Custom model problem - XSI fail?

[Nielk1]

Technically its 0#, a#, and c#, not 00, a0, and c0.

[Zero Angel]

When I made teamcolor skins, I made normal 24-bit image (one without transparency) as the base texture, and called it texturename00.pic, and then I converted it to a 32-bit texture (one with transparency), erased the parts that I wanted to be team colored and gave it a similar name texturenamea0.pic.


Texture: ivscava0

The above image acts kind of like a 'mask' that goes on top of the auto-tinted ship (when teamcolors are on), but it, itself, is not tinted. The downside to this method is that the ship can look a bit unnatural in dark environments because these 'glow skins' are not affected by lighting at all.

Technically the c# suffix is a greyscale texture used for team coloring, but it seems that BZ2 will tint textures automatically if the texture does not have a c# texture. I suppose you might convert your base texture to greyscale and adjust the brightness/contrast then save it as a c# texture if you wanted more control over how the automatic tinting looks.

BZ2 supports PNG format now, and not many graphics programs fully support Softimage PIC format, so you can probably use PNG format for the textures instead of PIC. You still have to convert it to bz2dxt, of course.

[Ded10c]

One more thing on the layering because it's not been made 100% clear yet (or maybe it has and I'm too tired to have noticed);

MULTIPLAYER
Mesh
Teamcolor skin (c#)
Color layer
"Glowskin" (a#)

SINGLEPLAYER
Mesh
Default skin (0#)

The game does not work exactly like that, but it's a good model.

[K-Barter_CZ]

Finished - not as I expected but its working now.

I've made another texture and made it neutral so there aren't any team colors.
Honestly, cannons don't have to be colored, Ship is colored, that's the point. As my thanks for your help, I'm posting images of "Devastator MK2":





I think its really nasty thing, hardpoints need no explanation: ( )

2x Cannons (Combat mode)
2x Guns (Combat mode)
2x Rockets (Assault / Attack)

Unit is allowed in maximum of 5 units per team.




And now, how I did it in points:

Stock ISDF sabre XSI file (get XSI pack on bzscrap.org), for sabre, its ivtank00.xsi I think
3D exploration: Converted XSI to 3Ds, better to get textures from data.pak (ivtank00.pic and glare.pic)
Loaded 3DS file in Milkshape, deleted all hardpoints (lights, hp_cannon_1 and so on) so only model remained
Made some modifications: Doubled Recoil and turret groups, moved it, then mirrored its duplicates)
Deleted all old (not the new parts), assigned new material with texture to new parts
Exported to X format (Direct 3D format)
Converted X to XSI with X2XSI program
Opened copy of XSI of sabre tank (ivtank00.xsi), then opened new parts XSI (another Treed Window) and copied:

- in my case, I copied (and deleted) recoil1 to turret1 and same with recoil2
- then copied both turret groups (turret1 and turret2) to obj35 (or whatever) so it was:
- obj35
- turret1
- recoil1
- turret2
- recoil2

That means Obj35 was parrent and I copied this parrent to the stock sabre XSI
then Moved, copied hardpoints (made hp_cannon_1, hp_cannon_2, renamed hp_mortar_1 to hp_rocket_1 and made a copy with hp_rocket_2)
re-moved (not remove / delete) hardpoints because copying moves hardpoints where you DON'T WANT) so it looked silly when firing and projectiles flew from grass ( ) so move it to where you want them)
Then saved is as new XSI file.

Make an odf file for this XSI (stock sabre "ivtank.odf" will handle it well), paste name of your new XSI.
We're not done yet. IDK why my textures got flipped, you have to research it for best results, I just made another new textures only for turret and recoil and rocket launcher (used GIMP to make it neutral - colorless, just an texture, used stock sabre and stock rocket tank to do it), then I flipped it vertically and I converted it to dxtbz2.

Last step, I opened my XSI file in notepad (use what you want) and searched for "damaged" textures (look for it under "turret1" and so on, not the base body) and replaced it with dxtbz2 files (copy or move them to folder where you have XSI, practically you can move them anywhere in BZ2 root dir, but its easier to have all files on one place) and saved.

The last step: assign hardpoints in odf file:

open the odf file (I renamed my ivtank-test.odf to new one, ivtankhv-kb.odf, just for a detail ( ) and look for hardpoints.
Add or rename hardpoints by copying (I copied hp_cannon_1, pasted it, renamed it to hp_cannon_2 to make both cannons functional and so on, small tip:

weaponHard1 = "HP_CANNON_1"
weaponName1 = "gspstab_c"
weaponAssault1 = 0

This is the first Hardpoint. As you see, weaponName1 has assigned Super Stabber (you can change weapons here, if you know odf name of weapons - you can also create new weps by reverse engineering) and its set to Combat. Changing weaponAssault1 to 1 makes weapon "heavier", in case of Super stabber, SP-Stab will fire slower than in combat, but deals more damage and vice versa. Remember, all weapons have two modes, assault (or attack I can say) and combat. And last, if you really want assault type of your weapon, replace c (gspstab_c) for a (gspstab_a). That makes it fully assault weapon.

Assault is slower, but more dangerous, in case of ISDF rockets it fires Hornet Rocket instead FAF Missile and so on, but
Combat is faster, with less damage. ISDF rockets will be "Stock" FAF. Same thing is Scions, but I didn't researched Scion race yet.

Remember, weapons have to be quoted. Look at "gspstab_c"

Load it in game with custom odf file (in my ex I used ivtank-test.odf, in game, just enter ivtank-test W/out .odf extension) and hope it will load successfully.

I hope this mini tutorial will help you with making custom models. Remember, research it, I messed with this stuff for a week, so I want to make your suffering as small as possible.

Seriously, this was real hell, so GOOD LUCK!

PS: excuse my english, I am czech

Edit: added odf setup. Sorry, forgot it

[S.cavA.rmyG.en]

not bad at all

[MrTwosheds]

The texture (uvmap) got flipped by 3dex when you converted the original xsi to a .3ds.
6 weapons?...

[K-Barter_CZ]

6 weapons?...

Why not? bit crazy, true, but just playing with it. Only thing I wasn't able to solve, where gone hp_special_1 ?

That doesn't matter. Its working and that's what I want!

[Zero Angel]

6 weapons?...

Why not? bit crazy, true, but just playing with it. Only thing I wasn't able to solve, where gone hp_special_1 ?

I believe that units are limited to a maximum of 5 weapon hardpoints.

[Nielk1]

6 weapons?...

Why not?

Because I am pretty sure stuff like this happens to reality if that manages to work in the BZ2 engine:


(If anyone has the "Don't feed the Pterodactyls" sign, I will use that instead.

[MrTwosheds]

Lots of confusion, There is NO limit on hardpoints in a model!
There is a limit on how many can be defined as having weapons in an odf's / UI slots.
Now it seems to me that if the weapons are linked in pairs and only take up 1 UI slot each, then its only the weapon mask that limits you to 5 (?), and as the ai is generally to dumb to use anything but its primary weapon that may not be a big issue.

[Nielk1]

Even using HP pairs you are limited to 5. Note a unit with 5 HPs all linked can't have a 6th. Unless something changed.

[S.cavA.rmyG.en]

Even using HP pairs you are limited to 5. Note a unit with 5 HPs all linked can't have a 6th. Unless something changed.

well theres only one way to find out and thats to test it.
but still 6 weapons can be faked.
I for one would like to see the weapon limit go up in the next pach or some thing becouse its cut a good number of units out of so many mods.

[MrTwosheds]

I have made fully functional bz2 models with 8 hp's, its not a problem unless you want to use them all at the same time.
Perfectly possible to make a model with 2 gun hp's, 2 cannon hp's, 2 rocket hp's, 2 mortar hp's, 2 special hp's and a shield hp.
Makes it a multi function model, you can then just make a load of different odf's with <= 5weapons, using just the one model.

I for one would like to see the weapon limit go up in the next pach

Extremely unlikely.

[Nielk1]

(I've made a model with 5 HPs for each weapon type, for as 2Sheds has noted, it works, so long as you only use 5 of them in the ODF.

[K-Barter_CZ]

I have made fully functional bz2 models with 8 hp's, its not a problem unless you want to use them all at the same time.
Perfectly possible to make a model with 2 gun hp's, 2 cannon hp's, 2 rocket hp's, 2 mortar hp's, 2 special hp's and a shield hp.
Makes it a multi function model, you can then just make a load of different odf's with <= 5weapons, using just the one model.

Maybe too late to ask, but, still. I still got in my odf file hardpoint for hp_special_1, problem is, its in xsi too, but not in game. I tested it with Force field "mounted" on it, but didn't work.

If you say its possible to make 8 HP's, how to finish this? Ready to send odf file over PM.

Off topic, or returning back to texture glitch?

I tested exports from 3D ex to Milkshape over *.obj files. That means OBJ files doesn't have any materials so its good for making models from scratch. I think there is problem between Milk - X2XSI - XSI, because when I finished Silo model, textures were rotated in 90°. So there must be problem somewhere, my "bet" is on XSI - some kind of internal repair?

Thanks!