Need some feedback about some mods.

[Vikinger]

Hiya.

Need some feedback about 2 small mods ive done. Mostley to check if people want it. Or they utterly dislike it :D

1.

I did a little mod before about the seafloor. It just changed the sand bottom.
But the game use 2 files. sand and stone bottom.

So i made up a stone bottom as well so it could better fit to the sand bottom.
There are a few areas where this stone bottom will show up but most of the time ingame the sand bottom will be loaded.

My intention whit this was to make a bottom that looked like mud/sediment and stone and also so it could look good on shores.
Its in 512x512 size and are framrate friendly You can se my framrate on one of the pics. 85fps and that is max what my screen can show.

First pic is the raw file that is used.

http://img238.imageshack.us/img238/5082/newvq9.jpg


This pic show how it looks ingame and u can se my fps. its a bit dark but that is becuse my underwater visibility settings.

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/1831/seafloor1eg5.jpg


And the last is shown how it look like at shore. the bottom will go above water a bit into shore line. ive drawed a black line to show where it start and arrow indicate direction. Notice the difference between the opposit side of the black line.

http://img364.imageshack.us/img364/3858/seafloor2shorefi4.jpg



2.
[UPDATED Whit another batch of newer damage textures in a post below]


My second little project was to try and make a damage texture that shown up on torpedo impact.

Its nearly impossible to do a damage texture that looks good for both torpedo and shell damage coz they share same file. So i did go for and tryed to enhance the torpedo damage and leave out how it looks like when a shell is hited.
I decided to make a big file 1024x1024 and 4 meg. reason for this was i wanted a higher resolution coz whit smaller the black hole was not black ingame. I could se the ship painting thrue the hole.

I simply wanted it to show up as a big fat black hole in the hull.
Even if the file is large it only loads once when you load the game. it doesnt load everytime you hit something so you wont notice any decrese performance. It also looks best on medium to large targets.

A few pics of it here as well.


Here is a medium merchant hit.

http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/5479/damage1gs1.jpg


Here is a tanker hit. Dunno if it is a meduim or large tanker.


http://img292.imageshack.us/img292/6599/damage2ik2.jpg

And here is a passenger/cargo ship hit.

http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/8766/damage3ea2.jpg


So give me your feedback.. Good as bad.
If peeps want it released i can do so.


Vikinger.

[Mush Martin]

well the sea floor looks good in my opinion

as for the torpedo hit I see it as having a lot of potential
and I am impressed but its a little to symmetrical
does it only come in one flavor of visible damage
MM.

[Fender74]

i like the sea floor one too it looks great.:up:

[Vikinger]

well the sea floor looks good in my opinion

as for the torpedo hit I see it as having a lot of potential
and I am impressed but its a little to symmetrical
does it only come in one flavor of visible damage
MM.

Yes it can only be shown in one flavor. but i guess you are right when you say its to symmetrical. For this damage model i used a crater picture from Mars as reference :D Ive been doing a lot of others damage textures that was asymetrical but they never showed up ingame as i wanted them. they where often twisted and bended somehow. But i will give it a try and do an asymetric damage texture in this resolution coz i never tryed that. maybe i should add some dust/smoke trials also around the hole.

back to drawing board :D

thx for feedback.

[Ducimus]

I strongly recommend stress testing your damage decal. Particuarlly if its in a higher resolution. In scenario's where several damage decal's are applied, it slows the game down to a crawl. That said, i REALLY like it. :D

[ReallyDedPoet]

Vickinger with this mod have you ever gone down to the bottom and passed right through the seafloor?

I have this mod installed and this happens. Currently playing GWX with a number of other mods as well. This issue may be a conflict from one of them.

[ReallyDedPoet]

Vikinger not Vickinger, sorry about that.

[Hakahura]

Seafloor looks great.

Is it GWX compatable? If so I will be downloading it. Great work:up:

[Vikinger]

Vickinger with this mod have you ever gone down to the bottom and passed right through the seafloor?

I have this mod installed and this happens. Currently playing GWX with a number of other mods as well. This issue may be a conflict from one of them.

No ive never gone thru the bottom. Well not whit the sub. But it can happend i go thrue it when iam in free camera mode.

But this "bug" has nothing to do whit the file it self coz its exactly same kind of file as original. Only difference is that its home made texture file. A simple texture file.

That thing when you go thru bottom must be some kind of bug that is hardcoded into the game. The texture file lay it self just at the coded bottom depth. If there is any glitches in that code you might fall thru it.

[AVGWarhawk]

Sea floor is cool but I really like the torpedo damage. Is that thing compatable with GWX?

[Vikinger]

Seafloor looks great.

Is it GWX compatable? If so I will be downloading it. Great work:up:

It is GWX compatible.

if i release it i will add the other file also. The sand bottom file i did before so the bottom will be completed.

But i must first get in touch whit Kpt.Lehman before coz maybe, maybe this will be included in next GWX patch. :)

But the sand seafloor is for dl on in this thread if u want to grab that.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=102248&highlight=seafloor

[Vikinger]

Sea floor is cool but I really like the torpedo damage. Is that thing compatable with GWX?

Yeah everything i do is compatible whit GWX and JSGM :)

I just finished another damage texture. Gona test it and se how it works.

I dont bother to do a stress test for all kind of ships. Coz i know mostley how it will show up.

Small ships. doesnt look so good.
Best looking on medium to large ships

Naval ships eg destroyers. Can look a bit big.
And on long ships like pyro if i hit close to bow or stearn the texture can be a bit distorted. Thos things are nothing i can do about.

And shell damage. well as i said before its impossible to do a good looking torpedo damage and shell damage texture coz they share same file.

So if peps can live whit the fact that shell damage look crap i might release some versions i have.

[Vikinger]

I strongly recommend stress testing your damage decal. Particuarlly if its in a higher resolution. In scenario's where several damage decal's are applied, it slows the game down to a crawl. That said, i REALLY like it. :D

Yeah i will do that.
Thx for the tip.

I usually only test my mods when i go on patrol.
I never use/play thos scenarios but its a good advice that i will follow :)

[ReallyDedPoet]

Vikinger it is in the free cam mode that this happens, never put a sub through the bottom. This has not happened to me before ( not really an issue in gameplay ) I thought it may be related to your mod but you cleared that up. I have never modded much to this point, however am doing more of it now. It may be related to another mod combination that I have.

Thanks for the reply and keep up the good work.

[Vikinger]

Vikinger it is in the free cam mode that this happens, never put a sub through the bottom. This has not happened to me before ( not really an issue in gameplay ) I thought it may be related to your mod but you cleared that up. I have never modded much to this point, however am doing more of it now. It may be related to another mod combination that I have.

Thanks for the reply and keep up the good work.

No its not related to any mod. This happend to me sometimes also in free cam mode even in stock sh3 :)
But as long its free cam mode it doesnt matter. so the sub dont sink thru it :D

[Vikinger]

Here are the new one. its more asymetric in shape and also have dust debris around it.

I tested this on different ship and it looked quite good infact.

A whalefactory ship hited astern.

http://img45.imageshack.us/img45/207/whalefactoryship1ki5.jpg

Same ship hited amidships.

http://img45.imageshack.us/img45/1958/whalefactoryship2ln1.jpg


A large merchant have been hit.

http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/7379/largemerchantmt9.jpg


A Black swan frigate was hited under the keel. This is behind of the explosion point.

http://img49.imageshack.us/img49/5341/smallmerchantho5.jpg


And this is the frontside. Note how the texture is wrapped around the hull on both side. This can happend on smaller ships but it also depend on where it hit. In this case directly under the keel.

http://img129.imageshack.us/img129/236/blackswanfrigatecp4.jpg


Hope you like this one better. Gona do some harder testing whit it in a scenario. But so far i didint notice any problem whit it when i faced a convoy. Note also that this texture is smaller in size. i realized that it is to big for a single texture file to take up 4 meg of memory. This one is about 1 meg in size now.

[_Seth_]

Lookin' good, buddy!!:up:

[demowhc]

I like the last lot of damage textures you put up, very nice and going into my GWX as we speak :) erm well it would be if could dl it :P


can i ask how difficult would it be to make a high resolution sea texture??? the ocean looks nice atm and i have a 3d waves mod installed but i think the ocean surface could realy do with with a higher res texture


thnx :)

[stabiz]

Wow, that seafloor and shore-thingy looks great. Ace work, Vikinger!

[Tuddley3]

Excellent work, time to just put all my mods in SH3 Cmdr Random folder, so many great mods lately, can choose which to Enable.

Look out ANZACMICK, you've got competition.

[Vikinger]

I like the last lot of damage textures you put up, very nice and going into my GWX as we speak :) erm well it would be if could dl it :P


can i ask how difficult would it be to make a high resolution sea texture??? the ocean looks nice atm and i have a 3d waves mod installed but i think the ocean surface could realy do with with a higher res texture


thnx :)

I really dont know coz i never tryed to change that part. I dont even know if the sea texture is hard coded into the game or if it comes as a tga file.
But there is possibilitys to change the seafoam coz thos are regulary tga files.
Check the tga files in folder SH3/Data/Misc/

And whit in the program Mini tweaker you can change the colour of the ocean surface and also below it.

Its thos Envcolour files you can look at but its pure hex values to change then.

edit/ gona put up thos 2 mods for dl later today then :) gona sleep some now, its morning here. Thank god iam free tomorrow, or today. :D

[demowhc]

yer i am really happy with the way the ocean looks as far as reflections/shineyness and sea foam etc since i installed GWX, i also think the colour is fine, its just, well the coloured texture on the surface looks very low res and is blurry to look at from the bridge which is i guess for performance reasons due to the large size of teh ocean heh, but regardless id still like to find out how to change that particular texture as i think it would make a huge improvement to the visual quality of the game..

what would be even better is to make the texture semi transparent, that would really be a major improvment :)

when running the game in default 1024x768 the ocean texture most likely doesnt look too bad as it matches the low screen res, but once u start setting the res above 1280x1024 with aa & af turned on it starts to become very noticable especially compared to the lovely skins included in GWX of my uboat

hehe sweet dreams :P

[rascal101]

My two cents worth.

Your sea floor is about the best and most realistic I have seen, absolutely well done, I'll have that as a mod any time you care to release it.

Your merchant damage mod, the first attempts did not do it for me, but you seem to hit the mark with your second attempt, again well done. One thing, Some where on this forum I have seen actual footage of torpedo damage on a ship in dry dock, the thing that struck me was the actual whole the torpedo made was much smaller than I expected, I wonder if you might shrink you damage textures, just a suggestion.

Here are the new one. its more asymetric in shape and also have dust debris around it.

I tested this on different ship and it looked quite good infact.

A whalefactory ship hited astern.

http://img45.imageshack.us/img45/207/whalefactoryship1ki5.jpg

Same ship hited amidships.

http://img45.imageshack.us/img45/1958/whalefactoryship2ln1.jpg


A large merchant have been hit.

http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/7379/largemerchantmt9.jpg


A Black swan frigate was hited under the keel. This is behind of the explosion point.

http://img49.imageshack.us/img49/5341/smallmerchantho5.jpg


And this is the frontside. Note how the texture is wrapped around the hull on both side. This can happend on smaller ships but it also depend on where it hit. In this case directly under the keel.

http://img129.imageshack.us/img129/236/blackswanfrigatecp4.jpg


Hope you like this one better. Gona do some harder testing whit it in a scenario. But so far i didint notice any problem whit it when i faced a convoy. Note also that this texture is smaller in size. i realized that it is to big for a single texture file to take up 4 meg of memory. This one is about 1 meg in size now.

[odinfish]

Both mods look awesome! Nicely done.:up:

[Vikinger]

My two cents worth.

Your sea floor is about the best and most realistic I have seen, absolutely well done, I'll have that as a mod any time you care to release it.

Your merchant damage mod, the first attempts did not do it for me, but you seem to hit the mark with your second attempt, again well done. One thing, Some where on this forum I have seen actual footage of torpedo damage on a ship in dry dock, the thing that struck me was the actual whole the torpedo made was much smaller than I expected, I wonder if you might shrink you damage textures, just a suggestion.


Hiya. Yes it look a bit big for my liking also.
I tested it yesterdya during night on different single missions where battleship engage each other.

I was quite satisfied that the damage showed up quite ok as shell damage but it was way to big, special when thos large guns hited a small destroyer.
I will try to shrink it and do some more testing of it.

About real torpedo damage. well they come in different sizes and shapes :) and its darn hard to do a texture that looks like that coz the texture is bended,wrapped and distorted and sometimes magnified dependant on the size of the ship that is hited.
But of course i got my inspiration from real damage :)

Check this out.

Buckled and twisted hull :)

http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/7356/damxi2.jpg



Now we are talking about hole :D

http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/5967/torp2xi4.jpg



Look at the guy that stands in the hole. :D

http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/3351/torp3xe6.jpg



Nice hole here as well. A stern shoot blown the propellers away.

http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/5955/torp4rv9.jpg


And here is a small hole.

http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/8530/torp5tv9.jpg


All thos ships was not fataly hited and manage to return to port (either tuged or by own machine) and they are in drydock for repair.

But a torpedo hit could also break a ship in 2 so it sunk whitin 1 minute.

As you se its hard to model this holes into a texture but it give me a clue how it could look like.
Infact there is just a hole and some bended metal around the hole. ive tryed to make other textures to look 3d to illustrate the bended metal. But i have no sucess to accomplish that yet. Problem is like i said that the texture show up totaly different ingame than the raw file looks like.

Altough i read somewhee that in sh4 the damage model is improved a lot where you actually get a hole. Like the one we can se on thos barricade ships in some mods.
So it sounds real promising around this issue)

[GT182]

Vikinger, your second set of damage textures are great. :up: They're closer to the originals you took off FileFront. They look more real, as they should. BTW, I did get your originals before you deleted them. They worked and looked fine to me. DG hits to a ship looked great as did the torpedo strikes. You know there is damaage, unlike before with the stock files.

[Vikinger]

Thx GT182 :)

And yes my intention is to make the damage to be visible when you look at it thru the periscope. So you actually can se that you have hited the ship :)

But of course if you use free cam mode and go very close to the texture it might not look that good, special if its a shell damage :)

I will try to shrink the one have there but if its not possible i will do a new one. Ive learned the drill now :D and i stll have some ideas before iam fully satisifed whit it myself.

But its good to hear peoples opinion. That lead me in right direction also.

But darn. I want to work whit it right away but i have some housecleaning to do today. Wish i could afford to pay a housemaid to do the work so i could do more important thing :D

[mr chris]

Looking very nice indeed mate.:up:

[dertien]

very nice :up:

[Phoenix3000]

Hey Vikinger, nice work with the damage mods - like it!

Just a suggestion, how about adding some graphics to the 'black' hole are? - For example, draw in some twisted metal, damaged pipes etc, burnt out crew quarters etc., so from a distance it looks like you can see 'into' the hole?

If I had my copy of Photoshop handy I would install it and try and do an example of what I mean (haven't seen the discs for the last few months after I uninstalled it :damn: !!). But I'm sure you get the idea.

If the 'damage' hole was darker towards the middle it would add a touch of perspective to it, giving the hole a feeling of depth.

Anyway, great work - looking forward to this one!:up:

Px3000

[Vikinger]

Hey Vikinger, nice work with the damage mods - like it!

Just a suggestion, how about adding some graphics to the 'black' hole are? - For example, draw in some twisted metal, damaged pipes etc, burnt out crew quarters etc., so from a distance it looks like you can see 'into' the hole?

If I had my copy of Photoshop handy I would install it and try and do an example of what I mean (haven't seen the discs for the last few months after I uninstalled it :damn: !!). But I'm sure you get the idea.

If the 'damage' hole was darker towards the middle it would add a touch of perspective to it, giving the hole a feeling of depth.

Anyway, great work - looking forward to this one!:up:

Px3000

Hiya and thx for your feedback.

You are right that different colour in the black hole could add some depth to it so i will give it a try and se what i can do :)

About the other thing. Ive been trying to do so some of the girders can be seen thru it but i found it was impossible to do it.
Reason is that the texture never show up as the raw file ingame. its wraped. distorted , sometimes magnified etc. Even a totaly round shaped texture can sometimes show up as a real narrow eclipse. Sometimes the texture is upside down also.

So it doesnt look good at all.

But its a good suggestion to change some colour in the black part.

[rascal101]

OK Mr V,
Nice to see the damage mods are a work in progress, the photos are very illustrative, I fully understand the amount of work you are doing, all I can do is offer some thanks.

By the way, As I said previously, in my opinion, your new sea floor is the best so far, is it ready for download?

Thx GT182 :)

And yes my intention is to make the damage to be visible when you look at it thru the periscope. So you actually can se that you have hited the ship :)

But of course if you use free cam mode and go very close to the texture it might not look that good, special if its a shell damage :)

I will try to shrink the one have there but if its not possible i will do a new one. Ive learned the drill now :D and i stll have some ideas before iam fully satisifed whit it myself.

But its good to hear peoples opinion. That lead me in right direction also.

But darn. I want to work whit it right away but i have some housecleaning to do today. Wish i could afford to pay a housemaid to do the work so i could do more important thing :D

[Vikinger]

OK Mr V,
Nice to see the damage mods are a work in progress, the photos are very illustrative, I fully understand the amount of work you are doing, all I can do is offer some thanks.

By the way, As I said previously, in my opinion, your new sea floor is the best so far, is it ready for download?



Ah yes i forgot about that one :D darn iam getting old. But one good thing when you start to forget things then it is like you do it for the first time again. Life cant be boring then :D Allways something new to do hehehe.

I will se if i manage to get it up for dl tonight.

Just finished another damage model and gona test it. :)

[Mush Martin]

regardless of any earlier critique I think this is great work and I cant wait to get my hands on it MM:up:

[Jimbuna]

Very very nice :up: