Buildings Models?

[Spartos]

Okay, probably a stupid question, but where are the buildings model files? EDB looks in data/models_building but that folder doesn't exist. So I tried using the unpacker again with no luck. What's up with this, am I looking in the wrong place or is my unpacker broken?

[KnightErrant]

Hi Spartos,

The ones for the battle map are under data\settlements.
They're split by culture so you have north_european etc.
Under the cultures they're castles, settlements, and others.
The files that have the mesh information for the buildings
are the .world files. These are very large binary files, basically
they resemble gluing together 90 or so .mesh files. The buildings
are grouped into complexes of several buildings plus some
"litter" meshes of barrels and other things.

No, there's no converter for them. Don't know when I'm going to
get back to this.

[SigniferOne]

[Spartos]

Really, so there's no way to mod the battlemap buildings? :hmmm:
I wonder then if the settlement plans can be altered. In context, I'm trying to make a viking settlement that is fairly large and contains lots of round-houses and other wattle-and-daub style dwellings (no English-Tudor or fancy brick chimneys).

Would this be possible via editing settlment layouts like in R:TW? (I'm starting to think Rome was much more mod-friendly, too bad its graphics are so, )

[KnightErrant]

I never modded RTW (other than the simple things) but I think you're
correct; it was a lot easier. This is the sticking point about settlements:
the world files can be read, after some header stuff the buildings really
are just mesh files glued together and grouped into complexes. The
complexes are usually a few building layouts and some "litterlod" things
like barrels and sawhorses; stuff you'd see in any village. They consist
of the stuff we are familiar with: verts, tris, uvs, some texture files, but
no bones or bone assignments of course. But they have two
"mystery blocks". These are 4 byte entries, each the size of the number
of vertices. Caliban spoke with his software guy and these two are:

(1) lighting models, something to do with how the buildings are illuminated.
This seemed ok, Gmax and certainly 3ds Max can deal with lights and
cameras and so on. The implication was that there was a default
scheme of 63 lights and this block described how they were used on a
vertex basis.
(2) Animations, this I didn't get. Mostly these entries are zero bytes
but some are non-zero. I made up the idea that these tie smoke
animations, etc. to chimneys or something like that.

Without knowing how to update these two blocks of data when a
building is changed, i.e. the tudor style buildings are changed to a round
house or a wattle and daub structure, I wouldn't know how to reconstruct
a .world file. Worse, if any of this is tied to all the other data at
the bottom of a world file, (and there's a lot and it gets bigger as
you go up the food chain to towns, cities, etc.) getting a modified
.world file back in game seems really hard. This is sort of the reason
I'm back working on models and animations; the problems are more
tractable.

[SigniferOne]

KE, CA is back at doing another MTW patch, try to get in contact with them and see if they have anyone as helpful as Caliban was.


EDIT: Animations are probably windmills rotating, and gate doors opening, and some such.

Perhaps they're animations of building or wall wreckage falling apart?

[wolfslayer]

Animations are separate from the world files, in blocksets, and referenced in animinstances, right?

Anything in the world file would be the placeholders for the animations.

The loading sequence (using the default_fort as an example) usually goes;

.world

blockset textures for the structures (these are referenced throughout this sequence)

.animinstances

blockset/animations: .anim and .evt
including the towers and gates open/closed/damaged/destroyed, etc.

.worldcollision

.worldterrain

.worldvegetation

ambient settlements

plus more blockset animations for them, if needed.

.worldpathfinding

All the vegetation meshes and terrain/weather/sky textures.

banner meshes for the plaza, then unit and effects textures start their loading sequence.

[PurpleScotch]

I really hope we can get to model buildings and edit them, because this might ruin my vision for an Ancient Egypt mod .

[wolfslayer]

My goals are less lofty; I just want to be able to edit the worldoathfinding files for existing structures, so buildings like this can be used as small fortresses.

[Spartos]

Does anyone know how to edit the stratmap buildings? Every time I try their either invisible on the campmap or the game crashes. Even just importing a say, northern_european_town.cas with Verc's Imp/Exp for R:TW and saving it right away (no changes made) using CA's .cas Exporter makes the buildings invisible. If the model is actually there, would the textures somehow not be loading properly (hence the invisibility)?

Alletun's "Stratmap Models Reloaded" tutorial seems only to be for stratmap characters, not buildings

So does anyone know anything here or has got their own buildings to work right?

[Argantonio]

Using the battle editor.
You have observed that there are two types different of settlements.
Attachment 8889
Inside the folder techtree these buildings allow to cross them and it is possible to enter to his interior.
Attachment 8890Attachment 8891
, and others inside the folder ambient_settlements that do not allow , interior is blocked.
Attachment 8893Attachment 8892
I am trying to unravel with winhex the files , probably it is the way to edit the buildings.
They are the same files world, worldcollision , worldpkgdesc, worldterrain , worldvegetation y animistances .
Where are the difference of his behavior?:hmmm:
Attachment 8894
Sometimes when I edited the buildings goes out of the limit, Is it possible to change this limit ?.

[Spartos]

Not too sure what you're talking about Argantonio. I'm asking about the strategy map buildings, if anyone can tell me how to get that to work.

[wolfslayer]

Worldcollision controls the damage modeling, ie, missiles can't pass through the structure; worldpathfinding controls where units can move.

Argantonio, I'm going to start a new thread on battlemap models; Spartos, hopefully someone can help with the stratmap models, it's not an area I know a lot about.

I would open your exported .cas with a hex editor and check the end of file for the texture references; and compare with the original.

[Argantonio]

Good !! , This is the key , this file worldpathfinding is not in the buildings of the techtree folder ( or in field_fortifications) , Attachment 8895

the stuctures are permeable, the other buildigs in the other folders they have it and they are not permeable.
Thank you

The information of the textures are in the file world ,open it , seach texture and to modify. Is written several times , specially the normal texture.
Attachment 8897
Damage are in animistances ,i am trying to modify it.:hmmm:

Attachment 8898

[wolfslayer]

Go to here for battlemap settlements discussion : http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=146234