SH5 modding difficulties

[oskar123]

So, after browsing a bit here I have a few questions I have been unable to answer. What are the major difficulties? Why is it so hard to change some things (i.e. add playable ships) but others are no issue? I remember playable subs & ships in SH3 & 4, what changed?

What is this converter @Jeff-Groves is working on? I saw the donations recently closed. Is the project finished? Near finished?

Is there anything I can do to help? I have some minor modding experiences, mostly from paradox games which are probably easier, but I'm eager to learn!

Cheers Captains!

[gap]

Originally Posted by oskar123

So, after browsing a bit here I have a few questions I have been unable to answer. What are the major difficulties? Why is it so hard to change some things (i.e. add playable ships) but others are no issue? I remember playable subs & ships in SH3 & 4, what changed?

What is this converter @Jeff-Groves is working on? I saw the donations recently closed. Is the project finished? Near finished?

Is there anything I can do to help? I have some minor modding experiences, mostly from paradox games which are probably easier, but I'm eager to learn!

Cheers Captains!

Hi oskar123, nice question, my personal answers (I would be curious to know the opinion of other forum members though), are lack of modders and lack of a finished model editor.

Talking about the first point, you might have noticed that most new threads in the SH5 mod workshop section of this forum, are neither about new mods nor requests of support/information on the modding of something new, but rather requests of new features and/or requests of help on the usage of other's mods. The fact that some aspects of the game seem to have progressed a lot during the last years, while others didn't, is probably caused by the fact that some old modders who, in months and years of patient digging in the game files, had developed an insight of SH5's scripts, code, 3D format, etc. are no longer active now, and no one took over their work in the meanwhile.

One of those modder is TheDarkWraith, the author of many mods still used by the SH5 players, and coder of the only editor we have so far capable of handling GR2 files, the files where SH5 models are stored. Unfortunately he left when his brilliant tool was still far from perfection, which means that object-importing is still a pitifully slow process and with many limitations, and he didn't disclose the source-code of his tool, which means that a programmer wanting to "challenge" the secrets of the (proprietary) GR2 format, should start over from scratch instead of keeping on TDW's work

[oskar123]

Originally Posted by gap

Hi oskar123, nice question, my personal answers (I would be curious to know the opinion of other forum members though), are lack of modders and lack of a finished model editor.

Talking about the first point, you might have noticed that most new threads in the SH5 mod workshop section of this forum, are neither about new mods nor requests of support/information on the modding of something new, but rather requests of new features and/or requests of help on the usage of other's mods. The fact that some aspects of the game seem to have progressed a lot during the last years, while others didn't, is probably caused by the fact that some old modders who, in months and years of patient digging in the game files, had developed an insight of SH5's scripts, code, 3D format, etc. are no longer active now, and no one took over their work in the meanwhile.

One of those modder is TheDarkWraith, the author of many mods still used by the SH5 players, and coder of the only editor we have so far capable of handling GR2 files, the files where SH5 models are stored. Unfortunately he left when his brilliant tool was still far from perfection, which means that object-importing is still a pitifully slow process and with many limitations, and he didn't disclose the source-code of his tool, which means that a programmer wanting to "challenge" the secrets of the (proprietary) GR2 format, should start over from scratch instead of keeping on TDW's work

You may not be invested yourself but I'd be curious to know: what stops us from simply copying models from SH3/4 (other than the low poly count)? Format issues? It seems to me that the TWoS mod adds a few new ships to the game, so it's clearly been done before.

[gap]

Originally Posted by oskar123

You may not be invested yourself but I'd be curious to know: what stops us from simply copying models from SH3/4 (other than the low poly count)? Format issues? It seems to me that the TWoS mod adds a few new ships to the game, so it's clearly been done before.

I will try to answer your question with another question, but first let me start with a preamble.

There is a forum thread which contains most of the information needed for making a basic but acceptably good ship conversion from SHIV (and SHIII) to SH5.
It is neither a comprensive tutorial, nor a ste-by-step guide; one needs to read the whole thread to get a wider picture, and even so, the picture that you will get will be far from complete, but at least that would be a starter. I think I moved some of my first modding steps in the Silent Hunter world from that thread: before reading it, and before trying to put that information in practice (with tens of mistakes done and twice as much lessons learned) I basically knew nothing about dat format, SH controllers, etc. I owe the little I know today to my curiosity which induced me to ask questions, and to the patience of other forum members and modding veterans, who kindly answered my questions. They have all my gratitude, but without my questions they probably wouldn't have been in the position to help me.

Now my question for you is: after the first wave of enthusiasm that followed the posting of the aforementioned thread by TDW, when many valiant (and now mostly retired) modders imported several new units in the game, how many new modders do you think tested themselves with ship/aircraft conversions?
Unfortunately I can't remember anyone but Vecko, the author of TWoS.
Why is that? Maybe that thread should have been stickied, maybe someone should have written a comprensive ship buiding/importing tutorial. Maybe we, as a modding community, could have made a better work in helping new members to move their first steps as potential modders, but how many people actually asked for this kind of help, and how many simply asked to see new ships and playable subs imported in game by someone else?

I'll leave you to answer that one

[Jeff-Groves]

Originally Posted by gap

after the first wave of enthusiasm that followed the posting of the aforementioned thread by TDW, when many valiant (and now mostly retired) modders imported several new units in the game

And after that self glamorizing thread? How many Veteran modders stopped posting anything they knew or figured out? That post came AFTER I had released the Type 14 Alpha that had the damages thing figured out.
(I still have the original files for that 14 by the way!)
As I recall? I was one of the first to call the Devs on lack of the Unifiedrender controller issue.
Here's the greatest thing I can tell any one. Work together! Share what you find and help when you can. A lone modder will burn out when all his peers turn their backs on him!

There is a lot I have still not completed where SH5 is concerned. And a lot I have not even looked at for awhile.

[gap]

Originally Posted by Jeff-Groves

And after that self glamorizing thread? How many Veteran modders stopped posting anything they knew or figured out? That post came AFTER I had released the Type 14 Alpha that had the damages thing figured out.
(I still have the original files for that 14 by the way!)
As I recall? I was one of the first to call the Devs on lack of the Unifiedrender controller issue.

Fair enough but, self glamorizing or not, that thread had the merit not only of showing people something new that could be done, but also the one of explaining how to do that. That said, I can't say for sure whether TDW consciously "stole" your discovery, or rather he was simply inspired by some partial revelations by you, coming to your same conclusions, but we both know TDW and we know his strong ego and his inclination to put his name on any major discovery regarding SH5. Whatever of my previous assumptions was true, he should at least have credited you, but that's not even the point here: whoever has been hanging around subsim long enough, knows how much you did for our game (though often staying in the background), and be sure that when I talk about the valiant veteran modders to whom I am tied by sincere gratitude, your name is among the ones at the top of the list

Originally Posted by Jeff-Groves

Here's the greatest thing I can tell any one. Work together! Share what you find and help when you can. A lone modder will burn out when all his peers turn their backs on him!

Seconded one thousand times!

Originally Posted by Jeff-Groves

There is a lot I have still not completed where SH5 is concerned. And a lot I have not even looked at for awhile.

Let's talk about that lot then!

[oskar123]

Originally Posted by gap

But how many people actually asked for this kind of help?

There is one asking right now : )

Although my account may be several years old, I was 11 and just getting into SH4 when I created it. Hence the childish and very unoriginal username. I actually remember the specific ocasion, in a large chair at my grandmother's place.

Since then I've been through a lot, but I haven't been very active in the Silent Hunter community. As such, I know very little of whatever drama might exist between long-standing captains of the forum. In fact, I don't even know enough to answer your question, even though I think I can read the implied answer ; )

At 19 I'm only just gaining the computer knowledge and above all the tenacity to work with creating mods and the like.
The reason I created this thread in the first place was to try to get a grasp of the situation so I know in which end to start digging. I want to find as much information as possible and I thank you for the link to the thread you provided. More of that please! I'll read it through tomorrow after I sleep some.

Also, @jeff-groves, I still don't have my answer about that damn exporter!

Thanks both for taking time to reply!

[Seaowl]

Thanks Oskar123 for raising this topic.
There are so many ships in SH3 and SH4, that would be absolutely georgeous to have in SH5 too: for exemple TheFrogs Fleet, Texelbos French Fleet or Wise and Kovalls M04B/MX04B to name only a few of them.

As far as I know, it isn´t too difficult to make them show up somehow in SH5 - I tried it myself.
But thats just the beginning, and here the real trouble with wakes, transparency, lightmaps, damage zones and shadows starts: and as far as I grasp the essence of the thread Gap linked above right, there is no real solution for some of these, unless you are able to convert .dats to .GR2 files.

As I remember right, it was in a thread of yours, Gap, I recently came across a file, wherein the terrain editors are explained. Never heard about before, but great stuff. As far as time allows, I will try to import Flakmonkeys lighthouse to SH5 using object editor. Some time ago, I tried to place it via misfiles, but it never shows up.

No one can imagine, how annoyed I am about these quickly fading lighthouses, fixed to the harbours. Especially because lighthouses would be such a great addition to the real navigation mod of TWOS. But this is a theme for a thread on it´s own.