CMP to SUR Conversion Tests
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That’s amazing, but what do you mean by “properly defining your ship into pieces”?
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**Using the pic above…
Each pylon is a separate mesh. The saucer section is another mesh. The warp engines are another. These can be set up in Milkshape as groups and exported by group. The only limit is the exporters 18 group limit which can be a problem on complex models.**
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Holy shit, that’s amazing. As for the 18 part groups, couldn’t that be beaten using the method that FW:ToW developed?
http://zomgbayz2.googlecode.com/files/Infinite hitbox parts tutorial.wmv
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**@ Sushi - thats what I thought, I surprise myself sometimes, I just build it, what comes out the other end is anyone’s guess
The program can handle up to 1024 parts, so if u can get around the 18 part limit then u should be able to build some pretty amazing surs…**
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And the program can handle multiple VMeshes?
I don’t think what Sushi’s asking will be possible with this though, as that’s creating new dummy mesh objects (which have no real geometric relation to the functional model), but linking them to previously generated Sur parts, which are positionally correct and offset to match the original model’s geometry.
But… if you broke the model up to match the Surs, into multiple vmeshes: base_left_wing01, base_right_wing01, base_cabin, base_power, etc… and the program supports this, then there’s no need for dummy meshes anyways (which will be better anyhow if the model ever needs to be animated) .
So that means making a complex model from say 5 Milkshape scenes, each exported to their own CMP, then merged by hand. That should support auto-generating a Sur, as long as the program handles multi VMeshes.
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Actually it handles multiple vmeshes and the every mesh stored within them. The NX01 shown above is a single VMeshData but contains multiple meshes within that node. In Milkshape you would just simply split the mesh and regroup it. The NX01 contains about 60 groups (meshes), all stored in the root node.
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LS -
OK, never mnd anyone else, I like what I see, so gimme gimme gimme!!
Sushi-
The method used to get round the 18 group limit will not work with this, because it combines many or all of the original ship parts into one group.By this method, the ship will not break up into those separate groups when it is destroyed either. But this is not important for large ships because most are set to just disappear instead of “shatter”.
Everyone-
The key is to separate your model into sensible component groups, up to 18. This has been enough for almost all of my models.And by doing it this way you should have enough real ship groups to ensure that you do not need to make any dummy parts, which I hate and detest!
So by separating ship booms and wings etcetera into one per group, LS’s sur generator will wrap each one in its own sur, and will leave the spaces between them empty, as they should be.
And when the ship is destroyed, those booms will break away and spiral off! Nice!
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Sushi-
The method used to get round the 18 group limit will not work with this, because it combines many or all of the original ship parts into one group.Ya, it definitely does not do that. That’s why we use this method to hitbox our 7 piece vmeshdata spliced ISD. I think it would work
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**Here are some test results so far.
Here is a pic of NX01 after I regroup it from 62 to 10 groups, including the sur overlay. Each part of the mesh was regrouped to fit into a specific section. When exported it was done as 10 parts. To do this in Milkshape simply select all of the groups you want to have together and regroup.
NX01 in HardCMPHere is a video of it being tested in-game. Notice how I can fly thru the central opening…
[wmp=640,480]http://digitalbrilliance.org/Videos/SUR_Export04.wmv[/wmp]**
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Amazing LS, simply amazing.
This work will make everyones life so much easier with modding. I cannot wait to see what else you can do with this (or is there anything else??)
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Sushi, W0dk4 -
Sorry, must have confused that mehtod with the other “zomgbay thing” that grouped all ship groups into the 1st group and used dummy groups!I’ll download it and have a look at yours now.
LS -
I notice that the saucer is shown in dull white whereas the other parts of the NX-01 are bright white. HardCMP also showed “good” sur parts in bright white, and “suspect” and non-working sur parts in dull white, can you how did it do that? -
StarTrader wrote:
Sushi, W0dk4 -
Sorry, must have confused that mehtod with the other “zomgbay thing” that grouped all ship groups into the 1st group and used dummy groups!I’ll download it and have a look at yours now.
LS -
I notice that the saucer is shown in dull white whereas the other parts of the NX-01 are bright white. HardCMP also showed “good” sur parts in bright white, and “suspect” and non-working sur parts in dull white, can you how did it do that?That’s the multi-part SUR. The Freeworlds guys are so insane they have 100k+ models and needed a technique for CMPs, too
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I had no trouble with it at all on the saucer as u can see in the video. It looks alot darker in the pic than it did on my machine, most likely jpg artifacting.
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FriendlyFire wrote:
StarTrader wrote:
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LS -
I notice that the saucer is shown in dull white whereas the other parts of the NX-01 are bright white. HardCMP also showed “good” sur parts in bright white, and “suspect” and non-working sur parts in dull white, can you how did it do that?That’s the multi-part SUR. The Freeworlds guys are so insane they have 100k+ models and needed a technique for CMPs, too
What do you mean FF, I don’t understand either part of your reply old friend?
LS’s utility (this one) will make the sur from the cmp, no?
But my question is how HardCMP showed good sur parts in bright white and bad ones in dull white/grey.
It seemed consistent. It was a good clue when my surs were going to be bad even before I tested them. So I thought it was a deliberate method in HardCMP and maybe LS had done the same?
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What I meant is that the technique you described with dummy models that put all parts in the root group is for large SURs, not CMPs. The Freeworlds people had to develop a technique to work around both SUR and CMP group limits, but the CMP workaround doesn’t change how groups work (if there should be 36 groups, there will be 36 groups, which means that the models will work fine with LS’s utility).
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FriendlyFire wrote:
What I meant is that the technique you described with dummy models that put all parts in the root group is for large SURs, not CMPs. The Freeworlds people had to develop a technique to work around both SUR and CMP group limits, but the CMP workaround doesn’t change how groups work (if there should be 36 groups, there will be 36 groups, which means that the models will work fine with LS’s utility).Ah, right - but they also modified the cmp in the same way to add the dummy parts that matched the sur names, no?
Anyhow, yes the Freeworlds cmp method obviously is better and those cmp’s can hopefully then be used directly by LS’s 1024-group generator!
Wunderbar!
Well - come on then, LS, where is it?! Eh?!
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**Hold your horses old man, it will be ready when it’s ready. BTW did you get that hedge trimmer I sent you?
Just for you, a model from Freeworlds, the X Wing (courtesy of Sushi), as you can see it isn’t a perfect fit. If you want a form fitting sur, then you will need to build it by hand. This is a general purpose tool and isn’t meant for perfectly fitting sur files unless the model is prepped for it.
Still having occasional sur corruptions, until I get them cleared out I won’t be releasing an update.
The testing is going good so far though, at the present all of the sur files have shown up properly in Hard CMP. Hopefully I will release a working version soon…**
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Hedge trimmer - nope!
But don’t send a replacement yet, I’ll just blunt it!
Yep, that’s pretty good.
For myself I would make the engines and weapons separate groups to get a close-fitting sur for it.
Tip - Could also remove the weapon groups and export a temporary cmp so the weapons would not generate sur parts, then restore the original cmp for the game. As long as you don’t change any group names all should be well.
Ah - don’t forget my optional shield bubble thingy, huh? (Don’t worry about what anyone else wants, I don’t care, they’re all inferior!)
Just filling in time…
“Infamy! Infamy! (They’ve all got it in fer me!)” - Kenneth Williams, “Carry on Cleo”Like it? Oh. OK, here’s another then:-
“Arabs are very intense people - they do everything in tents!” - Charles Hawtrey, “Carry on, Follow That Camel”And one more for the record…
“No offence meant, just feeling a gay person - Uh-oh… yep, he sure is offended!” - StarTrader, “Avin’ a Laff!”
