Need Help Some small update requests

[modernknight1]

Thanks Mate!

I have downloaded Rossiya, I just hadn't put her in the game yet. Today is the day.

MK

 

[Hylie Pistof]

MK: Did you DL my Postillionen files in post#6? That should at least fix the hull. Any other textures missing are in POTC.

Speaking of the Lyon Hoy I finally got around to fixing the textures for POTC. She looks good there.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gpalg0tp...ed ships/after beta 2.3/FR_PO_SP Hoy fixed.7z

 

[Armada]

Cheers for that Hylie.

MK: If you're installing the Rossiya, would you be able to do me a favour? I mentioned in the official thread that I would release a CoAS version, and although I can add the light locator for the stern lantern, I still need the relevant code files and correct folder structure before I can put together a package for people to download and install easily. Could you help with organising that, as I don't have CoAS?

 

[modernknight1]

I would be happy to assist Armada.

I am still having issues with textures though. The Postillionen only shows up green and white now. Was she supposed to look like that? (See screen below) The nice red and blue versions will not appear.

Also using all the textures you provided in the file for Rossiya she seems to still be a little naked. There also seems to be some problems with her cabin windows and the starboard interior gallery seems to be blocked by a wall or something.

She's got a beautiful shape, but......Help! MK

Edit: Oh yeah almost forgot. Here's the link to those Spanish galleons we were talking about: http://www.flickr.com/photos/49225014@N05/sets/72157632228042342/

 

[Hylie Pistof]

That is the Portagee version of the Postillionen, which might be my favorite. In POTC all textures are dumped into one huge file, so you end up with a bunch slightly differently named texture files so that they are only used by a particular version of a ship.
In COAS you have a generic texture folder and then 3 individual folders for variants. So the textures with different names need to go into the hull1,2,3 folders.
Which 3 variants are you interested in? The red version is the Spanish one, and the blue one was a fantasy paint job that did not make the cut.

 

[Armada]

All the Rossiya textures should be included in the v1.2 package, except the attached file for the cabin floor.

As Hylie said, it should just be a matter of renaming some of the textures in the other hull folders. The bortoutfrigate1 variants are bortoutfrigat47 (Dutch), bortoutfrigate2 (generic), bortoutfrigateP (pirate) and france_frigate1, and the only other texture that changes between variants is Posei_blc (default and pirate), Posei_yel (French and Dutch) and Posei_ocr (generic).

 

[Armada]

Finally got round to fixing the Apostol Felipe flagpole today, with a bonus; I remapped some parts of the ship to improve certain aspects of her.
In particular, I added a slight curvature to each end of the hull, and made the underwater section white (thanks to MK for the image references).
I also remapped several parts to use the PotBS wood and metal textures in place of woodGrainU2/3 and metalU2/5. Some parts are unchanged, but others looks a bit nicer, I reckon.
Once again, I remapped the deck to use the Rossiya's texture as well. These changes should hopefully be useful if we ever decide to use the ship in Hearts of Oak.

No texture modifications were necessary, because the hull texture already included an unused white planking section.

See this image for the result:

The files are available here, and can be dropped straight into the model folder: ApostolFelipe_fix.7z

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Wow! You are a fast worker.

Since this ship already has a lower gun deck with ladders she should be easier to upgrade for HOO than some other ships. But she is from the wrong time period, so is a low priority. The "seadepend" numbers for this ship are too low, which means she does not slow down with full holds like she should. I'm working on that now.

 

[Armada]

You're right about the time period. I only made these improvements because it's convenient to do so after going to the trouble of importing the model into Maya.
Plus, it helps with future-proofing, though as you said, Pgargon did an excellent job of that with the modelling. The ship is very well built.

I didn't know about the 'seadepend' values; thanks for working on those.


The question now is, what next? There are several models I could be working on, but do you know of any other outstanding issues while I'm at it?

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I sailed this ship a bit last night and noticed improvements all over the place. The new view is a treat too. There are all kinds of things I want to do to this ship, umm, next year.
There is one thing that might be useful in the future. In this view you are looking down on three decks. This is not a criticism of the new deck texture, but the lowest deck should be darker than the upper deck. Because all decks are the same it ruins any 3D effect that might be there. There is no sense of depth. Is it possible to have different textures for different decks?
Oh, and this is a beta 2.3 install. Are the numbers you are talking about the ones in the lower left corner?

 

[Armada]

The decks looking that way is just down to the Storm Engine's lack of good-quality rendering, especially a complete lack of dynamic shadows for ships. I could make different textures for the decks, but I'd prefer not to, especially since a) this problem affects many high-detail ships, and b) we already have a huge number of duplicate/very similar textures, so adding more doesn't help much.
When rendered in the Unreal Engine, the lighting and shadow effects would fix it properly, I believe.

And yes, those numbers are exactly what shouldn't be showing up in Beta 2.3.
The correct textures which remove them are contained in the package from this post: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/reclassifying-the-ships-again.19523/#post-435173
I'm guessing some of the contents made it into the update, but not those textures.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Oops, missed your post. I don't know of any issues with late period ships. There is a very early ship with the high camera bug though. The Spanish War Galleon built in 1540. Oh, and my current desktop.


My current fleet is the fast galleon, the treasure galleon, and the English galleon. The fast galleon runs away from the other two and probably needs to be slowed down a bit. The English galleon is fine as is. The treasure galleon does not slow down enough with full holds and so is faster than the English galleon. I am working to get it to be the slowest one.

 

[modernknight1]

So let me ask the question then.... How do I get the red and blue textures to work on Postillionen? Is there something specific I should be naming them.

I agree that the blue texture is probably over the top for the Caribbean but not for her home. The Postillionen is another Dunkirk style Fregatte Legare. She was most likely (especially considering her name) Dutch, but possibly Flemish or northern French (Dunkirk 1690 timeframe). The Dunkirkers were known for having over the top color schemes. I wish they had had cameras back then, because I think we would be stunned by some of the original things they did. I would bet there was fully blue or blue and yellow paint schemes on those Dunkirker predators. Their appearance as much as a black flag would make merchant ships heave too in submission with a flag of truce I think. Not much that could get away from them at that time.

So on the Rossiya, as you said (Hylie) there are three Hull folders which I can put separate textures into. So I only selected one version of the model for MODELS/Ships and renamed it R_Frigate1 for COAS. Then I simply put all the textures in each folder with the exception of the ones that were specifically and obviously named for Generic, Pirate, Dutch and French. Is there something that I should be renaming the textures so that they will work with my R_Frigate1 (Rossiya) model or do I need to rename the ship something else? Do the textures only recognize the different names that you gave to the different versions of the ship?

I am not going to port in several separate versions that all have the same textures in each hull folder....too much work. If I can just get one set of textures working on this model I will be happy enough (say French - because that's the nation I gave her to - (because of her transom shape in the 1700-1725 timeframe) Only the Russians and French were using that shape in 1700. English, Dutch and Spanish hadn't really widely adopted those higher round transoms quite yet - they were just starting to.

Thanks for clarifying this for me. MK

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Ok, coming from POTC I'm a neophyte at this but the way I see it is:

Choose your base ship. Put all of its needed textures from POTC in the hull 1 folder. Then with a hex editor look at the differences between the first version and the other two you have chosen. Go into POTC --->resources--->textures--->ships and find those different textures and put them into the hull 2 and hull 3 folders. Then rename them so that they are the same name as the ones in the hull 1 folder.
I am familiar with painting the Postillionen and can create the color scheme you want almost as fast as I can explain it to you. That is why I asked you what you want. Here I took the red Postillionen and tinkered with existing textures, only renaming them. I can change any part of the ship except the hand rails. What do you want?

 

[Armada]

For the Postillionen, I think Hylie has summed it up pretty well.

If you only want the French version of the Rossiya, then the solution is simple: use the French hull (FR_Frigate; rename to whatever you want) and only its related textures (which must NOT be renamed).
Each hull will only recognise the textures it has been assigned, not vice versa, unless you hex edit the model to use different textures.

I hope that helps.

 

[modernknight1]

I LOVE Armada's smoothed out hull, but I liked the colors we already had her in GOF. If anything - I would toss the totally red texture and go with the ones you're showing in the pictures above. However I'd like the blue one with black strakes instead of white. I would also like one that is wood colored with black strakes or darker wood colored strakes. I liked that new Portugee one you guys have, but I don't like the white. If you could continue that same color/texture all the way up the gunwales, that would be great!

Sounds like a lot of work on the Rossiya. Think I'm gonna put her on the back shelf for right now, because I'm hip deep in all this re-skinning work for GOF Eras module 2 (still redoing about a dozen more ships) and I still want to try to release the beta by Christmas if Kris Wood can get Zeven Provincien done by then.

Thanks for doing this Hylie! You're the MAN!

EDIT: BTW how are getting the TOOL to recognize color? All I can ever get it to do is show grey.

I answered before Armada's response. I will give it one more try as a Frenchy using your instructions. Doesn't sound too hard.

MK

 

[Armada]

Sorting out the French version of the Rossiya really isn't much work at all, I promise you. You've already got most of the files in place, so it's a small change, if anything.

So the folder and models are named R_Frigate1, right? The only one that needs changing is R_Frigate1.gm, which should be replaced with FR_Frigate.gm and renamed back to R_Frigate1.gm.
Then, just make sure you have France_frigate1.tga in the hull1 folder, and add HMS_Surprise18.tga to the main ship texture folder, and that's all there is to it. Less than five minutes' worth of work.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I do not have the Postillionen in my GOF2 install so do not know what the original colors were. It sounds like you want a red, blue, green, and wood color ship. Which one will be your base model? If you do not specify I will make that red one above the base.

TOOL does not show colors. GMViewer does and in the textures window shows what textures are being used. ConvertorTX does show the textures in a window so you can see precisely what it looks like before using it. Those are pretty much all I know how to use.

 

[modernknight1]

Ah! I see. I simply mixed up TOOL and GMviewer. I have only been getting familiar with them myself the last several months. I've never seen colors before on GMviewer. What do I have to do to make the color pop?

MK

 

[Hylie Pistof]

To get colors in GMViewer you need to select the correct textures in the lower window. Look at this pic. The top section on the left is where you select the ship and then its GM. You can see the path with the hilites.
Next down is where you select the textures used in that ship. You can see the POTC path hilited there. Below that you can see the textures used in that ship. The hilited texture is the one I changed to change white to black.
This part is more complicated in COAS because you have to go to the ships textures folder, select the ship, and then open the hull 1 folder. That is why I prefer to work in POTC. KISS!