SS2 list of broken and lowpoly objects that need fixing

[67445bafed3f6Olfred]

Addon updated; the lighting quirks should be gone now. Please test.

Tested with the ventfan model. This worked pretty well.
But I still had another model which gave me headaches about the lighting issues, and somehow it turned into something really strange now. Model included in this post.


[hackcrat.zip expired]

[crates.jpg expired]

[67445bafed65bnemyax]

Make sure the initial orientations of the lids are zero. Try applying their rotations and re-exporting.

[67445bafed8c6ZylonBane]

New vent fan seems to light perfectly! Will you be regenerating all the models you used older versions of nemyax's tool to export? This especially might fix that problematic air recirculator model.

There's an issue with the inverted Rickenbacker turret model. It functions fine, but it's not properly centered, so when you "floor" it in DromEd it partially sinks into the ground, and (more importantly) the destroyed model spawned when it's killed doesn't line up with it. If you could provide the E file, I could use the BSP command line options to offset the model into place.

It's odd... the original Rickenbacker turret creates a ~ 9 x 9 x 4 bounding box when placed, while the inverted version produces a more accurate ~ 7 x 1 x 4 box.

[67445bafeda26nemyax]

ZylonBane
What's the name of the turret model file? I'll have a look and maybe add support for custom offsets.

[67445bafedb33ZylonBane]

rickgun_f.bin

[67445bafedcceZylonBane]

Another thing-- Is it possible to preserve whether a surface is smooth-shaded or flat-shaded in the exported model? Some surfaces (like the vent fan frame) really are flat and angular, so they don't look right with smooth shading. Also, Dark's rendering of smooth shaded polys is buggy, with the shading jumping around when a surface is partially off-screen, so you really don't want to use it unless the object looks terrible without it.

[67445bafee09bnemyax]

Is it possible to preserve whether a surface is smooth-shaded or flat-shaded in the exported model?

Information about smoothing is not imported (it would have to be restored from the baked normals, which is too much trouble). However, you can set flat shading wherever you like, by using angle-based autosmoothing or by marking specific edges.

[67445bafee44eZylonBane]

Information about smoothing is not imported (it would have to be restored from the baked normals, which is too much trouble).

Are you saying there's no information about surface shading style stored in 3DS files?

[67445bafee661nemyax]

ZylonBane
I was writing about about bin import with the io_scene_dark_bin addon. 3ds should contain smoothing groups, but I don't know how (and if) the Blender 3ds importer handles them, because I don't normally use 3ds at all.

[67445bafee82aOlfred]

Sorry guys, I've been busy and had no (real) internet connection for a couple of days.

Haven't had the time yet to try again with the hackcrate.

About the bounding box issue. The blender exporter writes directly to bin and you set the model up how it is going to appear ingame. This results in a matching bounding box.
But with using BSP.exe it is kinda weird how you have to set up a model and stuff for it to work. Like having one part rotated 90° before converting it to bin for it to appear correctly ingame. But the bounding box is created on how the model was aligned before it was converted.

As I don't get information on the bounding box when I import the model (doesn't matter which tool I use), it's kinda hard to figure out how I can make a proper bounding box to match the old model.
Sometimes I am able to figure it out, then I just place a single vertex in the model to make it "bigger", this will then be invisible ingame so you don't see anything except the bigger bounding box.

As for Blender and 3ds files. It handels them pretty well, import and export wise.

[67445bafeeb67nemyax]

Sometimes I am able to figure it out, then I just place a single vertex in the model to make it "bigger", this will then be invisible ingame so you don't see anything except the bigger bounding box.

Hehe, clever. I see why it works: the script gets the bounding box before it removes floating vertices. This should go into a tips and tricks section.

[67445bafeeda5Olfred]

Make sure the initial orientations of the lids are zero. Try applying their rotations and re-exporting.

Tried this and it didn't helped at all.
Did some testing around again and discovered that everything looks good when I have individual model parts, but when I set a parent, the lighting gets fucked up.

About making a new batch of all models. I would like to wait for any unresolved issues which might still be there.
Except you guys are just waiting for me to release the SCP.

[67445bafeee86ZylonBane]

Oh, we're not waiting on you.

[67445bafef05avoodoo47]

yeah, don't worry about that - you have already fixed pretty much all the obviously broken models, the rest of the stuff will be included whenever you'll be finished with it. as already mentioned, there is no way we will pull off a "perfect" beta1 release, some issues will be unresolved, and some bugs will inevitably slip in. whatever will not make it into beta1, will be included in beta2, or some other future release.

[67445bafef16bOlfred]

Ah good to hear it's not me holding you back.

Just remembered there was still something unresolved about the air recirculator.
The idea to have the face of the machine be a submodel seems to work out.

[67445bafef299voodoo47]

oh yes, this is the stuff. works and looks perfectly as far as I can see. ZB?

[67445bafef386ZylonBane]

The lighting issue does indeed appear to be fixed.

Also, no need to fix the centering of the inverted Rickenbacker turret. It's been compensated for in the gamesys.

[67445bafef5e3Olfred]

Also, no need to fix the centering of the inverted Rickenbacker turret. It's been compensated for in the gamesys.

Yeah about the bounding boxes which are bigger than the model itself.
Even if I would know the size of the box and could replicate it, where and how to position the model inside this box is a very different thing, it's not always just the middle.
Maybe it's possible to import the bounding box in some way, but currently I don't know of any tool which can do it.

[67445bafef834nemyax]

Maybe it's possible to import the bounding box in some way, but currently I don't know of any tool which can do it.

If you don't mind using a hex editor, you can check the six floats in bytes 24:48. These are the maximum and minimum (in that order) bounding box points.

[67445bafefa66Olfred]

If you don't mind using a hex editor, you can check the six floats in bytes 24:48. These are the maximum and minimum (in that order) bounding box points.

But then again I don't know the position of the model

[67445bafefb64nemyax]

Olfred
Can you post the shoddily-shaded crate again? I'd like to try something out to fix the lighting.

[67445bafefc58voodoo47]

forgot to mention - guys, no need to set expiration dates on the uploaded models, they are tiny and even the work in progress ones could be useful in the future. this is the Engineering, we can get the drawing board dirty.

[67445bafefe63Olfred]

Olfred
Can you post the shoddily-shaded crate again? I'd like to try something out to fix the lighting.

sure

[67445bafeffd5ZylonBane]

Olfred, I've attached replicator.zip to the first post. This is a worldrep export of the replicator (aka Value-Rep) brushwork, with textures. When you get a chance, please try converting this to an object. There's a cube around it that should be deleted, and since this needs to look like the other brush-based replicators, it can't have any smooth-shaded faces. Thanks.