ISDF Power Generator lighting?

[DarkCobra262]

Judging by the picture, I'm sure you can figure out my two questions...

[MrTwosheds]

Sorry my telepathy seems to be on the blink today.

[DarkCobra262]

Sorry my telepathy seems to be on the blink today.

Rofl, I suppose I'll type 'em out now

1. The inside of the stock (on the right) is brigher than mine - how is that - perhaps some of the material settings or something?
2. Exactly how do the sides or whatever (the white thingy) on work when they don't really have a texture on them? (according to 3d exploration)?

[MrTwosheds]

What are you making your models with?

[DarkCobra262]

What are you making your models with?

3ds Max 8 SP3 on Windows 7.

[MrTwosheds]

The stock xsi model uses a frame tag __2e or __e. that causes bz2 to automatically make a mesh 2sided and emissive or just emissive. It causes it to be not effected by lighting and display at full brightness.
Personally I would recommend you do not use this __e tag and set the emissive in the material settings instead, __e can cause some really weird problems for modders.
Other tags are
__2 2sided
__g glass
__h hidden. (same as HP_)
these can be mixed up
__2g 2 sided glass
__e2g 2 sided emissive glass etc

2 sided and hidden are useful, but your better off using transparent textures instead of __g and the emissive material setting for light objects (or use glowskins).

[Nielk1]

__e is normaly fine for non-textured things. It can cause the texture to do something odd on other models if its put on textured elements.

The white parts are mesh with no texture and just vertex colors. You will probably need to check in notepad for these, I have not bothered to solve the MAX export issue with them since I just use a tiny texture to create the same effect.

[Zero Angel]

doesnt the glowing algae (moalg01) use a __e on its model to get itself to remain bright looking in even the darkest maps?

[MrTwosheds]

__e is used all over the place on the bz2 models, It is a hazardous thing for modders to mess with though, as I discovered when my Legion of Daleks started to glow all over! only after reinstalling bz2 and the mod.
It is better for a model creator to make their model as they want it to look, rather than rely on the bz2 engine to do it right for them.
Glowskins are the best quality effect, emissive materials work fine for whole objects, and __e, as Nielk1 said is fine if there are no textures involved.
The original models would have had all their materials compiled in one go, straight from a softimagexsi library. Whereas modders generally add things 1 piece at a time, this opens them to the risk of unwittingly altering an existing material within bz2 and they will not be able to see this until the mod is reinstalled and the new materials are compiled together...something like that

[Nielk1]

Basically, the flag gets stuck on the texture in the entire renderer. What you mentioned ZA has the texture only used in a few cases, each of which where glowing is wanted.

DarkCobra can do what the stock pgen does, whatever that is, since its done in stock and can't hurt anything.

Dark, you are going to have to poke around in your XSI and compare it to the stock pgen XSI.

[DarkCobra262]

Still clueless, so I guess I'm gonna have to use a texture that matches to get the look I want (IE just very similar to the stock power gen..... unless you could suggest I open the XSI and just copy and paste the texture settings or what not)... and now I have another problem, reinstalled BZ2 (for a fresh installation) and doing as GBD said, installed 1.3pb4 (because apparently transparency works in that) and now my gun tower model crashes the game?

---- Battlezone II Log File ----
//=====================================================
App version: Patch 1.3pb4a EDITOR Aug 4 2008 12:11:38
Windows version: Windows Version: 6.1.7601 'Service Pack 1' PlatformID=2

Last few battlezone.log lines (may or may not be relevant):
DIAG|GLOBAL | runcodes:112 |22:40:53|31212 |[Edit] Clearing runcode [object]
DIAG|GLOBAL | MissionHandler:1432 |22:40:53|31212 |Expanded game UI file of 'bzeditor_exit_800x600.cfg' not found. Using default of 'bzeditor_exit.cfg'
DIAG|GLOBAL | runcodes:153 |22:40:53|31213 |[Mission] Entering run code [RUN]
DIAG|GLOBAL | runcodes:153 |22:40:53|31214 |[View] Entering run code [COCKPIT]
(done)

Exception code: C0000005 (ACCESS VIOLATION) READING from 0236BED4h
Message : Exception
Error occurred at 9/5/2012 22:40:56.
C:\Program Files (x86)\Battlezone II 1.3pb4\BZ2Edit.exe, run by DarkCobra262.
2 processor(s), type 586.
Process Memory : 1635 MB free out of 2048 MB total
Physical memory: 1813 MB free out of 3948 MB total
Page(swap) file: 5517 MB free out of 7894 MB total
Fault address: 0035BD4F 01:0017AD4F C:\Program Files (x86)\Battlezone II 1.3pb4\BZ2Edit.exe

Registers:
EAX:0236BEC8
EBX:00000000
ECX:00000002
EDX:021A2188
ESI:00000003
EDI:008487A8
CS:EIP:0023:0035BD4F
SS:ESP:002B:0219B198 EBP:0219B1A4
DS:002B ES:002B FS:0053 GS:002B
Flags:00210206

Call stack:
Address Return Function SourceFile
0035BD4F 00000000 0035C062 Camera::Draw+0x000002D7
0035C062 00000000 0035C54C Camera::Draw+0x000005EA
0035C54C 00000000 0035BAE1 Camera::ProjectClip+0x00000356
0035BAE1 00000000 0034D437 Camera::Draw+0x00000069
0034D437 00000000 0034CFB4 MeshObj::Render_Shadow_Silhouette+0x00000447
0034CFB4 00000000 0034CFD3 MeshObj::Render_Stencil_Shadow+0x00000026
0034CFD3 00000000 0034CFD3 MeshObj::Render_Stencil_Shadow+0x00000045
0034CFD3 00000000 0034CFD3 MeshObj::Render_Stencil_Shadow+0x00000045
0034CFD3 00000000 0034CFD3 MeshObj::Render_Stencil_Shadow+0x00000045
0034CFD3 00000000 002DB04E MeshObj::Render_Stencil_Shadow+0x00000045
002DB04E 00000000 002DBDA3 Render_Shadow+0x00000068
002DBDA3 00000000 0027BBD1 ENTITY::RenderScene+0x0000009C
0027BBD1 00000000 002EB712 GameObject::RenderScene+0x00000076
002EB712 00000000 002EB9F1 Resolution_Layer_Class::Entity_List_Class::Render+0x000000C2
002EB9F1 00000000 002EC204 Resolution_Layer_Class::Render+0x00000087
002EC204 00000000 002DBDCC SceneManagerClass::Render+0x00000042
002DBDCC 00000000 0023AC96 Submit_All_Entities+0x00000023
0023AC96 00000000 0023ADC7 Simulate_Cockpit+0x00000644
0023ADC7 00000000 0024E557 Render_Internal_View+0x00000082
0024E557 00000000 0037BF95 ViewCockpit::Process+0x00000681
0037BF95 00000000 00253D23 RunCodes::Process+0x0000019F
00253D23 00000000 00254344 MissionHandler::RenderOneFrame+0x0000006E
00254344 00000000 0037BF95 MissionHandler::State::RunState::Process+0x0000052E
0037BF95 00000000 00251C04 RunCodes::Process+0x0000019F
00251C04 00000000 0037BF95 MissionHandler::Process+0x00000011
0037BF95 00000000 0037B9B6 RunCodes::Process+0x0000019F
0037B9B6 00000000 0023BA0F Main::MessagePump+0x0000004A
0023BA0F 00000000 0023B6F7 HandledMain+0x00000446
0023B6F7 00000000 00238E6F HandledMain+0x0000012E
00238E6F 00000000 0038C7F7 WinMain+0x00000059
0038C7F7 00000000 7680339A memset+0x00000191
7680339A 00000000 77BA9EF2 BaseThreadInitThunk+0x00000012
77BA9EF2 00000000 77BA9EC5 RtlInitializeExceptionChain+0x00000063
77BA9EC5 00000000 00000000 RtlInitializeExceptionChain+0x00000036

Basically, the flag gets stuck on the texture in the entire renderer. What you mentioned ZA has the texture only used in a few cases, each of which where glowing is wanted.

DarkCobra can do what the stock pgen does, whatever that is, since its done in stock and can't hurt anything.

Dark, you are going to have to poke around in your XSI and compare it to the stock pgen XSI.

That's what I just said , I'll have to do that.

[MrTwosheds]

Still clueless,

Both of the problems in your model are with objects that use __e tags, instead of an actual material setting, look at the original model in 3dex and you will see that those objects have names like mainbody1__e.

You can either cutnpaste the original pgen models whole material section into your xsi model and use the __e tag on its framename.
OR you can define the emissive materials properly in 3dsmax. (or alter them in the xsi with notepad)

I would use the first technique only if I wanted to exactly reproduce a stock material. Using the second would be the best practice for you as a model maker.

[MrTwosheds]

Nielk1, if the __e effects vertex colors, that would explain the bug, most of the models I made had no SI_vertexcolor entries in their xsi, neither do the ones exported from by dummies 3dsmax exporter. Presumably the msh made by bz2 do, not having any new values to reset the material properties after __e was used could cause the flag to stick on a material that is exactly the same.

[Nielk1]

I really should make a new XSI exporter, probably one based on MaxScript so it doesn't have version dependence. (Granted, it would be slower.)