Custom 3D Models and Mods Compilation

[Lucky_Strike]

8 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Yup it´s all placeholder texture file info in there needed for randomn(?) loading of alternative texture sets if there´s any. I told @sbobovyc about it if the exporter could allow exporting without changing the placeholder. And same time make the importer look for actual files to be addressed by placeholder, so one can can load & see textures in Blender. But then he vanished and wasn´t seen again....

Yes I remember that. This happens as an error quite a lot. What I see in Blender is an empty material slot, but this is how it is when the mdr is imported so there's something else (metadata) which governs this. If only BF would release an official plugin we would be saved from all this nonsense and time wasting. Guess it's just not important enough when you've got a busy schedule of new releases to manage (cough, cough, How hot ... cough, top poster in thread).

8 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Explicitely addressing textures in Blender does work and exports but then building textures get f*cked up in game as you say.

Well it actually worked okay when I didn't have the 3rd party model inside. Seemed perfectly normal and the pixeltruppen were happy enough to do their usual. Everything in the editor worked as expected. The only thing I couldn't do was get the furniture to appear. Interestingly, once Blender knew about the placeholder textures it seemed to remember for a subsequent new import of the same building model, so it linked to the textures without me telling it about the removal of the (00) suffix.

8 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

I´d likely check out the pillbox object again and look at ammo crates in there. Maybe there´s a clue on how to do the child assignments right. Okay, both are different object classes (vehicle vs building), but principles should be similar I´d guess.

Yes that's a god idea. I'll open one of those up. Want to do some other experiments with them at some point anyway so good to familiarise myself with them. But yes the parent/child mesh thing is generally very useful and not fussy about the names for the child meshes so long as the parent mesh is left alone. I have used it for all sorts of cheats in other models, but buildings are, I suppose, more complex.

8 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Think we´re not at the end of the path with that...yet. But if it´s META data related things, we´re stuck.

Yes I think there's probably loads we can do, it's a matter of time. Just being able to import, edit, and save without futzing up the model is a start. It may just be something very simple like how the interior objects are placed. I noticed the floors are always above the ground mesh so it could somehow relate to that. I was careful to put the objects on the floor, but perhaps they needed to be on the ground. Alternatively it could be that the model naming needed to be edited to somehow match the expected building names, there are a couple of textures with versions a and b so perhaps there is scope there to add further sequentially named textures. Just needs more xperiments, it's exhausting though, when it fails.

[RockinHarry]

2 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Yes I remember that. This happens as an error quite a lot. What I see in Blender is an empty material slot, but this is how it is when the mdr is imported so there's something else (metadata) which governs this. If only BF would release an official plugin we would be saved from all this nonsense and time wasting. Guess it's just not important enough when you've got a busy schedule of new releases to manage (cough, cough, How hot ... cough, top poster in thread).

Official plugin or editor recommendations would be great. BFC misses a great opportunity here IMO. Games like ARMA and many the WW2 or modern shooters would be far less popular without their huge modding communities and talented graphics and scripting folks. But oh well... their decision. Whatever it´s based on.

2 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Yes I think there's probably loads we can do, it's a matter of time. Just being able to import, edit, and save without futzing up the model is a start. It may just be something very simple like how the interior objects are placed. I noticed the floors are always above the ground mesh so it could somehow relate to that. I was careful to put the objects on the floor, but perhaps they needed to be on the ground. Alternatively it could be that the model naming needed to be edited to somehow match the expected building names, there are a couple of textures with versions a and b so perhaps there is scope there to add further sequentially named textures. Just needs more xperiments, it's exhausting though, when it fails.

Yup, there seems lots of things involved here. So better focus on small single level builds, then if things start working try the more complicated ones. I´d be also interested in how staircases work but guess it´s maybe all hard coded. Think if using my 1m gridded grass terrain one could likely guestimate some coordinates and then compare with available META data. This requires knowing the buildings origin (or placement node in XYZ), then can see any possible offsets relating to it. So i.e if lower staircase entry node is visible at XYZ then it´s either absolute or relative (to building origin) data that can be compared with in META. So one could likely "decode" at least part of the META entries. We´ll see. Or not.

[Lucky_Strike]

42 minutes ago, RockinHarry said:

Official plugin or editor recommendations would be great. BFC misses a great opportunity here IMO.

Absolutely agree. 

44 minutes ago, RockinHarry said:

Yup, there seems lots of things involved here. So better focus on small single level builds, then if things start working try the more complicated ones. I´d be also interested in how staircases work but guess it´s maybe all hard coded. Think if using my 1m gridded grass terrain one could likely guestimate some coordinates and then compare with available META data. This requires knowing the buildings origin (or placement node in XYZ), then can see any possible offsets relating to it. So i.e if lower staircase entry node is visible at XYZ then it´s either absolute or relative (to building origin) data that can be compared with in META. So one could likely "decode" at least part of the META entries. We´ll see. Or not.

Haha  do like to see the poor pixeltruppen climbing the stairs. It's obviously been carefully modelled as sometimes they even seem to turn corners on the stairs! I wonder if the stairs are always in the same place in a building? Perhaps they did intend to have stairs when originally programming the game, but somehow couldn't make them work or just couldn't be a*sed in the end.

[RockinHarry]

1 hour ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Haha  do like to see the poor pixeltruppen climbing the stairs. It's obviously been carefully modelled as sometimes they even seem to turn corners on the stairs! I wonder if the stairs are always in the same place in a building? Perhaps they did intend to have stairs when originally programming the game, but somehow couldn't make them work or just couldn't be a*sed in the end.

I think the turning corner thing might be hard coded. IIRC they always go CCW (counter clock wise). Got to check again. Otherwise they turn toward latest movement direction (waypoint + face). Enemy/friendly map edge might also play a role as is spotted or suspected enemies. And target arc command if any is given.

For same place staircase I suspect it depends on building size (8x8, 16x8 etc) for which likely it is all the same then. Basically BFC staircase modelling "works" in this simplified version. Also considering any interiors is modelled abstractly anyway. This also does work basically although it looks . Well I´m ARMA3 player and used to see bits more interior stuff.

[Lucky_Strike]

39 minutes ago, RockinHarry said:

Well I´m ARMA3 player and used to see bits more interior stuff.

So you might like this:

Who left that in here?!

... and where'd these barrels come from?

Even goes transparent like buildings ...

Fully destructible - vaporised! by some Russian 75mm HE

To get the Opel Blitz and barrels to appear I reparented them to a sub-object rather than the main object. So for the barn (indie building 200) the main object is called level 0, with sub-objects named roof, wall-front-level 0, wall-left-level 0, wall-right-level 0 and wall-rear-level 0. The OB is parented to the front, the barrels to rear and left. They are still at the floor level rather than the ground underneath, so they sit correctly in the building.

The building seems to behave as normal - clicks with modifiers do what they should to the textures and degree of damage; snow appears on the roof and snow winter textures appear for the walls when snow is laying round about. The walls also react to their locale, so the barn changed from wood to stone for Germany '45.

Notice stone winter texture and damaged structure - missing door - who left those barrels there?

Now the caveats that I observed. The pixeltruppen could care less about the extras, they just walk right through them. The truck doesn't change camo to whitewashed even though others on the map do. The tyres do adopt a snowy tread though - go figure!

As shown, they are a bit too destructible. Also if a single wall, to which the object is parented, is clicked to fully destroyed then the object disappears as well. And if viewing the building and looking through a wall which disappears from sight to allow a clear view, objects attached to the disappeared wall also vanish from sight.

I'll put the mdr here on Dropbox for any intrepid investigators or if you just fancy a garage to park your OB in. No other special textures are required.

[RockinHarry]

18 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

So you might like this:

Who left that in here?!

... and where'd these barrels come from?

Even goes transparent like buildings ...

Fully destructible - vaporised! by some Russian 75mm HE

To get the Opel Blitz and barrels to appear I reparented them to a sub-object rather than the main object. So for the barn (indie building 200) the main object is called level 0, with sub-objects named roof, wall-front-level 0, wall-left-level 0, wall-right-level 0 and wall-rear-level 0. The OB is parented to the front, the barrels to rear and left. They are still at the floor level rather than the ground underneath, so they sit correctly in the building.

The building seems to behave as normal - clicks with modifiers do what they should to the textures and degree of damage; snow appears on the roof and snow winter textures appear for the walls when snow is laying round about. The walls also react to their locale, so the barn changed from wood to stone for Germany '45.

Notice stone winter texture and damaged structure - missing door - who left those barrels there?

Now the caveats that I observed. The pixeltruppen could care less about the extras, they just walk right through them. The truck doesn't change camo to whitewashed even though others on the map do. The tyres do adopt a snowy tread though - go figure!

As shown, they are a bit too destructible. Also if a single wall, to which the object is parented, is clicked to fully destroyed then the object disappears as well. And if viewing the building and looking through a wall which disappears from sight to allow a clear view, objects attached to the disappeared wall also vanish from sight.

I'll put the mdr here on Dropbox for any intrepid investigators or if you just fancy a garage to park your OB in. No other special textures are required.

Cool! Nice finds! I could load your file just fine and it shows like in your screens. Damage clicking the walls (CNTR Click) though provided some unusual results.

I did the same procedure on the small church (indi 304) and added a bench (flavor) to the interior. As well tried all possible parents for attaching but could never make the bench showing up in game. My own dummy texture file (DiffuseTex.bmp) worked well for exporting indi 304 and then behaves like normal in the game. Good. But the bench.... no idea where it went. lol  So could´ve used the bench flavor right from the start, just placing and pushing it into the church instead.

So either I overlooked something or indi 304 is different from 200, IDK. Anyway...IIRC sbobovic mentioned that he didn´t figure out all data for im- and export yet, so might well be some important data is still inaccessible (in Blender). But it´s all not that important. One can still push flavors into buildings for some decent furnishing. One can also create small sets (table + chairs i.e), then exported to single flavor object. Additionally one with height offset so higher building levels can be furnished as well.

So here´s my 304 MDR file with dummy texture if someone wants looking into it. https://www.dropbox.com/s/vfiiqul84jwq1ti/building304.zip?dl=0

[Lucky_Strike]

1 hour ago, RockinHarry said:

Cool! Nice finds! I could load your file just fine and it shows like in your screens. Damage clicking the walls (CNTR Click) though provided some unusual results.

Yeah I think the additional graphics may cause a bit of glitching. Overall I think this method would only be useful if we can get the menchen interacting with the meshes, moving round rather than through stuff 

1 hour ago, RockinHarry said:

So either I overlooked something or indi 304 is different from 200, IDK. Anyway...IIRC sbobovic mentioned that he didn´t figure out all data for im- and export yet, so might well be some important data is still inaccessible (in Blender).

The import/export routine is definitely not finished, as you say he was still working on it and knew that the metadata side of things needed resolution. Frustratingly he mentioned the metadata for alpha channels in his thread, with a link through to an image but that's long gone, so I can't see what he was talking about.

1 hour ago, RockinHarry said:

But it´s all not that important. One can still push flavors into buildings for some decent furnishing. One can also create small sets (table + chairs i.e), then exported to single flavor object. Additionally one with height offset so higher building levels can be furnished as well.

It's certainly a lot easier going this route, for now I would recommend this. I have another idea or two to try with added building features, but they are quite low priority for now.

1 hour ago, RockinHarry said:

So here´s my 304 MDR file with dummy texture if someone wants looking into it. https://www.dropbox.com/s/vfiiqul84jwq1ti/building304.zip?dl=0

Will do ...

Edited November 4, 2022 by Lucky_Strike

[RockinHarry]

20 minutes ago, Lucky_Strike said:

The import/export routine is definitely not finished, as you say he was still working on it and knew that the metadata side of things needed resolution. Frustratingly he mentioned the metadata for alpha channels in his thread, with a link through to an image but that's long gone, so I can see what he was talking about.

Yup, quite a lot of things got lost during past 2 years unfortunately. Maybe one can contact sbobovyc through YT and lure him back to CM. Or maybe he´s just some info not posted in CM forum already. Who knows.

23 minutes ago, Lucky_Strike said:

It's certainly a lot easier going this route, for now I would recommend this. I have another idea or two to try with added building features, but they are quite low priority for now.

Same here, low priority. One can also bits of use bump maps for adding small details that aren´t there in actual geometry. More cosmetical stuff. As well might try on some window frames, maybe adding some more options and such. Too many options, too little time ATM.

[Lucky_Strike]

1 hour ago, RockinHarry said:

Too many options, too little time ATM.

Oh yes.

Re your Church - I found the bench after importing your mdr ...

Moved it back to position and exported fine, but bombed my RT twice in a row when trying to view in 3D map in editor ...

Was going to try and redo but I couldn't find a building304.mdr that looked like yours, all mine were bigger in RT, and it's not a model in FB or BN?

[RockinHarry]

44 minutes ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Oh yes.

Re your Church - I found the bench after importing your mdr ...

Moved it back to position and exported fine, but bombed my RT twice in a row when trying to view in 3D map in editor ...

Was going to try and redo but I couldn't find a building304.mdr that looked like yours, all mine were bigger in RT, and it's not a model in FB or BN?

Whoops.. sorry. Forgot mentioning it´s FB file. So it´s then different from RT, I didn´t know.

Hm.. I´d suspected it moved off limits in CM but placed church near CM map edge so I could look "under" the ground mesh to go safe. But didn´t see it nonetheless. Odd...

I´d also applied CTRL-A transforms to bench, but might have hit the wrong option maybe. That would likely explain it´s still off limit (below ground mesh). Hm....

Edit: There´s neither a 304 in FB I see now. I´m confused. Maybe I´d renamed it for a reason that I can´t recall ATM. Think in fact it´s just 300

final blitzkrieg v100b\final blitzkrieg v100b\buildings independent\building300

and lol ..no wonder I´ve never seen my changed one. Original (unchanged) 300 was always loaded it seems. I need a vacation....

Edit V2:

So just had the same occurance. After correcting and renaming to 300 I got 2 CTD in a row when try loading in CM 3D editor. Guess it´s then my dummy texture which I thought was working when in fact I got original 300 loaded.

Edited November 4, 2022 by RockinHarry

[Lucky_Strike]

1 hour ago, RockinHarry said:

Whoops.. sorry. Forgot mentioning it´s FB file. So it´s then different from RT, I didn´t know.

Hm.. I´d suspected it moved off limits in CM but placed church near CM map edge so I could look "under" the ground mesh to go safe. But didn´t see it nonetheless. Odd...

I´d also applied CTRL-A transforms to bench, but might have hit the wrong option maybe. That would likely explain it´s still off limit (below ground mesh). Hm....

Edit: There´s neither a 304 in FB I see now. I´m confused. Maybe I´d renamed it for a reason that I can´t recall ATM. Think in fact it´s just 300

final blitzkrieg v100b\final blitzkrieg v100b\buildings independent\building300

and lol ..no wonder I´ve never seen my changed one. Original (unchanged) 300 was always loaded it seems. I need a vacation....

Edit V2:

So just had the same occurance. After correcting and renaming to 300 I got 2 CTD in a row when try loading in CM 3D editor. Guess it´s then my dummy texture which I thought was working when in fact I got original 300 loaded.

LOL, it's been a long day! Have a beer and relax!

I managed to get 3rd party objects working inside a building as well, used the same technique of parenting to one of the main object's sub-meshes. Here's a YT video of the results with three objects added to the building200 barn ...

I think it's time I went back to some proper mods ...

[RockinHarry]

1 hour ago, Lucky_Strike said:

LOL, it's been a long day! Have a beer and relax!

I managed to get 3rd party objects working inside a building as well, used the same technique of parenting to one of the main object's sub-meshes. Here's a YT video of the results with three objects added to the building200 barn ...

I think it's time I went back to some proper mods ...

Lol Max was quite a lucky guy. The highly praised german comradery and such. 

Well done Mark! I take a day off and try the bench thing tomorrow again...maybe. Couple hours wasted due to wrong file name. Don´t even recall why the f*ck I even changed it in first place. lol But again, learned a couple new things so it´s all good at last.

[Lucky_Strike]

2 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Lol Max was quite a lucky guy. The highly praised german comradery and such. 

Hehe, I did try to get a Daley in there as well, but couldn't find one that would work, people making them just make them too nice to chop up for CM! 

2 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Well done Mark! I take a day off and try the bench thing tomorrow again...maybe. Couple hours wasted due to wrong file name. Don´t even recall why the f*ck I even changed it in first place. lol But again, learned a couple new things so it´s all good at last.

Yep, I think I've had enough messing with buildings for now, I going back to mud and dragon's teeth ...

[RockinHarry]

5 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Hehe, I did try to get a Daley in there as well, but couldn't find one that would work, people making them just make them too nice to chop up for CM! 

What´s a Daley?

5 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Yep, I think I've had enough messing with buildings for now, I going back to mud and dragon's teeth ...

Same here. Time to get my focus back on map and mission making now.

[Erwin]

Assumed it was ref to a Dalek.  Happy memories...

[Lucky_Strike]

8 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

What´s a Daley?

Yes, it was late ...

3 hours ago, Erwin said:

Assumed it was ref to a Dalek.  Happy memories...

... is what Erwin says. Hiding behind the sofa on a Saturday night! Cybermen!   

Though I could have gone for a Salvador Dali melted clock to add to surrealism of Rhino.

[RockinHarry]

1 hour ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Yes, it was late ...

... is what Erwin says. Hiding behind the sofa on a Saturday night! Cybermen!   

Though I could have gone for a Salvador Dali melted clock to add to surrealism of Rhino.

ooookayyyy..... always learn something new here.

[Erwin]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalek

[RockinHarry]

So at last got it working as well. Hehe Some minor issues with damaged wall textures left but should get it sorted out as well. Damn Blender auto renaming stuff then getting exported with MDR file.

[JM Stuff]

30 minutes ago, RockinHarry said:

So at last got it working as well. Hehe Some minor issues with damaged wall textures left but should get it sorted out as well. Damn Blender auto renaming stuff then getting exported with MDR file.

a little more and you can created also annimations... and created early wars I check already for the horse sounds !

JM

Edited November 6, 2022 by JM Stuff

[Lucky_Strike]

3 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

So at last got it working as well. Hehe Some minor issues with damaged wall textures left but should get it sorted out as well. Damn Blender auto renaming stuff then getting exported with MDR file.

Great stuff Harry, proof of concept.

But I should point out there's another bug - there's a horse in the church, strictly against local bylaws! All horses should be tethered outside of the churchyard. 

[Lucky_Strike]

3 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Damn Blender auto renaming stuff then getting exported with MDR file.

Yes it's a real PITA. I always forget it has a habit of doing this with some stuff, sometimes it's fine but with these layered, multi textured objects it seems to cause mayhem. I also noticed the glitchy ruined walls on the barn.

Seeing the horse I suddenly had a thought, we could hitch a horse to one of the carts as a flavor object, someone might find it useful ...

[Lucky_Strike]

5 hours ago, Erwin said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalek

Absolutely terrifying to the younger self, however, realised in later life, that all one has to do to get away from Daleks is to run up stairs!

[Erwin]

No... Daleks can go up stairs... 

 

[RockinHarry]

2 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Absolutely terrifying to the younger self, however, realised in later life, that all one has to do to get away from Daleks is to run up stairs!

In my childhood it was these things that didn´t let me sleep well. They´re called "frogs". (german "Raumpatrouille Orion" - Space patrol Orion)