Note to mraah re 251/22 Pak40 mod

[spellir74]

Mraah,

It worked! Bodies (guns etc) as turrets!

Thank you!![&o]

Finally can clear out my road block log jam that got bottled up behind that 251/22 snag. (My head was spinning with folders of other mods I was working on, on the side.) I want to move on to the next aspect of this project.

-----
Screen shot follows...

Just a portion of what is done. These here are mostly the winter and 'D' versions.

And they aren't done yet.

Skins need tweaking. 'D' hull models need tweak (they still won't be perfect for this release). The new turrets seem to have light and shadow reversed compared to the hulls. These new gun versions demand new crews but that is another layer to this project that I don't know_yet_.

(Also, note I took The Mraah 76mm Sherman ('emcha') and made a 75 mm model for the stock XML, but it is bugged (fixable but I don't know how).)

[Mraah]

spellir74,

Great !!! Very well done.

Yes, I can see that your work is still in progress [;)].

Did you get everything done via FragM or did you go through MS3D ?

If you get a chance, give us a step-by-step in case you did or found anything that wasn't mentioned before.

Thanks,

Rob

EDIT NOTE : By the way ... If you want, you can have my Whirbelwind prototype if you want to finish it, I don't mind at all. You seem to have been bitten by the modelling bug.

[Mraah]

spellir74,

I forgot to add these comments ....

If you want to make a new 250/10 then, please, do so. I made the turret (pak36) the old fashion way in MS3D so it may not have all the appropriate parts. Besides, you mentioned the "crew" issue and it still has the mg34 sticking out from the bodyX.

Anyway, all my modded work (what very little it's been) that I release is up for grabs if anyone wants to make a better version. It's not my model anyhow since it's adhoc Pck parts mish-mashed together [:)] . I feel that your new modded vehicles will have more detail .

Oh .... I have an idea to run across to you ... It's regarding the 360 degree MG34 ...

Ok ... If you want to make a 360 degree, rear mount MG34 you'll have to make the MG + tankcommander inside the turret X file. In this case, you'll need to put the main gun mesh and bones into the body X file.

Make sense? ... So, if the 250 or 251 becomes immobilzed it can still protect itself with a 360 degree rotaing MG34. Remember, the main gun uses firingpoint_01 whilst the MG34 uses the firingpoint_02 .... These cannot be swapped. The MG34 sound is wired into the firingpoint_02 .

Rob

[spellir74]

ORIGINAL: Mraah

spellir74,

Great !!! Very well done.

Yes, I can see that your work is still in progress [;)].

Did you get everything done via FragM or did you go through MS3D ?

All FragM.

If you get a chance, give us a step-by-step in case you did or found anything that wasn't mentioned before.

EDIT: See my "Tutor, FrgM:..." here in the mods forum.

Thanks,

Rob

EDIT NOTE : By the way ... If you want, you can have my Whirbelwind prototype if you want to finish it, I don't mind at
all. You seem to have been bitten by the modelling bug.

I'm still swamped with quasi understood projects. I am going to take quick diversion, before continuing with the Halb Ketten, to create proper 221 recons since I started them and failed miserably, pulling others down with me. Then I have PzIIs completing in the cue.

Also I don't know enough about AA to know what has to be done. Meaning it would have to be a research project too on top of Noob R us modeling.

[spellir74]

BTW, Mraah I didn't mean to use a small M in the thread header.

[spellir74]

ORIGINAL: Mraah

spellir74,

I forgot to add these comments ....

If you want to make a new 250/10 then, please, do so.

Thanks.

I made the turret (pak36) the old fashion way in MS3D so it may not have all the appropriate parts.

...Besides, you mentioned the "crew" issue and it still has the mg34 sticking out from the bodyX.

My new hulls --and the Stock A-C hulls I modded-- don't have MGs. I apply MGs, when needed, as a gun turret.

Anyway, all my modded work (what very little it's been) that I release is up for grabs if anyone wants to make a better version. It's not my model anyhow since it's adhoc Pck parts mish-mashed together [:)] .

Me too.

I feel that your new modded vehicles will have more detail.

I intend on adding the missing parts to the 251/10 gun.

Oh .... I have an idea to run across to you ... It's regarding the 360 degree MG34 ...

Ok ... If you want to make a 360 degree, rear mount MG34 you'll have to make the MG + tankcommander inside the turret X file. In this case, you'll need to put the main gun mesh and bones into the body X file.

Make sense? ... So, if the 250 or 251 becomes immobilzed it can still protect itself with a 360 degree rotaing MG34. Remember, the main gun uses firingpoint_01 whilst the MG34 uses the firingpoint_02 .... These cannot be swapped. The MG34 sound is wired into the firingpoint_02 .

Rob

[Mobius]

You are going to have to have Erik finalize the point cost of these.  I don't know what his formula is.  I just eyeball the points for any new model changes I make.

[spellir74]

ORIGINAL: Mobius

You are going to have to have Erik finalize the point cost of these.  I don't know what his formula is.  I just eyeball the points for any new model changes I make.

Yes.

My tentatives are...

[spellir74]

There is also a Wurfrahmen off map unit and gun for this WIP, FYI.

[Mraah]

ORIGINAL: spellir74
(Big request my friend. I'm not at my computer with the prog.)

==NOW HERE IS WHAT YOU ALL WANT==

Thanks for your explaination [:)].
I'll have to see if my Panzershrek model can handle this proceedure.

The problem with doing it this way for the soldier animation is :

.export to .X using Stridor's settings.

.run through Stridor's fMF.

The panzershrek model exported as a TEXT file makes the file size 2.9 Mb !

Works great for small X file sizes.

Still ... I haven't given up hope.

Rob

[spellir74]

ORIGINAL: Mraah

ORIGINAL: spellir74
(Big request my friend. I'm not at my computer with the prog.)

==NOW HERE IS WHAT YOU ALL WANT==

Thanks for your explaination [:)].
I'll have to see if my Panzershrek model can handle this proceedure.

The problem with doing it this way for the soldier animation is :

.export to .X using Stridor's settings.

.run through Stridor's fMF.

The panzershrek model exported as a TEXT file makes the file size 2.9 Mb !

Works great for small X file sizes.

Still ... I haven't given up hope.

Rob

I'm trying to do a better tutorial.

--------
Yes file size is huge. From 45k up to 255K for no reason! I thought I was doing something screwy.

It is frag motion itself, unfortunately.

This is a job for the Stridor-batsignal...

[Mraah]

ORIGINAL: spellir74
Yes file size is huge. From 45k up to 255K for no reason! I thought I was doing something screwy.

It is frag motion itself, unfortunately.

This is a job for the Stridor-batsignal...

It's not anything we're doing or a program is doing .... Text characters are natural byte hogs [:(] ... That's why it's more efficent to compress to binary.

I don't think Stridor has the time to make an app that converts it back to compressed binary ...

On the hand, he does have his konvix program but I dunno ... nobody (other than stridor) can get it to work. Besides, I don't evn know if it can convert text->binary.

No worries about making a better tutorial ... the good news was that you got it to work!

Rob

[Dean J]

You can always use the DirectX Mesh Viewer that I mentioned in another post.  With it, you have the option to save your mesh in Text, Binary or Binary Compressed format.  Therefore, once you've finished with the model and want to upload it, you run it through the Mesh Viewer first.  Just a thought.

-Dean

[Stridor]

ORIGINAL: Mraah

ORIGINAL: spellir74
Yes file size is huge. From 45k up to 255K for no reason! I thought I was doing something screwy.

It is frag motion itself, unfortunately.

This is a job for the Stridor-batsignal...

It's not anything we're doing or a program is doing .... Text characters are natural byte hogs [:(] ... That's why it's more efficent to compress to binary.

I don't think Stridor has the time to make an app that converts it back to compressed binary ...

On the hand, he does have his konvix program but I dunno ... nobody (other than stridor) can get it to work. Besides, I don't evn know if it can convert text->binary.

No worries about making a better tutorial ... the good news was that you got it to work!

Rob

[:D]

Konvix can convert to compressed. In fact I batch compressed and fixed all the game models lighting issues (not vehicles or men just the map stuff) and saved ~100MB! - This is coming in the next PCK patch.

I wrote Konvix in c# .net3.5 with -dx10 support built in (I was writing in vista), and then (cough cough) unfortunately lost the source [:@]. So this means that in order to add new stuff to Konvix I will need to rewrite it from scratch [:@][:@][:@]. I doubt that will happen somehow.

So I can't do a new compile with a dx9 switch for XP.

If ever in the future you run PCK on Vista/7 with Dx10 hardware and .Net3.5 then it will work.

That is one of the big problems with MS's new managed code route, so many god damn dependencies. This is why I anticipate than in the future virtualization will come to the desktop like it has come to the server space, it just solves so many problems (an as a bonus doesn't cause any new ones!)

Regards

S.

[Stridor]

ORIGINAL: Dean J

You can always use the DirectX Mesh Viewer that I mentioned in another post.  With it, you have the option to save your mesh in Text, Binary or Binary Compressed format.  Therefore, once you've finished with the model and want to upload it, you run it through the Mesh Viewer first.  Just a thought.

-Dean

Yeah that is a good idea, I am sure there are loads of other programs out there that will do it for you as well.

Regards

S.