[gap]

Originally Posted by Seaowl

Due to deleting the original material, my first import of the lighthouse looked like that:

So you left GR2 Editor to update material properties from the mtl file of the imported model, didn't you?
That's a cool feature of GR2 Editor that IIRC is missing from Silent3ditor though I often skip the material import part and I keep stock materials. My bad for doing that: stock material settings are quite dull.

Originally Posted by Seaowl

So I tuned Specularity down and Roughness up.
(and applied face and edge smoothing of course)
These changes are transfered via the mtl. file.
In that case - as far as I´ve seen - especially by the Ns., Ks. and Illum values.

In other words you use Cycles for setting up the material properties that get exported in the .mtl file. Good

Originally Posted by Seaowl

Is that the way, how the specular map works?

See the specularity and roughness parameters stored in .mtl files as the luminosity/contrast knobs of an old TV. They can change the global appearance of an image on screen, but if the screen displays an uniform background, messing with those knobs won't improve that much its look.
More specifically, the roughness parameter governs the strength of the normal map; if no bump/normal map is used, I think roughness will do nothing. Conversely, the specularity parameter governs the intensity of the specular map, i.e. the strength of the texture used for defining the shininess of different portions of the same material; the lighter a portion of specular map, the more shiny the corresponding material will be rendered. In your case, using no specular map is equal to using a full white specular map which, on turn, determines all the strength of the specularity parameter to be applied to the material(s), with overly bright or dark objects showing no significant highlights (as with your first lighthouse import which looked 'entirely bleached').

For more on specular map and on their usage in conjunction with bump/normal maps see the following links please:

https://wiki.splashdamage.com/index.php/Specular_Maps
http://www.rastertek.com/dx10tut21.html
https://learnopengl.com/Lighting/Lighting-maps

Talking in general, specular maps are quickly obtained from diffuse maps, by desaturating them, by enhancing their contrast, by reducing their gamma and possibly by "cutting" all the dark/medium greys so they look black. Nonetheless, the reflective properties of various materials painted on the same texture have to be taken in consideration (wood or concrete are not as glossy as metal or wet stones), so different portions of the same specular map might need different treatments. Moreover, for very nice effects, you might want to blend on your specular maps fine detail which is not visible on the diffuse texture, so to simulate small surface features of glossy or semi-glossy materials that become visible only when we observe them from certain angles relative to the incident light

Originally Posted by Seaowl

The Renderer itself appears only indirectly in game.
For exampel: the way you are doing AO-maps is determined by the specific renderer.
After a lot of efforts, I´m meanwhile able to create AO-maps in Cycles
(In the beginning they were pitch black), in Eevee or so, for whatever reason,
I´m at the moment not.

Would be interested, if AO-maps created with Cycles look differend from AO-maps created with other Renderers? Or if differences are only a matter of settings?


But concerning AO-maps: I would be thankful for every tip,
how to set up options and values to achieve good results in SH5.

AO maps are another topic. They are pre-rendered shadows based on the geometry of each object and on light rays simulating a diffuse light. Due to their topological nature, they require to be 'baked' on non-overlapping UV projections. I know Blender can bake decent AO maps, but I never used that feature. For my AO maps I use Mod Tool, the free version of Autodesk Softimage which, as I was said, was the tool used by the devs.

Originally Posted by Seaowl

Thanks at this point at the creator of ObjSort too:
Have to find the post with the link again, where I downloaded it from,
to give proper credit.
A great tool, that works very well and saves me a lot of time!

Correct me if I am wrong: is that the tool that sorts objects files for secondary (AO) UV map importing?

If yes, I think that tool is by Jeff Groves. I would appreciate if you could find its link and post it here

EDIT: ops... Jeff beated me to it LOL lol

Originally Posted by Seaowl

Initially I intended to use the church file as shell-file.
But when you open it, the church itself is miles away from zero point.
Annoyed by scrolling, I choose the bunker file instead and it was a good decision.
It´s a great import.

Thank you sir

The big horizontal offset of stock meshes shouldn't have discouraged you though. I don't know exactly why devs set their objects that way (probably each model was part of a big scene with many objects that had to be arranged far from the origin, and when they exported them they didn't bother centering them again), but the displacement of stock meshes won't affect the centering of the new mesh. In any case, for terrain objects, only the vertical position of the object is important.

Originally Posted by Seaowl

As you mentioned above, it´s cool to have the possibility to add AO- and Normalmaps.
And likely sooner or later, I will be able to make use of the damage and reflection model too.

Those are very easy: you just need to import a low poly version of your model, and to link the proper controllers to the corresponding bones.

Originally Posted by Seaowl

Why there is an additional Bump map material: Bunker_Large_AB?
Would I be able to apply a Normalmap and a Bumpmap at the same time?

Don't ask me that. I don't know what's the exact meaning of this "additional bump map". It uses the same texture map as the "bump map" (which is actually a normal map by the way), and it is probably used for enhancing its effect, creating extra roughness. And yes, they are used at the same time.

Originally Posted by Seaowl

Yes, I have SH4. I will try to import Flakmonkeys lighthouse with SH4 features into SH5.
But – as far as I remember – the trouble with using unified render controller in SH5 is, that it doesn´t work with land units or terrain objects?

It doesn't? I never heard that, but you could be right. Did you read that information on the forum?

Originally Posted by Seaowl

Yesterday, I managed to import the lense into the AmmoBoxGR2.
I dropped this file into the library.
It was easy to change the bone-position and to modify the lighthouse.eqp.
Problems started, as I attached a corresponding sim-file and tried to set the ParticleGenerator.
The lense vanished in Game as well as in Goblineditor.
Will experiment a bit more.
In the next step, I plan to transform the TDW_FXU_lighthouse_flare into a lense.sim.

Try looking into FX Update how TDW added lighthouse flare effect to the stock ports

Originally Posted by Seaowl

And since you made me curious about this HarborController, I will have a look at it, as soon as possible.

Let me know if you find anything interesting