Small Flags for all Nations

[AG124]

@ Filax - did you place .cfg files for ships in each nation's roster folder? If there are no ships in the roster folders, then the nations will not show up in the museum.

[DivingDuck]

Moin Anvart,

Originally Posted by Anvart

Hi, DD.
Today I have looked your mod and I have to you one question why do you not apply
MeshAnimation controller (Sergbuto too)?
Without this controller we can see artefacts in flags animations on close distance.
We see these artefacts and in a Dolphin mod (by Rubini, Sergbuto) too.
Application of MeshAnimation controller eliminates this problem.

I´m up to something else with that bloody flag.dat. But while studying the file it came to my attention that it wouldn´t be too much work to implement the flags.dat animation into the flag.dat. I didn´t think of the MeshAnimation controller in the first place. In fact I´m not yet familiar with this controller. I was focussed on identifying the seperate frames and vertices within the animation. I succeeded so far, its 25 frames at 70 vertices, 35 per side at a very strange order. But presently I´m stuck with getting my own animation into the *.dat. I don´t want to change (hex edit) all the vertices by hand. I would be an old man when finished.

Regards,
DD

[Werewolf]

:hmm: this seems to be a thread with a lot of people knowing a lot about flags so sorry to interfere, but noone has been able to help me. If I want to replace a flag in SHIII what do I do then? I have the small programm called DattexExtract, but every time I want to replace a flag with a more detailed one, it refuses to do so because of difference in size. Any ideas?

[DivingDuck]

Moin,

Originally Posted by Werewolf

If I want to replace a flag in SHIII what do I do then? I have the small programm called DattexExtract, but every time I want to replace a flag with a more detailed one, it refuses to do so because of difference in size. Any ideas?

Do you want to replace the mesh itself or just the flag´s texture?
I assume you want to import higher detailed textures, so...

• get Pack3D first (all versions)
• open the flag.dat / flagS.dat
• you´ll find all the flag´s textures in the TEXTURES folder
• highlight the texture you want to replace
• click IMPORT
• choose your new texture file
• ready to go

Clicking EXPORT ALL creates a new subfolder (3D) that includes all used *.tga files. Keep in mind that the texture must be in *.tga file format. As I can´t tell you anything about the *.tga´s size I suggest to open an existing flag texture, copy and paste your new texture into it and resave as new flag.

If you change the flag mesh itself it has no influence on the animation as it is hardcoded in the Flag.dat/FlagS.dat. You´ll have to edit 25 frames containing 70 vertices, each coded by 6 bytes. That´s 10500 bytes to change.

Regards,
DD

[Werewolf]

@DivingDuck:

Okay, thanks very much for the detailed information

[bigboywooly]

IIRC the flags are 128x64 size

[ref]

Originally Posted by DivingDuck

Moin Anvart,
I´m up to something else with that bloody flag.dat. But while studying the file it came to my attention that it wouldn´t be too much work to implement the flags.dat animation into the flag.dat. I didn´t think of the MeshAnimation controller in the first place. In fact I´m not yet familiar with this controller. I was focussed on identifying the seperate frames and vertices within the animation. I succeeded so far, its 25 frames at 70 vertices, 35 per side at a very strange order. But presently I´m stuck with getting my own animation into the *.dat. I don´t want to change (hex edit) all the vertices by hand. I would be an old man when finished.

Regards,
DD

Hi DD, I'm very interested in the animation format, trying to implement it in a tool I'm writing, can you share what you've discovered?, I've managed to figure out the keyframes and the times for them, but not the vertex data.

Ref

[DivingDuck]

Moin,

Originally Posted by ref

Hi DD, I'm very interested in the animation format, trying to implement it in a tool I'm writing, can you share what you've discovered?, I've managed to figure out the keyframes and the times for them, but not the vertex data.

Ref

It would be a relief if you could write a tool to convert animation. I appreciate that very much.

Here´s what I´ve found out:







Hope that´s of any use for you.

Regards,
DD

[ref]

Originally Posted by DivingDuck

Whow! , That's crazy, I'l have to figure out a logic for that ordering before starting to write anything, I'll check other commonly used animation formats (quake, etc.) to see if they are similar, I doubt they wrote a new system, it's more likelly they used an existing one, if we can figure out the format we can add new animated models

Ref

[Werewolf]

Please, could someone tell me where it's possible to download Pack3D?

[Werewolf]

@Bigboywooley:

I know exactly what is wrong now! it's the colour depth! The colour depth of the flag I want to replace is 16 bit and the colour depth of the flag I want to insert is 24 bit. Any idea how to crack that one? DattexExtract will not accept to insert a flag into the .DAT file if it's not exactly the same colour depth

[bigboywooly]

Originally Posted by Werewolf

@Bigboywooley:

I know exactly what is wrong now! it's the colour depth! The colour depth of the flag I want to replace is 16 bit and the colour depth of the flag I want to insert is 24 bit. Any idea how to crack that one? DattexExtract will not accept to insert a flag into the .DAT file if it's not exactly the same colour depth

Well when you save the flag you should be able to set the colour depth in your paint program

I could never get on with the data extract

Use pack3d

http://ultrashare.net/hosting/fl/30077313a7/

[U-snafu]

Originally Posted by ref

Whow! , That's crazy, I'l have to figure out a logic for that ordering before starting to write anything, I'll check other commonly used animation formats (quake, etc.) to see if they are similar, I doubt they wrote a new system, it's more likelly they used an existing one, if we can figure out the format we can add new animated models

Ref

What's crazy is that I would guess 99% of us forum members have no clue what you two are talking about

I'm just glad that you guys with the knowledge, skill, and talent keep turning out your magic for this sim

[DivingDuck]

Moin,

@U-snafu:
Someone must do it, right?

@ref:
I forgot to mention some additional information.

Originally Posted by ref

...I'l have to figure out a logic for that ordering before starting to write anything, I'll check other commonly used animation formats (quake, etc.) to see if they are similar, ...

It´s an issue of the 3d graphics program. The logic your searching for will be found in the *.obj file. Open the COUNTRY_FLS.obj with any hex editor and you´ll see that the vertices are stored in this order. I assume that the COUNTRY_FLS.obj file (Type 1/101, size 2389) tells SHIII the texture coordinates and determines the vertices´ order. My problem is that the vertices in the *.obj file are described by 24 bytes (8 bytes per axis). But the frames use 6 bytes only at 2 bytes per axis.


EA 93 B1 36 46 7E 71 3D controls the size. I´ve managed to resize the flag but unfortunately not to the exact size I wanted to. Setting the first 3 bytes to FF results in a smaller flag, setting them to 00 results in a bigger flag. Changing the fourth byte (36) to values lesser than 35 or higher 37 results in disappearance of the flag. I think it´s getting to small/big to see when exceeding 35/37. Note that the flag´s position changes when altering these values. The highlighted values (.. .. .. 36 .. .. .. 3D) are the same at the beginning of each frame. So I assume that the first three bytes define the position of the "basic" vertex. And that would be vertex #6/25, I guess. All three values (X,Y,Z) are the same (7CD4 7CD4 7CD4). 36 seems to be some kind of multiplier. The following three bytes possibly define the last vertex in the row. But I´ve no idea about the last byte (3D) then!??? I can´t imagine they use four bytes to define the position.

I would be content with a tool that converts all vertices to the 6 bytes format. Hope you manage to write your tool asap.

Regards,
DD

[bigboywooly]

Originally Posted by DivingDuck

Moin,

@ref:
I forgot to mention some additional information.

It´s an issue of the 3d graphics program. The logic your searching for will be found in the *.obj file. Open the COUNTRY_FLS.obj with any hex editor and you´ll see that the vertices are stored in this order. I assume that the COUNTRY_FLS.obj file (Type 1/101, size 2389) tells SHIII the texture coordinates and determines the vertices´ order. My problem is that the vertices in the *.obj file are described by 24 bytes (8 bytes per axis). But the frames use 6 bytes only at 2 bytes per axis.


EA 93 B1 36 46 7E 71 3D controls the size. I´ve managed to resize the flag but unfortunately not to the exact size I wanted to. Setting the first 3 bytes to FF results in a smaller flag, setting them to 00 results in a bigger flag. Changing the fourth byte (36) to values lesser than 35 or higher 37 results in disappearance of the flag. I think it´s getting to small/big to see when exceeding 35/37. Note that the flag´s position changes when altering these values. The highlighted values (.. .. .. 36 .. .. .. 3D) are the same at the beginning of each frame. So I assume that the first three bytes define the position of the "basic" vertex. And that would be vertex #6/25, I guess. All three values (X,Y,Z) are the same (7CD4 7CD4 7CD4). 36 seems to be some kind of multiplier. The following three bytes possibly define the last vertex in the row. But I´ve no idea about the last byte (3D) then!??? I can´t imagine they use four bytes to define the position.

Regards,
DD

Does anyone have a link to a translator

I so have no idea what you are talking about DD

Good job Ref does I suppose