches’ and crap. One sad thing, the game auto-places pouches and gear on top of the skin, wrecking some potentionally good designs :. So I’ve kept the rear of the hybrid vest fairly plane; my name and a subdued but tell tail marker visible in the stack.
The BDU kit is a mixture of the new NWU the navy is working on, but with a little bit of my own ‘flare’ added to it, to help it blend into the games darker setting more readily. I used a sampling of the digital pattern to help get it right, but to be honest, I would prefer the woodland pattern… Let’s just say, when I was growing up — U.S. troops often wore a woodland camo; or a chocolate chip style desert camo, that I would describe as “I really hope the other side has CHS disorder”, b/c it looks more like a bullseye then a camo in my opinion :. In the US, the camouflage used by our troops has at least been moving in more realistic directions, this ain’t 1955 after all… If you’re going to use camouflage, odds are ya don’t want to stick out.
Any ways, back to topic lol. The skin pack I made for [SAS] was fairly simple yet made to be distinctive — when you see an [SAS] Member walking around in the SAS skins, ya gonna be happy your not a tango.
Vyro created a fairly simple black skin for us based on the Taiwan SWAT skin many of us had officially adapted, this is what I refer to as “Version 1”. Later on I made a few adjustments with Miles and referred to it as “Version 2”. The current edition, was a package with full installer. Containing the black, sabre, trainer, camo, and desert kits. SAS Black being a very distinctive yet attractive design, yet unrealistic in the sense that there is a huge winged dagger on the back of the vest, and “Special Air Service” written underneaths the members team glow-bar. Thats what I consider “Version 3”, I lent direction to the project and Miles worked some magic to make it great. The SAS Sabre included in the package was however a more realistic skin, very lightly adorned and a fairly drab shade of gray. I greatly desired a skin that resembled one of the old Sabre skins from SAS Realism Mod (from SWAT 3). It would’ve been impossible without Miles help, thanks to him, the goal was successful :-). The other skins, I mostly made myself but used the same vests for. SAS Camo, which I created the BDU from a sample of British camouflage and then specially crafted the hood to go with it, it’s my favorite BDU ;-),. The other one was designed in memory of one of our Live Ops, in which Lazko and I were the last members standing, injured from the tips of our pawns hair down to the toes, and barely a left bullet between us. It was just like the SAS Camo skin, a “second prototype” in camouflage BDU; but made with a British desert pattern.
Not included (beyond the textures) in the package were SAS Blue, Green, and Tigerstripe. The SAS Blue, we never could get right… either it would end up to bright a blue (resembling the GIGN skin) or become more maroon, so I chucked it. The SAS Green was chucked, because no matter what I did to it, I still felt it to much of an IFF liability (suspects use old-green, 3~4 colour urban camo, and blue-urban camo uniforms, but OG often enough for SAS Green to be mistaken for an enemy!), so it was chucked. The tigerstripe, I had created because the Vietnam war era pattern is one of my favorites. But ironically, the skin suffered both from a poor distribution of the camo and offered too bright a colour profile to be realistic :-(. So arguably, my first camo-prototype skin in SWAT 4 was a daister, while the second camo-prototypes hit release quality.
The BDU texture I’ve created based on the NWU, I hope will be both my third camo prototype, fourth camo skin, and second successful…..
Two things i need to figure out: arm patches and headgear. The SAS skins basically have the British Union Jack on the arm and occasionally (e.g. SAS Black) the SAS insignia on its arm. But, since this is my skin, it makes little sense to continue that path, because I’m not British. Rather then trying to create a US flag patch with suitably subdueded colors, I’m considering something a bit different both in the modern and classical sense.
For the hood, I’m undecided +S. I could make a balaclava to match the NWU, a blue one (not a colour I’ve actually had luck with), or even use the black/gray ones from the other skins. I’ve thought of modifying the SAS Trainer skin to have more of a beard; but realistically, one would want to keep their face hidden behind a flame retardant hood. I’ll probably make tests with the faces from Trainer, Black, Camo, and Sabre, and see if making one to match the BDUs camo is worth the effort. Makign the hood for SAS Camo took a long time to get it “just right”.
*CHS disorder – Can’t Hit Shit disorder.
