ship textures

[Bladerunner]

Hi,

I tried to make some changes for the ship textures. Although i know we normally don't have the proper equipment at hand, i tired to just make changes to the file names inside the model files with an hex editor, as those seem to have the refferances to the textures and all textures have the same size. I can rename the texture to fit into the model file, but as most ships use the same texture (4deck_hullstrip_diffuse.dds and the proper damage textures), that would only allow me to change them for all ships at a time. If i change model files on hex base and put it into a mod, i always get crashes or the mod didn't start.

So my question to the model expert is, am i totaly wrong with my idea. Mayby the change corrupted a checksum or the different lenght of the file is the problem (this i may surround by using names with the same lenght). Or did i just forgot something to change.

[Bladerunner]

ok, just found a tutorial about changing textures without 3ds. it seems you can make changes, but the lenght of names have to be the same. i will try this and post my experiances later..

[GeorgiaPeanuts]

the name can change size if you update the size before the string which is usually 0E [Size Byte] string

[Bladerunner]

Many thanks GeorgiaPeanuts, that was my breakthough with the textures. I was able to retexture some shiphulls already, though just using the extra texture of those not for all availible units.

Uploaded my mod, link for DL is here:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=246265

[titanvoyager]

Finally someone that take some care of the naval models
!

[Bladerunner]

ok, it seems i finally will be able to bring cloned models into the game to have the possibility to have more than one texture variant (some have 4 models already, but many just one) for the ships. It's still pure hex editing, but i manage to implement the first new model without crashing the game (Pack File Manager don't like naval files).

I will use it for my mod to include more texture variants into the game, though those files are huge and it might give very large DL's if you put in too many texture.

As it is a little compliated to do this hex-editing, i don't know if there is any interest here about how you mod naval textures. if some are interested and think they have the skills, just ask and i will try to explain it here (not that skilled in english, so don't know if i should try to make a tutorial about it)

[titanvoyager]

Please keep us informed!

[Bladerunner]

As my mod seems to grow to something above 1 GB, i see some problems coming up. The main problem are the rigid_naval_model and rigid_model_animation files. not the induvidual size, but the pure number, when try to make indivudual hulltextures for each fleet - for each ship and each texture it is about 4-10 MB, but but multiplying with 10 new textures and 19 ships let this grow to 1,46 GB.

So can any advanced modders tell me if there might be a way to replace the texture with a dummy texture and put the selection of the hull texture into an other file - one for all ships (like it seems to be with the naval ensigns)? this would let me reduce the size significantly.

i also found those logic.xml.parsed files, wich have just "not implemented yet" info as content. Mayby one more sign of CA didn't really get ready with ETW before release. The rigging seem to run with XML-files, so mayby the rest of the shiptextures should have been also convertet into those XML format to make it easier to do texture-modding with just altering a db-file, but i have no idea, just speculating.

[Bladerunner]

ok, while searching the important files for the naval models, i think i better understand their connections between each other:

naval.fx, navalship.fx and navalsail.fx seem to define the datafragments for the engine. Tells him, what to do with the informations.

The ship.rigid_naval_model seems to be the main file, carrying the information definded in the fx-files for the hull.

Ship_destruction.rigid_animation_model imo is the animation file for ships, to get the damages. seems to be connected with ship.rigid_naval_models.

Both define positions of their texture on the ambience.map, which are properly the xxx_ao.dds files

The warscape_naval_lod, just combines ID, Model and Model-Name, as we have it with the land units.

The ship.rigging and ship.rigging galant contain the informations about all sails in xml to be read by model_naval

Really important seem to be the model_naval, as it combines data from hull and rigg. While it just take over the complete texture data from the rigid_animation_model, it seem to convert the xml data from the rigging for the engine into the defined format of navalsail.fx.

very technical, but this is the strucutre i supposed to have found. Mayby one of the more experiance modders and programmers have an idea, how to make changes to be able to implement new textures easier, whitout the need of cloning the whole rigid_naval_model and rigid_model_animation files, as it blows up the mod size.

[Razor]

A few pictures would be nice...

[titanvoyager]

My personal suggestion is that you should not do so many different side textures for the ships, 3 or 4 different ones will be enough.(1. main european factions, 2. minor european factions, 3. main non-european factions, 4. minor non-european factions)

In fact there are a lot more things to improve like, for example, adding the cannon covers, making the cannons stick out and removing the big unrealistic holes in the hull and the sides.

Just my thoughts.

[Bladerunner]

You want pictures?

At first, here a spanish First Rate with "Archeron"-style texture

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[titanvoyager]

Can you make a texture like this? Perhaps it could become the standard texture for all ship of the main european factions.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[mta35]

Bladerunner look this web

http://www.todoababor.es/

[Iaius Statius Laurentius]

Bladerunner: I want the over_1st_rate_American and the over_1st_rate_french to use the hull texture from the USS Constitution. How would I do this? (And if you can take requests and do it for me, that would be great too).

Thanks!

[titanvoyager]

As you are working with ship textures and colour, may I ask you to change the faction label on ships (for example, red for britain like the image) made by CA (for gameplay reasons; we are so fools that we can´t distinguish) and make them, for all factions, of a black or dark brown colour or another colour in relation with the hull textures?

I ask you for this change because it is absolutely inaccurate and not very eyecandy to see the grey label of the french or the ugly yellow one of the spanish.

[Bladerunner]

For the flags i will look into it, when reaching that phase of my mod, so might take a little time (models are ready, now need to put them in the game, which needs again some hex-editing, but it's tricky as one mistake crshes the game).

For the faction-colors: i don't have a clue where i can find them. I think they are hidden in those parts, which are not readable. someone mentioned for the land units, that the alpha channel is defining, where those colors appear, but don't know, if there is a simular system for ships (which would mean we could take them out by altering this channel). Changing faction colors generally might lead to strange effects in land battles, so i wouldn't like to do this (though my mod is for naval MP only).

[Iaius Statius Laurentius]

Alright, please let me know when you find out how to fix the flag thing.

EDIT:
The faction color thing is easily done.

You need to go to rigidmodels\naval\textures and open up the gloss map files (for example 4deck_hullstrip_gloss_map.dds). Go to the alpha channel, and notice the thin strip of white up top--that's where the faction color is applied. Make that black like the rest of the alpha channel, and your faction colors are gone.

Make sure to do that for the gloss maps on the damage panel images as well.

Then package those dds files into a mod pack, and you're done.

[VooDoo]

Bladerunner would it be possible to get a individual release of just the ship textures in regular mod format without the unit stat changes?

would be most appreciated

[Bladerunner]

actually the most complicated part is the implementation of the models into the game. The editing is very sensitive to small mistakes. that's why i will rename models and textures to be able to change textures later without re-editing the model files. This means to do one more editing (espacially as i will try to include to take of faction colors) for the models, which hopefully wont take too long. For implementing them in the game i have a file for one set of shiptextures, which can now be easily changed without dealing with length of strings to make it fit for the other sets.

I still worry about the number of textures i use, but i think this i will find out, when trying them in game. Up to now i plan with 10 possible sets of textures.

As there is a problem with the size of such a mod, i think of publishing the models and the basic implementation file (those you need to change in hex-editor) seperate from the unit stats and mayby also from the textures. this will enable to make changes there later, without the need of a full DL. It will enable you to use the models without all other changes, But this means, you need to do the nessesary changes in the db_files and localisation.loc, as for most ships, there are only units for GB, Fr, Ru, Sp and a standard unit for the rest. Some shipmodels are only used for one unit and don't have national variants at all. To use more different layouts, you will need to add new units to the game, which means, you need to alter Units_stats_naval, units, Exclusive_faction permissions, grouping_military_permissions and the localisation.loc by yourself than. which is a lot of work....

Personally i don't plan to publish a version without stat changes. the mod will be for MP and my experiance is, that you need to tweak things here, to have more tactical opinions.

So i give you a yes and no - you will be able to use them without hex-editing, but than you need to do the database integration by yourself - but no hex-edit for you.