Quote:
Originally Posted by vdr1981
Overview of ships which will soon become available in TWoS (some are already included in patch 10)...  |
Nice ships. It was about time to have some fresh targets in game
Quote:
Originally Posted by vdr1981
hose are all stock SH4 ships, some slightly altered (masts number, type and positioning) to mimic some merchants types historically used in allied convoys, like large ore carrier (1st pic), Granvill type freighter(4th pic) ect (just like in GWX )... |
Good!
I had a look into the new ships, and I have noticed you have replaced some model parts, most notably some of the lifeboats with the new masts. You don't need to do so. Cloning a node in S3d is as easy as selecting it, pressing Shift Ctrl C (the Shift key is used for copying a node together with its child chunks), selecting again the node that you want your new node to be placed below, and pressing Ctrl V. Once you are done, you must change the Id of the cloned node and of any sub-node, change the bone label (i.e. its name) appropriately, and then change the linked 3d model to anything you want. If need be, you can also import a completely new mesh into the dat file.
This is the quickest way to do it, but there is a more elegant method which allows us to fully customize any unit, and having many variants of it without having to physically clone dat/zon/sim/dsd/val files. This is done by setting Y configurable equipment nodes. They are used the way regular equipment is. Once you have cloned and re-numbered a node (for ease you should use as base another equipment node), change its name replacing the letter denoting equipment type (A, M, L, P, etc.) with a Y, and move its coordinates to where the new part should be placed on the main model. When you are done, import the new mast/funnel/turret, etc. you want your model to sport into a new dat file (if you are using as base a dat file previously used in game, never forget changing nodes' id and names), add to it a zon file and any other binary file the new structure might need, copy the new files into the library folder and link them to the model through eqp file.
If you create a dummy copy of the ship, you can have two or more customized versions of her, or you can simulate late-war changes to the superctructure of the same ship, by creating many entries in the same eqp file, one with and the other without or witn a different new structure.
If the new structure is derived from the same model that it will be used on, you can also set it to use the same diffuse/ambient occlusion texture as the main model. This way, any paint/camo scheme will be inherited. If need be, you can also slightly edit/reshape the cloned structure so to make it to fit better into its new position. As long as the changes done wont distort too much the existing UV maps, and vertex coordinates of main and AO model will be identical, there shouldn't be problems in doing so.
If you have SHIV installed, you can look for examples into the library/ship parts folder. There are not examples of this method being used in stock SH5, but it should work just the same.
