Custom Ships and wireframes

LancerSolurus

BTW, watch for spelling errors as well, you had VWireData as VWwireData….

DwnUndr

Wow, nice catch.

[RIP]Fusion

Ok Test run #2 in Hypothetics (meaning unsaved work)

Let’s see if I am Following you correctly. After saving a new ms3d file,(name not important) I export a new CMP w/ some details removed. New CMP is called FLMagnum_Wireframe.cmp
I export the lod.vms file located in the VMeshLibrary, saving it as a .dat file. We will call this Magwiredata.dat Using the provided program, I created a .bat file(cuz I hate using the Command Line in XP, my DOS is rusty) and I use the statement

make_wire Magwiredata.dat FLMagnum_Wire.lod0.vms Magwiremesh.dat
pause

This gets me a new file called Magwiremesh.dat. In FLMag.cmp, I make 2 new nodes located at MagTopFront.3db, named VMeshWire and VWireData, where I import my Magwiremesh.dat file intoVWireData.

Am I close in understanding your info?

Edit: I am aware of the caps error in the SS, but since this is a test run w/o saving, no harm has been done.

Fus

[RIP]Fusion

Sushi? What’s the verdict?

Does any1 else know the answer to my question if I am on the right track?

Fus

Sushi

Yep. This is correct. It should work in game.

w0dk4

Just something to keep in mind:

I just came across a limitation of the vwiredata.

E:\FL\Scratch\Source\Client\cmn\cached_wire.cpp(224) : TRACE_1:General:way too many indicies in the wireframe object

It seems like VWireData may not hold more than 16000 indices.

Sushi

And just to add on this body of knowledge

Each equipment wireframe that you attach to the model counts to this overall amount.

Meaning that if you have a model that’s just under 16000 and you add a number of equipment pieces, the wireframe will not work.

So like:
ship model = 15000
equipment = 2000
Total count = 17000

Wireframe will not work.

cvekiboy

Am I out of luck?

Skotty

It seems so.
To be sure, just place the ship as a solar object into space or give it some NPCs and select them to see the wireframe… or not.

mknote

Ugh. It seems that I must once again reiterate why I dislike Dev’s wireframe creator.

While Dev’s program does create a wireframe correctly, it’s ugly and far larger than it needs to be. It’s far better to build them by hand; while tedious and time consuming, it produces a cleaner wireframe that uses far fewer vertices. If you want to see the difference, compare the first and second pictures here.

FriendlyFire

Normally a good baseline is to use your SUR’s model as a wireframe. Using the actual model is asking for a jumbled mess of lines.

mknote

The wireframes in those pictures in the other thread did use the SUR model. That’s the sad part.

FriendlyFire

Then there are far more concerning problems than wireframes to address…

RimShot

meshes are triangulated while wireframes are lines, that is a significant difference which makes using one type for the other complicated. at one point i thought about making a wireframe tool that would let you build the wireframe lines by clicking on the vertices connecting them in a kind of 3d editor.

FriendlyFire

I believe (not 100% sure) that if you use w0d’s exporter the wireframes use the actual polygons (of arbitrary number of edges) defined in 3ds Max as opposed to the triangulation of said polygons.

mknote

FriendlyFire wrote:
Then there are far more concerning problems than wireframes to address…

If you’re implying that the SUR model was too complicated, it was 352 triangles and 212 vertices, and it still produced that mess.

That’s why I dislike Dev’s utility; it uses all the vertices in the model used and draws lines between all adjacent vertices, causing a mess of lines, instead of just doing an outline of the ship. Furthermore, if you use a simpler model for the wireframe, you have to load load that model into the CMP in addition to the model which is viable, which drives up the file sizes and is really aesthetically unpleasing IMO.

TBH, I can’t think of a way to build a nice wireframe except by hand, unless someone designs a program where you can load the meshes, connect the vertices you want to be in the wireframe, and export it as VWireData.

Sizer

FriendlyFire wrote:
I believe (not 100% sure) that if you use w0d’s exporter the wireframes use the actual polygons (of arbitrary number of edges) defined in 3ds Max as opposed to the triangulation of said polygons.

So then don’t use Dev’s util, use W0d’s. It’s what we use for FW:ToW, and it produces fantastic Wireframes for even my high-poly clusterfucks.

[RIP]Fusion

So then don’t use Dev’s util, use W0d’s. It’s what we use for FW:ToW, and it produces fantastic Wireframes for even my high-poly clusterfucks.

Sushi, could you link this program of W0d’s?

Fus

Bobthemanofsteel

That’s Sizer.

cvekiboy

[RIP]Fusion wrote:

So then don’t use Dev’s util, use W0d’s. It’s what we use for FW:ToW, and it produces fantastic Wireframes for even my high-poly clusterfucks.

Sushi, could you link this program of W0d’s?

Fus

http://the-starport.net/freelancer/forum/viewtopic.php?post_id=49778#forumpost49778

May I ask does the Pip3r’s MS-CMP exporter produces same wireframe?