VCO ships in POTC

[Doober]

Well, I downloaded the client for VCO and attempted to port one of the ships into POTC and figured I would give you my report. The ship hulls works fine, but no masts appear, I'm guessing there are no locators for masts. Someone familar with modeling could probably answer that. The main problem though, is that anytime you attempt to go to the deck, the game crashes. I will say, that even though the textures kinda suck, they have some VERY cool models, it would be awesome to be able to use in POTC. I'm going to guess the answer will be "We would need Maya 4.5 to make them work", but I will ask the question anyhow. Anyone have any idea on how to get masts to show up and how make the deck work? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/par-ty.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="par-ty.gif" />

Here is what a random ship that I ported in looked like, I also think that there are no cannon locators either:

<img src="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c241/aloych/Daniel/VCOship.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />

If we were able to get them to work, they have tons of new ships including the HMS Victory which I know alot of people would love to get their hands on.

 

[Rico]

The mast locators are there I beleive, but they use different names for them, so PotC can't recognize it. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/dunno.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="dunno.gif" />

By the way, you shouldn't have downloaded the whole thing - I uploaded the models and textures a few days earlier... The link was in the Other Games section I beleive. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

But anyway, nice work! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/par-ty.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="par-ty.gif" />

 

[Doober]

Well, I figured I would give the game a try. I didn't do so well, some nameless pirate at the very beginning sunk me because I didn't know how to sail my ship. I just sat there getting pounded. Quite a different battle interface than POTC.

I figured the masts would be fairly easy to figure out. The deck is probably a more difficult thing, since VCO doesn't appear to use views from the deck. One very cool thing is it looks like there are locators for figureheads, which is awesome. The figureheads they have are very nicely done! We would just have to figure out how to make them work.

 

[Petros]

<!--quoteo(post=176717:date=Dec 22 2006, 04:41 PM:name=Doober)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Doober @ Dec 22 2006, 04:41 PM) [snapback]176717[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
... The main problem though, is that anytime you attempt to go to the deck, the game crashes. ...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Off had I'd say that it might not have a camera locator that POTC recognizes, which should be easy to add.
Or it might not have the "*path.gm" needed to define where you can move on deck.

So far I believe no one has been able to make one, but only add one from stock ships which never fit right.

 

[Doober]

So the path.gm file is the collision detection file that has given us so many problems? Hmm...

 

[KaiserWilhelm]

I've been experimenting with the VCO ships in-game too. The cannon locators do work, however the mast locators are a bit strange. There are multiple models for the same mast with different sets of locators, and in some cases there are two masts contained in a single model with one locator set in between the two masts. I tried to figure it out the other night, but to no avail...my know-how in this area is limited, however, so that's not saying much.

I also experimented with the masts of the in-game Manowar for the HMS Victory model. The bowsprit was placed fine, and the fore mast was as well albeit a little lower than usual. The main mast was set as the mizzen, however, and the mizzen mast was no where to be found...obviously due to the different format of the mast models. That all being said, I'm sure it would be easy for a modeller with some experience to port these ships into PotC.

 

[Petros]

<!--quoteo(post=176730:date=Dec 22 2006, 06:16 PM:name=Doober)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Doober @ Dec 22 2006, 06:16 PM) [snapback]176730[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
So the path.gm file is the collision detection file that has given us so many problems? Hmm...
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If you mean what keeps one ship from sailing through another, no.

It is my understanding that the ship.gm file is supposed to contain that data.

But doesn't get passed on from any 3-D model format from newly created ships to POTC's gm format, at least through the tool.

Akella's Maya 4.5 plugin is what should handle that, but no one has or can use it at the moment.

 

[Doober]

What I meant by giving us trouble is that is the file that would need to get fixed in order to have Kazeite's Black Pearl to have proper collision detection when you are walking on the deck. I checked and there is no *path.gm file for these VCO ships either which is probably the reason for their crash as well. I wonder if it would be possible for some programmer to make a plugin for say Blender or another modeling program that could properly generate that file.

 

[Thomas the Terror]

I have looked at the locators, and in the thread of CAPN DROW about VCO i have put the locator names+POTC translation.

 

[Kazeite]

As far as I can tell, the <i>HMS Victory</i> lookalike is the only one that has path for the player to walk on, because it's sort of tutorial ship - it's where player starts the game, and thus is allowed to walk around (even though it's not actual ship - VO uses paths for every single location) <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />