Milkshape/Modelling Question

[Diamat]

I am no texture modder, but have been recently forced to start learning. My biggest obstacle is figuring out the following.

Look at the uniform below, paying attention to the little plume on each hat:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Notice that, depending on the uniform, the top of the plume will match the color of the uniform (green, red, blue, etc.). Hence, my question: is there a way to make the atlas understand that I want a certain part of the plume to change whenever the uniform color is changed (i.e., when changing the uniforms_to_faction_color table)? Otherwise I would have to create 6 separate plumes, which would unnecessarily fill up my atlas. Is there a way to avoid that?

Another problem will be to get the plume to be in the correct spot on the hat (which is inside the hat, not outside of it). Any tips for that as well?

Any help will be appreciated, and will be duly awarded with rep.

[47th sAMuRAi]

I've never tried this with a "plume" before but I guess you could try and dig into the, "colour atlas" and make a plume with a double color mesh adapt a green color channel so when "in-game" it would pick up the same color as another uniform part like the collar & cuffs, but I don't know if it will work i've never tried it. It also depends what kind of plume "mesh" you are messing with because from what I understand there are one colored meshed plumes and multicolored 2-3 colored plumes. and as for making a plume centered on a hat I believe you need to know how to edit a unit part in a 3-d graphics software which I know nothing about. Uncle "Steph" will see this and will hopefully come around shortly and answer this lol he always does. As for that shape of plume you are looking for,I have not seen in this game.The *ahem so called "pom-pom" CA has meshed up is still a bit big but is also the smallest plume they offer,thumbs down for them lol.
DDS would be.......

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

and your colour channel would be.......

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

lol minus the "colored stripe" forgot to blacken that

[Diamat]

Thanks for your interest. For the record, I think there is a actually a small enough plume, which would look closest to the one shown in the picture above. It belongs to one of the units of the Italian States, I think. It's completely green. This means that I would have to first of all, make it white. Second, I would have to modify it in such a way so that only the tip of the plume would change colors as uniform colors change.

Help me Steph Kenobi, you are my only hope.

[Steph]

First solution could be to use a colour mask. But I'm not sure it will actually work since to my knowledge no plume is using a colour mask. So we have no evidence it works, may be worth trying.
However, keep something in mind: colour masks allows only 3 colours. So if you need two colours in your plume, they must be the same as for the other uniform. So if you want the coat to be blue, the pant to be white, the facing (collar and cuff) to be red, then you won't be able to have a green and yellow plume using colour masks.
Another solution is to make more plumes, or to edit it. Just recolour the plumes in the dds to something (use a plume that you don't need), or if the dds is not full (there are some black area in it), you could copy a plume, paste it in the black, recolour it and then add a line in the atlas file. That's what we are not doing for Prussia at the moment for instance. I plan to make a tutorial about that this evening

About the plume position: What I did in MoE was to extract the variant_parts, and then make copy. Then, you can import in Milkshape, move the plume, export to the copy.
Example: export your "Italian_Plume" make a copy to "Italian_Plume_Inside", import in Milkshape, move it a little backward, export to replace it.
Then in the variants of your unit, replace the Italian_Plume mesh by Italian_Plume_Inside

[Diamat]

Thank you. I shall try this out and experiment tonight.

[Steph]

This tutorial could be useful

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=536174

[Diamat]

Alright, I started experimenting with milkshape, in order to reduce the size of the Italian pompom by 50% (so that it would match the plume in the picture above). So I scaled the pompom to 50%, exported it, and then repackaged the mesh into my mod, together with the unitpart textures (color mask, diffuse, gloss, and normal). However, I did not modify the unitpart textures (which might be what I did wrong). Neither did I change any of the atlas files, since I just wanted to see if I could simply reduce the size of the pompom.

When I tried the plume out in game, it did not work. It did not even show up.

Anyone know how to get a modified mesh to work?

I uploaded the unmodified, original files that I want to modify.

[Steph]

you just need the mesh, don't worry about the textures.

You have nothing specific to do.
Import the variant, modify, export. It should work.
Be careful to modify the meshes for all the LOD, and not only one.

Perhaps you did a mistake when putting it in the pack? A slightly different name?
Or when referencing the mesh in the unit variant?

How did you add/modify the mesh in thd db (not in milkshape)?

[Diamat]

Well, here is the thing. I already have the original mesh assigned to a unit, and when I testplay it, it works just fine. However, the modified version does not show up at all. I simply saved the modified mesh under the original name and then replaced that file with the original. So in theory the modified mesh should show up in game.

[Steph]

Can you post a few screens or a zip with what you did?

[Diamat]

I attached the modified mesh.

[Steph]

Not the mesh alone, but the mod pack in which you included it if you can (and the variant using it)

[Diamat]

Here it is. Note that there is no unit variant file, because at this point I was just testing if I could reduce the size of the plume. To test the plume in-game, select Denmark. Denmark's light infantry has the plume. But whenever I try it with the pack installed, the plume does not show up--neither the original plume nor the new one shows up.

[Steph]

First, I think you did not resize it correctly: you change the scale using the center of mass, and so the bottom of the plume went "up", you need to move it after to be sure it is at the origin, or the plume will "float" above the unit.

[Diamat]

I just scaled the point of origin, but the same problem remains. I am no milkshape expert, so I can't really tell what I am doing wrong. Attached you will find the corrected mesh.

[Steph]

You can also try to download the pack with the new unit parts from MoE, there is a smaller pompom, and I'm sure it works.
If you don't see it, then the problem is perhaps either in your variant, or in the way you setup your pack / user script

[Diamat]

Well, it can't be the user script. Obviously the pack is active, because somehow the pompon disappears completely. Hypothetically speaking, if I change nothing but the mesh (leaving the unit variant as is), shouldn't the new mesh automatically replace the old one? You saw the way I set up my pack...was there anything wrong with it? It seems to me that there is something inherently wrong with the mesh...I mean, why would the pompon disappear completely?

Also, would you permit me to use your pompon mesh for my own mod? I would credit you, of course, once I am done.

[Steph]

You can use my pompom, at least to check if it works (see if it's a mesh problem or something else).
Your pack seemed right.

[Diamat]

I tried out your pompons, and they all work just fine. Obviously, I must be doing something wrong in Milkshape.

Here is a screenshot of me reducing the pompon size by 50%:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Diamat]

I have figured out what caused it...finally. The problem is that the export.dll was not updated. Only after going through the entire NTW Model Converter Thread did I find the hotfix, because the frontpage is not updated. For all of you having the same problem, below is the link to the hotfix.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...2#post10258532