[WIP]SteelVikings corrected GR2 file

[Madox58]

I've had the Honor of SteelViking working with me to resolve many issues.
He has pointed out somethings that We are now editing the GR2 files to attempt a fix.

He has been my tester and main 'what if guy' for awhile now.
And I want to give him a VERY Great big thank you!!!
:rock:

For all players?
He tirelessly tests things I send him.
All the while working his own mods.
He questions me endlessly from a stand point I can not see.
Which helps us all!!

He constantly wants to do and learn more!
If I should ever want to get seriously involved with a Super Mod Group for SH5?
This Guy is a MUST HAVE!
No SteelViking?
No me.
:yep:

[reaper7]

Yes SteelViking is a great motivater, would have gave up on my own mod long ago if it wasn't for SV. :up:

[SteelViking]

Thanks guys. I always appreciate acknowledgement/thanks for my work, especially when it comes from my fellow modders. I have been working as hard as I can to improve SH5, but I don't know if I have done enough to deserve this level of thanks.

I must say, a big part of what motivates me is the work that others have done and are doing for SH5. So, I thank everyone who works or has worked on tools for modding(Privateer, and Skwasjer deserve more thanks that I could ever give), everyone who works or has worked on mods, , does testing, gives helpful advice, and more. I am really honored to simply be a part of this amazing community.

[Madox58]

He's being modest.
I like that.
:haha:
:yeah:

With His help?
A clock hand that is not there is going to be fixed!
Some textures are going to be changed!
And that's just the start.
It will take me a day or so to complete the work.
But it's going to be a killer job!
:rock:

[DavyJonesFootlocker]

What's GR2?:06:

[Madox58]

SH5 uses Granny files.
AKA GR2
Where SH3/SH4 used dats?
We now are faced with Granny's GR2 file format.
It is probably the most feared thing with SH5 modders at this time.
It's an unknown format for most modders.
Until I wrote the Exporter?
There was never a program to export all meshes from a GR2 file.
We can now do that.
We also can edit objects inside the GR2 files now to an extent.
Everyday will see improvements on the understanding of GR2 file structure.

[mookiemookie]

Forgive my ignorance, and please don't take this as a "hurry up!" kind of thing, but this is a genuine question born out of me not knowing about modding...

...assuming no more patches or support from Ubi, will we ever see new units in the game with working shadows, occlusions, et al.?

[Madox58]

If Ubi never releases another thing for SH5?
We have a long road ahead of us.

Can the many issues be fixed?
I honestly believe so.
I won't waste my time if I felt otherwise.

The very fact that we can now extract ALL objects from GR2 files
says alot!

This is a mile stone that has NEVER been done before.
Now We can also edit existing objects in the GR2 files.

Everyday We learn more and more.
As SH3 took time to crack?
So will SH5.

To stand now and say it can not be done?
You'd be a fool.
A month ago there was no exporter for GR2 files.
What will 2 more months bring?

[SteelViking]

Privateer is right, we have already made leaps and bounds in a very short time. And, I also honestly think that the vast majority of people's current problems/complaints about SH5 can be resolved in time. A lot of people tend to say that a lot of things are impossible when it comes to SH5, but they are simply wrong. For instance, when I first released v1.0 of my interior mod, I believed that about 1/4 of the stuff that me and bigreg did in V1.1 of the mod was impossible. When you consider that my interior mod is about 70Mb when compressed, that is a lot of proof positives.

[THE_MASK]

If Ubi never releases another thing for SH5?
We have a long road ahead of us.

Can the many issues be fixed?
I honestly believe so.
I won't waste my time if I felt otherwise.

The very fact that we can now extract ALL objects from GR2 files
says alot!

This is a mile stone that has NEVER been done before.
Now We can also edit existing objects in the GR2 files.

Everyday We learn more and more.
As SH3 took time to crack?
So will SH5.

To stand now and say it can not be done?
You'd be a fool.
A month ago there was no exporter for GR2 files.
What will 2 more months bring? Proper sized trees .

[mookiemookie]

If Ubi never releases another thing for SH5?
We have a long road ahead of us.

Can the many issues be fixed?
I honestly believe so.
I won't waste my time if I felt otherwise.

The very fact that we can now extract ALL objects from GR2 files
says alot!

This is a mile stone that has NEVER been done before.
Now We can also edit existing objects in the GR2 files.

Everyday We learn more and more.
As SH3 took time to crack?
So will SH5.

To stand now and say it can not be done?
You'd be a fool.
A month ago there was no exporter for GR2 files.
What will 2 more months bring?

Privateer is right, we have already made leaps and bounds in a very short time. And, I also honestly think that the vast majority of people's current problems/complaints about SH5 can be resolved in time. A lot of people tend to say that a lot of things are impossible when it comes to SH5, but they are simply wrong. For instance, when I first released v1.0 of my interior mod, I believed that about 1/4 of the stuff that me and bigreg did in V1.1 of the mod was impossible. When you consider that my interior mod is about 70Mb when compressed, that is a lot of proof positives.

:yeah: You both give me hope. The one thing that sticks out in my mind as one of the best compliments to the people who mod these games is what Dan said at the Houston Subsim meet - (I'm paraphrasing here) "Even us on the dev team don't know how you guys have done a lot of what you've done."

I have learned to never say never. Keep up the good work guys. :()1:

[reaper7]

There's a long way to go, but its achieavble. :03:
Looking forward to getting it where it need s to go though. When we have imported ship's in SH5 that will be the point I will start to play SH5.
At the moment as current ships lay, they are incorrect in play regards use of clone ships. been doing some testing in that respect and there's alot of rework required to get thing correct.
Again this may be only of interest to thoes that want to play at 100% realism taking manual readings of speed rang height etc.

Keep up the good work lads:yeah:

[Frantic8882]

Without the work of the talented people in this forum I would not play the game anymore. With the mods you did this buggy little pest turned into a very enjoyable game and it is very tough to find words of appreciation for that. You basically made a big fan of the series, who was about to shut it down, come back to enjoy SH5. BIG THX :salute:

[McBob]

The progress that you are making on GR2 is really good news.

On the subject of clock hands - I believe that there are two errors that have not been fixed in other mods. In the Hydrophone compartment a hand is missing (I may be wrong, but I think this is because it is positiioned behind the face of the clock). Also in one of the u-boat variants (type A I believe) there is a clock in the rear topedo room where one or both of the hands rotate around the wong axis. Are these what you are looking to fix - is it a case of amending existing items or are you having to add new ones?

My 3d knowledge is terrible, but I did try experimenting with the Goblin Editor to make the 3d guages clickable. In the end I found that a could do nothing in Goblin as such, but via scripting I could. Any object that had a mouse_mask (e.g. the Compressed Air guages in the control rooms) I could run commands such as crash dive when clicked. I had no luck with any objects that did not have this mouse_mask (most of them unfortunately). I also had no luck in detecting where on the guage the mouse was when clicked. This would make it's usefulness limited i.e. no way to set the speed from the telegraph. Maybe a script expert such as TDW could find how. If not my idea was to have mulitiple mouse masks (traingle shaped) that would cover the area of the guage that corresponded to each speed setting (all stop, ahead slow etc etc.). Obiously with no way to edit the GR2 this is where my attempts ended. Do you think it is possible to add mouse masks?

[vickers03]

any chance of checking out the interior lights?
(red light for ct and cr only)
i think they are hidden in a gr2 file too:ping:

[SteelViking]

The progress that you are making on GR2 is really good news.

On the subject of clock hands - I believe that there are two errors that have not been fixed in other mods. In the Hydrophone compartment a hand is missing (I may be wrong, but I think this is because it is positiioned behind the face of the clock). Also in one of the u-boat variants (type A I believe) there is a clock in the rear topedo room where one or both of the hands rotate around the wong axis. Are these what you are looking to fix - is it a case of amending existing items or are you having to add new ones?

My 3d knowledge is terrible, but I did try experimenting with the Goblin Editor to make the 3d guages clickable. In the end I found that a could do nothing in Goblin as such, but via scripting I could. Any object that had a mouse_mask (e.g. the Compressed Air guages in the control rooms) I could run commands such as crash dive when clicked. I had no luck with any objects that did not have this mouse_mask (most of them unfortunately). I also had no luck in detecting where on the guage the mouse was when clicked. This would make it's usefulness limited i.e. no way to set the speed from the telegraph. Maybe a script expert such as TDW could find how. If not my idea was to have mulitiple mouse masks (traingle shaped) that would cover the area of the guage that corresponded to each speed setting (all stop, ahead slow etc etc.). Obiously with no way to edit the GR2 this is where my attempts ended. Do you think it is possible to add mouse masks?

We are currently working on fixing the clock hand in the hydrophone room. It is not behind the clock. The minute hand is flipped around backwards, and the texture is not set to display double sided. So, naturally you see right through it when looking at the clock.

From my work with the interior, I know about the clock in the A not working properly, but we have not looked into fixing it yet. If they are just rotating on the wrong axis, privateer could probably rotate the node to make it work properly.

any chance of checking out the interior lights?
(red light for ct and cr only)
i think they are hidden in a gr2 file too:ping:

Yes, the lights are controlled by a GR2 file, and I would guess that it points to shader .fx files to do the dirty work. Don't know much more than that, as I have not looked into the GR2 for the lights very much.

[McBob]

We are currently working on fixing the clock hand in the hydrophone room. It is not behind the clock. The minute hand is flipped around backwards, and the texture is not set to display double sided. So, naturally you see right through it when looking at the clock.

From my work with the interior, I know about the clock in the A not working properly, but we have not looked into fixing it yet. If they are just rotating on the wrong axis, privateer could probably rotate the node to make it work properly.


Yep - a good example of my 3d knowledge being terrible - I saw that the hand existed in granny viewer and Goblin, and assumed that the only reason we could not see it was because it was behind the face. The real reason would never have dawned on me. Given some of the things you have picked up on and corrected in your interior mod it is no surprise that you worked this one out.

Yes I am pretty sure about the axis of the topedo room clock. I assigned them to the rudder instead of the time so that I could easily change them by a dramatic number of degrees rotation in game (rather then having to use time compression). By alternating hard to port and starboard I could see the hand rotating about its length rather than around the centre of the clock (if that makes sense)

[SteelViking]

Also in one of the u-boat variants (type A I believe) there is a clock in the rear topedo room where one or both of the hands rotate around the wong axis.

Aha! Upon your mention of the clock hands not rotating around the proper axis, I looked at the primary fuel gauge in the DER to see if this was the problem with it(the primary fuel gauge does some weird stuff in game). And, that is exactly the problem. The node is rotated the wrong way, so that when the needle rotates around it, it is either pointing out of the dial or back behind it.

Thanks for bringing that up.:up:

@privateer,

If you would like, I could send you some screen shots in game and in Goblin that demonstrate what is going on. It does not seem to me that these problems would be very difficult to fix.

[Madox58]

Some very good spotting and information Guys.
:up:

Screenshots of the problems in Game would help me greatly also.

My plan is to do a few adjustments by Hexing the files first.
If everything looks good?
I'll see about adding a feature to the GR2 Exporter to allow editing
the needed areas directly.
Probably through an import type thing.

Again, we can not change the size of the GR2 file yet.
So no new objects can be imported at this time.
But we can correct flipped faces,
mis-alignments,
UV's, etc.

[Capt Jack Harkness]

Yes, the lights are controlled by a GR2 file, and I would guess that it points to shader .fx files to do the dirty work. Don't know much more than that, as I have not looked into the GR2 for the lights very much.

Do we know yet if it's actually possible to modify the illumination on the boat yet? I imagine it's a pretty low priority right now, but if it is possible, that's pretty cool. :yep:

I also wonder if it will be possible in the future to simulate the luminescent (glow-in-the-dark?) paint that was used around the hatches, ladders and other things one would bump into in the dark...

[skwasjer]

Forgive my ignorance, and please don't take this as a "hurry up!" kind of thing, but this is a genuine question born out of me not knowing about modding...

...assuming no more patches or support from Ubi, will we ever see new units in the game with working shadows, occlusions, et al.?
People wondered the same for occlusion maps et al for SH4, and many other stuff for SH3/4 (animations, state machine, lipsync, and much more). Now I surely won't be in the driving seat this time around, but I think S3D in itself proves enough. And before S3D there were other tools. I'll remind you of the fact that DAT was a closed file format too...