An Appeal to Ship 3D Modellers Everywhere

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Message From Privateer:

I have had the pleasure of examining every ship in the upcoming GWX release.
It is because of this exhaustive examination that I write this for all ship builders.
Current and future.
This is intended to be informative, not critical.
I am constantly amazed at the time, thought, and talent,
each and every builder puts into thier units.

There is, however, one major area that is missed on nearly every
ship I have looked at.

Reflections.
It takes less time to correct reflections then to build or adjust
a single part for a new unit.

Look at nearly any ship in SH3 with an eye on the reflections
and you will see what I mean.

Some of the problems start from stock ships that have the WaterReflection
for the masts and other parts set at 00 instead of 01.
(00 = off 01 = on)


Some parts have no reflections what so ever.
Look at the larger Warships and notice how many major parts
just do not reflect.

Adding the WaterReflection controller to that part will make
them appear.

The main problem is not importing a reflection object at all.
You end up with a reflection that is totally different from
the ship casting the reflection.

Should anyone have any questions or need help,
simply post here.
I'm aways willing to help.

Regards,
Privateer
Bigboywooly
Ref
DivingDuck
Kpt.Lehmann

Some examples: (We are not trying to pick on anyone... please don't take it personally.)

Bad reflections:



Examples following correction:

[Koondawg]

You know Im thinking you just past out a big tip....

[iambecomelife]

I tried adding reflections once by importing the hull object of a modded ship with the latest version of Pack3d. I ended up with a corrupted, messed-up texture all over my ship. Do you guys have tips or a tutorial? I hope it really does take a few moments to correct, since I'll probably find a way to complicate it needlessly. :rotfl:

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

I tried adding reflections once by importing the hull object of a modded ship with the latest version of Pack3d. I ended up with a corrupted, messed-up texture all over my ship. Do you guys have tips or a tutorial? I hope it really does take a few moments to correct, since I'll probably find a way to complicate it needlessly. :rotfl:

Well, the intention of this thread is to help with matters exactly like that. There may be a bit of lag time to answers as Privateer does not reside on this forum.

Message relayed.

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by Kpt. Lehmann

Well, the intention of this thread is to help with matters exactly like that. There may be a bit of lag time to answers as Privateer does not reside on this forum.

Message relayed.

Thanks, and I will try to help myself in the meantime.

[bigboywooly]

Best to use version 2 of pack3d for imports
Screws up the dat a lot less than the later one

[pontius]

Hello mates,
I have a little problem ragarding reflections.
The Reflection of the hull seems transparent so it is possible to see parts of the ship in the reflection on the water which shouldnt be visible. Is there any value I can change the transparecy of reflections?

Thanks,
pontius

[DivingDuck]

Moin Pontius,

if you like I can have a look at your ship´s reflections. Just send the files.

Regards,
DD

[ref]

Originally Posted by pontius

Hello mates,
I have a little problem ragarding reflections.
The Reflection of the hull seems transparent so it is possible to see parts of the ship in the reflection on the water which shouldnt be visible. Is there any value I can change the transparecy of reflections?

Thanks,
pontius

First the basics, here's the structure of the WaterReflection controller:

WaterReflection ; WaterReflection Render Controller.

ClipHeight ; Float (4 bytes) Water clipping height (under -20 for no clipping)
Reflection ; boolean (1 byte) Above water reflection
Refraction ; boolean (1 byte) Under water refraction
FrustumTest ; boolean (1 byte) Use frustum test for object to eliminate reflection
MinVisDim ; Float (4 bytes) Minimum screen dimension for reflection visibility (1 = screen dimension)
MaxVisDim ; Float (4 bytes) Screen dimension for maximum reflection visibility (1 = screen dimension)

From the above values the most important are:
Reflection , it must be 1 (true) for the object to reflect, if 0 then only the refraction is visible
MinVisDim, approx. 0,02 for small objects (masts, etc) and 0,1 for large objects (hulls, etc)
MaxVisDim, approx. 0,2 for small objects and 2,0 for large objects.

The latest two controlls the dimming of the reflection according to the viewer distance, it may take some trial and error to get the exact values, but the ones I gave you are a good base.


Ref

[Woof1701]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

I tried adding reflections once by importing the hull object of a modded ship with the latest version of Pack3d. I ended up with a corrupted, messed-up texture all over my ship. Do you guys have tips or a tutorial? I hope it really does take a few moments to correct, since I'll probably find a way to complicate it needlessly. :rotfl:

Since we're just broaching the topic: how's your merchant mod coming along? Any news?

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by Woof1701

Since we're just broaching the topic: how's your merchant mod coming along? Any news?

It's coming along fine. The skinning is nearly done. All of the skins I had produced earlier were discarded or updated for better quality.
I will probably finish skinning in 2-3 days and begin checking the 3d models for errors. After that I will finish the broken halves for each ship. Several months ago this process was finished but there have been so many changes to the models that most of the ship halves need to be updated again.

Finally I will start cloning the vessels for each nationality in preparation for the beta release of the full version - the one that will have the nationality-appropriate skins. The basic version of the mod will use one ship model for every country and will have a much smaller filesize (at a cost of being less historically accurate).

[Woof1701]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

It's coming along fine. The skinning is nearly done. All of the skins I had produced earlier were discarded or updated for better quality.
I will probably finish skinning in 2-3 days and begin checking the 3d models for errors. After that I will finish the broken halves for each ship. Several months ago this process was finished but there have been so many changes to the models that most of the ship halves need to be updated again.

Finally I will start cloning the vessels for each nationality in preparation for the beta release of the full version - the one that will have the nationality-appropriate skins. The basic version of the mod will use one ship model for every country and will have a much smaller filesize (at a cost of being less historically accurate).

Sounds terrific. Thanks a lot for the update!

One more thing. I asked this before: since most ships have weapons platforms will there be a way to make ships with and without platforms. So to speak late- and early-war models? I find it looks a little strange to have ships sailing around with gun platforms in 1939 or 1940.

[ref]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

I tried adding reflections once by importing the hull object of a modded ship with the latest version of Pack3d. I ended up with a corrupted, messed-up texture all over my ship. Do you guys have tips or a tutorial? I hope it really does take a few moments to correct, since I'll probably find a way to complicate it needlessly. :rotfl:

Sorry I missed the post or I'll have answered earlier.

Most likelly your problem was that the reflection object (reflect_XXXXX) has the wrong textures in the root node.

Here's an example:
00000000 04 00 00 00 64 00 00 00-4A 00 00 00 2B 46 AB 91 ....d...J...+F..
00000010 80 FC 7A 87 00 00 00 00-00 00 00 00 45 3C 75 B6 ..z.........E<u.
00000020 6C BC 5B FF 00 01 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 7A 28 l.[...........z(
00000030 A0 32 00 00 00 80 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 .2..............
00000040 00 00 29 59 46 AB B3 BB-99 52 D9 67 46 AB B5 BB ..)YF....R.gF...
00000050 99 52 00 00 00 00

Values in red are unknowns.

First the header : 04 00 00 00 64 00 00 00-4A 00 00 00
All dwords, type, subtype and block size (must be equal to the remaining bytes of the block.

Second IDs : 2B 46 AB 91 80 FC 7A 87 00 00 00 00-00 00 00 00 45 3C 75 B6 6C BC 5B FF
Al int64 (8 bytes), Self ID, parent ID and 3d object ID.

Third visibility : 01
Boolean, 00 unvisible, 01 visible

Fourth position : 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 7A 28 A0 32 00 00 00 80 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00
All floats (4 bytes), rotations are in radians : x,y,x, rotation x, rotation z, rotation z.

Fifth number of textures : 02 00 00 00
Dword
Sixth Textures IDs : 29 59 46 AB B3 BB 99 52 D9 67 46 AB B5 BB 99 52
Int64 (8 bytes) varies according to the number of textures (fifth entry)

In this example you have a main model with two textures (the IDs are the ones in the material nodes), when you import a model with pack3d, this are referenced in each face by order, 0 for texture one, and 1 for texture two, in order to have the reflection correct, (assuming that your reflection model has the same number of textures than the main one), the root node for the reflection object MUST have the same number and order of textures, if the order is different you will have for example the deck with the hull texture and viceversa, if you have less textures sh3 will replace the non existing reference with the texture in the first "slot".

The best way to ensure that the textures are ok is this:

1) Copy the type 04 node of the object, then replace the IDs (id, parent and 3d object) with the ones from the reflect_XXXX object
2) Set the visibility byte to 0
3) Replace the type 04 node of the reflection with the one you've just created.

Ref

[Alex]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

It's coming along fine. The skinning is nearly done. All of the skins I had produced earlier were discarded or updated for better quality.
I will probably finish skinning in 2-3 days and begin checking the 3d models for errors. After that I will finish the broken halves for each ship. Several months ago this process was finished but there have been so many changes to the models that most of the ship halves need to be updated again.

Finally I will start cloning the vessels for each nationality in preparation for the beta release of the full version - the one that will have the nationality-appropriate skins. The basic version of the mod will use one ship model for every country and will have a much smaller filesize (at a cost of being less historically accurate).

I WANT THE NEW SH3 MERCHANT FLEET AS SOON AS POSSIBLE !

Sorry mate :rotfl:

Take your time... :hmm:

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by ref

Sorry I missed the post or I'll have answered earlier.

Most likelly your problem was that the reflection object (reflect_XXXXX) has the wrong textures in the root node.

Here's an example:
00000000 04 00 00 00 64 00 00 00-4A 00 00 00 2B 46 AB 91 ....d...J...+F..
00000010 80 FC 7A 87 00 00 00 00-00 00 00 00 45 3C 75 B6 ..z.........E<u.
00000020 6C BC 5B FF 00 01 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 7A 28 l.[...........z(
00000030 A0 32 00 00 00 80 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 .2..............
00000040 00 00 29 59 46 AB B3 BB-99 52 D9 67 46 AB B5 BB ..)YF....R.gF...
00000050 99 52 00 00 00 00

Values in red are unknowns.

First the header : 04 00 00 00 64 00 00 00-4A 00 00 00
All dwords, type, subtype and block size (must be equal to the remaining bytes of the block.

Second IDs : 2B 46 AB 91 80 FC 7A 87 00 00 00 00-00 00 00 00 45 3C 75 B6 6C BC 5B FF
Al int64 (8 bytes), Self ID, parent ID and 3d object ID.

Third visibility : 01
Boolean, 00 unvisible, 01 visible

Fourth position : 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 7A 28 A0 32 00 00 00 80 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00
All floats (4 bytes), rotations are in radians : x,y,x, rotation x, rotation z, rotation z.

Fifth number of textures : 02 00 00 00
Dword
Sixth Textures IDs : 29 59 46 AB B3 BB 99 52 D9 67 46 AB B5 BB 99 52
Int64 (8 bytes) varies according to the number of textures (fifth entry)

In this example you have a main model with two textures (the IDs are the ones in the material nodes), when you import a model with pack3d, this are referenced in each face by order, 0 for texture one, and 1 for texture two, in order to have the reflection correct, (assuming that your reflection model has the same number of textures than the main one), the root node for the reflection object MUST have the same number and order of textures, if the order is different you will have for example the deck with the hull texture and viceversa, if you have less textures sh3 will replace the non existing reference with the texture in the first "slot".

The best way to ensure that the textures are ok is this:

1) Copy the type 04 node of the object, then replace the IDs (id, parent and 3d object) with the ones from the reflect_XXXX object
2) Set the visibility byte to 0
3) Replace the type 04 node of the reflection with the one you've just created.

Ref

Thanks for the information. I'm not clear on everything but I'll give it a shot. I am going to create copies of my ships for safety's sake & then I will try again.

@ Woof1701 - For some of the ships I can delete the platforms altogether. I will probably do it for Sweden and other nations that were non-combatants throughout the war. I will look into using SH3 commander to swap out DAT files for other nations' ships depending on what year it is.

@ Alex - Hang on; it's coming as quickly as possible.