CMP to SUR Conversion Tests

StarTrader wrote:
BW: you need to get MilkShape and the importers and exporters please, so you can make some simple shapes and help us to help you to troubleshoot. It’s really not hard and is compulsory to fix this problem.

As I read through your last two posts, ST, I began to think that you and I should sit down over a pint and have you show me how to do some of these things so that I could run my own tests.

Great minds think alike, eh?

Now that is a scary thought!

hm, milkshape is a primitive modeling tool. most actions are very obvious and to do even quicker than with many other programs, although not nearly as accurate.

oh yes … milkshape is a very simple tools but maybe not really easy to “take in hands” because the interface is awfull ; my opinion ^^

but i think in maybe 10 min ST can teach you all you need to know in order to make simples cmp

@Bejaymac: Unless you have the source to 1.1, I have little choice (I think it’d still be better to use 1.2 than start from scratch).

can’t you decompile the plug-in to a programming language? or even use your assembly magic?

adoxa wrote:
@Bejaymac: Unless you have the source to 1.1, I have little choice (I think it’d still be better to use 1.2 than start from scratch).

I found two posts from Louva-Deus that suggest that the 1.2 code is a failed experiment, but the eoa.seriouszone.com main page is not working right now, so I could not investigate further:

I really should take down the 1.2 version files, they don’t create valid SUR files anyway. You should stick to 1.1. The new version in the works is based on 1.1.

It is the plugin. 1.1 and 1.2 use two different methods of creating the SUR file. This was an experiment Colin did.

I’ve made a request to Louva for the v1.1 source, hopefully he’ll see it soon and say yes.

http://forums.seriouszone.com/showthread.php?53423

guess what, it would be great, if all of these gods out there from good old times were reunited here, on the starport. not the only one but the very freelancer community it shall become. don’t you think we’d be a lot faster if all together?

i think i have the 1.1 sources

here : msSurimporter1.1

Well done Mirkha.

Gisteron: Are you sure you want them here? Don’t forget they are all older and grumpier too…!

That is the **Im**porter. But nice try.

ST: Any chance you can get the FLMM source while you are at it?

oh ?
sorry -__-

/me go out

edit :

@ ST :

all here

i’ve done several tests

so, 2 sphere and a box, no way to generate a entire sur
the more i can do is a sphere + the box, or 2 spheres

and it’s weird because the sur builder seems to generate all the 3 shapes but it’s not show in hardcmp …

for example, Type1 general allways the box and not the spheres

here the best result with Type2 :

as you can see the second sphere is generated in the sur builder but not seen in hardcmp

Bullwinkle wrote:

ST: Any chance you can get the FLMM source while you are at it?

I’ll ask, I think it’s Matthew Leider’s? Don’t know if he was in EOA?

Mirkha wrote:

… as you can see the second sphere is generated in the sur builder but not seen in hardcmp

Good work, Mirkha, many thanks. I import the surs into MilkShape because the HardCMP display is not always clear.

In your file the shapes that are generated are there - it’s just the red colour you chose for the material, it obscures the sur wires, but in my HardCMP v1.8 it shows as pink, see below…

Well I too have noticed that the outer shroud in the sur builder display seems to always cover the whole model, but we can’t see if the missing parts are being generated and not saved perhaps -

BW, is it fairly easy to put a line in that prints the name of each cmp group as soon as it is found? Or even just a counter that is printed, if we see the cmp groups are all being found, (or not) it will give us a good starting point.

Thanks.

the first screen shows that although the surbuilder have “draw” the two spheres and the box, the result is only one sphere and the box
as shown on the milkshape import

it’s like the sur builder make the second sphere but don’t export it …

StarTrader wrote:
I’ll ask, I think it’s Matthew Leider’s? Don’t know if he was in EOA?

Yes. I sent Matt an email but got no response. Apparently he has left the scene. Somebody that I spoke with mentioned that Louva Deus might have a copy, and I have not gotten around to asking because I have my hands full with other stuff.

However, since you already initiated a conversation with Louva, FLMM is in seriously need of an overhaul. The SUR Builder is the kind of thing that a few modders will use a few times, but everybody uses FLMM. And most have trouble with it in one way or another.

BW, is it fairly easy to put a line in that prints the name of each cmp group as soon as it is found? Or even just a counter that is printed, if we see the cmp groups are all being found, (or not) it will give us a good starting point.

Why an immediate display? No matter… the main request is for a result report, and I will put that on the list to investigate.

Doesn’t need to be, could be in a log file or whatever is easiest as a tracing tool.

Actually I meant programmatically speaking, as in the next line of code! lol

Thinking about it a log may be best if we need more tracking output later to get closer to the problem.

Not sure if LD will have the the source for 1.1 as that was Colin’s project, but you never know.

As for FLMM LD does have the source for it, as it’s now an ongoing EOA project, Matt dropped the whole lot in his lap a couple of years ago, Crazy released FLMM 1.5 last year as part of that project.

yea, ST, i think it is sensible if they get up here. ofc, we are kinda new generation, many of us are either teenagers or at least under 30 but moralic standards are irrelevant for technical work. what we need is knowledge, the ability to explain and the wish to keep the game alive. it is unimportant whether we like each other as long as we keep rationalic (sounds vulcanic, don’t you think?). even to mention \v\ again: yes, we troll each other, which is most stupid time consumption ever invented. in end effect, you won’t disagree, that even such a project does its, even if tiny, but however is being a part of the initiative.
now, sorry, for offtopic…
isn’t it, that this v1.5 FLMM is even more buggy than 1.31? fortunately they call it a beta, so clean work is not to expect but once i tried out 1.4 and 1.5 me, and many others got back to 1.31, didn’t you?

Update:

It’s taking me forever to isolate this…

OK, managed to get a 14-mixed-shape test file to generate complete sur parts as follows, but I know you won’t believe it!

What is not working?

1. Regular boxes (8 vertices, all 90 degree angles). One or more or even all always fail to be sur’d, no matter what the size. This is our problem.

2. Solid triangles (6 vertices) are frequently missed. When the length is close to 2 x width they can work but are unreliable,

3. The warning from LS & BW that minimum 5 vertices are needed for sur builder to work on a shape. So two faces with one common seam (4 vertices) will not work.

What is working?

Here are the shapes that do work correctly:

1. Sur Builder Settings: Sort: Type 2, No secondary sort, Duplicate Radius = 0.

2. We can have “boxes” made of 2-stack, 4-slice cylinders then they work fine - basically this is a double box, 12 vertices.

3. Thick triangles made using 1-stack 3-slice cylinders (8 vertices) are fine, even when one side is welded to make a knife-edge too (6 vertices).

4. Other shapes: spheres, geospheres, cylinders, “eggs” (stretched spheres) are OK.

5. Irregular-shaped boxes (looking down from above):

5a. Boxes MUST be tapered at the front or back, depending on their position and also depending on whether or not there is another shape beside it but further out from the centre line. This changes!

5b. If another shape is added the taper may need to be reversed!

I told you that you wouldn’t believe me.

One GREAT confirmation for all time: Parts do NOT need to be welded together to generate a good sur part in sur builder.

But Bejaymac is very possibly still right in that the sur may not work in-game, although his long and bad experience was not with surs made with sur builder.

On the other hand if the sur parts are all fine and present? So we need to test such a sur in-game to confirm. I don’t have time at the moment, please go ahead someone, make a ship with gaps and sur it and test it out. It WILL be fun seeing a rickety ship working in space!

How long did this proof take me? Don’t ask, my wife is so pissed with me you won’t believe. If we had a dog he’d be in the house and I’d be in his house for the next 2-3 weeks.

But this is how we avoid the box problem - now we found the cause, we have to get BW & LS to fix it.

Here’s the .ms3d file in a zip, it includes all the shapes, and the surs that were generated, so test it yourselves or make similar ones:

so ? too simple shape won’t work ?
like a cube or a rectangle ?