Special Aircraft Service

The SAS Factory - Tech Help, Ancient Mods etc. => Tech Help : Making Mods => Tech Help (other than BAT or IL-2 Great Battles) => Modder's Tutorials => Topic started by: western0221 on December 20, 2011, 08:44:08 AM

Title: ships MODS making general Q and A
Post by: western0221 on December 20, 2011, 08:44:08 AM
For ships MODS makers!

General Q and A topic!!

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1,What kind of ploy size is ok for a big ship like this in IL2?

1 ship can have 255 parts.
1 parts can have about 2800 polygons.
But for low power PC players, under 1000 polygons in 1 part is better.

"A part", it is counted at "damaged" replacing one, too.

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2, How are things to be named and grouped?

Hull(Body) is divided 3 parts. From its bow 1/3 is "Hull1", center 1/3 is "Hull2", and from its stern 1/3 "Hull3".
Flight deck is devided 3 parts, too. Named "DeckN" / "DeckC" / "DeckT". These deck parts are better to divided  at Hull1/2/3 separating points.

Bridge is a super structure. named "SST".
If you want to divide a super structure into 2 or 3 by floors or front/rear, usually named "SSA" / "SSB" / "SSC"...

A chimney is named "Stack", or "Stack1" / "Stack2" / "Stack3" / "Stack4".

A cannon or A machine gun is divided and named by 2 parts.
"HeadXX"(XX=numbers) , this is a turret rotating left/right.
"GunXX"(XX=numbers, same of its parental HeadXX), this is a gun barrel aiming up/down.
GunXX has a Hook to fire , named "ShellStartXX". This ShellStartXX is used in ships.ini.

Some machine guns "small" ones' HeadXX and GunXX are named with suffix "_x", like "Head10_x" / "Gun10_x".
This "_x" suffix parts disappear when bombed or damaged. After... only smoking.

At Hull/Deck/big cannons, "damaged-able" parts, child parts with suffix "_dmg" is replaced when damaged.
"Hull1" 's child is "Hull1_dmg".
"_dmg" parts are written with an attribute "Hidden" in Hier.him.

"Hull2" has usually these Hooks, "_Nose", "_Center", "_Left", "_Right" and "_Prop" , these 5 Hooks show wakes on sea.
"Hull2" has also "Vapor" or  "Vapor1"/"Vapor2"/"Vapor3"... Hooks, this is smoke from Stacks.   

At only Carrier (CV) has these Hooks.
"_RWY_LDG" , "_RWY_TO" , "_TOW00a" with "_TOW00b", "_TOW01a" with "_TOW01b", other "_TOWxxa" with "_TOWxxb", 6 _LPark-s "_LPark00" to "_LPark05", and 6 _Park-s "_Park00" to "_Park05".
"_RWY_LDG", this is landing point and vector of flight deck for AI landing.
"_RWY_TO", this is a spawn height and vector of flight deck when a Mission starts.
"_TOWxxa" with "_TOWxxb", these are arresting wire set. 1 pare is 1 wire.
"_LParkXX", these 6 Hooks are marking parking area after landing.
"_Park", these 6 Hooks are marking spawning area  when a Mission starts.

So, only Carrier (CV) has these special part.
"ShdwRcv0", "ShdwRcv1"... these "ShdwRcvX" show us shadow of planes.

Other parts have no rule at naming. free but better to read/understand myself.

You can see many parts names and Hooks in my "Shokaku/Zuikaku repaint MOD".
This MOD is base on default Daidalos's Shokaku CV.

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3, what size should the BMP be?

We have to use "TGA" instead of BMP.
TGA's XY pixels size are usually 1024x1024. But for small texture, 512x512 or 256x256 both are able.
At simple color material, 64x64 or 32x32 are able.
Alpha channel is optional (useable).
And to compress texture size, we can use 256 index colors TGA.
"RLE compress" is disable to use.
Multi-layers TGA, this is IL-2 1946 can use right, but many graphic applications can't read. Single layer TGA is better.
When you want to give someone multi-layers texture, PhotoShop's .psd or GIMP .xcf is usable.

Optional, 2048x512 size texture is usable.
1Mega pixels is limit of a texture.

4. I can use only 1 texture?
We can use multi textures and limit numbers of textures is none.
Many textutes you need, you can use.
But too many textures of 1Mega pixels, MOD folder size will be heavy. With considering total folder size and visual details.

5. modeling XYZ axis
bow to X plus, sturn to X minus.
portside to Y plus, starboardside to Y minnus.
up to Z plus, down to Z minus.
We can rotate all the object finally, but misaligning usually occurs in rotating.
So, starting in this axis is better.

6. "Gun" axis
If you use "Gun" , I said.
"Gun" has to be rotate +90 degrees around X.
If you plan to use Buggy Buggy Expoter, you have to set "Gun" object +90 deg at looking.
If you plan to use Maraz Expoter with Max9, you can set "Gun" 's pivot rotating -90 deg around X, this is same affection in IL-2 1946 and you can set "Gun" in 3ds Max as same as in real world looking.

7. "ShellStart" hook
"Gun" has "ShellStart" hook.
This is used in ships.ini to start firing to an enemy.
This "ShellStart" hook axis is world axis, not "Gun" axis.

When you have another question, not written here, go to this topic and ask us.
https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,18486.0.html