MODDING SIEGE ENGINES

[Teia]

Hi all, folks!

I tried to modify the Great Cross chariot, and make an original Carroccio out of it. I succeded, as this Milkshape screenshot shows:



But, when in game: I get this:



The question is: WHY?!?!

I mean: the texture files are ok (alpha channelled where they have to, both normal and diff); I also covered with black alpha channel the mysterious "great_cross_Overlay.texture", just in case; for the conversion .ms3d <-> .mesh I used the great meshconverter v1_0_3 by KnightErrant, and everything seems allright with it; so... wtf?!!

What should I do? Please help me.


Thanks in advance for any kind answer.

[KnightErrant]

Hi Teia,

I've got a version 1_4 on my hard drive but I can't remember
exactly why, it's dated from July. I think I might have had something
wrong in the final section of the .ms3d file regarding extra ints in the
new subversion 2 that Mete released for Milkshape 1.8. I don't
know if it is related to what you are experiencing but it couldn't hurt
to try it. Could you PM me an e-mail and I'll send it to you? And thanks
by the way, I don't think anyone else has worked on one of the siege_engines
before. I'd be really interested to see how it works out.

[Teia]

OK guys, we got it!

Thanks to the generous disposability of a guru such as KnightErrant, I can now present my first version of the original Carroccio. KnightErrant fixed for me the problem about the animations (the wheels didn't rotate ON their axis, but AROUND their axis ) by manually editing the .CAS animations files, allowing my scaled skeleton to match the anims properly. (the animations I mention are those ye can find in: \data\animations\engine)

So, the only problem now is to get rid of the big_red_cross you can see in the picture above: it is alpha-channelled, but the game seems to ignore this setting.
Maybe it's a matter of , and it's probably closely related to the "big shadow" bug covering the lower part of the chariot. (it seems it doesn't get the "mass" of the object, as the lights don't reflect properly )
Anyone can bring solutions to the table! I'll make a couple of test in the meantime, trying to use diverse DXT settings (even if I'm almost sure it's not the problem).

Allright, here's the file:

http://files.filefront.com/Carroccio+v0+1bzip/;898

You can use it at your will (include it in your mod or simply study it); the only thing I feel to ask is a li'l mention in the credits, for me (Teia, Re de' Goti) and KnightErrant (for the anims part).

[rorarii]

TEia, I'd be interested in finding out how you loaded a CAS file into Milkshape .. without it crashing (my experience).

BTW, your link goes to some hack to "Need For Speed" (2002) .. not what you'd expect for a catholic chariot! LOL!

R

[KnightErrant]

Hi rorarii,

Teia didn't load a .cas file into Milkshape. He converted the
mesh for great_cross_standard.mesh and modded that. The
.cas files are the animations in data\animations\engine like
great_cross_standard_default.cas. These hold the bones that
had to be modded to fit his Caroccio's larger wheel base.

Edit: Yeah, I get the same bad link too.

[Teia]

Whoops sorry for being late and for the bad link... I just can't explain this, I debugged it before posting; oh anyway: here's the good link: http://files.filefront.com/Carroccio.../fileinfo.html

For the .CAS, as KE explained, you have to edit them manually if you want to. But I didn't do that: I just converted the .MESH using the fabulous KE's mesh_converter 1_0_3.

[Bwian]

Looks to me as though you have some mesh parts there that were not scaled. I will try and find some proper time to look at this