Guys, we have some progress.

We have 3D scenes importer now (mostly working) and it means we may import every 3D data we want, not just replace existing objects.



I see no big or medium problems in code changes for complete units replacement or addition of new units with resembling behavior.

The main problem now, as I suppose, is a lack of 3d artists who will create these models in suitable for EE way (every game has its own rules and limitations, you know). I see no activity in this forum regarding this question.

Who will suggest the way to make 3d artists to work on EE? Arneh is the first 3D contributor (and being the first is always the hardest), but even he is not sufficient enough to handle the entire EE.

Maybe there are some problems I don't see? Could you please state them?

Thank you
FireBird

Can 3D models only be created by Lightwave? I'm an experienced user of AutoCAD 2008.

I would very much like to start working on new ground vehicles, new AAA units, new installation types and perhaps a cockpit in the future. I've been using various 3d software for about 8 years and have a lot of experience in 3dsmax. I worked on 10+ new aircraft for Strike Fighters and the Hurricane in Battle of Britain 2 (plus did a heck of a lot of import work).

The main problem stopping me is that I dont have a clue about EECH's 3D format. I have yet to see any document available to modellers that states exactly how a model should be configured to work in EECH. I haven't seen any download for a 3Dsmax plugin, or standalone .exe converter to convert 3D files into EECH's format.

If a simple converter that works with 3dsmax is released and the format information is published with documentation and a simple tutorial that explains the pipeline from 3dsmax to EECH, along with an example model, I'm quite sure modellers will start working.

One thing I think is important to do is re-map most of the helicopters because the uvmapping on them was never designed for 'real texture', just for a camo pattern.

Cheers

That's great!



Have you worked with Lightwave?



Will you write requirements for such document? I can make it, but I need artist's participation to be sure that this document is sane.



No 3DSM plugin yet - only Lightwave is supported for now. Objects converter was available for 1,5 years. Scenes converter and new COHOKUM.EXE is ready to be available.



Will you take a part in documentations compositions?



That feature was possible to implement 1,5 years ago. But it was not. Documentation problem?

A few hours.



I don't own a copy of lightwave and it's not a hugely popular piece of software in the flight sim 3d modelling arena.



I am not so suprised. If the only way to convert into EECH's 3D format is with Lightwave, I think you will have a very tough time getting modellers interested in working on EECH.

Is there no chance for a stand alone converter that can take a common format (.ASE/.3DS/.OBJ)? This kind of converter would attract the widest audience of modellers.

Cheers

As for .obj and other object formats, there are a lot of free converters from/to .lwo.

Scenes are the different thing.

What part of the scene does EECH actually require? Lights? Cameras? Helpers?

The correct answer is "the entire scene".
Subobjects hierarchy, lods, animations, subobjects' labels, collision flags, lights, cameras...

EE's internal representation of 3D resembles Lightwave formats closely. It is possible to create 3DSM export plugin, but I have no experience in it at all. At least I need to know how all of the used Lightwave features can be implemented in 3DSM.

For several years now all the homemade maps have been using only a portion of one of the original tree objects. The canopy part of the tree object is not being used because it doesn't look good. The way it was eliminated was by substituting the texture with one that is invisible (not a good way to eliminate something that isn't being used).

Here is what the tree object looks like. The black is what you see on a homemade map. The red is what isn't being used because the texture for it is 100% transparent. The canopy (red) looks like a square at a distance and then when you get close it turns into the canopy shape. I count 16 or 18 polygons for that canopy, that isn't being used, versus 2 polygons for the visible part. If a tree is tall there may be several of the canopies at different levels. Even though you don't see the canopy I would guess that all the scaling, rotation, and whatever is still being done by possibly the cpu. If all that work could be stopped I hope you would get a significant increase in fps. We could have a lot more trees and more dense clusters.







The texture names are GREY_TERRAIN_TREE_CROSS.dds (the black part) and GREY_TERRAIN_TREE_OBJECT.dds (the red part).

Are those two objects somehow connected? How hard would it be to eliminate the GREY_TERRAIN_TREE_OBJECT from the game?

So, I'd like to present the way of how to solve such problems.

First of all you need 3D Exporter. Use it and you get a lot of objects and scenes.


Then, we need to find objects (lwo) that use GREY_TERRAIN_TREE_* textures. Textures names are saved as plain text, so...


...we've got three objects. Let's look at them.



Looks like we've found correct ones.
Let's now find the scene that holds these objects. Lws files are plaintext, so...


We've found one. Let's look at it.

The scene with one object (the tree). How are other two used?

So, they are lods for original one.

Thus, we have three ways to solve trees' problem.
The first is to replace textures.
The second is to replace objects.
The third is to replace the scene.

And every of these is possible now.

Hey Craig,

I`ve already worked on this and stripped the tree objects of the canopies last year. Remember You showed me and Kassie those pics ? Together with the render-tree-shadows-switch my work build shows definite fps increase so trees aren`t such fps killers anymore.
But with all the latest changes I won`t be able to incorporate them into the next release due to format changes and me unable to run a compiled version now.

Funny but I just send arneh my files before some minutes... coincidence ? Maybe he can incorporate them if he finds the time.

The objects are still LODed though, if we can bug that out fps may even more increase, dunno.

For anyone who want`s to try the lwo2eeo conversion here are the 2-plane-tree files: rightclick and save me then rename to zip...

So thanks for the hints You shot us last year and no, it wasn`t useless ;-)
It´s working with me and hoefully will make it into the next version.

That feature was possible to implement 1,5 years ago. But it was not. Documentation problem?

Word, although I didn`t even thought about re-mapping them. Just to have the texture rotated correctly would`ve been enough for me. But I didn`t manage to do this in LW yet. Sounds so simple but couldn`t find where to rotate this ?
Gave up on this and did some coding instead...

Wow! Thanks for the super tutorial with pictures.

I know nothing about 3d modeling so I'm guessing that the scene is composed of the three objects and the other stuff mentioned?

So, I could change all three objects 2167, 2168 and 2169 so they only consist of two squares in the cross configuration? And, I need Lightwave to do that?

Or, I could change the scene to consist of only one object that would be the two squares?

And, EECH is written so changes in the scaling, rotation, rendering, etc. will change in accordance with the object changes?

This scene consists of one object. It's 2167 - you see it in objects list (the last screenshot but one).
But that object has two additional Levels-of-Detail (LOD) (the last screenshot). It's much like mipmapping for textures.
They are used farther then 100 and 300 meters respectively.



If you want to _change_ them, you need .lwo editor. I know Blender also supports .lwo files. And many of other tools. But you can totally _replace_ them with completely new object (it's like editing of existing texture vs replacing with completely new). For example, you can use a tank body Or just a small segment of line. Or (maybe, not sure), totally empty object. And it is possible for 1,5 years.

But now you can edit the scene. You can remove the object from the scene, so, the scene will have no objects at all. Or it may have both tank's and bmp's bodies under pink umbrella. Or something



Those operations are executed under polygons. Polygons are taken from objects. Objects are taken from scenes. List of scenes is the list of game entities, composed in runtime.
Modifying ANY in this list will affect the result.

Okay, thanks, that makes sense. It sounds like I only need to replace the 2167 scene with a single object that is two square polygons crossed like the black part of the pictures above. Eight points total. I don't want any levels_of_detail. That's what I want to get rid of.



So I don't need a 3d editor I just need to know how to make my object which is almost the simplest object possible (about as complex as a cube). If I knew the file format I could do it with a hex editor maybe or write a simple C program to do it? I'm guessing I need a list of eight 3d points referenced from (0,0,0) in the center. Maybe two points where the lines intersect. Ten points total.

If I understand this correctly then, D'oh! I should have done it 1.5 years ago.

As GCsDriver mentioned he has already made that change, so no need to duplicate the work, even if it's easy

D'oh! Sorry GCsDriver I missed your post and such a good post to miss too. That is super. I remember you found how to turn off the shadows but I missed any reference to progress with the tree model.

That's great I don't have to do it! I might not be able to figure it out. It sounds like fun but I already have plenty to do for several years.

I don't quite understand the LODing thing but I'll take your word for it. You're way ahead of me.

What I don't understand now is if there is only a single object, what would the LODing be doing? I've been studying 3D Modeling for a couple of hours now and it sounds like the LODing will go away by virtue of the fact that your new tree object is a simple single object with no LOD parameters? I don't know what I'm talking about though really.

Anyway, thanks a lot for working on that. It sounds cool that it is making a worthwhile difference.

And thanks Arneh for pointing out what I missed. Who knows how long I might have been wandering around in the dark.

From what I saw the LODs are described in the scene files. In each scene where one tree object is mentioned the corresponding other LODed objects are also included. Think that is what Firebird meant. There are no actual LOD-sub-objects in a LW object file.

As I haven`t messed with scenes yet the LODing would still occur ingame.
You can try the modded objects for the current exe (1.9.0) if You like.
rightclick me and save... then rename to zip.
Copy the OBJECTS folder directly into "cohokum/3ddata/" and they will automatically get imported on next startup. The old orignal files are included as well in ORIG OBJECTS.

I counted fps with the ingame counter only but there was definite rise, around 5 fps for the models and the no-shadow-switch each. This was on Alaska with the 8 MB dense forest files from Kassie on my old 2 GHz machine with GF4 card.

Okay, thanks a lot. So the LODing will still occur but all three levels of detail will be the same with your new objects?

Do you know of a free 3d editor I can use to look at these new objects? Maybe that will help with the mental block I'm having.

Thanks for the objects. Can I try your 1.9.0 executable with the shadows removed too? I'm a bit greedy.

Blender is a free 3D modeller which can read/write LWO objects (as well as many other formats).

Unless you mean viewing the EEO files. Those are specific to EECH and can only be viewed inside the sim.