SH5 modding difficulties

[Jeff-Groves]

That was what was to be used for GWX 4 back in the day.
There was no S3D and many Units to convert.

[gap]

Originally Posted by Jeff-Groves

That was what was to be used for GWX 4 back in the day.
There was no S3D and many Units to convert.

I will never get tired of showing all my gratitude toward the subsim buddies who made our lives easier giving us tools, and towards the badass pioneers who had to do without those tools lol

[Seaowl]

@Jeff-Groves
Thanks to you and to ref for this fine tool. Will try it out immediateley.

@gap
Have to agree with oskar123: Great overview, that answers a lot of questions.
The information contained in your posting should be stickied in some way.

And what a question to ask, if we are interested in enhanced ports and channels?
Let me answer anticipating without hesitation everyone else`s opinion: Of course we are!
For my part I`am following the lighthouse threat with great interest and awaiting eagerly every new version of the Ecomod.
In my view these are exactly the things that are lacking at this point in SH5.


Meanwhile I have realized, that object editor is only able to place GR2 files.
So I will take the „Ehrenmal“-files in Twos as example and trying it this way round as you proposed…
experimenting a bit.

[oskar123]

How does the exporter tool work with regards to implementing a new ship? Can it simply convert a .dat ship or is there more to it? I assume the latter. Will we have to build models from scratch?

I'm also wondering about the licensing deal you got; I assume any of us can't just download the exporter ourselves? If (god forbid) jeff should suddenly go missing like TDW, what will happen?

[gap]

Originally Posted by Seaowl

@gap
Have to agree with oskar123: Great overview, that answers a lot of questions.
The information contained in your posting should be stickied in some way.

Always glad to help, if I can

There is something that I forgot mentioning: at times dat ships are rendered in game totally black . I don't know if this glitch is tied to dat units in general, or to some specific unit but it seems to happen more often with some ships than with others. A good example of dat ships prone to this kind of bug is TWoS/OHII's hospital ship IIRC. Maybe Vecko has managed solving the problem, but the lastt time I had a look into it, textures and materials looked in order.

Originally Posted by Seaowl

And what a question to ask, if we are interested in enhanced ports and channels?
Let me answer anticipating without hesitation everyone else`s opinion: Of course we are!

Originally Posted by Seaowl

For my part I`am following the lighthouse threat with great interest and awaiting eagerly every new version of the Ecomod.
In my view these are exactly the things that are lacking at this point in SH5.

New playable subs and many new ships and aircraft would be cool to

Originally Posted by Seaowl

Meanwhile I have realized, that object editor is only able to place GR2 files.
So I will take the „Ehrenmal“-files in Twos as example and trying it this way round as you proposed…
experimenting a bit.

You can use this other workaround: take any simple terrain object (the German church is perfect for this purpose), duplicate it and rename it however you want, run terrain editor and place it where you want the dat-format lighthouse to be. When you have finished (don't forget to save before you exit TE) MapObjects.ini will be updated with the new location; open that file in notepad, look for the recently added object, and replace its name with the name of the lighthouse. Let me know if it works

[Seaowl]

New playable subs and many new ships and aircraft would be cool to

Yeah, but without enhanced ports the next imported vessel should be some large container ship, painted in weird camouflage patterns.
My captains here are complaining bitterly about this strange drawn-out crates, which
do not fit into the holds of their ships and are blocking the docks unnecessarily.
Tought I have seen recently some nice looking cargo in GR2 format into the library. Could be trying something myself.

You can use this other workaround: take any simple terrain object (the German church is perfect for this purpose), duplicate it and rename it however you want, run terrain editor and place it where you want the dat-format lighthouse to be. When you have finished (don't forget to save before you exit TE) MapObjects.ini will be updated with the new location; open that file in notepad, look for the recently added object, and replace its name with the name of the lighthouse. Let me know if it works

It really works!
Great workaround! Thank you a lot!

Flakmonkeys lighthouse is still looking great now in SH5. Only drawback: the model has obviously the same LOD-trouble like Lange Anna in Helgoland.
Later today I will open up an own lighthouse thread for SH5 and post some screens.

[Jeff-Groves]

IF the dat has the Unifiedrender controller?
There is an LOD setting. Try changing those.
If your using an SH3 file? Run SH3 to SH4 on it and it will update the files to SH4 standards.

[Seaowl]

Originally Posted by Jeff-Groves

IF the dat has the Unifiedrender controller?
There is an LOD setting. Try changing those.
If your using an SH3 file? Run SH3 to SH4 on it and it will update the files to SH4 standards.

Gosh! Jeff, thank you! I had deleted all controllers inside the .dat, because I tought it is necessary to rebuild them separately into a .sim file with granny editor.
But now I took simply the original file and it works. Lighthouse is not fading, fresnel is working.
Have to test a little bit more, how far away the light is visible etc.

[Jeff-Groves]

Originally Posted by gap

Always glad to help, if I can

There is something that I forgot mentioning: at times dat ships are rendered in game totally black . I don't know if this glitch is tied to dat units in general, or to some specific unit but it seems to happen more often with some ships than with others. A good example of dat ships prone to this kind of bug is TWoS/OHII's hospital ship IIRC. Maybe Vecko has managed solving the problem, but the lastt time I had a look into it, textures and materials looked in order.

Can you sent me the files for that Unit?

Edit: Never mind. Dl'd the install and found a reference in the roster files that point to a Normals texture that does not exist.
NHOSP does have the normals UV's but no Normals texture is in it's folder.
NSHOS does NOT have Normals UV's so should NOT have a Normals texture pointed to it.

Solution should be to add the normals texture to NHOSP folder and then delete the Roster NSOHP pointer to the Normals texture.

Now a simple way to check ALL dat files for the second or Normals UV mappings?
Run a scan with 010 to find all files that contain TMAP
Searching only .dat files.