New Unit: US Mahan DD

[Commander1980]

Because there are only the Somers and the Clemson-class destroyers available for the US-Navy in the early years, i decided to mod a Mahan-class Destroyer. With 18 ships, this destroyer class was the largest US class of destroyers that was build (only) during the 1930s (to larger classes had been build from 1938 on, but also in war time).
See here for more information http://www.destroyerhistory.org/gold...ahanclass.html

The Mahan class underwent several refittings during the war, see the pictures on the website above. I decided to mod the earliest look, how they would appear in 1941 to 1943. Later in the war, the AA-armament was increased with Bofors 40mm and the aft guns become also shielded in 1944/45. The screenshot shows the 1943 configuration.



for comparison:




HELP NEEDED:
The modeling of the unit is completed (but you can suggest alterations ) and all files are ready. But there are still some texture mistakes. Because i found no way to change the position of the Torpedo-nodes, i had to use 3D-models instead for representing the torpedotubes. I have extracted the 3D-model from the guns.dat and importet them as objects to the Mahan dat-file. Unfortunately the new torpedotubes use the whole texture-file as skin.
My questions:

1) How can i change the position of the gun nodes

and / or

2) How can i get independant/working textures for the 3d-object-tubes?

thx in advance,
Commander

As soon it is ready, the ship can be released

[Marhkimov]

I dunno if it would be too much trouble for you, but if you did use another destroyer as a "base clone" for your Mahan, could you post both pictures so we can compare your mod changes??

You know... so we can see the difference between both of the ship's configurations.

[Commander1980]

No problem, it is based on the Somers (in fact, the Somers and the Mahan had similarities, they were build at the same time. The Somers was designed as heavy armed Flottila-leader-destroyer, and that is why she is virtually the wrong ship for hunting u-boats )





Changes:
2nd funnel (with resizing), 2nd mast, aft platform deleted, small tower on bridge deleted, torpedoobjects added, textures, armament.

I think the fist funnel has to be a little more narrow. This is easy to do. If you look at the photos, there were some differences between the classmates. The small tower on the second mast can be added, but it is not seen on all ships. I think about that.

armament (real / Sh3-weapons)
- 2x5" Single turrets / 2x5InchSingle
- 3x5" Single unshileded / 3x4.7Inch unshielded
--> changes to 2 x4.7Inch unshielded and 1x40mm Bofors Twin in 1943
--> 2x5" turrets in lieu of the the two remaining unshielded guns in 1944.

[Commander1980]

This is the torpedo-tube-texture-problem

[Marhkimov]

I don't know if this is a feasable idea or not, but i'll say it anyway. Bear with me, I'm not really a modeller...

If the 'torpedo tube' object that you created has a .dat file, is it possible for you to import a skin into it?

[Commander1980]

Originally Posted by marhkimov

I don't know if this is a feasable idea or not, but i'll say it anyway. Bear with me, I'm not really a modeller...

If the 'torpedo tube' object that you created has a .dat file, is it possible for you to import a skin into it?

No it is only an obj-file and i am not really a modeller, too I think somewhere in the 3D-model of that torpedotube is some kind of texture-mapper (?) integrated, but i don't find it or don't know how to change it. Other object-models use specified parts of the texture.tga, so it should work. The best way is to replace the equipment-nodes by hex-editind. I tried a lot, but i think i haven't changed the correct strings.
If someone has an idea with the problems, i will send the files.

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by Commander1980

Because there are only the Somers and the Clemson-class destroyers available for the US-Navy in the early years, i decided to mod a Mahan-class Destroyer. With 18 ships, this destroyer class was the largest US class of destroyers that was build (only) during the 1930s (to larger classes had been build from 1938 on, but also in war time).
See here for more information http://www.destroyerhistory.org/gold...ahanclass.html

The Mahan class underwent several refittings during the war, see the pictures on the website above. I decided to mod the earliest look, how they would appear in 1941 to 1943. Later in the war, the AA-armament was increased with Bofors 40mm and the aft guns become also shielded in 1943/44. The picture shows the 1943 configuration.



for comparison:




HELP NEEDED:
The modeling of the unit is completed (but you can suggest alterations ) and all files are ready. But there are still some texture mistakes. Because i found no way to change the position of the Torpedo-nodes, i had to use 3D-models instead for representing the torpedotubes. I have extracted the 3D-model from the guns.dat and importet them as objects to the Mahan dat-file. Unfortunately the new torpedotubes use the whole texture-file as skin.
My questions:

1) How can i change the position of the gun nodes

and / or

2) How can i get independant/working textures for the 3d-object-tubes?

thx in advance,
Commander

As soon it is ready, the ship can be released

That's an excellent looking model, Commander1980. Any plans for a Benson/Gleaves class ship? They're my favorite United States WWII DD class since they did so much of the fighting off Guadalcanal.

I'd like to second that request about texturing 3d objects. I successfully added a Hurricane to a merchantman yesterday for a CAM-ship but the project is stalled because there's no way to texture the fighter properly. Right now it appears textured as part of the ship's hull - not very attractive. I hope someone can find a way to resolve this.

[Commander1980]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

[That's an excellent looking model, Commander1980. Any plans for a Benson/Gleaves class ship? They're my favorite United States WWII DD class since they did so much of the fighting off Guadalcanal.

yep, i wanted to mod Benson and Gleaves, but none of the existing ships fit. Mahan was relatively easy. Tiny line drawings can be found here:

http://members.tripod.com/~LCoat/shipdraw.htm

Look at the Fletcher (and also at the photos on that destroyer-page) - how bad the SH3-stock-Fletcher is modeled! !!

I'd like to second that request about texturing 3d objects. I successfully added a Hurricane to a merchantman yesterday for a CAM-ship but the project is stalled because there's no way to texture the fighter properly. Right now it appears textured as part of the ship's hull - not very attractive. I hope someone can find a way to resolve this.

yep, this is exact the same problem. Which programs did you use?

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by Commander1980

yep, i wanted to mod Benson and Gleaves, but none of the existing ships fit. Mahan was relatively easy. Tiny line drawings can be found here:

http://members.tripod.com/~LCoat/shipdraw.htm

Look at the Fletcher (and also at the photos on that destroyer-page) - how bad the SH3-stock-Fletcher is modeled! !!

yep, this is exact the same problem. Which programs did you use?

I used wings3d and the java version of pack3d. I'm in an awkward position because if I skin the fighter I'll most likely see RAF roundels and cockpits all along the ship's hull. I think I need to find out which portion of the dat file assigns a particular section of the TGA to a 3d model. I'm using the Commerce Raider merchant as a parent, and there's a big unassigned patch where the floatplane goes. Unfortunately there's no way to tell SH3 that I want the hurricane to use this square of the tga, and not some hull section.



Interestingly, the game doesn't even use this square of tga file for the stock AMC-mounted Arado. I remember that painting the entire square red had no effect on the aircraft's texture ingame. I wonder where it gets the texture from. It's a shame so much space was wasted, considering how often the textures repeat themselves.
I actually saw a 3d object in wings3d that was basically a small plane (as in flat surface) with the Arado texture on it; could this be what I'm looking for? Is there a way to open obj files in photoshop?
Oh, and I agree; the default Fletcher class has always scared me . When I was fooling around with Guadalcanal missions a couple months ago I noticed that making the model sit lower in the water improved its appearance slightly.

[iambecomelife]

One more thing, Commander. I've noticed that many prewar US Navy destroyers had no shields over the mountings for their aft guns, leaving the crews exposed to shrapnel and small caliber fire. Were the designers THAT desperate to avoid topweight problems, or was there another reason for this? I doubt that protection for the aft guns would have added more than a few tons to the vessels' total weight.

[Commander1980]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

One more thing, Commander. I've noticed that many prewar US Navy destroyers had no shields over the mountings for their aft guns, leaving the crews exposed to shrapnel and small caliber fire. Were the designers THAT desperate to avoid topweight problems, or was there another reason for this? I doubt that protection for the aft guns would have added more than a few tons to the vessels' total weight.

Yep, i think this was because of the weight. It was very hard to find the best trim for the narrow, fine-lined destroyer, so every kg that can be spared was important. Especially the weak stern was problematic.

regarding your texture-problem:
when the game does not use the textures in the namc.tga, does it use the normal arado-tga? But i found no tga-file included regarding the arado-plane. Just try to extract the hipper-arado tga into data/textures/tnormal/tex, and change it, but i do not think it works.

[oRGy]

Can't help you with the texture problem commander, but the unit looks great overall.

[Commander1980]

Originally Posted by oRGy

Can't help you with the texture problem commander, but the unit looks great overall.

i "evaded" (?) the problem by using sansal's method. Now the unit uses correct working torpedotubes. No more texture problems.

[Marhkimov]

I know it might be a lot for you to handle, but do you also mod the reflections to match your ship? Like if you add a second funnel, do you know how to add a reflection for the funnel?

It's not really a big deal, as a lot of people won't bother to notice, but if you are a perfectionist or anything of the sort, you might want to give it a look?

[Commander1980]

yes, this is the thing i am currently working on