I just downloaded the Maya Personal learning edition and the the silent storm plugins don't work with it. Does this mean to mod S2 a $30.00 game I need to spend $1000.00 to mod it?

I keep running into this dumb problem in all the games I want to mod.

If you got any version > 6,5 - you are out of luck, I am afraid .

What are you trying to create, Julius_Sneezer , if you don't mind sharing?


Blunter

Everything ...eventually. I want to start small and work my way up. Start maybe changing textures, then create new objects then new animations eventually. I still have alot to learn in 3D modelling about the exact process Nival used to create their models. I think they used one of these methods for example creating the object-vehicles for instance;

1.) High polygon model, then uv the the render, then low polygon model,then attach the high skin to the low polygon model to create the illusion of better shading etc.

2.) Used photographs of objects then uv put on low polygon models.

XSI just released their new Mod Tool version 6. The older versions didn't allow you to export to common formats. This one does; .obj, .3ds imports and exports are now allowed.
Also I stumbled upon Zmodeler version 2.09. I'am very impressed. It's quite powerful for a free mod tool. I've been spending all my time learning Blender 3D but I need to find out how to master texturing for gaming in particular. I've been researching it but I still more data.
Such as; you know the motorcycles or metal machining tools objects. The material looks like worn metal which is easy but all the edges look worn? What process did they use?

I've also found some amazing texture software;
Mapzone, Bricks n Tiles, Texture Workshop, Imagelys and of course Gimp.

Interesting and... a lot of work...

Good luck!

If you have "Tin Steel" or "Night watch" I believe there is a way of importing their models into the S^2, 3, H&S. I recall someone discussing it on the Nival boards (in Russian, though). Those titles (built using S^ engine) have quite a bit of new stuff in them including new vehicle models (mostly Eastern European makes and some modern weapons)

As for material looking worn, hmm... When I was drawing new skins for the existing in S^2, 3, H&S weapon models and new uniform skins (mostly post-WWII) I primarily manipulated the edge lightness (different shades of gray) + mixing in other colors for additional effects: light blue for shiny spots on steel objects, greenish-yellowish-brownish for various wear, rust and mold effects... It was really a trial and error type of approach... But taking screenies of the existing in the game textures and "studying" them proved to be of great help.

I also found that many seemingly different looking objects and models used the same (or very similar) geometries. The differences were achieved by creating visual illusions via shading and color manipulations. Especially some of the 3D looking details on objects that turn out to be not really 3D upon closer examination...

Are you planning to create any Jeep models by any chance?

Is there some specific plot you are working on? Just curious...

Blunter

Zmodeler cost $53.00 usd, I thought it was free.

I don't want to simply copy models from Night watch. I want to create my own.

I always have a million and one ideas, but I'm slow to get things done these days, I have health problems always slowing me down alot.

One of the thousands of scenarion campaign ideas, and I have literallly thousands. I was trying to be a writer before my health problems. Anyways just one encounter idea was to recreate
a one encounter map similar(not exactly the same) but similar to Jules Vernes story, Lighthouse at the end of the world. They still don't give enought credit to Jules Verne. They stole the idea and modernized it and turned it into a movie... what movie? Die Hard. Jules Verne had an amazing imagination. Have you ever heard of James Bond? Again stolen from Jules Verne.

The model I'm currently working on in 3D is an old iron bridge, common in the 1940's.

Yea! Steampunk is quite influenced by Jules Verne. I love his stories and inventions (hmm.. it just been so long when I have read them... so maybe it's time to read them again). In his mind, he created spaceships, flying machines and submarines before they even exist. He is the world most translated writer.


It's called bump texture.

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/P...and_Normal_Maps

Thanks, Komik .

I did try working with bump textures but found them rather ineffective or to be more precise - not as effective as I wanted them to be in producing to desired effects, unfortunately.

Besides, the usefulness of Bumps in Silent Storm appears to be limited, possibly due to the restricted number of pixels on the screen dedicated to one model, even on higher resolutions
When creating new uniforms, for instance, visually I noticed little to no difference between the models with bumps and with just plain vanilla textures. The same with faces. Actually in most cases Bumps don't add anything visually I can't do by simply applying different colors and shading...

Perhaps certain details on things like weapons (and vehicles) could benefit from bumps since they are generally larger (more pixels on the screen) and stationary in character weapon slots and inventory.


Gotcha! I think I see where you are coming from.

Jules Verne on a S^ platform? That is very original!

Blunter

You've heard of texture generators and procedural texture generators like Mapzone right?
Take a look at this texture generator demo download movie. The entire engine including textures and demo comes in at 178kb!

http://www.theprodukkt.com/debris

http://www.werkkzeug.com/downloads/

Neat! Thanks for the links, Julius.

By the way, here is what I was talking about. my blog Most of the model textures do not include any original bumps, since I modified many of them (thus making them incompatible)...

Blunter

Are you working on a mod Back To Berlin? If so which game S2 S3 H&S? and are you done?

I've been working on my bridge in Blender. I wanted to use the exact same bridge from the movie A Bridge Too Far. The one bridge called the Arnhem bridge. I couldn't find any close detailed photos of that bridge(or Deventer) so I went out and bought the movie(only $10.00). The movie has very closeup detailed pictures needed to create the bridge.

After building one steel girder including rivets, I had a 47000 polygon count! In the actual bridge there is about 1000 rivets per girder. So I reduced the rivets and the girder to lower polygon. Now its only 7900 polygons. I estimate the entire bridge to come to 400,000 polygons. Thats very low for modeling easy enough for my computer and Blender. I had Blender up to 3,500,000 polygons before. I'll just increase it at render time.

I'm going to make several different versions of the bridge; low poly, medium poly, high poly, bump map, normal map. no map etc.

After spending the last nine months studying the Blender documentation I'm finally able to model fairly efficiently and quickly now. Blender is still a pain in the butt though. The gui, ergonomics, modeling tools and limitations cause a pain.

I've tried 17 demo versions of modelling software. 3Dmax and Hexagon I find where my favourites and Silo. I might be temporarily down from the internet for a couple of weeks, financial probs.

Take care Blunter II.

I'm still connected!

Hey Blunter have you played FOT Fallout Tactics? I don't know why many reviewers and others gave this a low rating, I loved this game. The incredible artwork, detail, massive scenarios I thought were great. The bigger the better. You could never make Silent storm scenarios that big, the computer couldn't handle it.

Did you say you were looking for a jeep model?

http://dmi.chez-alice.fr/modelsvehicle1.html

Theres actually several websites that have jeep models. If you don't want to use these I could make one myself. If so, how soon would you need it? I want to finish my Arnhem bridge first.

Well, no, not done, actually far from it. It's a huge mod, with 60+ possible encounters, 10+ factions with their own agendas, rewards and side sub-plots.

Some of the factions are:

-U.S. military intelligence (could be allied with under certain circumstances, provides joinable characters)

-U.S. forces (better be left alone)

-British intelligence (British always know what's going on, well until MOSSAD entered the world arena)

-British forces (better be left alone)

-French intelligence (unclear agenda, strange archeological projects)

-French forces (more antagonistic to the English speaking garrisons)

-Neo-Nazis (lead by former Generalmajor Remer, could be allied with under certain circumstances, openly anti--Jewish and nationalistic, provides joinable characters)

-German Communists (West German,dwindling but desperate due to not being supported by the Soviets and other reasons, provides joinable characters)

-Gehlen Organization (a huge intelligence organization led by former Generalmajor Gehlen, primary adversary)

-Sentinels (yes, a possible come back, not as some silly puppets, provides joinable characters)

-Catholic Church (would have many functions. Some of them are: Rebuilding one's reputation via donations and quests, intelligence gathering,...)

-MOSSAD (Israeli intelligence, hunting Nazi criminals, provides joinable characters)

-Von Hutten bandits (generic bad guys)

-Grimm Bandits (could be a large sun-branch, provides joinable characters)

-Peter Claus (mainly to tie H&S loose ends)
....

It is sort of a continuation of H&S.

The plot picks up shortly after the Captain [insert your hero's name] prevents the WWIII and is loosely based on H&S.

Somewhere around the end of 1949 - beginning of 1950. Several recent operations conducted by the Russian intelligence in East Germany have been complete disasters, Soviet command suspect a leak... A former NKVD/MGB agent, who owes Col.Mikhalev a favor is tasked with "cleaning the house"... Eventually, the clues he picks up and some other strange events lead him to West Berlin. Since the Berlin Wall hadn't been built until 1961, there aren't gonna be any silly suicidal checkpoint crossing (ala H&S' 1st mission) and crossing the border is not going to be such big of an issue, well, not until later...

I plan on using some of the characters the players are already familiar with, such as Lt. Colonel Mikhalev (mihalych) - now promoted to - Col.Mikhalev, possibly the Frenchman Dr. Henry from Zeizenburg slaving away at one of the military hospitals in W.B., perhaps some of the S^3 hirelings (although most of their acks were unfotunately thrown out by Novik & Co. , a few still remain intact), Col. McLeod, Boris, Peter Claus (and/or his brother)...

There is going to be NO Thor's Hammer. I don't think I need a fictional scapegoat

One would start with...familiar stuff: a new character(male), choose a profession, go through the usual customization... Then in a conversation with the Colonel one would choose a second profession resulting in a combination of two ability/skill panels... (anyone familiar with that stuff, don't be shy... I won't burden you with requests to do anything just ask you questions, that's all, unless you volunteer, of course )

I am thinking about making 2 main characters (the 1st one that we create) and the second one - a female intelligence officer who joins up a bit later in the plot progression. Both are essential to the success of the operation (meaning - "she dies - game over")

Well, that's the plan... I haven't done very much with the perk trees and the base values yet, been working on the skins, wall textures, maps, historical research, dialogs (no sound, sorry!) and basic scripting so far...

Any new weapon models, vehicles, characters or objects would be great to add (hint, hint)...but I don't think I'll be tackling it now...



No, I haven't. I'll look it up on the Web.

As for the size, you are right it's hard to do it with S^ engine. On some of my maps 128x128 the frame rate goes down so drastically, it's just horrible .



Good luck with your bridge project and I'll check out the jeeps.

BTW, thank you for the offer , that would be great to have a jeep for Americans for ride around in.

Blunter

Hey, Julius, I checked out that site. Thanks, really neat vehicles! But...>>>

>>>I have no idea how those things can be imported into the editor if at all possible (never dealt with it before ), since the vehicles in the editor require:
- 3 AI geometries (intact, crash01, crash02), or at least 2 (intact and crash)
- 3 Geometries (intact, crash01, crash02), -"-
- Skeleton ID
- and, of course textures and stuff (actually anything that has to do with drawing wouldn't be a problem, imo)...but the rest... ...

Jeep Welis and some of the older 20s-30s sedans are awesome and could definitely be used (and blown up too ).
Just an aside note: I do enjoy modifying the object explosion parameters...even created my own "Very Heavy Explosion" andn assigned it to all the cars in the game...it comes with 5 range and enormous damage. If, by chance, some good old Bedford (military truck) gets blown up not only all of the by-standers are goners but buildings and everything else within range is literally - toast... (talk about overkill...ha...)

Oh, and the file extension for S^ needs to be .mb not .lwo
I don't even know what it all means, necessarily.

Any ideas?

Blunter

Sounds like a pretty big mod, your working on. Mostly adjustments to the current program scripts rather than creating all new 3D models? I have yet to purchase H&S yet. Its nowhere to be purchased here. I have to order it from the internet I think. I liked the demo for H&S, some people said it was impossible, no I did it, I like difficult tactical scenarios.

.lwo is Lightwave. Sounds like you don't know much about 3D modelling yet. Do you know more guides on the models? How many polygons limits for vehicles. From the screenshots I've taken the vehicles look about 700 polygons only. Intact, crash01, crash02, doable.

What about bump map guide specs? There is definitly bump maps in S2, S3, H&S. Try turn off all graphic settings then turn on very high, you'll see the bump maps.

O.k. here is my bridge so far. I kept restarting which slowed me down. Also my lack of knowledge of Blender and I'm slow. This is still rough as you'll notice. Its a little over 200,000 polygons.





Notice what movie its from? " A Bridge Too Far"

Yes it's quite big. When I started I thought of messing around with 3D modelling, but after digging through hundreds and hundreds of models and objects already existing in the game I realized that what I really wanted from S^ was a complex, historically "accurate", branching plot (sort of like in original S^2), where I could role play without being arbitrarily diverted into a dead end (like in H&S), where my quality (individual soldier's effectiveness) was mostly countered by enemies' quantity (player ego boost), and where the fictional or sci-fi elements, if any, would add mystery and fun to the gameplay (instead of being frustrating and throwing the gameplay completely off balance, as it was in the case with panzerkleins for me)


Sorry, Julius, I know close to nothing about 3D modelling .


Of course, there are bumps in S^, plenty of them, actually. I just remove some of them from most of the models I work with since they hardly add anything visually to them anyway.
Some uniforms, for example, have 3 texture files attached:
- texture
- bump
- gloss
Say, we decide to play around with two models, one with all three and the other one with just texture and gloss. Put them on the map and compare them in the game... Well... If there is a difference, it's minimal or none whatsoever. There are probably things in S^ that definitely benefit from bumps, those are just not uniforms .


I didn't watch the movie but your bridge looks impressive.
How are going to import it into the editor though?

Blunter

From what I can determine from the forums, its not possible to add new objects to the Silent series of games; unless you own the $2000.00 full version of Maya. So I guess I won't bother with that area,I'm not going to waste my time. Sounds like the only thing you can mod is the scripts, skins and textures, so I guess I'll focus on that, eventually. Right now I want learn a little bit more about 3D modeling and texturing for my own personal use, regardless of using them in a mod. I like art, architecture, industrial design etc.

I just saw an episode of "Frontiers of Construction". Usually I don't watch that show,since I don't have cable tv. But the episode was on the bridge in Greece, the one that stretches across to Corinth. Holy cow, I love that show! I wonder if I can buy the series on DVD.

As you can see from my bridge model I have alot to learn. Like texturing and rendering still.

Have you tried changing the textures for the walls, ground yet?

There are lots of people on this forum who have changed textures for the walls etc. I pesonally struggled but now i think i know what im doing. Ask around if you need hep with textures theres lots of people who are very knowledgeable.

Sure, I changed some of them.

Their usual size is 64x128.

1) Just open any wall texure in the editor
2) copy screen (Shift + print screen)
3) paste it in any of the paint shops (I usually have a large 1024x1024 file, then crop out the 64x128 wall texute out of it, open a new 64x128 file and paste the croped out texture in there)
4) modify it (change color, add more detail, draw a door, hinges, poster, etc.)
5) save your file as tga (for S^2, S^3) or png (for H&S) in the "Source" folder in the S^2, S^3 or create it first in case of H&S. For H&S editor to import the texture properly I have to flip it vertically/up side down (no idea why )
6) create new texture entry in "Texture" tab of the Editor, specify the the path to your file, enter dx1 and whatever else is needed (check original wall textures for guidance whether you'll require "clamp" or "wrap")
7) right-click the texture entry and press "export" in its menu. The size of the imported texture is automatically determined, so don't worry about it. You should be able to see your texture in the editor now
8) done
.............

9) now it's time to create a material
10) create an entry in the materials tab (preferably identical to the name of the texture entry)
11) consult original walls' material examples to tie the texture you created to the new material
12) create new material. You should be able to see it in the editor.

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

13) Create a dummy wall (in walls tab, if I remember correctly) or use one of the original ones
14) Change one of that wall's materials to yours, temporarily.
15) Go to any map and build that wall (Ctrl + left click)
16) Use the dropper tool to copy the texture
17) paint it on something else (I recommend creating a seperate map with just walls and painting them with any new and old stuff too, that way you wouldn't have to create any new walls - just new textures and materials; and also you'd have all the textures right there ready to be copied and pasted whenver needed)


Some walls or their parts, like arc walls, for example, can't be painted. For that you'd need to swap the materials.

Arc walls (can be found somewhere in solids, I believe) are great for creating castle towers


It might sound long and tedius but after you've done it a couple of times it becomes extremely easy. Seriously. I have about 30 new wall textures. Some are recolors and some I had ro draw myself. Since a lot of ugly original textures are pretty much incompatible with the way Western European cities and towns look .



Blunter