So, one nice thing about SWAT 4 and the Stetchkov Syndicate expansion is that they allow the user to make his or her own custom levels. I've been experimenting a bit with this lately and with a fair amount of ease I made a little scenario based on a scene in the beginning of the Sudden Impact Dirty Harry movie.

The scene is a pretty cute one. Dirty Harry stops by a diner on the way to the police office in the morning to get his daily cup of black coffee to go. Before he arrived, a gang had actually stormed the diner in order to rob it, and they threatened everyone into keeping quiet while Dirty Harry is getting his coffee. Dirty Harry's reading the newspaper and not paying attention to his surroundings so he doesn't notice and leaves with his coffee, but the coffee shop worker put a huge amount of sugar in Dirty Harry's coffee, which caused him to come back to complain and see the robbers back at shaking everyone down. So he walks in the back door at that point and blows all the bad guys away with his .44 magnum revolver, and then we have a little bit of fun where he quizzes the last ganger into surrendering on the subject of whether or not there's a round in his chamber.

The built-in customization is easy to do, but also very limited. Basically it lets you use the maps already in the game and adjust the parameters, such as number of NPCs, their morale level and equipment, the mission objectives, a time limit, and so forth. It basically lets you do everything that is easy to automate. However, it does NOT let you place the NPCs, add or remove things from the level, specify player equipment, and so on.

So for my experimental learning experience, I used the Food Wall Restaurant map, put in 10-15 civilians, and 7-17 gang members with random pistols, and set the objectives to Bring Order To Chaos and ensuring that no harm is done to the civilians. I removed Rescue All Civilians so that it's possible to run through the level and shoot the bad guys like Dirty Harry but not take the time to go and cuff all the civilians as well, which wouldn't be in keeping with the scene from the movie. Since there's no way to set player equipment I just added a description along the lines of, "For the full Dirty Harry experience use only the magnum revolver" instead of flashbangs, CS gas, tasers, and so forth.

Now, it seems like a very fun, and safely modest mapping project could be making a small diner like the one in Sudden Impact, have the player spawn at the back door, and have the player spawn with only the Colt Python and no armor. The level would just be a quick shootout with a few enemies with a Low skill setting and the challenge would be making sure that none of the civilians are caught in the crossfire.

Does anyone know if it would be possible to map/mod up such a specific scenario for SWAT 4? If so, what software would I need?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9LaUP5au9U

I found the scene. Watch it. It's fun.

I don't think anyone here but you plays SWAT4. I know you can do it in R6:Raven Shield with the built-in editor.

I don't have SWAT4, I just have SWAT3. It's possible to do it in SWAT 3, though, and probably also in SWAT 4.
Your best bet is to look for some SWAT modding community, I'm sure there's one somewhere.

Turns out that the actual SWAT 4 sites are even more dead. :/ I don't know what gives, there are some good mods out and nice maps.

I'm trying to learn about skinning now. I downloaded GIMP but I also have to learn to use it well.

My goal is to change the "no armor vest", head, and pants skins to look like Lone Wolf McQuade. So right now I'm trying to make the tac vest in "no armor vest" look like McQuade's green sleeves-ripped-off Vietnam vet vest. (You can see it in the first 50 seconds here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azzRisbdXx8 )

I'm basically trying to blend dark olive looking colors and using the Fill Area tool but of course it's not easy to make it look good. I'm still not sure if I really have a good way to re-draw the vest so it looks less like a tac vest and more like an old Vietnam vest. I'm also not sure how I'd be able to have the little "McQuade" nametag be there, or if I'd be able to convincingly draw or somehow add the Texas Ranger star.

Does anyone here know anything about graphics, or GIMP? Realistically speaking would I be able to accomplish these things just using a mouse and my non-existant artistic skill?

I can try to help you, but it's kind of hard to do it on a forum.
First something very important to know is that whole areas with a single color don't look good. There should be some variations in lightning, which'll give the image some kind of "texture". Take a look at the original skins to understand how they look.

Maybe a good way to start would be to change the color of the skins. Load up the skin in GIMP then choose the paint tool and switch the mode to "hard light", "soft light" or "color" depending on the original color and the color you want to get. Choose the new color then paint over the parts you want to change. You should get something that keeps the original "texture" of the skin, but with your new color.

I think I understand what you're saying. I was fooling around with trying to change colors last night. I believe that the Unreal Engine automatically does shading but I am not sure at this stage how this would impact final appearance.

I wonder if it's possible to extract the skins from the CF: DA mod. They have got one skin for Coast Guard of a fellow wearing a blue uniform with an orange vest, not a tac vest. That one would probably be the easiest to make into Lone Wolf McQuade, if I could extract it.

Yes the engine does shading, but it's not enough. If you've ever painted minis, you face the same situation: the mini gets natural lightning, but you still have to darken some places and brighten other. Actually it's not just about lightning, it's about the whole "texture" of things.