[REL] The Little Ships of SH5 - Coaster Pack

[gap]

Originally Posted by kapuhy

- I'm still stuck on texture problems - I wanted ships to change textures and maybe even use navigation lights reflecting their status (neutral/belligerent) during the war, but way SH5 handles textures leads to constant problems with ships "borrowing" wrong texture from another vessel using the same model.

Probably we already discussed that, but why don't you create illuminated windows/portholes as separate equipment? Indeed by adopting this method you should give up illumination effects on decks, superstructure, funnels etc. Moreover each vessel would need its own set of lights (you could keep each light separate so to use the same generic elements on more than one ship, but their placement would be a PITA). In any case, for small ships as your coasters, I think the above limits would be an acceptable price for bypassing the LOD texture problem.

Another possible compromise might be giving up LOD models. That would be a waste of computer resources but after all we already imported in game many dat units which have no support for LODs, and the game handles them decently.

Originally Posted by kapuhy

There's also an unresolved bug that prevents minesweepers from using varying camouflages.

Really? What is special about minesweeper's texture assignment?

Originally Posted by kapuhy

I hope to fix all the above and relase new ships sometime in August (provided real life doesn't throw a new wrench into my plans).

[kapuhy]

Originally Posted by gap

Probably we already discussed that, but why don't you create illuminated windows/portholes as separate equipment?

Last time I tried the light from these illuminated parts disappeared at LOD switch range, but I might recheck that as m memory is fuzzy on details.

Originally Posted by gap

Another possible compromise might be giving up LOD models.

The problem is not just LOD models although their scrapping would solve a lot of issues. What I fear is situation where single brightly colored neutral ship wanders into vicinity of huge Allied convoy and all ships in the convoy decide to use "neutral" skin (this happens if neutral ship is a clone of regular "grey" merchants or vice versa).

Originally Posted by gap

Really? What is special about minesweeper's texture assignment?

I made a thread on the subject some time ago - never managed to solve it:

https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/sho...d.php?t=250744

This happens to any of my ships I try to make multiple AO maps for (diffuse textures work fine).

[GrenSo]

Originally Posted by kapuhy

Last time I tried the light from these illuminated parts disappeared at LOD switch range, but I might recheck that as m memory is fuzzy on details.



The problem is not just LOD models although their scrapping would solve a lot of issues. What I fear is situation where single brightly colored neutral ship wanders into vicinity of huge Allied convoy and all ships in the convoy decide to use "neutral" skin (this happens if neutral ship is a clone of regular "grey" merchants or vice versa).



I made a thread on the subject some time ago - never managed to solve it:

https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/sho...d.php?t=250744

This happens to any of my ships I try to make multiple AO maps for (diffuse textures work fine).

Sounds like the issue silentmichal and I can't solve with the ladder in CR room in silentmichal's new interior mod v1.2.3 and my version v2.0 of it (last picture): https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/sho...&postcount=596

[gap]

Originally Posted by kapuhy

Last time I tried the light from these illuminated parts disappeared at LOD switch range, but I might recheck that as m memory is fuzzy on details.

Do guns disappear at LOD distance? If they do, light equipment will disappear as well. If not, I don't see why they should behave in a different way than any other equipment. Depending on their size and on screen resolution they might become so small that the game won't render them, but this is not LOD-related.

Originally Posted by kapuhy

The problem is not just LOD models although their scrapping would solve a lot of issues. What I fear is situation where single brightly colored neutral ship wanders into vicinity of huge Allied convoy and all ships in the convoy decide to use "neutral" skin (this happens if neutral ship is a clone of regular "grey" merchants or vice versa).

Yes, that's a known game limit. SH5 loads only one "copy" of each 3D model at any given time. If different versions of the same unit are rendered at the same time, all of them will display the same texture. I can't say whether the same applies to equipment though.

Confusing an allied or axis vessel for a neutral one would be somehow acceptable. As we have seen in my thread on wartime ship colors, vessels of many neutral countries sailed within allied convoys while still retaining peacetime colors or even neutrality markings (and they were considered valid targets by the Germans). Likewise, many German blockade-runners disguised themselves as neutral vessels, so again some confusion might even be realistic.
On the other hand, confusing a neutral vessel for an allied one might lead to some very bad outcomes, as destroying one of them will result in a renown penalty and even to CTDs. The one solution for avoiding that, is having two "physical" copies of the very same ships if we plan to use them both on the allied/axis and on the neutral side.

Originally Posted by kapuhy

I made a thread on the subject some time ago - never managed to solve it:

https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/sho...d.php?t=250744

This happens to any of my ships I try to make multiple AO maps for (diffuse textures work fine).

Weird. Does that apply only to minesweepers? Have you tried if switching unit type solves the problem?

[kapuhy]

Originally Posted by gap

Do guns disappear at LOD distance? If they do, light equipment will disappear as well. If not, I don't see why they should behave in a different way than any other equipment. Depending on their size and on screen resolution they might become so small that the game won't render them, but this is not LOD-related.

I'll dig out my old test mod for this and write more then, as I said I'm not sure of details now.

EDIT: Ok I found it. Video below shows the issue:



One of my coasters, with Mk.9L Shining Depth Charges strapped to its bridge, using emissive material modeled after control room lightbulbs (your idea ). Light disappears even before LOD switch. It's hard to see in this video but crew figures remain visible even after lights do not.

Originally Posted by gap

Weird. Does that apply only to minesweepers? Have you tried if switching unit type solves the problem?

Any ship I tried to use more than one AO map on. On the other side I know it does work properly on Flower corvette (which has several AO skins in TWoS). So either it's a mistake I repeated in all my ships or maybe something resulting from using GR2 Editor (which would also explain why multi-AO stock ships are unaffected).

[gap]

Originally Posted by kapuhy

I'll dig out my old test mod for this and write more then, as I said I'm not sure of details now.

Okay, I will look forward to your updates

Originally Posted by kapuhy

Any ship I tried to use more than one AO map on. On the other side I know it does work properly on Flower corvette (which has several AO skins in TWoS). So either it's a mistake I repeated in all my ships or maybe something resulting from using GR2 Editor (which would also explain why multi-AO stock ships are unaffected).

mmm... in that case I lean to believe that ship type has nothing to do with your problem, but just to be sure, you could set up your unit as a corvette (or any other unit type which has multiple AO maps assigned) and see if that makes any change.
On the other hand, if the culprit was GR2 editor I would expect the primary AO map to be broken as well as the others, but this is not the case obviously

[gap]

Originally Posted by kapuhy

EDIT: Ok I found it. Video below shows the issue:



One of my coasters, with Mk.9L Shining Depth Charges strapped to its bridge, using emissive material modeled after control room lightbulbs (your idea ). Light disappears even before LOD switch. It's hard to see in this video but crew figures remain visible even after lights do not.

Okay, thank you for sharing this video. I think I know what's going on.
In SH5 the visibility of distant objects is proportional to the dimensions of its bounding sphere. I noticed that while working on the model of a sea stack near Helgoland; its visibility was toggled off way before the one of other nearby terrain objects, and I couldn't discover what was causing that until I increased its size. I don't know if that applies only to terrain objects (and possibly any object imported in the GR2 file of stock terrain objects) or to every non-unit object though.

Try doing this: import your lights in a stock equipment file. One of the GR2 files where depth charges, bombs, or torpedoes are stored, should fit our needs. If that doesn't make your lights visible from a longer distance, switch to any GR2 file with two (or more) meshes on the same object. Use one of the meshes for storing your lights, make the other mesh invisible, import a big object in it (a huge single-faced triangle will do), and see what's happening in game. I am pretty confident that at least one of the above methods will solve for good the issue documented in your video