Yup Hakusika for the hull and upper part of the main bridge, Biyo for rear bridge and cargo bay decks, cranes, etc :yep:

Is that OK, or does it give any problem in duplicating textures or whatever?

Looks superb with masts, funnel and rigging :yeah:

Sorry, what is the fo'csle? :06:

Forecastle. The bow. Aden is "flush decked"---there is a bulwark at the bow, but no raised bit.

That helps, actually. I might try doing something similar---you were right to pick that ship, BTW, in plan view she is VERY close aside from the raised forecastle.

You guys are amazing - seriously. Less than a week from conception to a near finished accurate model.

Thanks for putting the time in to this mod!

Ah I think that now I see what you mean. Yes, the bow has the raised sides but NOT the second deck in a more elevated position that is accessed via stairs :yep:

Sadly, that seems to be a difficult thing to change for me, as there is no lower deck below the rised one. But I'll take a look and see what I can do :hmmm:

I might be able to do that, actually.

Just tried, it's not bad.

Thankfully it was easy enough to do :yeah:

http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/7...teddeck.th.jpg

I'll PM you the new one in some minutes ...

Would be easiest of there was a way to keep the materials intact. Otherwise I can try to map them myself, but I'm semi-clueless :)

I was looking at RSRDC last night, and noticed that zinbu is called a lot in convoys explicitly. I have a mind to replace all of them with Aden when this is done, since there were 90 ish aden hulls, and ONE Zinbu in RL. They are similar sizes and speeds, too. Zinbu would then only show as random, single merchants (as it should be). This of course needs to be done in the text files only with RSRDC, using the editor will blow them up.

Wow; that makes me drool. I heard that you were using some re-uv mapped hulls - can this hull support text or national flags? It is an excellent generic ship that would be useful in many neutral countries' fleets. Load lines & plimsoll markings would also look interesting, if they are possible.

In any case, I think that because of the modifications I have done to the hull, the texture would appear completely distorted. So I suppose that it will need a full remapping again. After looking at what the .mat file contains, I suspect that it will only refer to one external texture file, so that could be the reason why it gets lost when merging models. This model, if it conserved the materials, would need two textures instead of 1 as all other ships, one from Hakusika, and one from Biyo.

[EDIT]

BTW since you got it into the dat, does it actually load up and show in the game? (Even if with flat black texture)

IABL, what sergei has done with the other models, is redo the AO map so that the hull is more or less continuous, with a separate left and right side. So using the AO map, flags are possible, for example.

It would of course be trivial to add a flag in the EQP file for a ship as well.

Make a rectangle object that is flag sized. Put it in a dat in the Library/ShipParts folder, and assign a texture. Make as many copies as you need flags in that dat (just like the flags dat, only unanimated). Play Y nodes in the right spot on the side of the hull, then use the eqp file to add the flags. You can then have ships with cfgdates up to the point they discontinued flags with flags, then after that, no flags. Easy.

It shows with the texture all crazy from _T01.dds. I'll see what I can do with it over the weekend.

Right now, I think our focus will be to get a version 1 out the door with the extant SH4 ships, perhaps with the BftB ships in there as well (most importantly the Road_schooner that I have altered to be a (very rough) Type 2D.

A later rev will have new ships. Aden being a very important addition, frankly—so important, as I said above, I'm seriously considering dumping all the RSRDC Zinbus in favor of her. I can have multiple clones, too, and EQP changes for various wartime periods. She's incredibly useful.

One change I'd like to try on the model (after I get her in game with a texture!) will be to make the bow more "bluff." I just need to select a few control points even on both sides, then scale them out in X to make her less rakish at the bow (in cross section).

Tater - let me know where to find the files to edit in RSRDC and I can tackle this. Text editing I can actually manage. I'd very much like to contribute to this project but modelling and skinning are out of my league.

I don't want by any means to increase your currently huge worload with Aden Maru; I am happy to wait for the inclusion of her in this mod, and if we solve the textures matter I'll happily do some more models for the project :yeah: and Ada Maru stays on top of the list. I'll try to work it out exclusively from Biyo, and keeping the original Biyo texture references, so it does not need a full retexturing.

Right now I'm searching information and trying to learn about texturing and what program would be better to use for it. Pity that the old Zmodeller is not usable for this, as I had already understood it :wah:

Love this project :salute:

http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/4...v03aociv01.jpg

Yep. Did this one by making the base texture very light grey, then the AO black with the Japanese flag in it.
Text on the side of the hull is also possible.


Interesting idea. I can see no reason why not.
Would be easier if they were in black, then I could just overlay the tex file.
Or are they always white?
Images I have seen show them as white, looking something like this.

http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/7084/kissui.jpg

If this did make it in, it would be for a later release.

I've actually already done it, but it's a side mod right now. :)