IWTE - World editing - (General Discussion)

[wilddog]

Hoping to get another release of IWTE this month. Main item included (as mentioned above) should be the ability to handle more cas files within IWTE for use with Blender.

This should include/support :
A) Ability to amend static cas files eg residences (IWTE already supports this for ms3d).
B) Ability to amend animated cas files ie their meshes, their animations and their skeletons.
C) Ability to replace skeletons with amended skeletons for a directory.
skeleton amendment should support repositioning of individual bones, resizing, adding or deletion of bones. Obviously certain changes will only work in game if the skeleton still meets the internal engine requirements and naming.

[wilddog]

Just something we're testing. This is a strat model Mak is working on (in the process of changing animations). The model is in blender and IWTE creates the collada file to load to blender using a list of supplied cas animation files.

[makanyane]

Slightly better video demonstration - with vanilla anims which all link together properly!

[Araval]

Greetings,

I implemented Buzra-dum and Goblin-town from DaC to DCI:LA but I noticed a bug when testing while the AI sallied out - the backside of the gate slowly fades to black: https://i.imgur.com/tSFsxls.png

Any ideas how to fix it?

[Lusitanio]

Slightly better video demonstration - with vanilla anims which all link together properly!

This is awesome! Especially the shield rising animation. Would love to test that in EBII!

+1 Rep from me

[AnthoniusII]

Slightly better video demonstration - with vanilla anims which all link together properly!

You can assign vertices in 3 bones without crashing. Our lance banner wavering is doing that.

[makanyane]

Greetings,

I implemented Buzra-dum and Goblin-town from DaC to DCI:LA but I noticed a bug when testing while the AI sallied out - the backside of the gate slowly fades to black: https://i.imgur.com/tSFsxls.png

Any ideas how to fix it?

Vanilla gates actually do that... the applied shading that's used throughout the settlements has a start and end value in the animinstances chunks - some of gates had a very dark end setting.

Have you tried re-setting with latest version of IWTE? On 'animations' tab there's "Object/Animation Shading and Effects" which you can either do for single object or whole world... I'd recommend only doing it on the gate objects - if people have put the world structures together too roughly the re-shading can have undesireable effects!

Select the Gate object - you can see which they are as 'gate' is labeled in the Objects screen - use the "Obj world shading/effects inc anims" button. You'll need to give it the Blockset directory for vanilla anims, and then the mods Blockset directory. If it finds the anim it should reset the shading on the animistances section. --- as usual save binaries and re-name/re-place files when you've done.

[makanyane]

You can assign vertices in 3 bones without crashing. Our lance banner wavering is doing that.

That's a strat model... 99.9% sure you can only assign to 1 bone, same as RTW .cas's.

Out of interest would you mind sending your model with that 3 bone assignment? We weren't entirely sure how that worked in battle-models either as there appeared to be only 2 values in the file for the weighting values per vertex.

[Araval]

Vanilla gates actually do that... the applied shading that's used throughout the settlements has a start and end value in the animinstances chunks - some of gates had a very dark end setting.

Have you tried re-setting with latest version of IWTE? On 'animations' tab there's "Object/Animation Shading and Effects" which you can either do for single object or whole world... I'd recommend only doing it on the gate objects - if people have put the world structures together too roughly the re-shading can have undesireable effects!

Select the Gate object - you can see which they are as 'gate' is labeled in the Objects screen - use the "Obj world shading/effects inc anims" button. You'll need to give it the Blockset directory for vanilla anims, and then the mods Blockset directory. If it finds the anim it should reset the shading on the animistances section. --- as usual save binaries and re-name/re-place files when you've done.

Thanks but when I chose the directory for vanilla anims, the program crashed: https://i.imgur.com/kLeDyTM.jpg

[makanyane]

Thanks but when I chose the directory for vanilla anims, the program crashed: https://i.imgur.com/kLeDyTM.jpg

urghh - I thought we'd got past that one...

looks like either the IWTE .exe or the unpacker bit is failing to find the file because of either the .exe or the file being in a folder that has spaces in the name.

Please put both IWTE and it's folder bits, and the blockset you're trying to look up, in a folder path without spaces, e.g. if you re-name your medieval ii total war folder to medieval_ii_total_war - that should fix it (you can always name it back later if it causes issues with anything else)

[Araval]

Thank you, got it to work and gates fixed!

Btw, the latest version of the tool was identified as malware by avast and I had to add it to exceptions.

[makanyane]

Glad it's fixed!

Sorry about the Avast thing... unfortunately Avast and some others, don't like anything made with pyinstaller (which is definitely not actually a malware issue) - we've tried reporting it to them as false positive but it seems like an ongoing generic issue.

I'm currently using Bullguard which saves me having to keep digging test/copied .exe's out of quarantine!

[Lord Baal]

I know this might no be the place you guys, but if anyone is interested on giving at least 10 years more of life to med 2, please follow this link: https://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...3#post15956313

[wilddog]

Sorry too much time needed with IWTE and too little knowledge of C++ ... already about 10+ years behind schedule on PKH which was the reason for IWTE in the first place.

[wilddog]

I expect to include the following in the next release.

1) If a world animinstance compressed file is created that is too large for MTW2 to handle a message
should pop up to warn it will not work correctly.
2) Minor shading change setting default animation light for new world anims.
3) New collada processes to support Cas export/import for strat models/*dae files (single file input for editing mesh and/skeleton).
4) New collada processes to support Cas export/import for combined strat models and animations (dual input of cas mesh and animation).
5) Skeleton replacement uses selected cas file to replace skeleton of all cas files within the directory. If a bone is removed it will assign any child bones to next parent up the hierarchy. Vertexes which lose a parent should be reassigned the same way.
4) Text file output and input is generated for the siege export traversable network files.
5) New collada processes to support siege engine changes. (Requires .mesh file, animation cas and default cas). On import a reference file is required which may be changed to be more like the IWTE control process (mentioned below) in later releases.
6) New IWTE control file process. This is only in its early stages but a couple of general processes have been added to support joining multiple strat animation files together to allow editing and checking of any custom animations. Be careful when using this to make sure you do not accidentally overwrite files.

I'm trying to cross check the mesh siege bits as I changed some of the cas related stuff but should be released later this week. I would still really like to see an actual example of a mesh using 3 bones as oppose to people saying its been done. I haven't really looked into the mesh weight assignment other than siege engines and other than maybe an ability to assign a 'missing weight' I've not seen an example of it actually happening.

[wilddog]

IWTE IWTE_v20_09_A is now released.

with version 20_09_A
1) If a world animinstance compressed file is created that is too large for MTW2 to handle a messgae should pop up to warn it will not work correctly.
2) Minor shading change setting default animation light for new world anims.
3) New collada processes to support Cas export/import for strat models/*dae files (single file input for editing mesh and/skeleton).
4) New collada processes to support Cas export/import for combined strat models and animations (dual input of cas mesh and animation).
5) Skeleton replacement uses selected cas file to replace skeleton of all cas files within the directory. If a bone is removed it will assign any child bones to next parent up the heirarchy. Vertexes which lose a parent should be reassigned the same way.
6) New collada process export animated directory. This basically takes a cas mesh and generates a dae file for all the animations in a directory
7) Text file output and input is generated for the siege export traversable network files.
8) New collada processes to support siege engine changes. (Requires .mesh file, animation cas and default cas). On import a control file is required which may be changed to be more like the IWTE control process (mentioned below) in later releases.
9) New IWTE control file process. This is only in its early stages a couple of general processes have been added.
a) cas_bone_name_change - to rename bones in skeletons
b) cas_multi_animation - to allow linking and editing of cas mesh and cas animations (not *.mesh files)
c) dae_cas_multi_animation - to re-input the edited dae file and create amended cas mesh and cas animations.

[makanyane]

Currently the collada import processes for .cas animations (siege and strat) doesn't work for 3dsmax users (thanks xHolyCrusader for reporting!)

It should all work fine if you're using Blender though...


wilddog is working on a fix for Max generated files which should be out soon

[AnthoniusII]

I do not remember if I asked itbefore in the past but I have to ask again.
Is there a vertices limitation for strat_map models of settlements?
I made a large city way before and i added some extras on the wall rambarts .The orocceedure I followed to transform the new version of the large city is the same with the oldest one. The old model works perfectly but the new DOES NOT ALOW the campaign to start. Both use the same name and textures.

[wilddog]

@AnthoniusII, can you give a link to the mesh model you mentioned earlier or post it somewhere we can find. I would like to check the more than weights per vertex issue.

There are various limits affecting strat map. Within the model there are counts which are either single byte or double byte dependent on version however the main issue is likely an overall vertex count which I will pass on to Mak to answer.

[makanyane]

I do not remember if I asked itbefore in the past but I have to ask again.
Is there a vertices limitation for strat_map models of settlements?

There probably is an abolute limit, but I've not tested it...

The byte count type limit wilddog mentioned should blow either the 3d program or the converter tool when you try to create something that much too large.

Large/very detailed .cas's of most sorts character/trees/residences/resources can either stop the map loading or cause crash on scroll. I suspect that the problem might be accumalative though, e.g. just because you might be able to get a 5000* vert model to load, doesn't mean you could get away with making all your models 4000* vert.

*arbitary figure I haven't tested that

The only thing I have tested was to try and get total residences below the level that allows shadows to work properly for all the cultures in our mod. See here. On that the total 'size' across all the models loaded by the game for residences contributed to the shadow problem.


Out of interest what size / number of verts is your new model? And do you still have shadows for all the cultures residences and ports?