SH3/4 ships for SH5

[reaper7]

Still no go I'm afraid.
If i leave the roster file for the NKL as default not pointing to a texture.
The Game displays the texture assigned in the GR2 files.
Now if I edit the roster file for the NKL and point it to the textures in this case I made three and place in the NKL folder:

[Texture 1]
TextureName=data/Sea/NKL/ship_hull_T91.dds
LightmapTextureName=
NormalmapTextureName=
StartDate=19380101
EndDate=19451231
Frequency=1
 
[Texture 2]
TextureName=data/Sea/NKL/ship_hull_T92.dds
LightmapTextureName=
NormalmapTextureName=
StartDate=19380201
EndDate=19451231
Frequency=1
 
[Texture 3]
TextureName=data/Sea/NKL/ship_hull_T93.dds
LightmapTextureName=
NormalmapTextureName=
StartDate=19380301
EndDate=19451231
Frequency=1

Removed the entry for the (LightmapTextureName=) as found it was rendering a lightmap on top of the lightmap thats in the GR2 file.
So ingame you had double the strenght of shadows etc.

On loading up the mission with the random generated group of NKL's
they all display the same skin - Texture 1 (ship_hull_T91.dds).



EDIT: I've uploaded my Modded NKL Folder that includes all the Hull textures as well.
If anybody would like to try and see if they can get it working, Please Do and report back how.
(Copy the 3 NKL-hull.T9x.dds files from the zip file to the data/Textures/TNormal/tex folder as well toget working correctly. The GR2 files point to that directory for the default textures - Didn't want to incude the same file twice).

Download file from: http://rapidshare.com/files/416308289/NKL.7z

[reaper7]

Just realised something whil trying to get random textures using the roster cfg files.

While you can get it to dispaly the first texture overwrighting the original texture.

It only uses the Hull texture to apply the texture to the whole ship.
So the deck ends up deing textured from the hull - giving not very nice results .

So even if I could get random texture to work this way, It would not give the results I wish with regards to the skins.

Looks like the only way is to create a ship model (Cloned Master) for each skin I want to apply. This in turns means a ship model for each country if we want diff skins for diff countries .
Just another thing messed up the devs changing what worked before .

May just have to see about the Expotron exporter
to build GR2 ships.
Although it may lack some needed stuff being older.

[tater]

Reaper, did you set the three ships individually in the editor, or that class of ship, with 3 units?

In the latter case they will all be identical. It requires three separate entries.

[reaper7]

Originally Posted by tater

Reaper, did you set the three ships individually in the editor, or that class of ship, with 3 units?

In the latter case they will all be identical. It requires three separate entries.

Tried it both ways, the same story .

It appears no matter waht I do once the same class of ship is used they will all have the same Texture skin.
The only thing that appears to change randomly is the lightmap.
Which is of no use to me really .

At this rate the most I can do is redo a skin for each clone.
Nothing I've tried has allowed multiple skins to be displayed.
The GR2 format just closes all the doors. Can't even reskin the decks due to the way the texture are applied to the objects on deck, all sharing the same textures like a patchwork quilt.
Even the Hull doesn't apply the texture nice and evenly, but has it applied all over the place.
Looks like this was a bid rush job. And with no access to the GR2 file to way to fix either.

[SteelViking]

Originally Posted by reaper7

Tried it both ways, the same story .

It appears no matter waht I do once the same class of ship is used they will all have the same Texture skin.
The only thing that appears to change randomly is the lightmap.
Which is of no use to me really .

At this rate the most I can do is redo a skin for each clone.
Nothing I've tried has allowed multiple skins to be displayed.
The GR2 format just closes all the doors. Can't even reskin the decks due to the way the texture are applied to the objects on deck, all sharing the same textures like a patchwork quilt.
Even the Hull doesn't apply the texture nice and evenly, but has it applied all over the place.
Looks like this was a bid rush job. And with no access to the GR2 file to way to fix either.

The interior has the exact same problem, textures repeating in a gigantic quilt basically, but I have found a lot of work arounds.

Reaper, one thing that may help you is a tool in GIMP. You see, those repeating textures are put together in a tile system. And, the tool in GIMP that I am referring to is called "make tile-able." As long as the sections are some form of square or rectangle, you could make enhancements, and changes to it. Then select that area of the texture(because I know that the ship textures are a mishmosh of stuff) and then hit the "make tile-able" tool, and boom, the texture will render just fine in game.

I am not 100% sure if it will accomplish what you want to do, but it is worth a try. If it does not work, I know even more tricks for working with tiled textures to make them look natural. We will figure something out.

[reaper7]

Just took some pics to show the problem.

First I created a mission with the following:

• A group of American NLL (Liberty Cargo) Origuinal Master.
• A group of British NKL (Large Steamer) Clone of NLL Converted to Master - And pointing to a new texture.
• A group of Irish NKL (Large Steamer) Clone of NLL Converted to Master - And pointing to a new texture, added to Ireland Roster.

Ok here are the pics of what The Models are like regarding textures etc in Goblin and ingame using the above mission.

• The American NLL's

• The Britisk NKL's

• The Irish NKL's

Also notice the Irish Units don't have a flag ingame - could not find one in the textures folder either. Can one be Imported?


So as you can see, the American NLL shows its texture fine - The British NKL shows it texture fine - But the Irish NKL is showing the Texture for the British NKL

It looks like as long as there is a ID in use for a model it will use the same texture for all models of that type.

Due to the British NKL and Irish NKL both sharing the same IDs of ClassName = KL (NKL, Liberty Cargo)

From the ship.cfg file

[Unit]
ClassName=KL
3DModelFileName=data/Sea/IRL/LL1
UnitType=102
.............

From the roster.cfg file

[UnitClass]
ClassName=KL
UnitType=102
AppearanceDate=19300101
DisappearanceDate=19470101
DisplayName=IRL Large Merchant (ProxY)
.............

I tried to give the Ireland model a new class name or IRL1 but this throws up errors when starting the Mission Editor of the Class type not being present in the Library or something like that.


Has anyone managed to clone a SH5 Model into another SH5 Model with its own ID.
Or know of a method to get ships to display the skon assigned to them and not the same skin for all ships of that type.

[reaper7]

Originally Posted by SteelViking

The interior has the exact same problem, textures repeating in a gigantic quilt basically, but I have found a lot of work arounds.

Reaper, one thing that may help you is a tool in GIMP. You see, those repeating textures are put together in a tile system. And, the tool in GIMP that I am referring to is called "make tile-able." As long as the sections are some form of square or rectangle, you could make enhancements, and changes to it. Then select that area of the texture(because I know that the ship textures are a mishmosh of stuff) and then hit the "make tile-able" tool, and boom, the texture will render just fine in game.

I am not 100% sure if it will accomplish what you want to do, but it is worth a try. If it does not work, I know even more tricks for working with tiled textures to make them look natural. We will figure something out.

Hi SteelViking, hers a pic of the problem as a picture tells a thousand words Just using my National Colours to show the example - not one I'm working on for ingame ( Not that patriotic ).



As you can see almost everything above deck (Ignore the Hull thats a diff texture) is using that piece of texture.
The rest of the Grey item above the deck, actually are using the Funnel Texture.

Half of the texture does not even appear to be used if I change the colours, devs must have lifted the textures from elsewhere and just not used them fully.

[SteelViking]

Ok. What is the problem with that? I think that just having a variety of differently skinned clones would be fine(using the .GR2 copying, hexing, and new roster registration method) would be awesome. You could break up the ships into separate downloads, episodically.

And yes, it would be easy to get a ship with an Irish flag. Someone make the texture, take some ship .GR2s, hex them to point their flag texture at the new Irish one, register them in the roster under Ireland, and tada.

Edit: And you got to remember man, we don't often get that close to the ship, and when we do, tension is pretty high. So, no one would ever really notice minor problems and miss matches. But, we do notice how every ship is the exact same, and are from a very short list of countries.

2nd Edit: Ah, I just realized why you don't want to do it that way. It would introduce a whole bunch of entries into the recog manual for ships that are actually the same, which would be inconvenient. Did not think of that till just now since I don't really play anymore.

[reaper7]

Originally Posted by SteelViking

Ok. What is the problem with that? I think that just having a variety of differently skinned clones would be fine(using the .GR2 copying, hexing, and new roster registration method) would be awesome. You could break up the ships into separate downloads, episodically.

I ran into a brick wall there as well, check my post above (Posted before I seen your reply).
For some strange reason the Game ignores the texture that the Copied Clone is using ingame if another Master clone is onscreen.
Not sure how that will effect things in game via the campaign .

If I could only figure out how to change ther classname and get them into the Library as a new type ship would be the best solution.

But I will go ahead and make some textures, and release for testing.
See what happens.

Originally Posted by SteelViking

2nd Edit: Ah, I just realized why you don't want to do it that way. It would introduce a whole bunch of entries into the recog manual for ships that are actually the same, which would be inconvenient. Did not think of that till just now since I don't really play anymore.

Exactly, this was my biggest concern for cloneing multiple models of the same type. The rec man would grow impossible to use.

[SteelViking]

When you were cloning them, were you pointing their .GR2 files, and their roster entries to the same new texture? Oh, and make sure that when you place the copied .GR2 files into the new folder(the folder for the clone) that you are renaming the .GR2 file itself. Because, if presented with two .GR2 files of the same name, I am pretty sure that the game engine will just throw one out.

If you did all this, I cannot figure out why it would still revert to the master's texture.

Either way though, the recog man problem would still exist, so even if it could be made to work, it is really self defeating.

[reaper7]

Originally Posted by SteelViking

When you were cloning them, were you pointing their .GR2 files, and their roster entries to the same new texture? Oh, and make sure that when you place the copied .GR2 files into the new folder(the folder for the clone) that you are renaming the .GR2 file itself. Because, if presented with two .GR2 files of the same name, I am pretty sure that the game engine will just throw one out.

If you did all this, I cannot figure out why it would still revert to the master's texture.

Either way though, the recog man problem would still exist, so even if it could be made to work, it is really self defeating.

Yes have all that done, its very confusing why its not working.
Only solution is to do like the devs did and make clones from the masters ID wise that is.

From reading SH4 threads I see a tool called Page3D was used to change the ID of the dat file so they clone didn't share the same Id.
But how does that work in SH5 with the use of GR2 files.
Can we assign new ID's to models

Master with Texture - Clone with new texture = Works
Clone with new texture - Copied Clone with new texture = Doesn't Work


ie:

• NLL (Master) - NKL (Clone Converted to Master) = ok
• NKL (Clone Converted to Master) - NKL (ConvertedMaster Converted to ClonedMaster) = Not ok

How were new ships introduced to the Library in SH3/4, does it still work in SH5. Can anyone importing models into SH5 can answer this .
Simply renaming the ClassName in the ship.cfg and in the roster does not appear to work.

[haegemon]

Originally Posted by reaper7

Hi SteelViking, hers a pic of the problem as a picture tells a thousand words Just using my National Colours to show the example - not one I'm working on for ingame ( Not that patriotic ).



As you can see almost everything above deck (Ignore the Hull thats a diff texture) is using that piece of texture.
The rest of the Grey item above the deck, actually are using the Funnel Texture.

Half of the texture does not even appear to be used if I change the colours, devs must have lifted the textures from elsewhere and just not used them fully.

Although devs don't applied gravity controllers to models either. That is which causes those pulleys like the ones in the ship on the picture to be rigid all the time and worse when the ship sinks. The same with ship crews...

I haven't found the ID's in the GR2 files.
To be honest?
I haven't looked that hard for them.
Pack3D, S3D, and GWX Cloner all changed the ID's in every file of a Unit.

One thing you have not mentioned.
Did you change every reference of 'NLL' to 'NKL'
in the GR2 files and all the other files?
Since the ID's are not changed maybe changeing that will help.

[reaper7]

Originally Posted by privateer

I haven't found the ID's in the GR2 files.
To be honest?
I haven't looked that hard for them.
Pack3D, S3D, and GWX Cloner all changed the ID's in every file of a Unit.

One thing you have not mentioned.
Did you change every reference of 'NLL' to 'NKL'
in the GR2 files and all the other files?
Since the ID's are not changed maybe changeing that will help.

Didn't change every reference to NKL, in that last example as I had tried it originaly and it crashed.
But I prob hadn't done it correctly. Will try again and see if it makes a difference.
If not do you thinks its going to be an ID issue




EDIT: Just tried your suggestion Privateer, and changed all references.
But still it shows the skin of the other NKL.

Looks like its an ID issue as all ships of the same type are receiving the same Skin regardless ot the texture assigned it by the GR2 file.