[REL] Squid launcher

[the_frog]

Hello gap,

if I am right, one of your questions remained unanswered.

I think, SH3 supports ambient occlusion OR normal/bump maps. There are some models with either ambient occlusion or normal channels but I am not aware of any with both ambient occlusion AND nomal maps. Some have ambinet occlusion and bump maps.

My suggestion, do only an ambient occlusion map. It works reasonably well.

Cheers

[gap]

Originally Posted by the_frog

Hello gap,

if I am right, one of your questions remained unanswered.

I think, SH3 supports ambient occlusion OR normal/bump maps. There are some models with either ambient occlusion or normal channels but I am not aware of any with both ambient occlusion AND nomal maps. Some have ambinet occlusion and bump maps.

My suggestion, do only an ambient occlusion map. It works reasonably well.

Cheers

Thank you very much for sheding some light on the topic, the_frog. All the models I worked on so far were for SH5, where the only limit is the extended data allowed by the granny file used as template for importing the new models.

As far as a GR2 file is in the correct format for accepting AO and/or normal maps, and a material with those maps is binded to a mesh subset, SH5's GFX engine will use them both automatically with no need of any extra controllers. Anyway I think there is a workaround to this SHIII limitation: I can create a not overlapping UV map for the diffuse channel, bake an AO map on it, and blend diffuse and ambient occlusion textures in one file; this way I will still be able to assign a normal map. I already used this method for SH5, mostly for small objects, when I didn't want to set secondary UV coordinates for the AO map, or when the GR2 file I was working on didn't support them. The only downside to this method, is that the diffuse texture needs to be bigger than usual, or the details painted on it will look blurry.

Talki

[gap]

At last!

I finished modelling the squid laucher. Now it is time to unwrap it. Creating a good UV map can be a boring task, but it shouldn't take as long as the modelling part.

[tomfon]

Wow!

Great work, gap!!!!

[Fahnenbohn]

This is just perfect mate. Next part is the animation for the projectiles...

[Anvar1061]

SSS

[SquareSteelBar]

The World According to Gap

[gap]

Today I was re-thinking about this mod and the way to bypass the limitations of the hedgehog controller that we need to use if we want the AI to fire the new weapon correctly.

What if add three dummy nodes to the launcher model (one for each of the three muzzles, each aligned with the main axis of its respective barrel) and we attach an individual wpn_Hedgehog controller to each of them? We could then equip the controllers with dummy and invisible hedgehog projectiles, and set the weapon to use a modified fire_effect particle generator which will spawn a motion-aligned squid projectile (as done for the AI torpedos). Given the different alignment of the three nodes, and by setting appropriately the starting velocity of each charge (this would require the use of three slightly different particle effects, one for each barrel/projectile), I think we could obtain a triangular lauch pattern ca. 250 m in front of the ship, similar to the one created by the real squids. By further fine-tuning DC's speed and the max_range and diameter properties of each contoller (but also the the fall_speed, detonate_depth and depth_precison of the dummy hedgehog and of the sqid projectiles are playing a role), we should get the weapon to score some hits.

Ideally the three controllers composing a "single squid unit" should fire at the same moment, and the squids should hit the water more or less in the same point and at the same time than their dummy counterparts. For this reason it could be handy setting the dummy hedgehogs as visible before release.

What do you think? Might it work?

[LGN1]

Hi gap,

it's great that you are still thinking about the mod!

I think your idea could work, however, you would still get 24 DCs per barrel.

The hedgehog controller always fires 24 times (i.e., 24 muzzle flashes, 24 sounds,...). At least I could never find a way to reduce this number and therefore, I could never have less than 24 objects spawned. I tried with random spawn rates,... but never succeeded

Best, LGN1

[makman94]

Originally Posted by gap

At last!

I finished modelling the squid laucher. Now it is time to unwrap it. Creating a good UV map can be a boring task, but it shouldn't take as long as the modelling part.

thats ,absolutelly, wonderfull work here

thank you Gap

[LGN1]

Hi gap,

absolutely great work

I'm looking forward to seeing the finished launcher!

Best, LGN1