[TEC] Adding/Importing new units / SH5 Damage/collision models

[TheDarkWraith]

Some new merchant ships should be ready in about a day or two. Had to travel to CO today so didn't get much time to work on anything. Now I'm going to look over this Destroyer problem you reported. I need to see what the AI is doing ingame to figure out if I made the problem or if it's a game bug or something.

[TheDarkWraith]

Originally Posted by Zedi

I cannot upload a better quality screenie due to size limit, but trust me, it looks MUCH more better in reality! I have no clue of what Im doing nor any experience in this field, but seems like things are shaping up slowly. Added a normal map and the ships now already have reflection, also brighter and darker sides.. and most important thing.. textures. The are now colored in blue just to figure out what part need to be worked out. But its working, I can make these babies shine!

Now I would love to know 2 things:
TDW, the textures for the gun and lights where are stored? Are these textures from the common database, same on every SH5 ship? Or they are simply just missing?

The textures for the guns and light are not missing - they are embedded in the guns files.

Can you explain about this normal map, and what about the reflections? You see reflections on water now? Where did you put this normal map?

[Zedi]

Originally Posted by TheDarkWraith

The textures for the guns and light are not missing - they are embedded in the guns files.

Can you explain about this normal map, and what about the reflections? You see reflections on water now? Where did you put this normal map?

Sorry for the confusion, I was talking about the water reflections on the boat hull. The boat have no shadow or its own reflection on the water yet and thats not something it can be fixed by working on textures.

So there is nothing we can do with the guns texture? Can you change the texture path for them, so we can use external textures?

[Stormfly]

very good news guy`s

[Sepp von Ch.]

Originally Posted by TheDarkWraith

Some new merchant ships should be ready in about a day or two. Had to travel to CO today so didn't get much time to work on anything. Now I'm going to look over this Destroyer problem you reported. I need to see what the AI is doing ingame to figure out if I made the problem or if it's a game bug or something.

You´re kidding TDW, right? Or... seriously will be joined new merchant ships with perfect damage model in SH5 from you tomorrow or the day after?

It would be wonderful! What type of merchants? Among them is even a large tanker?

[Zedi]

No, he is not joking. Thats why I set my campaign mod with mines &stuff as WIP. Im waiting for TDW to import some fresh meat from SH4, so I can place them in the campaign engine. The small boat was only a test, a successful one.

He gave us the howto, so if more people could help him we could change very rapidly the whole merchant fleet in SH5.

[iambecomelife]

Built it from scratch & got it working with no major problems. One strange thing is that I have to adjust fr_ratio in the .sim file to about .46; otherwise the ship sails with its stern awash. No biggie, though - for older ships with the default value of 0.5, this can easily be adjusted in S3ditor.

Does anyone know if it's possible to create multiple skin units in SH5? At the moment I have to have the skin embedded in the DAT, otherwise the texture shows up blank. It's a little inconvenient for there to be just one skin per ship.

Thanks.

[TheDarkWraith]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

Built it from scratch & got it working with no major problems. One strange thing is that I have to adjust fr_ratio in the .sim file to about .46; otherwise the ship sails with its stern awash. No biggie, though - for older ships with the default value of 0.5, this can easily be adjusted in S3ditor.

Does anyone know if it's possible to create multiple skin units in SH5? At the moment I have to have the skin embedded in the DAT, otherwise the texture shows up blank. It's a little inconvenient for there to be just one skin per ship.

Thanks.

Excellent

Noticed the same thing about the fr_ratio on the ships I've done. The subs sail bow awash instead of stern awash like the ships.

I've been trying to figure out how the game would pick from mutiple skins. Have you tried using the _Txx extension?
Why do you have to have the skin embedded in the DAT? You don't have to. You can declare the name for the skin in the DAT in the type 2/0 node. Remove the Type 3/0 for this Type 2/0 and put the skin in \data\Textures\TNormal\tex

[Zedi]

This ship is from SH4 or 3? It looks pretty similar to a Hog Island and the modeling is pretty primitive with low count polygons
And why she has only wood textures? Even the rudder is covered with wood...

Is not criticism, but Im a bit worried about how this ship will look like into a generic SH5 convoy.

[Stormfly]

low poly also means good performance, if you look on some of the vanilla SH5 ships, you see high poly count is not a guarantee for good quality...

...compare those SH5 merchants with the "merchant fleet mod", you see most of this SH3 modded low poly ships look more realistic, by having a better performance at the same time...

but there are also exceptions, like most of the warships, especialy the SH5 battleships are good looking or the SH5 "Armed Travler".

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by Zedi

This ship is from SH4 or 3? It looks pretty similar to a Hog Island and the modeling is pretty primitive with low count polygons
And why she has only wood textures? Even the rudder is covered with wood...

Is not criticism, but Im a bit worried about how this ship will look like into a generic SH5 convoy.

It's not a Hog Islander; this ship is much smaller and does not look much like one. it is also not very low poly; it is simply a hull with little slope to its cross section; that's how many old fashioned merchant ships were designed.

Hog islanders as built would never have had two lifeboats or the ventilator arrangements of this ship. The bridge looks nothing like a Hog Islander's. There is no wheelhouse above the second bridge wing level (this was added to most Hog Islanders during the interwar years).

Also, the length of the bow and stern islands is totally different from a Hog Islander's.

In addition the hatch arrangements, deckhouses, and cranes are completely different.

Not sure why you said it has wooden textures on the rudder (what feature are you identifying as the rudder, by the way?) The rudder is barely visible in the second shot, but it is covered with a red metal texture.

"the modeling is pretty primitive "

I actually designed all the ventilators, cranes, and deck cargo to be high poly and destructible. Cargo crates and fixtures will catch fire and can be blown off if you hit them with enough deck gun fire. Unlike SH4, where many such parts were integral parts of the ship model, and thus indestructible.

[Zedi]

So how old is this ship? Is from ww1 or earlier? Can you give me a link or real photos where I can see how it looks like for real?

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by Zedi

So how old is this ship? Is from ww1 or earlier? Can you give me a link or real photos where I can see how it looks like for real?

No, I can't. It is a generic old fashioned vessel from the WWI era. There was a ship by this name sunk in WWI but no photo was available.

[wamphyri]

Good work TDC. You've figured out some of the stuff that was stumping us when a few of us were playing around with this. Getting the damage model to work is sweet.

The one thing I do remember is about the textures. It seems that when using DAT files SH5 won't render the specular or diffuse maps that are part of the dat files and part of sh4's rendering engine. That's why the ships all seems to be one "brightness" in sh5. In sh4 the engine would use these maps and it really makes a difference when they are used. If you were to remove them and go back into sh4 I believe they give you the same look that you get in sh5.

I hope this makes sense. If I had more time in my days I'd put more time into this. Maybe I'll be able to, life likes to toss me around the spinner all the time.

And for a good example what i mean with the textures here's the Yamamoto in SH5 I did months ago. It doesn't look the same in sh5 than in sh4 because of the specular/diffuse maps not being used. I don't have a sh4 screenie but you all get the idea.



It doesn't have guns but meh. That's small potatoes to add

[Zedi]

Originally Posted by wamphyri

Good work TDC. You've figured out some of the stuff that was stumping us when a few of us were playing around with this. Getting the damage model to work is sweet.

The one thing I do remember is about the textures. It seems that when using DAT files SH5 won't render the specular or diffuse maps that are part of the dat files and part of sh4's rendering engine. That's why the ships all seems to be one "brightness" in sh5. In sh4 the engine would use these maps and it really makes a difference when they are used. If you were to remove them and go back into sh4 I believe they give you the same look that you get in sh5.

I hope this makes sense. If I had more time in my days I'd put more time into this. Maybe I'll be able to, life likes to toss me around the spinner all the time.

And for a good example what i mean with the textures here's the Yamamoto in SH5 I did months ago. It doesn't look the same in sh5 than in sh4 because of the specular/diffuse maps not being used. I don't have a sh4 screenie but you all get the idea.

[IMG]...[/IMG]

It doesn't have guns but meh. That's small potatoes to add

Even the normal map is corrupt at import, but that can be fixed. Also the textures can be fixed, here is a ingame shoot of the PTB final version



Only thing missing is the ship shadow and reflection on water. But overall, the boat looks like a SH5 stock boat.

Wish you guys can import merchants, not ships that already exist in the game or warships that have no place in Atlantic, like the Yamato. Its a time consuming process, so better dont waste time with ships that is no use in SH5.