Beta Test Release
 

Ok Guys, I need some testing done.
I've uploaded the Liberty Master ans Clones as above into a beta mod.
I don't have time to test properly in-game (Only using created missions).



Can you test that these are:

1. Rendering in Campaign
2. I cannot find how the game references the Winter skins, so I just created them using the same naming system. Can you see if these ever show up in-game and not the stock Grey/snow skin.
3. In instances where there are different models of the Liberty on-screen, are they showing the correct skins?

I'll wait for feedback on the above, before going any further with the mod. Don't want to do lots of work if its of no use :D.

Any feedback including pics and time/dates of visual sightings would be great.
Thanks Guys. :up:

Here is link: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/down...o=file&id=2791

Liked the picture of the Bank Line boat in Capetown. Took me back a few years!

Its not a Liberty Ship though.

MLF

Yup, but I liked the colour scheme :D.
Not going for 100% realism in the reskin, can't anyway due to the way we have to apply texture to GR2 models :nope:.
Dat textures was a lot easier could do proper texture reproduction in that format.
Maybe in time we'll be able to apply the textures the way we want. ;)

For some reason, after 5 years, I hated the colour scheme.:damn:

Anyhow, keep up the the good work, Reaper:up:

MLF

:haha: You won't mind sinking them then. :har:

:har::haha::yeah:

Tested it, installed mid patrol and it works like charm. Managed to see 2 ships so far: modded Liberty with checkered water line, and unmodded 4k tons type A freighter.

The only thing I don't like about your test mod is that it changes/adds some of my Recognition manual pages (to real-like looking photos). However the Liberty page was not changed (maybe a second one was added that I missed), which puzzled me a bit (thought you would alter only those pages that apply to modded ships).

Good job.

No Winter-skin showing up mid patrol. Will try back at base....

http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/4...0908151500.jpg

Only did 2 of the 4 Rec Man pages, so thats fine. Only left them in to see if the original are prefered. :up:
Will not have the REC MAN comdined with the ship reskin mod at release.
Will keep them seperate so only whats wanted need be downloaded. :)

Darn, I was afraid they wouldn't show. Unlike the Hull and deck skins they are not referenced in the GR2 files.
I wonder how the game is calling them :06:.
That white looks a bit to bright at night, may need to adjust that. Only looked at them in mission during the daytime :).

Icicles only seem to appear on the C-1B Meduim Type merchants during the Winter months. Other ships only have the winter hull skins. As it stands, the Liberty Cargo is the most common vessel you encounter in the Campaign and they never had icicles.

Woah there! I enhanced that screenshot with Photoshop. It does not acurately reflect the colours in the game. As far as I am concerned they are fantastic :up:

By-the-way, The same texture appears for every ship of that type in the Column. As you see in the screenshot above, each Liberty Cargo in this particular Column, has the white Superstructure with the Tri-Colour Hull. In reality I think they'd be completely random.

This image shows two files for Merchants side by side. The Folder for the C1-B (on the right) has 18 entries, the other only 17. I'm guessing the missing file is the icicles? :hmmm:

IMAGE REMOVED

Deductive reasoning
 

The missing file appears to be:

NKMCS_C1B_AO03.dds :DL

That is one of the Shadow masks I was refering to earlier, the type that gives the camo effect.

Good to know that the colours are ok, thought I may have made it to reflective. No way of yet to make skins random, the sh3/4 method no longer appears to work :wah:. Looks like the devs redone how shins are used from the old way using dat files to the new type gr2.
So for now its one skin per ship type, but still better than one skin between 4 ship types. For now untill workarounds can be found. ;)

Any news reaper?

Ok, started to rethink this one in order to get the random skins working.

I have a solution but it will a lot more work to skin the models.
The current method of editing the Hull texture works be tiling the models like wallpaper so only basic texturing can be applied.

The stock method of re skinning is to place a shadow map offer the texture to create a darker colour over the original - ok for camo effect etc.

So I tried an experiment and it works:
By converting the Hull texture to an overall white texture (I did a light Grey for the test), it will allow the Shadow mask to retain its full colour.
Now the shadow mask can be repainted how ever we like.
So curved lines, camo etc can be created and will now retain its full colour.
So now white can be created in the texture. Stock hulls prevented this - everything was a mix of the shadow colours with the blues and Grey's etc of the hull.

Now this is a slow process as the Shadow mask has to be worked out what applies to where on the model.
As can be seen in the following pic - its not straight forward - The hull is not on e perfect straight section, but is made up from a few pieces.


http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/f...ppalachian.jpg


This process will have to be done for each ship type also.

But once done it should be a relatively easy task to create a more textures, allowing multiple skins to be created for each ship type.
Also diff skins can be assigned via the roster for diff countries etc.

May need some help with skins though, any volunteers? :D

EDIT: Just tried this in user made mission. And once more all ships rendered with the same skin.
It didn't pick skins at random even though there were 3 variants. Will have to do some more testing.