IWTE - World editing - (General Discussion)

[nadalio]

You are amazing!!
Thanks for doing this
I tested the export of the terrain in collada for blender and it worked very good..

[makanyane]

thanks nadalio

just a quick warning... don't try adding or deleting a reflective_plane via Blender/collada yet - we missed the link to adding/removing it as a game object, so you'll get something that looks OK in IWTE but crashes the game.

[wilddog]

Latest version of IWTE has been uploaded. IWTE v 20_07_B.

with version 20_07_B
1) Change to Collada animation process. Texture name info embedded in material id. This should hopefully help max users receive and return the texture name info correctly to identify 'water' and 'alpha' textures.
2) Change to Collada animation frame rate. This has been reduced to 20fps (NOT 30). Changing Blender to this custom rate and loading files created at this rate appear to load OK and I believe more closely mirror MTQ frame rates. It also creates .anim files which are smaller. If issues are encountered I'll look to make this variable otherwise its just creating larger files.
3) Enforced the same name on the texture and normal files. NE Large castle had a texture which for some reason was using a different normal. I haven't really checked why but doesn't make sense.
4) Bug to do with reflective plane handling should now be resolved. They must be correctly identified via their texture type ending in '_water' (in the collada interface).
5) Added Collada option for exporting and importing the banner meshes. There is a color element in the mesh which should show as Red and Green. The red affects the wave amplification applied to the flags. The Green value appears to have no effect (at least that we have noticed in testing).

[makanyane]

Wilddog started trying to look at ladder behaviour and went off on bit of a tangent:

[nadalio]

Wilddog started trying to look at ladder behaviour and went off on bit of a tangent:

Trabuchets and catapults on towers in the future?

[makanyane]

Trabuchets and catapults on towers in the future?

as a fixed thing (like later games) I'm fairly sure there isn't a mechanic in M2 to allow that to work - the settlement accessible animations are about destruction only

artillery able to move/deploy on walls might be feasible but I suspect that's more of a memory editing issue than us, as I can't spot a moddable file that could allow it

[makanyane]

WIP attempt at getting a ladder to raise at the front, instead of the flip-over thing... the traversable network and docking distance aren't quite aligned properly yet, and I think it might need to be faster so you spend less time wondering how it's self levitating!

Would be interested to know what anyone thinks of the concept.

[Lusitanio]

WIP attempt at getting a ladder to raise at the front, instead of the flip-over thing... the traversable network and docking distance aren't quite aligned properly yet, and I think it might need to be faster so you spend less time wondering how it's self levitating!

Would be interested to know what anyone thinks of the concept.

Very nice amd different. Quite interesting how you did that. Not sure if raising the ladder at the front should be faster. I would say it should be even slower to be more realistic.

[nadalio]

Thanks for the fast reply Mak,
it would be such amazing feature.
I was thinking the shooting tower, they animations are harcoded?
If you put a trabuchet model on the tower and create the animation should work?
Do you think is possible to allow more type of animations in settlements?
I think that Youneyuoy will be glad to try it if many people ask for that, it's a very cool feature.

[makanyane]

I was thinking the shooting tower, they animations are harcoded?

They're not really animations, the shooting tower thing is done by 'firing slots' which is just a position and direction, and then a projectile, which is just the projectile effect (like the arrows from a bowman)

Do you think is possible to allow more type of animations in settlements?

Not really - it'd be the trigger aspects that are missing. The only things that exist are for DamageTransition - which comes up when an object is damaged/destroyed and switches to damaged group, and the Gate Open/Close/Impact stuff which has to be triggered by object being a Gate and having a Breach/Doors.

The things that go on all the time (like smoke from a chimney) are effects and not animations.

[wilddog]

Currently working on expanding the collada/Blender interface to handle the cas files.
Exporting of most cas types seems to be working fine including the extraction of animated cas files in the model_strat folder (eg generals, captains etc)
Just looking at an issue on the cliffs cas write back and need to complete the write back of the animated cas files.

[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!

[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]

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]

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?

[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.

[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