I am completly stuck!

[Hans Witteman]

Hi lady's and gentleman's

I badly need help i get this error message from Sh3 after saving : ``the node is referencing a material but the index of the material is higher than the index of the node``.

The texture look fine in sh3 but when i load in game some part are using the hull map that is not even in the object turm IIA root node, i verify all my node tree delete everything starting from scratch again with no success

And again i still have problem importing additional uvw channel i try both method with 3ds max and as obj.uvw, I can see the new channel like channel 1, channel 2 and channel 3 but if i click in the map preview on each channel only the channel 1 is showing in all of them.

And sorry to ask this again here but i have start a thread asking very few simple questions to help me out and no one answer at all so i try my luck again :

# question 1 : Where is the death screen picture, the one that show up when you get kill in campaign?

# question 2 : How to remove crew from conning tower to show the detail in pictures?

# question 3 : Is it possible to move the crew up&down position on conning tower?

# Bonus Easter question : Where can we tweak the night sky setting i saw the day sky in Misc but nothing for the starry night sky?

Thank to all in advanced

Regards Hans

[verte]

I think no-one answered before, because those are hard questions. The starry night sky is afaik hardcoded and cannot be changed

[Hans Witteman]

Originally Posted by verte

I think no-one answered before, because those are hard questions. The starry night sky is afaik hardcoded and cannot be changed

At least you have answering one thank Verte but i saw a post on a french silent hunter forum that say a guy there was able to apply a texture of a starry night sky on top of the hardcoded one but the guy never respond to any emails unfortunately.

Regards, Hans

[flakmonkey]

put the material node at the top of the tree, or at least higher up than the model that is using it. +the stars in the night sky are geometry rather than a texture and if i remember right theyre in scene.dat

[Jankowski]

hello hans!

i hope you get these problems sorted out becuase this is one of the mods i want most! iia is oneof my favorite u-boats, and i hope you also do the iid because it is similar to the iia.

good luck!

[Hans Witteman]

Thank Flakmonkey and the others, i finally manage to make it work after 2 days of struggling with sh3 and i discover a major corruption bug when importing&exporting in sh3, it seem that after multiples import sh3 get confused about index vertices from uvw layout the reason I'm saying that is because if i just hit undo in sh3 and reloading earlier saves from max it work just fine.

So for now on my best friend in sh3 will be the undo button!

By the way since i start playing with sh3 i learn a lot so i am going to start a tech thread toexplain to new modders what are the limit in texturing regarding UVW layout modification, there are a lot of tricky part that need to be done in max to make sure the obj export without messing the index vertices i know this is tech stuff and some will be confused about that so when i am done hopefully in the next 2 days i will start the thread explaining in detail.

By the way Flakmonkey do you know where is the death screen picture location, the one that show up with the summary when you get sunk in campaign, and i saw in your lightmap release that you were able to remove crew from conning tower is possible for you to shortly explain how you did it i don't need any step by step just general info.

I know i ask a lot of questions but believe me i will help back a lot after because i am not afraid of sharing my knowledge to make new modders life easier.

It is the second time in the week that i have redone the unwrapping completely on conning tower ext&int i hope not to redo cause my hands hurt lol

Regards Hans,

[Hans Witteman]

Originally Posted by Jankowski

hello hans!

i hope you get these problems sorted out becuase this is one of the mods i want most! iia is oneof my favorite u-boats, and i hope you also do the iid because it is similar to the iia.

good luck!

Hi Jankowski thank for supporting my work, you could rest assure that it will be release very soon i am almost done and i think you will be please with the new total historical conversion of the early type IIA.

It seem long because it is my first time playing with sh3 and we always have a learning curve prior to gaining speed and understanding of the tool but after i'm done with the first one it will be a lot faster for the others i plan to do.

Regards Hans,

[Hans Witteman]

Originally Posted by flakmonkey

put the material node at the top of the tree, or at least higher up than the model that is using it. +the stars in the night sky are geometry rather than a texture and if i remember right theyre in scene.dat

Thank again Flakmonkey i hope you will look at my WIP video until you see the credits roll because you will be the first in the list for your outstanding support.

The step i made when exporting my obj is as follow :

1. Apply a uvw unwrap on

2.specified the channel ex; 1,2,3 etc

3.Export with -uv1,-uv2 etc for each individual map channels

4. Import in sh3 as obj instead of 3ds max uvw

5.Every additional map channels is visible in sh3 import window

6. I see each new map channels in sh3 but what bug me up is that clicking on each one of them always show the first map channel?

I will try uninstalling and reinstalling sh3 today to see if it fix the issue.

I am very close to release this video maybe today if i can fix my issues with the lightmap map channel and the animation i want to add to the sub lets say i want to add an animation that follow the sub do i have to link it as a child somewhere in sh3?

And I want that animation to be trigger on will by the user via keyboard shortcuts?

Best regards Hans,

[nemo7]

Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno Hans. Don't give up. LOS!

The Event Camera stuff is triggered by StateMachine controllers.
The Death Event is triggered in this file:
GraphHitPointsAll.dat
Number 11, if I recall right, is Death.

That sends you to the screen you see.
It's nothing more then a Camera Path using BezierWaypoints
and Target Controllers to fly past the Sub as rendered in Game.

I would suspect that there is no way to have this point at a seperate
animation/image as it may be a Hard Coded instruction.

As i said, I Suspect.
That does not mean it can not be done.
It just means I can not tell you how to change it.
As I never looked that close at this issue.

[Hans Witteman]

[QUOTE=privateer

As i said, I Suspect.
That does not mean it can not be done.
It just means I can not tell you how to change it.
As I never looked that close at this issue.[/QUOTE]

Thank a lot privateer every bit of help is deeply appreciated i will look at that later since now i am struggling with sh3 who playing trick on me at one moment i open sh3 and it behave differently each time i reopen it i am very confused right now since each time i import my model sh3 it does a different think. I think the image and video will have to wait until i managed to make my lightmap work there is so much confusion around the import/export and uvw channels that i swear i will write a complete, concise,clear and definitive tutorial so nobody have to fight with the software like i am doing right now.

I truly suspect file corruption in import process but i cannot pin point at what stage it occurring...

I even download Flakmonkey TypIIA lightmap to compare files and mine are identical to is tree nodes, so right now i am turning around to understand what is wrong.

And i think that in the thread of the ambient occlusion tutorial there is part of my answer but i think Skwasjer is not available to answer anymore.

The thread say :
Does the 2nd map channel in S3D show you the correct uv map in the preview window? It sounds like the uv coordinates aren't right. If they are right though, then I'd like to have a look at the .dat.

Oh, and you may want to check if SelfOccEnable is true in the UnifiedRenderControler.

But i don't know where i can check if SelfoccEnable is enabled.

Regards Hans,

I had troubles with importing models today myself.

A face kept showing up inverted in S3D and in Game.
But other programs, 3D Max included, showed it as fine.
I finally detached the whole area and welded a few verts.
then re-imported everything and the problem was solved.

SH4 uses the UnifiedRender Controller.
Not Sh3.

[Hans Witteman]

Originally Posted by privateer

I had troubles with importing models today myself.

A face kept showing up inverted in S3D and in Game.
But other programs, 3D Max included, showed it as fine.
I finally detached the whole area and welded a few verts.
then re-imported everything and the problem was solved.

SH4 uses the UnifiedRender Controller.
Not Sh3.

I know what you mean i did something similar last night detaching part of the conning tower weld a bunch of loosed vertices re attach and import again without any problem.

I am totally lost again with the lightmap and what make me angry is that i don't know wich software is at fault

When you are perfectionist it is sometime more a plague than a gift believe me!

I uninstalled and reinstalled sh3 but the same problem is occurring again.

Regards Hans,

[skwasjer]

The general structure of a DAT-file is:

- material
    - (optional) embedded image
    - texture map (set to: Ambient Occlusion)
        - (optional) embedded image
- root node
    - model
    - label (name of node/model)
    - controllers (f.ex. UnifiedRenderControler)
    - subnodes

Whenever building new DAT-files, it is best to use an existing file that matches the layout of the unit/object you are building. For interiors, you pick an interior file. For a ship, you pick a ship-file. Then you strip it down to a bare minimum and build from there. I tend to copy alot from other files too by using CTRL+SHIFT+C (copies selected subtree structure instead of just a single chunk).

For the AO-map, when using Max, you must ensure you use the correct import function (import UVW-file for AO-map, instead of extra OBJ-files). Obviously, you must have exported the UVW-file from Max.

So you have:
- model.OBJ (main model)
- model-uv2.UVW (AO-map)

The extra channels 3, 4 can be forgotten. The game does not use them, and they are left overs from the devs (iow. channels they used during design of the models).

If you have an AO-map, you must have the UnifiedRenderControler. Again, check existing DAT-files on where to place the controller. It should be a child of the root-node, and placed before any subnodes, but after the label/model.

Last, the order of each chunk is very important (a treenode = chunk). The order is indicated by the number in the name (and seen at the top of each chunk-page). You can move chunks up/down in this order using the green arrows. Again, check existing DAT-files (or reuse them) for the correct order.

Originally Posted by Hans Witteman

I badly need help i get this error message from Sh3 after saving : ``the node is referencing a material but the index of the material is higher than the index of the node``.

This message indicates that the material-node is placed after the node that references it. Look at the number in the name of each treenode. If f.ex. the material it's number is 10 but the node that uses it has number 7, you get this message. Correct this by moving the material (and it's subnodes) to the top of the file using the green up/down arrows.

[edit]
Final note: before importing an OBJ-file, you MUST have set up the DAT-file with all the materials (use the same name or order as in Max), and have those materials assigned to the node that 'hosts' the model-chunk (the one you import into). If not done, the import may succeed, but will not yield correct rendering in most cases.

Hope this helps,

skwas

[Hans Witteman]

Originally Posted by skwasjer

)

The extra channels 3, 4 can be forgotten. The game does not use them, and they are left overs from the devs (iow. channels they used during design of the models).

Hi again skwasjer,

Do you mean that if i have put additional uvw channel in max ex; 3,4,5,6
the game won't be able to see them or you mean they where just leftover from the developers?

Thank you are helping me greatly once i will grasp most of the important concept i won't be asking much questions.

Regards Hans