[WIP] Lighthouses mod

[MLF]

Originally Posted by Kendras

Something is strange. I tested for Camaret LH (near Brest harbour).

The LH was in the land :



So, I went in Locations.cfg and wrote "OnLand=true". But now, the LH has disappeared !!!! It's strange, because on Helgoland, there is a LH at the top of the cliff, and it's written "OnLand=true" in Locations.cfg ....

I don't understand ....

Hi Kendras,

I had this problem when modifying lighthouses in SH2, and Sergbuto helped me out. You need to look at Lighthouse.dat in the \data\Terrain\Locations folder. If I remember correctly (very long time ago) there has to be a new node for each lighthouse (???) and you adjust the Translation y value for height above sea-level.

Hope this helps but this is going back to 2006

Who knows where the time goes as Sandy Denny sang so beautifully.

Regards,

MLF

[gap]

Originally Posted by Kendras

Hello dear gap !


(As your PM box is full, I post my message here)

What are the news ? I hope all is good on your side. I just wanted to know what you decided to do for the lighthouses models and also the rock/reefs ... ? Is it to hard to model them, or have we a chance to reach our great objective ?

All the best ! And Merry Christmas if we don't talk before this time !

Hello Kendras

sorry for not getting in touch for a while. I have been carried away by the Phare the la Vielle during the last few days...
For my own pleasure, I have decideded to redo it, but of course I will be my pleasure sharing it with the community along with the Dune leading lights and with any other model I might be working on after it.
The La Vielle light is coming along nicely. I am using the 3dWarehouse model as template, so it shouldn't take too long to me finishing it. What and doing is fixing some wrong proportions, consolidating the meshes for use in game, remapping the UV channel and retexturing the model. I will post some quick renderings in a couple of days, and I hope I will finish it before the next year.

After that I will start working on the other 3D stuff that you asked for

Originally Posted by Kendras

Something is strange. I tested for Camaret LH (near Brest harbour).

The LH was in the land :

...

So, I went in Locations.cfg and wrote "OnLand=true". But now, the LH has disappeared !!!! It's strange, because on Helgoland, there is a LH at the top of the cliff, and it's written "OnLand=true" in Locations.cfg ....

I don't understand ....

Originally Posted by MLF

Hi Kendras,

I had this problem when modifying lighthouses in SH2, and Sergbuto helped me out. You need to look at Lighthouse.dat in the \data\Terrain\Locations folder. If I remember correctly (very long time ago) there has to be a new node for each lighthouse (???) and you adjust the Translation y value for height above sea-level.

Hope this helps but this is going back to 2006.

Regards,

MLF

I should have a close look into that model, but I think MLF is correct. When a terrain object is place on land, the cartesian coordinates of its meshes are used for determining its height relative to the terrain. In other words the meshes of that model need to be moved up so that the base of the lighthouse will have a y coordinate close to 0.

Originally Posted by Kendras

Hey, I've found a good plan on the net, to help you to model properly the circular LH :

Good findings! Phare du Four?

Originally Posted by gap

sorry for not getting in touch for a while. I have been carried away by the Phare the la Vielle during the last few days...

Hey, no problem ! Take all the time you need.

Originally Posted by gap

I will post some quick renderings in a couple of days, and I hope I will finish it before the next year.

Great news !

Originally Posted by gap

Good findings! Phare du Four?

Yeah, exactly !

[gap]

I think the top section of the La Vieille lighthouse is pretty much ready. Those are some quick previews (sorry, no HD renderings):

As you can see, I have added quite a lot of 3D detail, and textures look much better though I probably need to tweak their hue/saturation/luminosity/contrast a bit (the red dominant comes from the picture I extracted the textures from).

Floor level and rocks still to do.

Other than that, I would like to bake an ambient occlusion map for the model. I have tried to mimic one by exploiting the shadows already present in the picture said above, but indeed the 3D feeling would greatly benefit from a proper map. I don't remember who told me that SHIII shaders support either AO or normal maps. If someone could explain to me which controllers need to be used and how to set them, I think that could be a nice addition

Wow, that's really beautiful !

But could we do a bit less detailed LH ? I mean details that allow us to recognize this LH as the La Vieille LH. Thus, we could use this model at different locations. So, I think that we should delete the small devices around the building (red arrows) :



And could you create a transparent glass at the top of the LH ?

Originally Posted by gap

Other than that, I would like to bake an ambient occlusion map for the model.

Yes, but what's that ?

[gap]

Originally Posted by Kendras

Wow, that's really beautiful !

Thank you

Originally Posted by Kendras

But could we do a bit less detailed LH ? I mean details that allow us to recognize this LH as the La Vieille LH. Thus, we could use this model at different locations. So, I think that we should delete the small devices around the building (red arrows) :

I am striving to make the present model as similar to the real thing as I can. I nonetheless had your same thought. All the details that you pointed to, are in separate meshes than the main model, and they are removable with just one click. Once I release the model as La Vieille, it will be easy for me creating another generic light house model based on the previous one.

In general, my idea is having a few basic lighthouse models which can be placed in various locations in game (where real lighthouses are/were to be found during the 40s), and then slowly replacing at least a few of them with realistic representations of real lighthouses. SHIII has not a Real Navigation mod yet, but in SH5 with RN, landmarks can be as important for the calculation of position fixes as they were in real life before the GPS era

Originally Posted by Kendras

And could you create a transparent glass at the top of the LH ?

It is. If you look closely at the detail of the gallery in the picture at the bottom of my previous post, you will be able to see the lantern (a Fresnel lens) through it glasses.
Onestly I didn't put much attenction in fine tuning the material properties in the obj model that I am working on. Anyway how transparent those glasses are going to be in the release (dat) version, is a matter of setting their material properties properly in S3ditor.

Originally Posted by Kendras

Yes, but what's that ?

An ambient occlusion map is a texture featuring prerendered shadows, calculated by some 3D editing programs based on the geometry of an object, and it is meant to represent the shadows that the various parts of the same object would cast on each other under a diffuse light. Simplifying, you can see it as a texture with shadowing, enhancing the perception of 3-dimensionality of a model rendered on a 2D surface.
Usually I overlay AO maps on the diffuse map (the one which is currently referred to as "texture"), but due to the complexity of the current model I had to make its diffuse UV map overlapping, otherwise its textures should have been gigantic. As a consequence, if we want the model to have an AO map I will need to create a secon channel (i.e. a non-overlapping UV projection) that the AO map will be rendered on (due to its topological nature, AO map "baking" doensn't work well with overlapping UV projections). Doing that is relatively easy in SHIV-5, but it is my understanding that this feature is only partly supported in SHIII. The lack of AO maps is why most stock ships look "flat" in SHIII compared to its later reincarnations (besides its models having a lesser number of polygons)

Originally Posted by gap

In general, my idea is having a few basic lighthouse models which can be placed in various locations in game (where real lighthouses are/were to be found during the 40s), and then slowly replacing at least a few of them with realistic representations of real lighthouses. SHIII has not a Real Navigation mod yet, but in SH5 with RN, landmarks can be as important for the calculation of position fixes as they were in real life before the GPS era

I have exactly the same ideas as you !

Originally Posted by gap

Once I release the model as La Vieille, it will be easy for me creating another generic light house model based on the previous one.

Could this generic model be a little different in aspect (3D and texture) ?

Originally Posted by gap

It is. If you look closely at the detail of the gallery in the picture at the bottom of my previous post, you will be able to see the lantern (a Fresnel lens) through it glasses.

Ah, I saw it ! But I though it was a texture ! I didn't dare to ask you to model a Fresnel lens, and that's just great that you've already done it !

Originally Posted by gap

An ambient occlusion map is a texture featuring prerendered shadows, calculated by some 3D editing programs based on the geometry of an object, and it is meant to represent the shadows that the various parts of the same object would cast on each other under a diffuse light. Simplifying, you can see it as a texture with shadowing, enhancing the perception of 3-dimensionality of a model rendered on a 2D surface.
Usually I overlay AO maps on the diffuse map (the one which is currently referred to as "texture"), but due to the complexity of the current model I had to make its diffuse UV map overlapping, otherwise its textures should have been gigantic. As a consequence, if we want the model to have an AO map I will need to create a secon channel (i.e. a non-overlapping UV projection) that the AO map will be rendered on (due to its topological nature, AO map "baking" doensn't work well with overlapping UV projections). Doing that is relatively easy in SHIV-5, but it is my understanding that this feature is only partly supported in SHIII. The lack of AO maps is why most stock ships look "flat" in SHIII compared to its later reincarnations (besides its models having a lesser number of polygons)

Thanks for these explanations ! Really interesting !

[MLF]

Originally Posted by MLF

Hi Kendras,

I had this problem when modifying lighthouses in SH2, and Sergbuto helped me out. You need to look at Lighthouse.dat in the \data\Terrain\Locations folder. If I remember correctly (very long time ago) there has to be a new node for each lighthouse (???) and you adjust the Translation y value for height above sea-level.

Assume this didn't help with placement?

MLF

Originally Posted by MLF

Assume this didn't help with placement?

There is only one node in Lighthouse.dat in the \data\Terrain\Locations folder. I have to understand why it is working for the LH of Helgoland, but it requires further tests and I have something more urgent to do at the present time ...

Location

+ visible anywhere on the map, possible to add colors to the icon
+ always placed at the same altitude, whatever the depth of the sea

- problem of placement in the ground if placed on a land with altitude
- not possible to custom the LH with an .eqp file


Land

+ no problem if placed on a land with altitude
+ possible to custom the LH with an .eqp file

- altitude depending on the depth of the sea
- visible on the map only when in visual range, always green icon (for neutral units)


Edit : All this can be solved by this trick : if we want to put a LH on the ground, let's create a land unit with no icon, and also add it (at same placement) in the Locations folder with a blanck file but with my icon of LH !

[gap]

Originally Posted by Kendras

Both good
I think that if the lighthouse models are already oriented with their North face pointing to what would be the prow of a ship, rotating them in ME/TE wouldn't be required, and their icon on map wouldn't look rotated either

Originally Posted by Kendras

Location

+ visible anywhere on the map, possible to add colors to the icon
+ always placed at the same altitude, whatever the depth of the sea

- problem of placement in the ground if placed on a land with altitude
- not possible to custom the LH with an .eqp file


Land

+ no problem if placed on a land with altitude
+ possible to custom the LH with an .eqp file

- altitude depending on the depth of the sea
- visible on the map only when in visual range, always green icon (for neutral units)


Edit : All this can be solved by this trick : if we want to put a LH on the ground, let's create a land unit with no icon, and also add it (at same placement) in the Locations folder with a blanck file but with my icon of LH !

For each lighthouse model I could create rock reefs of different heights that the lighthouse would rise from. Some terrain adjustements in TE might be required.

...or as I told you a few days ago:

get a basic geometry which will provide a stable floating platform, make it invisible, set it as a sea unit, give it a huge mass, a very low center of mass and exceptionally high drag coefficients for extra stability. Attach to it (in the same file) the actual lighthouse model and add to it configurable nodes for whatever equipment might be required, including the rock "base".
Result: the lighthouse will always be at the same height a.s.l.

Store the rock "equipment" in a library file, make it high enough that it will always touch the seabottom, no matter how deep is the sea under the lighthouse, and give it a sim file with a static object controller, similar to a normal terrain object.
Result: the rock reef wont be considered by the game as part of the lighthouse itself, and collision with the seabottom wont be detected, but any other unit will be able colliding with it, just as with any other terrain object (fully tested in SH5, it should work in SHIII too).

If need be, the lighthouse itself can be made collisionable/destroyable, and I am confident, though not absolutely sure, that with the correct settings some of them can be given a nationality and a visual sensor, so that they will report any enemy unit in the vicinity