Settlements: File Formats; Take 2

[Roman_Man#3]

I thought they were both Cas files. So there is no way of editing battle map buildings in M2TW yet?

[KnightErrant]

I think I concur with Alpaca, as much as Caliban has helped we are
probably on our own as regards settlements. Sorry, haven't been
monitoring this thread as I haven't done much. Here's where I've
gotten to: can now read large_towns and it just gets worse. More
data after the complexes/structures, the deployment outline is much
larger etc. I've also been leaning towards the realization that Milkshape
just doesn't have the data structures needed to hold the extra vertex
information that is in the complexes/structures (these are the two
"mystery blocks" that Caliban said were lighting and animations, I forget
the integer codes but they are in an e-mail somewhere).

So I'm stepping back and looking at 3dsmax as the only viable container
for this. I don't own a copy of 3dsmax but Bwian has pointed me to gmax
to learn MAXScript. I've slacked off on settlements to try and support
animations and try and get models into 3dsmax via MAXScript.
If I can just learn how to do a simpler problem then maybe settlements
won't seem so insurmountable. (At least settlements don't have bones,
my current headache in gmax.) However, to me it looks like the best
outcome would be: we should be able to modify an existing structure
(meaning a set of buildings, i.e. change the meshes to get a different
architecture, change textures, etc.) but adding new ones probably
involves changes to all the data the follows the complex/structures
section that I just don't see how it could be done without some magic
CA tutorial. (Not even possible I would think, that data is probably all
granny driven anyway.)

Real life problems, the tensioning spring on my lawn mower broke tonight
so tomorrow evening is a hunt around for repair parts. Check back on
Friday.

[SigniferOne]

KE, I'm concerned about the fact that you're trying to import a whole settlement into Milkshape, and failing to do that given the constraints, find yourself necessary to go to another 3d platform. Remember my suggestion, that milkshape be only used as a kind of 3d reference tool, to know where to place buildings. If I gave you a set of coordinates and a bunch of building models, would you be able to produce a .model file from that? That's all that's really necessary here.

Also why do you trouble yourself with converting all of the scripts to 3dmax form?? If for some reason we NEED 3dmax to do settlement editing, then let it be used only for settlement editing. I would be loathe to think that you wanted to do so much for the community and then got discouraged and left it half way... The modeling and animation scripts work (almost) perfectly (see my post in anims thread), so just merely having a way to do buildings, in 3dmax or otherwise, is the last piece of the puzzle. Because with Vercingetorix script we can already import RTW buildings into 3dmax, and thus being able to insert them into Medieval 2 would be just a dream.

[alpaca]

If only we had access to CA's blocksets. This would make it much easier to figure out which part of the file is which.

[Ashdnazg]

@KE: I'm currently working on a MAXscript importer/exporter for mesh files. Unfortunately I can only work on it in my vacations from the army so progress is rather slow
If you want my WIP script, or any assistance, PM me and I might be able to help.

[KnightErrant]

@ashdnazg
Actually I'd love some help. I've got bones now using point nodes
and skinops.addbone to add them into the mesh. I've got named
selection sets which seem to be like Milkshape's groups. The problem
right now is I can't do vertex weighting because the skin modifier
I associated with the mesh says it has no vertices even though the
mesh does. Here's the code snippet:

		theskin              = skin()
		theskin.rigid_vertices = false
		select themesh 
		max modify mode
		addModifier themesh theskin
		for j = 1 to nbones do
                   (
		   skinOps.addbone theskin (getNodeByName pnodes[j].name) 1
                   )
                nb                   = skinops.getNumberBones theskin
                print( "Number of bones in the skin = " + nb as string )

                nv                   = skinops.getNumberVertices theskin
                print( "Number of vertices in the skin = " + nv as string )

I get 26 for the number of bones so that's working but 0 for the number
of vertices. The documentation says it should return the number of its
associated mesh. When I loop over the number of vertices and try
to do

skinOps.SetVertexWeights theskin i boneId_array[i] primaryweight_array[i]

I naturally get an error. This is where I'm stuck.

@SigniferOne
Oh, I agree, no need to redo the Python animation utilities. You can
anim merge and then import the new .ms3d file into 3dsmax so no need
for that one. Would need an exporter though for any animations made
in 3dsmax but that shouldn't be hard (famous last words). The other
export skeleton functions in Python should be fine as is.

[KnightErrant]

Found the magic incantation:

      selbitall            = #{1..themesh.numverts}
      themesh.selectedVerts = selbitall
      skinOps.resetSelectedVerts theskin

This forces the skin to update internally and now it
has vertices and the weighting part doesn't die.

N.B. I first tried

skinOps.Invalidate theskin 1

because the documentation said it would have the same
effect but this killed gmax dead as a doornail.