v1.3 - NTW Model Converter Now Released!

[T.C.]

Also done, replacing the mesh with a vanilla one, while retaining the paths let's appear the vanilla trousers ingame (with wrong texture of course). Having two models in the legs-section makes the game run, but my custom mesh invisible ingame. When there's only one entry with my mesh, the game crashes.

Do i have to place the mesh in a certain place /euro/whatever? Do i have to use one of the already existing texture spaces on the diffuse, gloss, colour and normal atlases?

I have absolutely no idea, you're the first person to try this out

[Nightwish]

Hello

Hm, Is this tool is operational or it must wait a little longer? Because I managed to display a 3D file and it's very strange ...

Sorry for my English i am really sorry French

[T.C.]

Alright, I got around checking the forums again, as I was a bit bummed and stressed out, the last few days. Anyways, good that something works in-game. I'll try to answer a few questions:

Comments-preserving, bone order, etc.:
------------------------------------------
Yes, i kinda feared that this is gonna be a problem with other export/import plugins, and, unfortunately, we are a bit out of luck, here. There is simply no decent way I can think of to preserve some of the data that is in the file formats, other than using those user data strings in milkshape. If it's only about importing (using this plugin), and exporting (using this plugin), everything is preserved, but yes... milkshape is by nowadays standards just not really useful in terms of editing, and well... mostly used as simple interchange tool - so I can understand that you guys wanna use 3dsmax, Maya, whatever...

Maybe I'll come across some good ideas, dunno...


Crash of a model:
--------------------
A well written game shouldn't crash when the data is corrupt, but oh my, it's the games industry. I'm in games for 6 years, now, and man, I'm telling you, most of the games out there have the code bases you can think of, so I'm not surprised at all that the game relies on something in the model file which is corrupt, wrong, or missing. Just out of my experience - a few ideas:

- the pants that you exported back to .variant_part_mesh, does it load correctly again, when you reimport it into milkshape?
- I guess it was a type 1 model (should ask you for a reference skeleton on import). Is it a type 1 model after reexporting? You can check that if a reimport asks you about a skeleton, again.
- do you preserve all the comments? IIRC, there are no comments on bones or LODs for type 1 models (only the shaders using the model's comments), but check anyways.
- do you have 4 LOD levels? Even after reimporting into ms3d of what you exported?
- is there a locator bone in the original model, that maybe gets lost when passing it through the ETW format? It's those bones iwth the LOC_ - prefixes.
- which one is the original model you started out with?
- the current export plugin doesn't write tangents and bitangents - it writes "0, 0, 0", I think... this might lead to a crash if the code assumes they are always normalized. If so, this would possibly in the shaders. Can you send me a better description/analysis of the crash? Is there a message box? Do you find a log file somewhere in the game directory? Any info would help. Anyways, I would probably wait for the next version, to exclude the tangents potentially being the cause of all this.
- very important: try importing the game's original mesh (the pants you started out with) into milkshape, then export it (unmodified). Does this "unmodified" file crash the game as well? If so, it's definitely a bug on my side...
- a little off-topic, but out of curiosity - how does the stuff that loads correctly, look like? Is the shading wrong, off, too dark, etc.? It should be... I would be surprised, if not.

Once we find what it is, and if it turns out to be due to corrupt data, I might add security checks on export to prevent this from happening again.


For Nightwish:
----------------
Salut, ça va? T'inquiètes, ton anglais n'est pas mauvais!
Anyways, I'll write in english so that others can follow the discussion, as well. Do you have more details about what you did to import/export, etc. and how the result looks like? I don't even have the game, so it's hard for me to imagine what "strange" looks like.
About the status of the plugins - it's operational, it handles every feature that is in the file format, but yes... in your toolchain, you might run into other issues (e.g. the stuff Primergy is facing). We'll see what we can add to make working more convenient... The only hard limitations that still exist, are that tangents and binormals are written incorrectly. Besides that... well, there might be bugs, of course, but nothing else that's missing.


In general:
-------------
I'll hopefully get around getting the tangents ready, next week. We'll see - I'm crossing my fingers to get some free time.
Would be cool to get a few screenshots of what's working and what's not.

@+

[kungfuserge]

canceled

[Primergy]

Yes, i kinda feared that this is gonna be a problem with other export/import plugins, and, unfortunately, we are a bit out of luck, here. There is simply no decent way I can think of to preserve some of the data that is in the file formats, other than using those user data strings in milkshape

Would it be possible to store the all inforamtions in one comment box? At the moment all Comments for the Bone orders are seperate, which makes it hard to rewrite the information (since it's 40 bones or so). When stored in one comment it would reduce it to a simple copy&paste operation (when possible)

- the pants that you exported back to .variant_part_mesh, does it load correctly again, when you reimport it into milkshape?

Nope it doesn't (i think because UU3D mirrors everything from left to right), but this wasn't a problem with the jacket either. But i will try to write the comments for the bones, later.

- which one is the original model you started out with?

None, i did everything by sratch. But i will try it with a vanilla model, too (later)

It would be interesting to know (from the more experienced members with the ntw format) if there are any restrictions regarding adding new atlas entries and model parts, maybe i did something wrong on this side.

[T.C.]

Hi,

funny that the forum replaced "" with that love-smiley.

And guys, it would save me some time, to be honest, if you would actually
read through the thread, as many of the new questions have been answered,
already.

Ayways, for kungfuserge:
-----------------------
I'm not TC, TC is only posting my mails. I'm German, but spent a few years
in France (Strasbourg, to be precise, which I miss a lot)... and about
your question - that's weird, that it crashes. What do you do,
step-by-step? Do you use the latest beta?
The wrong placements usually come from the attachment bones, which don't
seem to be preserved (thats the indices in the comments-boxes). What's
your workflow?

For Primergy:
-------------
Putting everything in one comment box would be possible, but messy in its
own way, and just more error prone - you would be able to create ambiguous
assignments, wrong bone names, remappings that don't exist, etc.. The idea
is simple, as we depend on comments in some areas, to use comments
everywhere, but yes, I can see the overhead.
I think about remapping the bone order to a skeleton that you can select
on export - this would probably solve the most annoying issues, but you'd
still have to preserve the equipment's comments, as they store the full
names of the items, etc..

All in all, MS3D was probably a bad idea, although many of these issues
would show up in other tools as well, in different flavors. E.g. where to
put the shader parameters in blender? On the material - ok, but there's
million ways to do that. Then there will be other conventions, etc.

I rather think of adding other plugins to milkshape (under Tools) that
make life easier... e.g. "rematch NTW skeleton", or stuff like that.

another idea for Primergy's debugging:
- make sure you filter out weird data or non-manifolds in your CG tool. My
exporter just writes what you have in milkshape, but I don't know if NTW
can handle strange data... e.g. if you have collapsed triangles (the
3dsmax teapot actually has (!)), meaning a triangle with the same vertex
at 2 corners, or stuff like that, adjacency computations the game might do
on loading will fail and are probably not handled.

[Primergy]

As requested here a pic of a new model + texture. It's a bit darker then it should, but thats mainly because the lightning i assume. The missing tangents/normals doesn't seam to make to much problems?

I think about remapping the bone order to a skeleton that you can select
on export - this would probably solve the most annoying issues, but you'd
still have to preserve the equipment's comments, as they store the full
names of the items, etc..

I think that would be the best solution so far if it doesn't take up to much of your freetime.

[T.C.]

> Sweet!
> About the tangents... they are nowadays used for many funky things you can
> do in the shaders, however, as this game has to keep the eye-candy count
> low as it is focusing an a truckload of entities, etc., I guess that they
> are manily/solely used for normal mapping. From looking at the textures
> that are in the packfile, I don't see a whole lot else that would indicate
> otherwise. So... you will probably have wrong/corrupt bump mapping, but
> it's good to see that it's not blocking you from seeing if the new units
> are correct in the game.
>
> Good work! Just out of curiosity - what type of unit is that? Doesn't look
> like yankees or rebels?

[izzi]

Where do i have to put those 2 dll files?
In the milkshape directory?
So then you can open the model and use them in empire tw?

[Primergy]

Where do i have to put those 2 dll files?
In the milkshape directory?
So then you can open the model and use them in empire tw?

1.) Yes
2.) No, you still have to edit them somewhat so they are compatible with etw... like rearranging the UV's.

[T.C.]

So then you can open the model

Yes, but you need to use the import option.

[♔hammeredalways♔]

Hi izzi - follow the steps TC and Primergy have said they making excellent progress

[B-DizL]

So once the plugin is all done can we expect a tutorial

[kungfuserge]

cancelled

[izzi]

Hi izzi - follow the steps TC and Primergy have said they making excellent progress

Thanks,the only thing now i need is something like a tutorial how to make units in etw and retexture them.
Thanks for it

[Primergy]

About the equipment stuff


1) - Ms3d Crashes 50% of the time upon saving the files
when it doesn't ; the names are trunckaded lod1; lod2 or rigid 1 ; rigid2 etc .... instead of the real names , which makes it impossible to bring it in game

2) The "file" when it saved doesn't weight the same as the original one , information are lost in the middle

I hope you could make it more stable ...

What did you edit/add? Did you add all necessary comments?

[♔hammeredalways♔]

Thanks,the only thing now i need is something like a tutorial how to make units in etw and retexture them.
Thanks for it

I think once the tool is finalised something could be cobbled together, but the tool has to completed first.

[kungfuserge]

I just open the file ( do not change anything) ; and save it under another name ; and than check the original with the new one ;

well the all names are changed ; and the weight is different ;

so what comments to the models are supposed to be added ?

[Primergy]

Propaply an outdated version? export and reimport of the vanilla equipment works fine for me.

[kungfuserge]

cancelled