SH5 modding difficulties

[Seaowl]

There is a thread around about the difficulties of adding a Type IX to SH5. http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=233811

As far as I know, it´s impossible to add shadows and to see the hull below the waterline on imported ships. Wakes, damage models an so on are possible, but a heck of a work.
Hence respect for the great work that was done in TWOS.

Moreover I´m not sure, if it´s possible to add as much .dats to SH5 as you want to or if at some point you will run into stability issues.
Would be interested in the answer too.

[oskar123]

I see. Do you know why it's impossible to make the hull visible under water?

And since the man himself doesnt seem to answer, what is this all about? Will this solve any of the above mentioned issues?

I'd love to get into modding Silent Hunter 5 (I was thinking about a playable XXI..) but if it's literally impossible I don't want to waste my time.

[Seaowl]

To be honest: I have no more insight in these things than you and like you, I don´t know more, as I have read in these threads around here.
Best thing would probably be to start importing a non playable unit as explained by TheDarkWraith in the thread linked above and to ask for help, if a precise problem arises.
Later on, when you are common with the basics, you can estimate by yourself, what it would take to create a playable unit. I have no clue if it´s possible or not.
But hopefully someone else can give you a better answer.

[oskar123]

Obviously I wouldn't start with something that advanced, even I am not that arrogant. I'm just hoping for an overview of the problems so I know where to start. I can see you've only been on this forum for a few months yourself so don't worry about it. I was hoping one of the more experienced modders would answer.

I desperately want a playable XXI in SH5, but if I can't make it work with the water effects I might as well play SH3

And I still don't know what jeff's exporter is about. Even after browsing through the thread the best I could find were some vague references as to what it might do. Maybe it will render all these questions obsolete?

Either way, I thank you for your time! Happy hunting Herr Kaleun

[Jeff-Groves]

The exporter is the original version used by the Devs to create the GR2 files.
Not cheap nor easy to get.

Since We can not create new working GR2's the only way to go forward is to buy it.

That has been explained.

You REALLY want to mod? Let me teach you about 010.

[oskar123]

@jeff

I've been reading basically non-stop on this forum the last few days and grown wiser between every post.

From what I've understood so far, the only way to make ships with proper shaders and water transparancy is through the GR2 format, which is copyright locked. So, what you've done is buy user rights. Have I understood it correctly?

I'd love to help, be aware though that I'm a total newbie so I'll have to learn basically from scratch. I've done some modding as stated before but never worked with Silent Hunter before.

I've found very little info on the progress you've made. Is the exporter usable in it's current state? What needs to be done? And where is the rebel base?

Regards, Oskar

[gap]

Nice discussion going on here guys:

@ oskar123

Low poly count is not (always) a big issue; some models that have been released for SHIII and SHIV are even more detailed/accurate than SH5 ones, but there are several other limits inherent to the dat format or to the way old models are built. In confirmation of Seaowl's remark, here are some of the main minus points of the units imported directly from older SH games:

• SH5 makes an extensive use of normal maps (for creating the illusion of more detailed/rough surfaces) and ambient occlusion maps (for increasing the perception of 3D volumes, for painting camo schemes on top of the regular textures and for adding dirt/rust to them). Unfortunatelu SHIII has only limited support for normal and ambient occlusion maps; that means that all the ship models imported from that game lack those features and they look a bit lavished in SH5. The missing maps can be created manually, but doing that slows down the import process, especially for a.o. maps that require being mapped on a different UV projection than the regular textures.
  
  
• Conversely, SHIV fully supports normal and a.o. maps, but those textures are added to each model by means of the unified render controller, a controller native to SHIV. This controller works in SH5 too, and it is needed for ships imported in SH5 to look up to par, but IIRC it is not compatible with GR2 objects. Use a GR2 equipment on a dat ship with the said controller, and that equipment will look totally black in game. That means that, if we want dat ships to look as good as they look in SHIV, we need to import them together with their (dat) guns, even though those guns are already in the SH5 library folder (as gr2 objects).
  
  
• Unlike SH5, SHIII ships have no internal parts modelled. When they break in half no 3D compartments and crumpled metal are visible, but just smooth surfaces closing the broken hull ends. More or less the same goes for torpedo holes: they are decals rather than real holes. A basic 3D model of ship interiors could be added but again: doing that will take time.
  
  
• Unlike gr2 units, the underwater part of dat-format hulls in not visible when looking at them from above the water and it looks blurred when seen underwater (unless one places the camera so that the projection of the submerged object overlaps the water surface). These glitches could possibly be fixed only by editing SH5 shaders, if you can figure out their code.
  
  
• Shadows are a broken feature in SHIII that, I think, was fixed in SHIV; anyway I seem to remember that SHIV shadows never worked in SH5 as granny-format shadows used in the latter game are computed in a completely different way. I could be wrong on that, but no shadows with dat ships in SH5
  
  
• SH5 has a slightly different damage format that its predecessors. When the game was released, hull vicinity didn't trigger magnetic pistols. Paradoxically, after importing the first dat ships, it was discovered that unlike stock (gr2) ships the new (dat) ships could be sunk with magnetic torpedoes. At some point TDW created a patch that fixed magnetic detonations for gr2 ships, but messed it up for dat ships, so now you have to choose. I don't think you can get both unit types to break apart with a well placed magnetic torpedo.
  
  
• GR2 units support LOD models; dat units don't.

Those are all the issues that I can think of, but I go by memory and I might have missed something or listed an inconvenience that has been worked-around in the meanwhile. Anyway, given these limits, when importing new ships, aircraft or submarines it would be difficult to obtain a qualitative level comparable to that of stock units if we only rely on the dat format and, with the tools we have currently available, converting whichever unit/model of some complexity to the gr2 format would be a slow and tourtuous process, though not impossible in theory.
That said, several dat ships have been imported in game, and though not perfect, they look and perform acceptably good in most situations. If we always aimed at perfection and waited for someone else to clear the path for us, the history of subsim modding would be probably stuck to the first Silent Hunter, so don't be afraid to be arrogant; be curious instead and follow Seaowl's or Jeff-Groves's advise: you will learn something new, and if you get stuck you can always ask here

[gap]

@ Jeff

No need to say sorry mate. I am glad that you found your old files!

I have received your e-amails but as I had anticipated I was busy with family in the last couple of days and I had no time to give you feed-back. No doubt, I will do that tomorrow.

@ Seaowl

I definitely agree with you about the beauty of the ships by the modders you have mentioned, and I hope too to see them in SH5 too!

Talking about lighthouses, I have gained some experience with them while helping Kendras with his own Lighthouse mod for SHIII, and I have several lighthouse and daymark models ready or semi-ready too.

In my opinion the best way to set up lighthouses in game, is as land units. Doing that not only bypasses the problem of too short model fading ranges (that I am also facing with my EcoMod), but it enables us to customize each model via eqp/cfg files, and it makes possible for models to appear/disappear or to be darkened based on game date.

Lighthouse and other beacons, as well as more historically correct ports, channels, etc. might be another feature of the EcoMod if you guys like the idea

[oskar123]

@gap

Thanks! That was exactly the kind of overview I was looking for.