Fairmile B Motor Launch
 

AKA my first attempt to create a ship model for Silent Hunter :oops:

http://u-boat.com.mt/wp-content/uplo.../01/ML-130.png

This unassuming patrol craft is actually the most numerous anti-submarine vessel in WW2 (whooping 725 were built, serving as coastal convoy escorts in British, Canadian, Australian, Indian, French, Norwegian, New Zealand, Dutch and US Navy). Armed with 3pdr gun, 20 mm Oerlikon AA cannon, ASDIC and about 12 depth charges. Some were converted to MTBs or rescue ships as well.

Sadly, we don't have it in the game. Since I thought it would be fun to try to learn modeling a ship, Fairmile seemed like a good idea.

Here's the progress so far:



When it's finished, I plan to import it like SH3 ships as .dat as I don't know a way to export Blender model to .gr2

Looks great! :up:

Hmm... I began working on textures and have a question - is it possible to have multiple texture variants on a ship model without adding multiple ship classes to roster?

It would allow me to add those:

https://i.imgur.com/sl6niaC.jpg

Multiple camouflage schames would be nice eye candy too :)

Well done kapuhy, your model looks like a clean one :up:

There is no way to import blender files directly in game, neither as dat nor as gr2 units; you must export your models as wavefront (obj) files before you can import them in game using either Skwas' Silent3ditor or TDW's gr2 importer/exporter.

Due to the limits of the latter program, relying on the gr2 format might do things a bit more complicated, though gr2 models inported in SH5 look much better than dat ones, and they are better supported by the game engine. Considering the simple unit you are currently working on, you might give a try to Gr2 Editor :03:

In SHIV and SH5 camouflages are painted on models' ambient occlusion maps. You can make those maps configurable via cfg file by prepending the 'cfg#TXR' string to the name of their respective material.

Once unit's materials are set up correctly, there are two ways that you can make it to use more than one texture: you can assign multiple texture definitions to the same unit using its roster cfg file, or you can create several 'proxy clones' (i.e. clones of a unit sharing the same dat/obj, sim, etc. files) and give each one one individual texture. Proxy clones can be made to be recognized as just one unit in the recognition manual btw.

Don't hesitate asking in case you need more details on either method :salute:

This doesn't work very well since ships will always be rendered with the same paint, regardless of roster cfg settings if spawned in one convoy, for example.

This is the only way to actually have different paints for different nations...

Thanks! I wasn't even aware TDW's gr2 editor had import option, only after your answer I finally found it. I'll have to take a closer look at it.

Considering no one has yet used this method to "paint" bajillion historical ship names / numbers on the hulls, I guess it does come with some drawbacks though?

Yes, that's a known drawback of the SH5 multi-texturing system, but are you sure that it doesn't apply to proxy clones as well?

Other than that, I think that despite the fact that we can have any number of textures set in the cfg file, only the first three texture definitions are actually used as early, middle and late war camouflages, set in GroupTypesDefs.cfg as 0, 1 and 2 respectively. This is a little disappointing because roster texture definitions have start/end dates and frequency settings, suggesting a random texture assignment based on in-game dates. Those settings can as well be the clue of an unfinished feature (as it is common in SH games), but before discarding them, has anyone tried setting the camouflage parameter to -1 and seeing if such a setting forces the game to use more that three textures and to apply date and frequency parameters?

:up:

Pretty much, yes...

What about that?

From my experience, one 3D model (gr2 or dat) = one paint , if rendered in the same scene (area). I cloned a number of dat units using S3D editor in order to bypass this problem.

Solution with roster cfg files can work pretty well in case of units which will probably wont ever be rendered in the same area, for example some British and German generic freighter, used by both nations...

Yes, we already agreed on that, but my question was relative to a different (though related) topic. Please re-read my remarks on it:

Can't really comment that. It needs to be tested...

Okay. I think that that might be worth some tests since the same principle might also apply to sensors and armaments...

Guys, a quick question: is it possible to make flag smaller? (without changing the size of flags on other ships of course). The huge default flag simply doesn't fit the flagpole on such a small boat.

If you opted for the dat format, I think that you have no control on the flag size other than the naming of the flag node:

cfg#FLG = war ensign, large
cfg#FLS = war ensign, small
cfg#FLGC = civil ensign

It is likely that the same naming convention applies to GR2 units too, but chances are that the flag size of granny-format units can be fine-tuned further by using bone trasform (scale) data. My suggestion is you to have a look into this mod . By comparing its modded files with stock ones, you can easily understand how uekel achieved his smaller flags.

Weird... I just tried it and the flag size stays about the same (roughly 1,5 times as high as the flagpole). It might be shorter horizontally with #FLS but I'm not sure.

Another minor thing I've noticed with the flag is that while it moves around with flagpole as ship bounces on waves, it doesn't seem to tilt accordingly, so with bigger waves you can see flag edges moving away from the flagpole.

(and yes, I've tried simplier .dat import through s3ditor first, though I still intend to try doing a gr2 version as well. This way I'll learn how both available editors work)

If I can't get the flag smaller, I'll probably just lower the yard (is this the correct English term?) a bit to accomodate for bigger flag.

Maybe #FLS flag nodes are just a SHIII/SHIV thing. As I said in my previous post, in SH5 there might be a better way to reduce flag size (if the gr2 format is used).

That's weird, I have never seen anything similar :hmm2:

Okay, importing your first vessel as a dat unit will be a good exercise, even if at some point you will decide to switch to the gr2 format :03:

I am not a native English speaker either, but I think that a yard is an horizontal pole crossing a mast at a 90 deg angle in the port/starboard direction. I don't know how you want to accomodate the flag on your ship model, but to the bets of my knowledge naval ensigns were (and are) usually flown from a ensign staff at the ship's stern while at port, and from a gaff (i.e. a slanted pole usually diverging from a mast in the longitudinal direction) over the stern while underway. Maybe the picture below will make things clearer for you:

http://www.usps.org/national/fecom/i...rkgaffpole.jpg

Thanks gap!

I didn't know of this and initially placed the ensign simply on the mast head (which caused problems because Fairmile's yardarm is rather close to the mast head and flag reached below it), but after your post I checked the photos from WW2 and they all show ensign flying from the gaff as you told. I'll be correcting this in my model, and incidentally it solves the issue of flag size as well, because between the gaff and the deck I have enough space to hoist three flags if I wanted :)

In the meantime hit another obstacle - I can't find where the game stores models and data for weapons. Ship .dat and .eqp files contain references to various weapons and I can place them on ship by copying those references from existing units - but where are weapon models themselves and is it possible to edit/add new ones?

For historically accurate equipement on Fairmile, I need four kinds of weapons:
- Hotchkiss QF 3pdr (45mm) (initially mounted as main gun on foredeck)
- 20 mm Oerlikon AA guns (those replaced 3pdr later on, and additional one was mounted on aft deck)
- .303 Lewis machine guns
- this kind of crude DC racks:
https://i.imgur.com/ryE3I8m.jpg

EDIT: Just found the weapons. data/Library folder :)

Very cool model of the Fairmile, kapuhy!


:Kaleun_Thumbs_Up:

Small units like Subchasers, Tugs, Trawlers are always a great addition!

If there are questions to GR2 editor: within the next days I will try to sum up my

experiences so far with transferring obj. models from blender to GR2 editor.

But a lot of things are nebulous to me....

My pleasure kapuhy, while you update your model you might find the followin articles on flag etiquette useful:

https://www.marineinsight.com/guidel...ag-etiquettes/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariti...Flag_etiquette

The 20 mm Oerlikon and the depth charge ramps should be easy to find among stock SHIII/IV/5 and custom-made library armaments. Moreover, I have nicely detailed models of the most common US and British depth charges that I will be happy to share with you if you like. Here is myy rendition of the British Type "D" Mk III DC:

https://i.imgur.com/quIhxuD.png

On the other hand, I am sure that the Hotchkiss 3-pounder and the Lewis MG are not among the stock armaments, and I doubt that you will find them in any SH mod. I have a nice model of a lewis gun on my HD, my own work; I can similarly send it your way, but you would have to decimate its polygons, as it is a bit too detailed for use as an AI gun, and you would need to model a pedestal for it:

https://i.imgur.com/w5vSc9i.png


I am afraid that by relying on the dat format you won't be able to use GR2 armaments directly on your unit, unless you give up the unified render controller and the connected texture maps: granny equipments look entirely black when placed on dat units with the aforementioned controller :yep: