SS2 list of broken and lowpoly objects that need fixing

[673f64d5071beRocketMan]

I agree.  Compromise usually doesn't cut it.

[673f64d5073abvoodoo47]

if I had to pick between aiming properly vs looking better in death, then I'd say aiming properly wins. we can always say the shoddy shotgun broke when he fell down or whatever.

[673f64d507504RocketMan]

I think people who play SS2 are kinda used to the modelling work being less than stellar at this point and once something dies, it doesn't command as much attention anyway.  I would have to agree that aiming properly is more important.

[673f64d507681ZylonBane]

Added models for simulation computers with shoddy screen tiling to first post.

[673f64d50778dvoodoo47]

yeah, I should update that one. //should be good now. will wait for those sim comps and then I'll put v10 online.

[673f64d507d87Olfred]

Added models for simulation computers with shoddy screen tiling to first post.

[screen textures not tiled correctly; all models are identical other than the screens]

They are not all the same. On the upper right there are two coloured lights, they change between the models. Unfortunately they are just coloured materials and no texture. As the exporter doesn't have the option for creating them I have to switch to textures instead. From all the colours only one isn't already available as texture, so I need to add that together with the models.

A completely other and more concerning problem comes with the texture being tiled. Now as already mentioned several times before, textures are bleeding at their borders. Even when I do a perfect tiling, you will still get a seam running right through the middle of the texture. (I know it will happen, and just to be sure I even tested it with the expected result.)

So, possible solutions for having it extra nice.
1. I could change the UV map to not bleed and make it somewhat look good. But this won't be a perfect tiled texture and is prone to get fucked up with SHTUP.
2. The DarkEngine supports textures without same height & lenght, right? So I could just merge them together and make one rectangular texture. But this would require that SHTUP will do the same.
3. As 2. just with same height and lenght and half of the texture blank.

[673f64d507f10ZylonBane]

Argh, sorry, never noticed those lights. That seems gratuitous of Irrational, since they all already have different screen textures.

Hmm.... there is a material option under NewDark to clamp textures so they don't tile, but sometimes BINs get generated with UV mapping that causes this feature to make the texture never render. So the most headache-free approach would be to switch to a rectangular texture. This would make them SHTUP-only models, but that's okay, since the original textures are so blocky it's almost impossible to notice the tiling flaws.

What's this about the exporter not being able to handle RGB materials? I thought you'd worked on models with those before. If the exporter generated E files we could manually edit them to switch back to RGB. But it just generates BINs directly, right? So that wouldn't be an option. Oh well, no harm in including one or two more tiny solid-colored textures in SHTUP.

[673f64d508258nemyax]

What's this about the exporter not being able to handle RGB materials?

It writes only UV-mapped faces. Blender doesn't have a good UI for specifying custom face properties. If it supported named face groups, I'd probably add that feature, but there are only vertex groups.

[673f64d508378Olfred]

Can't you just use the material settings like you do with the illumination and transparency?
The material already has a colour setting which could be used.

But as ZB already pointed out some time before. Textures are to be preferred as you have the ability to control it through the NewDark material settings.

So it's no big deal only textures work.

[673f64d50a093nemyax]

Can't you just use the material settings like you do with the illumination and transparency?

In .bin, it's either UV or vertex colour for a face.

#define MD_PGON_PRIM_MASK  0x07
#define MD_PGON_LIGHT_ON   0x18
#define MD_PGON_COLOR_MASK 0x60
#define MD_PGON_PRIM_NONE    0  // no primitive drawn
#define MD_PGON_PRIM_SOLID   1  // vcolor lookup
#define MD_PGON_PRIM_WIRE    2  // wire
#define MD_PGON_PRIM_TMAP    3  // texture map
#define MD_PGON_COLOR_PAL  0x20  // palette color
#define MD_PGON_COLOR_VCOL 0x40  // vcolor lookup

typedef struct mds_pgon {
   ushort   index;   // absolute index of pgon
   ushort   data;    // color or tmap indice
   ubyte    type;    // bit field
   ubyte    num;     // number of verts
   ushort   norm;    // index of normal of pgon (in object space)
   float    d;       // plane equation coefficient to go with normal
   ushort   verts[]; // vertex indices, then light indices, then uv
                     // indices, optionally
} mds_pgon;

You'd have to resort to ugly hacks such as naming conventions, which nobody would ever learn properly anyway =)

[673f64d50a1dfZylonBane]

Aha, I remember what the other thing was I was going to ask for-- extending the legs on the conduit models so they can reach the wall without having to partially embed some of the pipes in the wall.

[673f64d50a7c6Olfred]

which nobody would ever learn properly anyway =)

I might
But like I already said, it's not important.

Is there even anyone besides me who is actively using your tool?

Aha, I remember what the other thing was I was going to ask for-- extending the legs on the conduit models so they can reach the wall without having to partially embed some of the pipes in the wall.

Can you give me a value how much longer? ShockEd values are same as in Blender, so I can work with that.

[673f64d50a93dZylonBane]

I'll post the model name(s) when I get home from work. The issue is just that the model is like this (side view):

Code: [Select]

+-------------+
| O O O O O O |
   O O O O O
Instead of this:

Code: [Select]

+-------------+
| O O O O O O |
|  O O O O O  |
Extending the legs any further than the bottom pipes boundary would probably change the model center point, and we all know what a pain in the ass that is to deal with.

[673f64d50acb1voodoo47]

never considered that a problem, they might not be legs, but anti-grav generators or whatever. 'nyway, pretty sure System Shocked will be delighted, should they end up being extended.

Is there even anyone besides me who is actively using your tool?

there may be some users in the russian SS2/dark community, but they tend to keep to themselves (from the little I could read they also have their own mods that they bundle together with their translations, mostly ignoring the new stuff that is happening over here) so there is no way of being sure.

anyway, just one person using a particular function set of a tool is not unheard of around here - it kind of feels like the dml system exists solely for my own personal convenience, for example. or maybe I just have an unhealthy obsession with it.

[673f64d50af72Olfred]

Extending the legs any further than the bottom pipes boundary would probably change the model center point.

No, I can freely manipulate the center point. Nemyax built that in.
That's also preventing you from needing to rearrange all the models I worked on and needed to change size.
Just remember what I did with the cabinets which were built into the walls.

[673f64d50b274nemyax]

Is there even anyone besides me who is actively using your tool?

There's also elvis and another guy who's yet to release an FM at darkfate.
Olfred
Actually, the hack doesn't need to be exceedingly ugly; just slightly so. You can mark faces for Freestyle rendering, and that can be a good enough way to tell them from UV-mapped faces. But then, there's MD_PGON_PRIM_SOLID  and MD_PGON_COLOR_VCOL. I'm buggered if I know the difference.

[673f64d50b3a0Olfred]

I'm glad I'm not the only one to use this.

What kind of values do they have for example?
My guess would be that MD_PGON_PRIM_SOLID would indicate the shading and MD_PGON_COLOR_VCOL the colour of a polygon?

I could create some test model for you using BSP.exe if that would be helpful.

[673f64d50b4beOlfred]

Finished the sim units.
With the included textures it will work without SHTUP, although now they don't work with language patches anymore. (As the texture in the language pack isn't loaded).

It still looks like there is a seam, but that's all in the texture.

[673f64d50b5d2voodoo47]

hmm, I'm thinking about leaving this one as SCP/SHTUP exclusive (as it's not a complete 1:1 replacement). will sleep on it.

[673f64d50b855nemyax]

I could create some test model for you using BSP.exe if that would be helpful.

This might help. We can discuss it in the dedicated topic.

[673f64d50b98aZylonBane]

Conduit model details added to first post. An additional problem I noticed was that two of the pipes in the model clip into each other, but I don't think it's possible to fix this without moving them quite a bit apart and/or making them higher-poly. It's only noticeable when looking at the ends of the models, which almost never happens in-game.

[673f64d50bc18Olfred]

An additional problem I noticed was that two of the pipes in the model clip into each other

fixed

Also changed conduit2.bin and conduit3.bin to accomodate the changes.

[673f64d50bd80voodoo47]

looks like the Plantt model (Tall Plant 2 -1854) from the flora package has some problems with only two sides/edges of the pot being displayed at a time. checked things out in the editor, it seems to be a model problem.

[673f64d50beb7Olfred]

Either you snuck in some old model there or you did some DML magic to fuck it up.
I just tested with the model I had on my drive and everything looks fine.