A start on the .MESH file format

[AlphaDelta1]

Thank GoM, I must of skipped that step and moved to the end of the readme file.

This software is truely superb, you even wrote a renderer, incredible.

I'm going to try and fix this model, I'll report back soon.

EDIT: One small thing that could be added; When you click proceed after selecting the second file to merge, it would be good to have the option to export as mesh, aswell as save as ms3d. This would help to remove a step.

Cheers

[GrumpyOldMan]

Hi AD1

Thank GoM, I must of skipped that step and moved to the end of the readme file.

This software is truely superb, you even wrote a renderer, incredible.

I'm going to try and fix this model, I'll report back soon.

EDIT: One small thing that could be added; When you click proceed after selecting the second file to merge, it would be good to have the option to export as mesh, aswell as save as ms3d. This would help to remove a step.

Cheers

No problems, The reason the merge goes back to ms3d is that there will probably always be some editing of the bounding sphere and/or group class/name info. Without a lot more programming, this wouldn't be possible in the software but it's easily done in Milkshape.

Cheers

Logging out for the night.

GrumpyOldMan

[AlphaDelta1]

Ahh I see. Well looks like it's working nicely now.



Are there any hard rules regarding attachments? I.e Does there need to be a minimum number of primary weapon groups, or shield groups? I had some trouble when I tried to delete all but one of the weapons to reduce the re-mapping work. When I did this, in-game, they werent holding the sword, and some of the shield bosses (central metal hemisphere) were skewed.

Thanks again, I'll be testing this software heavily over the next few weeks.

Cheers

[Andromachus Theodoulos]

@GOM and KE

An update from a complete modelling newb...

I have the Converter up and running and have been able to bring in the tercio pike and look at in MilkShape... I have not had any time ot sart changing things yet.

I am finally now reading the MilkShape tutorial and hopefully will be able to pose intelligent questions soon. I will definitely be working on this this weekend.

Thanks again,

AT

[Shigawire]

Well. I understand about 5% of this stuff. Are you using Assembler AND working with figuring out a matrix? Absolutely stunningly brilliant work gentlemen! When (no if) GrumpyOldMan and his Round Table comes up with a solution, with the aid of the gods at CA, they will surely win the Vercingetorix prize next time around! Or better yet, establish a prize called "GrumpyOldMan prize"

Keep at it gents. EB2 may be possible yet!

ps. I think I love you CA-liban.

[Andromachus Theodoulos]

@GOM and KE

Ok, Hopefully these questions will be good for newbie would be modelers: (we may need to move posts like these to a more appropriate thread so others can read these...)

1. When I get into the MESH in the converter, I can see that the variants are all overlapped (superimposed) over each other.

Example:
The tercio_pikeman_ug01 has all three figures superimposed over itself, with the Morion, Cabasset and light Burgonet (helmets) superimposed. I believe that there are three models superimposed over one bone set?? right???

QUESTION: How do I seperate these superimposed models, assuming they are setup this way? I would like to use the helmets on other units... It could be the helmets are just superimposed and there is just one body...

*******************************************************

I am only going to post one question at a time.

*******************************************************
For right now I am going back and reading over the MilkShape tutorial and experiment some more.

My first project is giving the dismounted Broken Lances the metal Buckler of the S&B men.

*******************************************************
I am also planning on writing a tutorial for newbies... I think this would be very beneficial to the community.

AT

[GrumpyOldMan]

Hi AD1

Ahh I see. Well looks like it's working nicely now.

Are there any hard rules regarding attachments? I.e Does there need to be a minimum number of primary weapon groups, or shield groups? I had some trouble when I tried to delete all but one of the weapons to reduce the re-mapping work. When I did this, in-game, they werent holding the sword, and some of the shield bosses (central metal hemisphere) were skewed.

Thanks again, I'll be testing this software heavily over the next few weeks.

Cheers

No there is no rule on minimums, if you have a look at the mailed knight it has only one primary weapon. Without seeing the ms3d figure, it's hard to tell, are you using the new version of the exe because the old one has a memory leak problem (I think) that sometimes caused strange results in Merge Ms3d. If there is a problem it will be in your lod0 figure because that sets up how all the other lods are displayed. Make sure you have valid class and names in the group comments and that you have been consistent through all lod levels. Try it again and if you have a similar problem, put the ms3d figure up somewhere, I'll download it and check it out.

Cheers

GrumpyOldMan

[GrumpyOldMan]

Hi AT

@GOM and KE

Ok, Hopefully these questions will be good for newbie would be modelers: (we may need to move posts like these to a more appropriate thread so others can read these...)

1. When I get into the MESH in the converter, I can see that the variants are all overlapped (superimposed) over each other.

Example:
The tercio_pikeman_ug01 has all three figures superimposed over itself, with the Morion, Cabasset and light Burgonet (helmets) superimposed. I believe that there are three models superimposed over one bone set?? right???

QUESTION: How do I seperate these superimposed models, assuming they are setup this way? I would like to use the helmets on other units... It could be the helmets are just superimposed and there is just one body...

First off, the program you have is just a converter, you can see the mesh but you can't actually do any manipulation in it. Any changes have to be made in Milkshape.

For a first attempt at changing a figure choose two figures that share the same figure texture and attachmentset texture, this way you don't have to worry about remapping texture uv values (not that difficult but might be better as a separate 'show-me'. Convert both figures to ms3d, if you open the file in Milkshape and go to the Groups tab you can see all the component groups of the figure. First decide on what you want to separate from one figure to place on the other. Follow the instruction in the Mesh2ms3d.doc in 6.3. What you're doing here is isolating the groups you want to keep and discarding the rest. Save what you've isolated with a name that you will recognise later ie Sword and buckler shields lod0. Next open up the target figure and using the Tab/Groups/Delete button get rid of the groups you are going to replace. Save the file. Go back to Mesh2Ms3d, use the Merge Ms3d function merge the two saved files. Open up the new merged file in Milkshape check it (also make sure to check the Class/Name info in Tab/Groups/Comments and make sure that you have the right bounding sphere info in Tab/Model/Comments). If you're happy, go back to Mesh2Ms3d and convert the Ms3d file to Mesh. Make sure that you make changes consistent across all lod levels and it should be ok.

It all sounds a bit longwinded but it's not really very difficult. As you can see from Zxiang's efforts, you can put out a lot of material in a short time. As an added safety net Milkshape's undo feature works really well

Let me know how you go.

Cheers

GrumpyOldMan

[AlphaDelta1]

Try it again and if you have a similar problem

It seems ok now, I must of made an error somewhere.

I am now having some minor trouble with smoothing. Is there anyway to increase the smoothing angle? On some converted models, in both M2TW and milkshapem there is a smoothing line down the center of the face.

Its not a big problem, just a little bit ugly. It would be very easy to fix in 3dsmax.

Cheers

[Balbor]

has anyone taken a .cas model and converted it to a .mesh file yet?

[Andromachus Theodoulos]

@GOM

OK, I am moving real slow here, so please forgive me.

I have isolated the metal buckler and I have isolated the dismounted broken lances ug01 without heater shield.

How do I get the metal buckler into the broken lances ms3d? I am sure its one of those duh!! questions...

AT

[methoz]

if i want to add "own unit - example - Forlorn hope - new "swabian hope" ... i copy all of forlorn and only rename forlorn to swabian add to modeldb and edu as extra lines? and its all?

[KnightErrant]

@methoz
That should do it, just make sure the names match
and your faction is added correctly to the modeldb
file. You won't have unit cards, that's an extra step
but you can find the details on that in several of the
tutorials on adding in new units.

[methoz]

yes, i know how to unit card etc..but dont know how to "make new" unit.. (my example - forlorn hope to bohemia (in my mod..) as swabian swordsmen ... i can only copy,paste and rename..in EDU and modeldb and EDB too ,if i say right

edit - "my own faction" replace other faction,i dont make new faction ...

[GrumpyOldMan]

Hi AT

@GOM

OK, I am moving real slow here, so please forgive me.

I have isolated the metal buckler and I have isolated the dismounted broken lances ug01 without heater shield.

How do I get the metal buckler into the broken lances ms3d? I am sure its one of those duh!! questions...

AT

This where you use the the Merge Ms3d function in the converter, don't use the Milkshape File/Merge, First open the dismounted broken lances and then the bucklers, save as a filename different from either of the two original files. Go back to Milkshape and you can open the merged file to see the results. If the figure and shields share the same figure and attachmentset textures then there's nothing more that needs to be done and you can go ahead and convert the ms3d to mesh, remember not to overwrite your vanilla meshes.

Cheers

GrumpyOldMan

[GrumpyOldMan]

Hi AD1

It seems ok now, I must of made an error somewhere.

I am now having some minor trouble with smoothing. Is there anyway to increase the smoothing angle? On some converted models, in both M2TW and milkshapem there is a smoothing line down the center of the face.

Its not a big problem, just a little bit ugly. It would be very easy to fix in 3dsmax.

Cheers

The smoothing line issue is because the m2tw mesh is preprocessed for plugging directly into the engine. The normals, tangents and binormals/bitangents we're using are calculated means, KE (especially) and I have gone through quite a few weighted mean algorithms but we haven't found one that improves on the plain old means to match the ones stored in the vanilla meshes. My guess is that the normals were calculated on a welded mesh (algorithm unknown), stored and then applied to an unwelded mesh during the preprocessing. I'm still playing with all the parts of the converters in the background, including normals, etc and if it becomes a big enough issue I can move it up the priority list.

Cheers

GrumpyOldMan

[GrumpyOldMan]

Hi All

If you're looking at doing any major remapping of uv values you might look at LithUnwrap, a free program at http://files.seriouszone.com/download.php?fileid=198 This lets you do major remapping work. Milkshape has some remapping ability but not in the league of Lith. NOTE Lith is an old program and so does not save ms3d in the new format. DO NOT save the ms3d file after remapping, instead export a LithUnwrap LUV file which can be imported into Milkshape and applied to the model that way.

There are a number of other 3d and 2d programs that can import and export ms3d format. Please add if you come across any.

There is another freeware 3d modeller Misfit3d that imports ms3d and supports vertex weighting but at the moment still imports and exports in old ms3d format. I've let the programmer know that the ms3d format has changed and he is looking at it.

Cheers

GrumpyOldMan

[Andromachus Theodoulos]

@GOM and KE...

I got it to work!!!!!!!!

I have dismounted broken lances ug1 with a buckler shield...

Now I need to find the thread that tells me how to post pictures...

GOM, it works flawlessly, as far as I can tell... This is awesome, You have done a fine job!!!!!!!!!

I will edit with a screen hopefully soon.

AT

Edit:



I have edited the textures for the Iberian Buckler, so that is why they don't look vanilla... Nevertheless, once you figure the ins and outs, it is very user friendly. If I can do this then almost anybody can do it... that is what is so exciting about it!!!

[KnightErrant]

@AT
Excellent! Here's what zxiang1983 posted to help me do screenies

@KE, Let me do this easy job:)
1) I suggest this site to host your image:
https://imageshack.us/

2) The webpage is very user-friendly. Click "browse" button on the right and choose the image you want to upload and then click "host it!" at the bottom

3) After all is done you will get several address. Just copy the "Hotlink for forums" line and paste it in you post. Then others can see your image.

It works very fast.

[Andromachus Theodoulos]

@GOM and KE,

Let's say I want to add a spear to a dismounted knight, in addition to the sword they already have, then I would add the spear in the model (after isolating it from another model) and in the modeldb, I would add the animation for the spear (along with making the accompanying string number changes, etc...) Figuring out texture assignments might be tricky...

I may look at changing the dismounted broken lances again and give them a heavy spear to be used somewhat like a pike (this would require me to take away the buckler and add in the pike animation instead...)

After that, if I am successful I am going to switch some helmets around...

Again, you guys have done great with this... I see good things ahead!!!

AT

[KnightErrant]

Ok, we're regressing a little bit here to think about AlphaDelta1's
observation re smoothing line on the face. As GOM pointed out
a few posts back, we compute the full tangent space basis for the
lod0 meshes (where the detail is). This is a purely geometrical/uv coordinates
calculation which MOSTLY agrees with what we see in CA's RGB cube
normalized values for the tangent basis. What we've seen for some examples,
feudal knights in particular, is that there are a few isolated discrepancies
for the vertex normals, but there are runs of zero vectors (indicated by
RGB vectors of (127, 127, 127) in the cube map) for the tangents and
binormals. Don't know if this is related or an explanation but let me quote
a reference I used for this

Blending the Tangent/Bitangent Vectors
Let's say you are creating smoothed vertex normals, by adding the face normals of adjacent triangles for each vertex, then normalizing the vector. You can do the same thing with tangent and bitangent vectors.

Note that the 3 vectors (normal, tangent, bitangent) may not form an orthogonal basis since the tangent & bitangent directions are based on texture uv coordinates and possibly averaged from multiple vectors. What you can do is use Gram-Schmidt orthogonalization. This is performed simply by subtracting the part of a vector in the direction of another vector then renormalizing. For example the code to make the tangent orthogonal to the normal is:

tangent -= normal * tangent.dot( normal );
tangent.normalize();

Once you have two orthogonal vectors you can use the cross product to compute the 3rd. The orthogonalization step seems to be mainly necessary on complex curved models or places with texture seems. Many texture seems however will cause weird lighting no matter what, so if the tangent/bitangent vectors are too far apart you'll probably be better off leaving a split at the seem and not smoothing them together.

(I think where he says seems should be read as seams.) The implication
I get from this is you might see things due to the tangents and binormals
and not necessarily from the vertex normals. I had wondered about this
before but it might be hard to see just in a texture on clothing but easier
to see in the face, for example.

Without an experiment I don't know how to pin this down as the cause of
the smoothing line being seen but it's a possibility. We could try distorting
the mesh wherever it disagrees with CA's vectors and see if that correlates
with the smoothing line.

[GrumpyOldMan]

Hi AT

@GOM and KE,

Let's say I want to add a spear to a dismounted knight, in addition to the sword they already have, then I would add the spear in the model (after isolating it from another model) and in the modeldb, I would add the animation for the spear (along with making the accompanying string number changes, etc...) Figuring out texture assignments might be tricky...

I may look at changing the dismounted broken lances again and give them a heavy spear to be used somewhat like a pike (this would require me to take away the buckler and add in the pike animation instead...)

After that, if I am successful I am going to switch some helmets around...

Again, you guys have done great with this... I see good things ahead!!!

AT

Well done!

Adding a spear to sword armed dismounted figure - Try to find a spear that uses the same attachmentset texture and you don't have to worry about changing uv values. Check the spears Tab/Groups/Comments and make sure they are listed as primaryactive. Go into Tab/Groups/Comments for the swords and alter them from primaryactive to secondaryactive, this lets m2tw know how to treat the group. If you can't find a pike in the same attachmentset texture be adventurous and stretch the spear. Of course you have to make all the relevant text entry changes.

Happy experimenting

GrumpyOldMan

[Andromachus Theodoulos]

@All...
I have noticed working with the Pikemen that in the model, the pike is a little over 2x the height of the soldier (scale wise that might be around 12 to 14feet...). In game, if appears the pike is longer, almost 3x (18', which is what the pike would have been...) is there some factor that is controlling the scale or the length of the pike???

Pictures...
Tercio Pike in Battle


Tercio Pike in MilkShape

[zxiang1983]

@AT.
Like this:)
1) Select the weapon you want to mod
2) In model tap, choose scale. Usually to change the length of the weapon you just need to input a number in Z coordinate and make sure X&Y coordinate is unchecked.
3) Click Scale

The number in Z coordinate means how many times it grows, eg. 2 means the weapon becomes twice as long as before. X&Y will change on the other two directions. You may try them out to see what will happen

[Myrddraal]

I haven't looked at M2TW pikes, but in RTW pikes were handled differently from other weapons. It's possible this is still the case in M2TW, just in case what zxiang said doesn't work.

[Andromachus Theodoulos]

@Myrdraal and zxiang1983, (and GOM and KE)

That's why I wondered, because I was able to alter the pikes somewhat just by text editing, but changes were minimal at best. zxiang1983 is right about the length, I can scale it down "by origin" in MilkShape, but there is still something somewhere increasing their length. I have not figured that one out yet.

I have another proposal for the community at large. If it is something that is wanted I am breaking out the individual weapons, shields and helmets on some of the figures. Example would be isolating the burgonet or cabasset for the pikemen for all lods (lod0, 1,2,3). We might be able to collaborate as a community to form a library of parts and pieces that can be added to figures. Right now it appears that helmets , shields and weapons can be "kit-bashed" on units (using GOM's merge function in his converter) as they all use the same basic coordinates, which makes basic modding a breeze. (This can also be done with new helmets, shields, etc...)(I believe the above is true for all en_XXX models, rn_XXX and ln_XXX models)

These pieces and parts could be offered in a zip to provide others the pieces without having to isolate them themselves. Just something to think about.

Right now I have so many alternatives of what I can do, I don't know where to begin, so I am just breaking out parts...

GrumpyOldMan has done us all a great service, as well as Knight Errant!!!

AT

[Myrddraal]

That would be a great idea, and one that GrumpyOldMan has already considered and asked me about. We're going to put a new section in the links manager, you can use the uploaders here if you like and add them to the links manager, or you can host them elsewhere and add them to the links manager. A library of Mesh bits sounds like an excellent project.

[GrumpyOldMan]

Hi All

One of the first mesh groups I'm going to upload is a corrected bandolier belt or 'apostles' for arquebusiers and musketeers that runs from left shoulder to right hip. This is to satisfy the hysterical historicals like myself. All the vertex assignments and weightings have been corrected.

Cheers

GrumpyOldMan

[Andromachus Theodoulos]

Hey Grumpy...

I have several of questions for you...

1. I noticed you were able to bring in textures to your models, how did you do that? I have looked at several things, but I am sure its another "duh" question.

2. Also, is there a tutorial somewhere on how to manipulate the meshes (like edit a crest on to a helmet or add a plume, change a spear head, etc, etc...). I found a vertex selector under the pull-downs, but I have not been able to modify anything. The actual vertex selection for that plug-in is not complete yet. Right now I have been perusing the tutorial I downloaded made by a josh fellow...

3. Also, have you explored any further bringing the RTW CAS into MilkShape??

Why I ask, is that for my mod (based on Neoclassical art...), I would like to crop, clip or cut a "mesh" from the RTR Greeks and use it as a "starter for a new helmet in M2TW... I am not sure if I could even bring in a bare-bones mesh... I might be better off editing an M2TW helmet...(going back to a tutorial of some kind)

Anyway, just wondering about that one... Also, there are things I want to change in some RTW games that I couldn't because of not having access to 3dsmax... just like a little kid, my mind is all over the place...

Back to experimenting!!!

AT

[GrumpyOldMan]

Hi AT

Hey Grumpy...

I have several of questions for you...

1. I noticed you were able to bring in textures to your models, how did you do that? I have looked at several things, but I am sure its another "duh" question.

First you'll need to get the texture to dds converter and extract the dds files. Next in Milkshape go to Tab/Materials. Select which texture you want to load, figure or attachment. Each texture has two load slots, always use the first one, the second is for separate mask/alpha transparency textures. Load the texture and it should automatically appear on the figure.

2. Also, is there a tutorial somewhere on how to manipulate the meshes (like edit a crest on to a helmet or add a plume, change a spear head, etc, etc...). I found a vertex selector under the pull-downs, but I have not been able to modify anything. The actual vertex selection for that plug-in is not complete yet. Right now I have been perusing the tutorial I downloaded made by a josh fellow...

I had a quick look with Google and apart from Milkshapes own tutorial link page http://chumbalum.swissquake.ch/ms3d/tutorials.html the page at http://www.angelfire.com/magic/bastd..._tutorial.html on how to add a crown has got lots of good info on manipulation and http://learngamedesign.com/gdt_A7.html and the other tutorials linked to that page have also got lots of info.

3. Also, have you explored any further bringing the RTW CAS into MilkShape??

Why I ask, is that for my mod (based on Neoclassical art...), I would like to crop, clip or cut a "mesh" from the RTR Greeks and use it as a "starter for a new helmet in M2TW... I am not sure if I could even bring in a bare-bones mesh... I might be better off editing an M2TW helmet...(going back to a tutorial of some kind)

Anyway, just wondering about that one... Also, there are things I want to change in some RTW games that I couldn't because of not having access to 3dsmax... just like a little kid, my mind is all over the place...

Back to experimenting!!!

AT

I've got pre-pre-alpha code for importing CAS files but not exporting back. I was mainly working on it for RTW modders who wanted to bring their meshes into M2TW. The main problem for these people is that the high lod RTW figures are about lod1.5 in M2TW. Might be better to use retextured M2TW groups with bits cut off RTW meshes. If you can specify one RTR Greek figure you'd like to experiment with, I'll export it to Ms3d and send you the basic mesh.

Cheers

GrumpyOldMan