Adding a new clan to MechWarrior 2 intro screen

[navbuoy]

Well, I think i fixed the normal issue...might be some problems using quads not tris in rendering but for the most part it looks good. Sorta hitting my limit with where to go now...hopefully I can push on through but this BWD thing might slow me down for a week or two I guess.

[navbuoy]

Yes, the BWD is really running the show here. I dropped the Maddog.BWD in place of the Firemoth and the only thing to show up at all was the Decal plates since it was the only geometry pointer not touched.

I then went as far as replace all the LOD and cockpit OBJ tags with that of the Firemoth while retaining the Maddog animation, tsk and object link info at then end and nothing showed up. Not even my Hellbringers weapons were displaying...it really fouls up things but that narrows it down.

The anim, tsk and other tags seem to displace the objs above. I have a hunch its the Anim tag that is doing it. Going to slowly change each file call one by one and see what kicks it over.

OK, this is weird - I changed over the end of the BWD and it still would not recognize anything in the OBJ tags. It is like there is something stating that anything outside an acceptable range will not be recognized and rendered.

I think I may be down for the count on this one... oh well.

[navbuoy]

Been working on other projects...did some retro graphics work for a buddy in Germany. We all frequent here.
http://sleepingelephant.com/denial/
He made a game called Pulse for the Commodore Vic 20 and I did the splash screen for him so it took me a couple of weeks to figure out the tools and stuff.

I have been taking a step back to my approach and realize I might have to stop 'forcing' the game to take my models and adjust my models to work in the game in terms of positioning, etc...since the animations are somewhat messed up in the legs.
Also, I tried to save time and mirrored some model pieces but that flipped the normals and its hard to see what is rendering correctly and what is not since the texture isn't helping.
The windshield is either not using the right texture OR I believe I read elsewhere it might be a matter or stretching the texture verticies to give it a more proper look.
I still want to use the Firemoth for this since it can handle the geometry but I need to fix this animation issue first (the thing is it has knee models and mine does not so I just pointed them into the dummy models - hmmm maybe I should add knees? hmmm?)....otherwise I might have to move my model to better animation fit like on of the heavier mechs...maybe the Rifleman?

I might start working on a PDF file on what I know already in the hopes to help others maybe experiment as well?
At best it might serve as a way to at least make cosmetic changes to their mechs like guns or legs or even canopies?

If there's a will there's a way....not giving up on it yet.

[navbuoy]

Jesus where has the time gone...just finished doing some side projects...gotta jump back to this soon it's bugging me. Going to do this piece by piece if I have to

[navbuoy]

Still here and just finished reading Betrayal of Ideals by Pardoe, an excellent read I must add.

I have been busy with other projects and work forcing me to put this on the back burner. Had to get some time back to myself and a routine in order to look at this again.

My main issue was the placement of the joints in the model as well as the walking animations. I might take a step back and leave the legs alone (as much as I would hate to) then focus on the window texturing. That was an issue with others as well but they never mentioned how they solved it. I will need to look at the texturing coordinates to see how that worked.

If I had the time I would love to sit down and code a program version of the java app written by Quota4stupid to speed things up (not a big fan of using Java).

Lastly, if I can whip up an entire list of models to use I would love to make a simple mission and a brief animation too which was the whole point of this thread.

If I can make something worthwhile then I would add to it for sure following the events of Pardoe's work as a basis. 3D animation and using Smacker tools are the easy part since I have experience with that.

[navbuoy]

Just realized the texture issue - someone did mention that it was possibly stretched and looking closing at the gameplay on Youtube it is. The textures must be stretched at least by a factor of 8 or more. Just need to modify the textels and all should be good there.

[navbuoy]

Wow I am stupid...forgot to save the UVW mapping for the textures...that is why they look the way they do on the mesh itself - it defaults and gets applied per face instead of say the entire side of the object. Gonna redo this model and apply the upper body only and see how she looks in game with the mapping added as it should be.
OK looked again and I am stumped...I exported my test OBJ with the Texel info but when exporting and original poly out of the PRJ file - I see only vertex and face info. Now I am wondering how or where exactly this model gets its texel information from?

OMG, think I found where they are tucked away. I don't think my OBJ exporter will do the job for me. Well, I'll play around with it and see how it behaves otherwise I gotta add these all by hand.

OK it looks like I see exactly what is going on here by just looking at a simple Decal poly. The fact that they are 16 byte strings makes it easier for me to look at in my hex editor.

EDIT yet again - OK my OBJ exporter does work and the Texels are being saved on the end of the WTB. So this should make life a bit more easier.

Will do the upper body and see how it looks...post up some new pics

[navbuoy]

Well this is embarassing...seems like I completely forgot how I converted OBJs to WTBs.
I am using the PRJPP and it converts it but the filesize doubles and extra verticies gets added into the file that are not part of the original OBJ from what I can see comparing my old WTBs to the new.

Just completely stuck now since I don't recall it being this hard...I believe I might have using MechVM to convert OBJs to WTB but am not entirely sure.

OMG I am getting old - found out how I did it using MechVMs replace with OBJ option that makes a new WTB in the OBJ files local folder.

Imma start with a fresh PRJ and take it slow. Gonna get some sleep...

[navbuoy]

*SIGH*

OK I am all caught up to where I was originally...
Realized that my 3D program was inverting the normals ingame causing a lot of confusion. So flipped it - exported it and converted it and fixed the checksum then replaced the FireMoths Head and it looks good.

The next part I want to do is stretch those texels since they are way too tight and do not match the rest of the look.

[navbuoy]

I added a windshield and literally copied the texels from the original windshield WTB and it looked good...thing is I used a Firemoths gun to host the windshield file so it was hovering above the mech.
Was trying to replace the Firemoth BWD with a modified one and my mechs went invisible. Need to figure that out next since I literally tried to replace the BWD with an direct extracted untouched copy of the BWD from MechVM and it corrupts it still making everything invisible

EDIT - So I went old-school and put the entire PRJ into the Hex Editor and ran a search and found the Firemoth.BWD and it is completely different to what my MechVM is spitting out. The reason why I am saying this is I think maybe my MVM is acting up and not behaving right. I believe it never used to do this before...so might do a reinstall later on.

RE-EDIT - OK so I am not crazy and everything is so much clearer dealing directly in the PRJ since whatever is messing it up isn;t getting in the way. Made some tiny mods to it and the windshield is there just a bit high (using the 4th level LOD head to fit it in so it is centred laterally)



With that pesky normal issue that was plaguing me a couple of years ago it nice to see it being shaded properly and showing up nice in the wireframe view as well.