Problems with normals

FlyingAce · Post by **FlyingAce** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 10:54 pm

I've been making this Intrepid class model and ran into some problems with normals. In this picture you can clearly see the inset windows in the hull.

In theese pictures you can see how the normals being off make it look like it just escaped from a romulan warbird. (ignore the yellow in the in-game picture)

Is there any way I can adjust the normals to make this not happen?

scheherazade · Post by **scheherazade** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 11:46 pm

this is because normals are being averaged.
i.e. smoothed.

you need to have a variable in the exporter that is a max-angle.

so for example, you can set 45 degrees as the limit of smoothing.

any angles above 45 will not be smoothed (sharp edges between polys), and ones below will be smoothed (averaged at verteices between their 2 respective surface normals).

then you'd just have to play with your export settings to get the optimal effect per normal.

THOUGH. another solution would be smoothe groups.
if the exporter could read smoothe groups from the model, and export appropriately, then you could just put each niche into its own smoothe group, separate from the hull, and the borders/normals of smoothe groups would not be averaged.

pontiac < is this possible in your exporter?

-scheherazade

FlyingAce · Post by **FlyingAce** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 12:07 am

I found a workaround by surrounding the inset area with edges which confines the undesired effect within the surrounded area, however this increses poly count.

scheherazade · Post by **scheherazade** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 12:27 am

you could also make all the niches another [one] object.

-scheherazade

Post by **hellcatv** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 1:33 am

wow that's totally sweet

Do you think you could make the promethius as well?

you'd have to make that 1 unit with 2 subunits--then I can make the AI do the whole multi Vector Attack mode

lemme know if you're up to it after you texture this one

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 1:41 am

I love it. Perhaps this could be used in the Trek mod... ?

I don't really know how you did the windows in wings, but couldn't you just tesselate the poly with the window in it?

I've done some wiki work for Vega Trek, including a list of ships completed and a wish list.

http://www.joeredcloud.com/kandarwiki/i ... dsVegaTrek

FlyingAce · Post by **FlyingAce** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 3:08 am

I just took a few screenies with blue glow added. I'll get them up as soon as possible. By the way, since the intrepid has 13 phaser banks pointing in all different directions, would it be possible to make it so that only those ones that are autotracking fire? would it also be possible to let autotracking point at larger angles?

Post by **hellcatv** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 5:05 am

yes that's possible...

just add an AUTOTRACKING flag--I can change the code so that you can fire only auto ones....

then you can change teh trackingcone in the radar tag to make the cone wider

1 is very thin
-1 is 360

you can make the mounts face at any angle

does that help?

FlyingAce · Post by **FlyingAce** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 5:18 am

yes very much. thx

pontiac · Post by **pontiac** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 6:49 pm

FlyingAce wrote:I found a workaround by surrounding the inset area with edges which confines the undesired effect within the surrounded area, however this increses poly count.

Just select the window edges (only the outer four ones=the window-frame) then select
right mouse button -> hardness -> hard
This should fix the effect in wings, but i don't know how it will be exported.
Could you please test it?

Pontiac

PS: maybe additionally faltening the surounding faces will help too.

pontiac · Post by **pontiac** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 6:54 pm

hellcatv wrote:just add an AUTOTRACKING flag--I can change the code so that you can fire only auto ones....

See here:
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... =5110#5110

Pontiac

FlyingAce · Post by **FlyingAce** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 8:47 pm

hi all. I've been grounded from comp for last week so I haven't been able to do anything.

@hellcatV: how do you make subunits
@PeteyG: yes, you can use this in the mod
@Pontiac: no, when u export hardened edges, it doesn't work in game.

here's my textured intrepid model:

any suggestions? improvements? etc?

by the way, if you notice on the picture of the underside, the phaser banks have a certian face that doesn't appear in wings but does appear in VS. it's the one that makes them look like a half moon instead of a strip. can anyone give suggestions?

pontiac · Post by **pontiac** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 9:30 pm

FlyingAce wrote:@Pontiac: no, when u export hardened edges, it doesn't work in game.

That isn't good

by the way, if you notice on the picture of the underside, the phaser banks have a certian face that doesn't appear in wings but does appear in VS. it's the one that makes them look like a half moon instead of a strip. can anyone give suggestions?

Is there a more than 3 sided poly in this area?

scheherazade wrote:so for example, you can set 45 degrees as the limit of smoothing.

any angles above 45 will not be smoothed (sharp edges between polys), and ones below will be smoothed (averaged at verteices between their 2 respective surface normals).

then you'd just have to play with your export settings to get the optimal effect per normal.

.....................

pontiac < is this possible in your exporter?

Sure it is possible, but who ast the time and knowledge to do it

I will look into the other export plugins how they do it, and i will have a look into the way the hard edges are handled ... we will see.
Pontiac

pontiac · Post by **pontiac** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 9:52 pm

@hellcat: how does VS handle points without normal values?

Pontiac

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 5:55 am

I know that you can get some warped textures if you screw around with how a quadrilateral is shaped after it's been textured. Maybe that's what is going on.

It's looking great! You've got some great detailing on the texture. I might recommend adding texture to the blank hull areas, and possibly lowering the contrast to make the windows look a bit less prominent.

I can't wait to get my hands on a copy of the model. : )

Post by **hellcatv** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 6:23 am

well you should make subunits using the wing3d plugin....
that way you can choose the facing and stuff
the actual xml looks like
<Subunit file="filename" x="242" y="2352" z="24" ri=".1" rj=".8" rk=".2" pi="0" rj="0" rk="1"/>

make sure PeteyG gets a copy of the mdoel so he can put it into the vega-trek mod...maybe soon we can see some promethius action as well--fantastic

my big suggestion is to make a specular map....

texture0="yourfile" texture1="specmap.png" ....

also a damagemap (texture2) would be sweet

FlyingAce · Post by **FlyingAce** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 3:48 pm

I just checked out some pics of the prometheus. IT'S COOL

by the way, I think it would be cool to make the galaxy separate too. whad'ya think PeteyG?

pontiac · Post by **pontiac** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 5:15 pm

hellcatv wrote:my big suggestion is to make a specular map....

texture0="yourfile" texture1="specmap.png" ....

also a damagemap (texture2) would be sweet

Is texture0 supported in older versions of VS? (especially VS3.x)
Because if it has change the howtois outdated.
I would really like to update it, but i must know how exactly it was in 3.x (because of legacy supoport

)and how it is in now (4.x).

Pontiac

Post by **hellcatv** » Thu Jun 12, 2003 5:37 am

I think it is supported.... :_)

pontiac · Post by **pontiac** » Thu Jun 12, 2003 3:43 pm

hellcatv wrote:I think it is supported.... :_)

Just updated the mesh-site.
I hope this is correct/complete now?

Pontiac

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Fri Jun 13, 2003 3:38 am

FlyingAce wrote:I just checked out some pics of the prometheus. IT'S COOL by the way, I think it would be cool to make the galaxy separate too. whad'ya think PeteyG?

The Prometheus IS cool. I'll put it on the 'be sure to do later' list. Gotta get the other stuff working right, though.

How do you mean make the galaxy separate?

FlyingAce · Post by **FlyingAce** » Fri Jun 13, 2003 5:27 am

the galaxy can separate it's saucer section from the rest of it like the promethius.

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Fri Jun 13, 2003 5:50 am

ahhh! of course! I think that doing the Galaxy this way would be the first step towards doing the Prometheus.

Hellcatv said there was some code stuff that should be put in before this will work. I suggest holding off on this project until the Trek mod is a bit more complete, though.

Grusifix · Post by **Grusifix** » Fri Jun 13, 2003 9:36 am

PeteyG wrote:ahhh! of course! I think that doing the Galaxy this way would be the first step towards doing the Prometheus.

Hellcatv said there was some code stuff that should be put in before this will work. I suggest holding off on this project until the Trek mod is a bit more complete, though.

I think this could be used in "normal" VS. I'm thinking that space-truck-ship. You could just dump the cargo containers when under attack.

FlyingAce · Post by **FlyingAce** » Fri Jun 13, 2003 4:08 pm

PeteyG, I've been trying to contact u about sending the Intrepid. I've IM'ed u I've private messaged u and u ahven't responded. How can I contact u?