ArmA 3 has this new object, new as in it is not in ArmA 2, which is a wooden direction sign. Class name is Sign_Direction_F. It has 8 blank arrows pointing in one direction. The cool thing about it is that you can rotate arrows, remove arrows and add texture/writing to the arrows to make your own custom direction sign.
To remove unwanted arrows you need to animate Arrow Fide (Hide?) selection. There are 8 Fide selections: Arrow01_Fide, Arrow02_Fide, Arrow03_Fide, Arrow04_Fide, Arrow05_Fide, Arrow06_Fide, Arrow07_Fide, Arrow08_Fide. You need to set animation phase value of >= 0.5 to hide an arrow. So to remove arrows 3, 5 and 7 use the following code:
To rotate arrows there are also 8 Arrow Rotate selections: Arrow01_Rotate, Arrow02_Rotate, Arrow03_Rotate, Arrow04_Rotate, Arrow05_Rotate, Arrow06_Rotate, Arrow07_Rotate, Arrow08_Rotate. Arrows rotate clockwise (looking from the top). Animation phase 0 corresponds to 0 degrees rotation, 1 to 360 degrees. So to rotate 3rd arrow 90 degrees, 5th arrow 180 degrees and 7th arrow 270 degrees use this code:
To set up custom texture you should use setObjectTexture command. The index of the texture will correspond to the arrow you are adding it to (minus 1). 0 will correspond to the 1st (top) arrow, 7 to the 8th (bottom) arrow. The texture will be stretched along the arrow and squashed to fit its height. I’ve experimented with 512 x 64 pixel transparent .png image, which I then converted to .paa with BIS Texture Viewer. It seems to align with an arrow without any distortion.
The image texture I used sign.paa and the code:
Once you have set up individual directions you can also rotate the whole sign with setDir command, it works like a charm. The sign is also destructible, it will fall over if you shoot it. I also very much like this new approach to customising objects that BIS undertaken (the Offroad being the other one), opens up even more possibilities for modding.
Enjoy,
KK
