Lighthouses in SH5

[gap]

Originally Posted by Seaowl

Thanks for the encouragement, Ashikaga.



There is one thing that bothers me at the moment however:
If I will not split off the lense from the lighthouse and import both together
as one GR2 file with attached sim into the land folder,
would it be possible,
that all this collision_mesh construction wouldn´t be necessary?


Is the visibility dependend on the folder (sea, library, land, air etc) , where the file is located?


But on the other hand placing a file into the library has the advantage that it can be used very versatile.
So is there any known side effect of these big collision meshes?
I´m asking this in view of a future ship import too.
Is ist better to separate all navigation lights from the model or should they be imported into the ships main GR2 as well?

And what happens, when – for example – two harbor lighthouses are close together
at a harbor entrance?
If they use the same fresnel from the library, their collision meshes would – like the name says - collide.
And what would be the effect of this deep fresnel collision?
Ok – I will have to test this.

You don't need big collision meshes. You can simply add a triangle or a square to the main mesh, and move it below the terrain level. That's how I fixed the rendering range issue with my Helgoland sea stack model

[Seaowl]

After the test:
Nothing happens when two lighthouses are close together at a harbor entrance.
But the cause is not that there is nothing happening when two collision meshes collide, the cause is that the lighthouses are - of course - placed at different heights.

None the wiser...
But fortunately the problem itself seems gone:

You don't need big collision meshes. You can simply add a triangle or a square to the main mesh, and move it below the terrain level. That's how I fixed the rendering range issue with my Helgoland sea stack model

Ok, I will check this. And if it works with the lighthouse light, I will strip the fishing vessel off its navigation lights and place them into their own library file.
Maybe then the stock fishing boat could make use of them too.
But thats a later issue.

So the rendering range issue affects equipments as well as land units. Is that correct?

Yes, but I can´t name correct distances at the moment.
Possibly I will do sometime a proper testing with comparable results.

Anyway, if I remember correctly I have a couple of Fresnel lenses modelled and textured, though right now I can't say which order they belong to. They are made according to the data I mentioned above, so they should be pretty accurate, though low-poly. If you think you can put them to use, I can check them and send them your way

Of course: I´m not sure if I can put them to good use, but at least I can try it.
It would be great to have a library file with different lenses and maybe I can ask Kendras, if he allows me to use some of his "special effects" (presupposed they work in SH5 as well).

Is it possible to send them via PM or should I send you - likewise via PM - my mail address?

[gap]

Originally Posted by gap

if I remember correctly I have a couple of Fresnel lenses modelled and textured, though right now I can't say which order they belong to. They are made according to the data I mentioned above, so they should be pretty accurate, though low-poly. If you think you can put them to use, I can check them and send them your way

Originally Posted by Seaowl

Of course: I´m not sure if I can put them to good use, but at least I can try it.

Check your PM inbox please.

The two low-poly models I sent you portray a 1st order and a 4th order Fresnel lens. They are correctly scaled relative to the SH proportions and they are already triangulated. Other than that, they might/will require some further post processing in order to be imported with GR2 Editor and to look good in game (removal/splitting of the hard edges, removal of the inner lens faces, setting up of a different materials for the crystal lenses than the one used for the metal frame, etc.).

As you can imagine from my comments above, I never used them in game, but I am glad to offer them to you and I am sure you that, with your time, you will do a good job with them. The one favour I ask you in change, is to keep updating us on your progress, on the problems you are facing, and on the workarounds that you are finding

Originally Posted by Seaowl

It would be great to have a library file with different lenses and maybe I can ask Kendras, if he allows me to use some of his "special effects" (presupposed they work in SH5 as well).

I already told you how to get in touch with him, but I am sure that, as long as you give him credit for his work, he won't have any problem granting you the permission to use it.

On a side note: SHIII particle generators have much in common with SHIV and SH5 ones. All the old generators should perfectly work in SH5 and, when importing SHIII-IV particle effects into SH5, you can always copy the parameters of old generators in the new ones. Btw: If you like using Skwas' Silent3ditor, I definitely recommend you to patch it with this extension by Rosomaha:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...79#post2438679

Perfect for messing with the generators of the three games using just one tool!

[Seaowl]

Thank you, gap!




Just downloaded the file and couldn´t resist to throw a quick glance at them before writing this reply.

Both are magnificient.

Without further ado I will try out the first order lense in the latern room of Flakmonkeys lighthouse.

The fourth order lense seems suitable for some smaller harbor lighthouse.
Possibly - taking other models as example - I will attempt creating one myself.

Would be a good point to start.


In any case I will keep you and of course everyone reading this thread, informed.
But - of course - it will take its time.


By the way information: yesterday I reduced the size of the Collison mesh from 50.000x50.000 to 2x2 and even 0.1x0.1m.
In either of this cases the lense was functioning flawlessly.
Henceforth there seems to be no further obstacle in creating one central fresnel file into the library folder.

[gap]

Originally Posted by Seaowl

Thank you, gap!




Just downloaded the file and couldn´t resist to throw a quick glance at them before writing this reply.

Both are magnificient.

Without further ado I will try out the first order lense in the latern room of Flakmonkeys lighthouse.

I modelled that lens for one of the tall European landfall lighths destroyed during WWII: the grand phare de l'île de Sein, which was about two times taller than Flakmonkey's lighthouse. I don't know if a 1st order lens will fit within its lantern house...

Originally Posted by Seaowl

The fourth order lense seems suitable for some smaller harbor lighthouse.

You are right, that's exactly what I had in mind when I modelled it

Originally Posted by Seaowl

Possibly - taking other models as example - I will attempt creating one myself.

Would be a good point to start.

Good idea. There is plenty of free information, pictures and drawings on any order of Fresnel lense, so you shouldn't have problems finding them, but if by any chance they have been removed, I should have something saved in my archive

Originally Posted by Seaowl

In any case I will keep you and of course everyone reading this thread, informed.
But - of course - it will take its time.

No rush

Originally Posted by Seaowl

By the way information: yesterday I reduced the size of the Collison mesh from 50.000x50.000 to 2x2 and even 0.1x0.1m.
In either of this cases the lense was functioning flawlessly.
Henceforth there seems to be no further obstacle in creating one central fresnel file into the library folder.

I was sure about that. Also note that for collision of land units you can use the CollisionableObject controller. In all the SH games, this controller is used only with terrain objects, but as I have experimented, it also works with ship equipments (see the TWoS' coastal artillery bunker) and land units (see one of the testing versions of the La Plate lighthouse in Kendras' Lighthouse mod).

[Seaowl]

Since I found no suitable lighthouse for
gaps awesome lenses, I started to make one myself.

As pattern I choose the Wolf Rock Lighthouse.
Initially because I found some nice blueprints of Wolf Rock
at this site: https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Wolf_Rock_Lighthouse

But besides that Wolf Rock has other advantages as well:

It has a quite prototypical shape of an british lighthouse.
So parts of it – like base, railing, lantern graiting – could be used to model lighthouses just as Eddystone, Beachy Head probably even Fastnet.

By the way: As I never go through the Channel I would probably never see Eddystone and Beachy Head ingame.
And even Wolf Rock itself is a border case.
Waters at this regions are far too shallow for my taste.
So actually a lighthouse at Scotland or Ireland would make more sense as a future project.

One other reason for choosing the Wolf Rock lighthouse is the shape of the lense.
Originally Wolf Rock lighthouse had a first order fresnel lense that looked
– at least at the drawings I have at hand –
pretty much the same as the first order lens model gap sent to me.
So the perfect housing.

At the moment I´m at the point where I think about to start with uv-mapping and texturing.
Concerning this I have one question:
In the early stages, I modelled the windows as parts of the main lighthouse mesh.
Not really the windows, but in fact the shutters, because on most of the pictures I have seen the windows closed.
Doing it that way, I never came along with smoothing very well.
So I decided to use the shutters as a seperate model.
There are some shipmodels, where it is done this way.
It´s also intended to have the base and the quay (will be added later) as separat models.
Are there any downsides doing it like that, especially respective game performance?

Progress is slow because I have to learn everything from scratch.
Here are some pictures:

[gap]

WOW, Seaowl, if you are really learning everything from scratch, we should admit that you are doing it unbelievably fast!

Your model looks very nice indeed!


Sure enough, windows and other details which require hard edges, will mess with the smoothing of rounded surfaces they border with.

Within certain limits, a lesser than perfect object smoothing can be masked out with a good texture work but your idea of modelling details that protrude from the main geometry as a separate geometries, is obviously a better solution because it will eliminate the root cause of the problem, and it will make your model to have lesser polygons too. I don't see any downside to it but having to deal with tens (or hundreds, for big models) of small meshes every time you need to un-group a model, and maybe the fact that portions of the main lighthouse geometry will be hidden behind the new details, but they will still occupy texture space that you could have used more profitably for something else.

Unfortunately the same "trick" can't be used when the detail you want to add doesn't protrude from your model, but it is actually indented into it.
In that case, the only possible fix, is to break the hard edges into smaller edges, making them to follow object's (smoothed) curvature as closely as possible.


Other than that, I have a few more remarks:

12 to 16 is the ideal number of "slices" needed for SH to render acceptably smooth cylindrical surfaces without increasing too much the poly count.

I have noticed that you have used a lot of faces to model the jagged lighthouse base. While very nice looking, this is probably accounting for a significant increase of model's poly count. You could fake that detail with some well done texture maps, especially a normal map, but you are probably aware of that already.

I like very much the way you modelled the railing around the lighthouse gallery, though, again, the polygons you spent on those nicely detailed poles that we will only appreciate from very close distance, might not be worth the computer resources they will use.

Remember that GR2 units support LOD models, so you can keep all the nice detail for the main unit, and then decimate its polygons until you get a basic outline for use as LOD

I think that's all for now

[Seaowl]

I have noticed that you have used a lot of faces to model the jagged
lighthouse base. While very nice looking, this is probably accounting for a significant
increase of model's poly count. […] Remember that GR2 units support LOD models, so
you can keep all the nice detail for the main unit, and then decimate its polygons until
you get a basic outline for use as LOD

The thing is, that I considered this kind of basement somehow characteristic for
Wolf Rock (and also Beachy Head and Fastnet).
So I didn´t want to abandon this structure in the first turn.
Especially because it will be relatively easy to change, if the impact on resources seems too big.

The same is valid for the railing.

In any case I will take your advice and make a reduced LOD-Model.
I really hope that this will do the trick.

Yesterday I finished the quay or I don´t know how it´s called, because if you watch the
videos of change of shifts on Wolf Rock
https://www.britishpathe.com/video/wolf-rock-relieved
this platform isn´t intented for any ship to dock,
added a fog horn, a weather vane and a smoke stack,
raised the lantern room floor and – because I wasn´t sure about the scale,
imported for comparision partly the Frogs beautiful Harbour Defense Motor Launch
with one crew member. (I had to scale everything by 10)

The source of the fog horn are mainly the above mentioned videos.
The smoke stack, is sketched in on the plan I use or at least it´s my interpretation of
this pipe on the roof: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ng_drawing.png

This is by no means an exact representation of Wolf Rock, it´s only an approximation.
If you have better information or sources at hand than I have, I would be glad to correct things.

And of course, I have to add the cliff. For this reason I´m trying to understand, how this ANT-landscape addon works in Blender.

Here some pictures again:

[gap]

Originally Posted by Seaowl

The thing is, that I considered this kind of basement somehow characteristic for
Wolf Rock (and also Beachy Head and Fastnet).
So I didn´t want to abandon this structure in the first turn.
Especially because it will be relatively easy to change, if the impact on resources seems too big.

The same is valid for the railing.

I am with you on that: within certain limits, better having nicely detailed models to start from than basic ones. As you said, we are always in time to decimate their poly count, and even so, the possibly discarded details can always be used for the baking of nicely realistic ambient occlusion and normal maps

Originally Posted by Seaowl

In any case I will take your advice and make a reduced LOD-Model.
I really hope that this will do the trick.

Yes, there would be no point in not exploiting this SH5 feature

Originally Posted by Seaowl

Yesterday I finished the quay or I don´t know how it´s called, because if you watch the
videos of change of shifts on Wolf Rock
https://www.britishpathe.com/video/wolf-rock-relieved
this platform isn´t intented for any ship to dock,

That video gave me vertigo, sea sickness and and a panic attack, the three at the same time lol

Originally Posted by Seaowl

added a fog horn, a weather vane and a smoke stack,
raised the lantern room floor and – because I wasn´t sure about the scale,
imported for comparision partly the Frogs beautiful Harbour Defense Motor Launch
with one crew member. (I had to scale everything by 10)

The source of the fog horn are mainly the above mentioned videos.
The smoke stack, is sketched in on the plan I use or at least it´s my interpretation of
this pipe on the roof: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ng_drawing.png

This is by no means an exact representation of Wolf Rock, it´s only an approximation.
If you have better information or sources at hand than I have, I would be glad to correct things.

Your interpretation of the videos and drawings you have posted so far, look totally plausible to me, though the grid surrounding the lantern glass, looks a bit to weak for holding the roof in place, if you know what I mean...

50% or more of the time I spend on my models, is usually devoted to research and to guessing shapes and proportions, so I understand you doubts

Originally Posted by Seaowl

And of course, I have to add the cliff. For this reason I´m trying to understand, how this ANT-landscape addon works in Blender.

Cool addon, I wasn't aware about it

If you have an heighmap representation of the cliff you want to create, you can use as well the 'displace' modifier

Originally Posted by Seaowl

Here some pictures again:

Amazing, I can't wait to see it in game

On a side note (sorry for my shameless self-advertising) here is a preview of my next creation, the Chausey lighthouse, in Western Normandy:

 

As you said, the Channel is not an area we want to transit too often in game, but starting from mid 44 it will become a little busier for us, especially the area that the lighthouse above is located in...

[Seaowl]

...the Chausey lighthouse, in Western Normandy

Great Gap!
Chausey lighthouse looks just beautiful!

As you said, the Channel is not an area we want to transit too often in game, but starting from mid 44 it will become a little busier for us, especially the area that the lighthouse above is located in...

You are right: there was even one submarin running aground on Wolf Rock: U-1209
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_U-1209
But to my shame, I have to admit that until now I never reached late war times.

If you have an heighmap representation of the cliff you want to create, you can use as well the 'displace' modifier

This would be great but until now I haven´t found any hightmap of the seabed there.
Besides the depth of the sea in SHV is about 150 m at Wolf Rocks location.
A GR2 cliff model would fall far short.
Time to take a look at the SH5 terrain editor for some intermediate solution.

I am with you on that: within certain limits, better having nicely detailed models to start from than basic ones. As you said, we are always in time to decimate their poly count, and even so, the possibly discarded details can always be used for the baking of nicely realistic ambient occlusion and normal maps

Ok. I managed to import the lighthouse into SH5 so far.
The import of the 3D model was the easiest part, the real difficulties started using the materials.
In the end I condensed the 5 parts into one mesh alltogether.
Furthermore I simplified the model namely the base and the railing.
The texturing is at early stage.
I will have to consult some tutorials to be able to add all the necessary grunge.

But there are problems:
The platform, the shutters and the lighthouse are only stuck together and not connected by geometry.
That has a lot advantages for skinning and smoothing the lighthouse model.
But it has one big disadvantage: At the seams between the meshes occurs heavy flickering.
The reason could be that these regions are mapped twofold by the lightmap.
Its an effect that is visible at the doors and portholes of stock ships too.
One solution would probably be to connect the platform with the main lighthouse and to paint the shutters on the diffuse texture and using the normal map to give them some detailed structure.
Or I could simply bake the lightmap skipping the shutters? Have to try...


Concerning the Fresnel-lens: importing the Fresnel lens was no difficulty.
Initially I expected troubles, because there are two subsets.
But the Import worked flawlessly.
The only thing that bothers me is, that I´m not able to achieve transparency.
Currently the Fresnel lens is imported into one mesh, but I´m thinking about splitting this up, so the transparent parts could have a mesh and maybe a transparent texture by its own.
At first I thought that I could adjust these things within TDW´s Editor.
However I achieved nothing by changing values inside the subsets.



Some pictures of Wolf Rock into SH5.

[Angelis]

Wow! What beautiful pictures. Any news about your project, sir?

[gap]

Originally Posted by Angelis

Wow! What beautiful pictures. Any news about your project, sir?

Yes, I was wondering the same

[AMZ]

Hi all



I follow this post carefully and I would like to ask you to make Seamarks for coastal navigation in SH5.


I am very interested in the realization of your lighthouse, Seawol. I would like to understand how you imported your 3D model in a gr2 file for SH5


About me, Here is a message where you can see what is wrong with me !!!




With all my consideration.

[U-190]

Good job, man! Well done!

[AMZ]

Thank you for your encouragement U190!



Could you give me a simple example to follow, to realize in SH5 an object, whatever it is ?

I'm sure you have a suggestion.