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Shipmodels for the worldmap

C

CouchcaptainCharles

COO (Chief Oddity Officer)
Storm Modder
Pirate Legend
One thing I don't like about the PotC worldmap is that the ships remind me of toddler toyships, especially in contrast to the beautiful ships of the seaview. So I cobbled new shipmodels for the map together, by combining the nice seaview hull models with a rig made of "Inez Tool" elements <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_mrgreen1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheeky" border="0" alt="icon_mrgreen1.gif" /> . If a "real" modeler takes a close look at my.. err.. creations will he probably laugh his head off(and hopefully mail me improvements <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="icon_wink.gif" /> ) But fortunately the small scale of the mapships puts a veil of grace over my crude work <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_mrgreen1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheeky" border="0" alt="icon_mrgreen1.gif" />

Even in that crude state are these models IMHO an improvement over Akella's, so I thought I'd share them.
[attachment=286:attachment]

Each nation has a distinct shiptype by means of which you can determine the nationality of the mapencounters (if you have set WDMAP_SHIP_SHOW_MODE to 0 in buildsettings.h)

dutch.gm : fleut
portuguese.gm : caravel
pirates.gm : xebec
british.gm : battleship
french.gm : frigate
spanish.gm : galleon

The playership model "ship.gm" is a swift corvette. That's also the default model for all ships if you set WDMAP_SHIP_SHOW_MODE not to 0 . If you'd like to have another player/defaultship copy one of the other .gm files and reneame the copy "ship.gm".

I also made the mapships smaller than the old ones so that they don't dwarf the islands.
[attachment=287:attachment]

Another thing that I didn't like was that the ships were rushing over the map like pacman and the ghosts. My idea of an Age of Sail speed is that vessels drift gracefully along with a quiet pace. The main characteristic of an Age of Sail voyage was its slowness. Besides I like to have some time to watch other ships and plan my course.

So I added two tweaksettings where everybody can set his favourite mapspeed and voyagelength (wouldn't dare to force MY slow oldtimer pace on anyone :wink ) They are at the beginning of the program\worldmap\worldmap.c file:

#define MAPSPEED 0.6 // ccc mapships, slows worldmap down, stock setting 1.0
#define MAP_VOYAGELENGTH 8.0 // ccc , lets voyages take longer, stock setting 4.0


Not a big thing, and surely not everyone's taste, but these changes have for me much improved the atmosphere of the map. If you are also an oldfashioned slow sailor you can download the mapship models and the speedtweak from the PA FTP, file mapships.zip in the ccc_mapships folder. Unzip it into your PotC folder (backup the folder resource\models\worldmap first if you want to reinstate the old models later)

If you don't want to install the speedtweaks delete program\worldmap\worldmap.c from the pack and unzip only models and textures. (That might even work for the SLib mod <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="icon_wink.gif" /> , though I don't know if there are distinct national ships in their version of PotC )
 
Yes Yes Yes <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sailr.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":sail" border="0" alt="sailr.gif" />
 
Nice! <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_mrgreen1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheeky" border="0" alt="icon_mrgreen1.gif" />
Shame the Dutch ship is a Fleut though. I don't like Fleuts (their stern is too high in my opinion). <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="icon_wink.gif" />

It would be nice to be able to toggle whether you want these models or the ones with flags on their sails. Nathan managed to make a toggle for the flagged version, so maybe you could add these models to his code?
Would it also be possible to add the flags to the sails of these models?
And doesn't this greatly decrease the FPS on the worldmap now? There must be a lot more polygons.

Anyway: Nice job! <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/doff.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":doff" border="0" alt="doff.gif" />
 
<!--quoteo(post=137256:date=Jan 7 2006, 10:20 AM:name=BloodY TOM Kidd)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(BloodY TOM Kidd @ Jan 7 2006, 10:20 AM) [snapback]137256[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->its work with the latest modpack and new islands ?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Models and textures alone should work with any PotC version, and the speedtweak in the worldmap.c file is compatible with the latest modpack.
 
<!--quoteo(post=137265:date=Jan 7 2006, 01:46 PM:name=Pieter Boelen)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pieter Boelen @ Jan 7 2006, 01:46 PM) [snapback]137265[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Nice! <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_mrgreen1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheeky" border="0" alt="icon_mrgreen1.gif" />
Shame the Dutch ship is a Fleut though. I don't like Fleuts (their stern is too high in my opinion). <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="icon_wink.gif" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thought that was THE typical Dutch sailship <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/dunno.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":shrug" border="0" alt="dunno.gif" /> After all the VOC dominated the Indiatrade with those ships. Come on, where is your patriotism <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="icon_wink.gif" />

<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It would be nice to be able to toggle whether you want these models or the ones with flags on their sails. Nathan managed to make a toggle for the flagged version, so maybe you could add these models to his code?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Probably that is possible, but I would interfere with the code only if there really is demand for those models AND a toggle.

<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Would it also be possible to add the flags to the sails of these models?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
*I* can't, but maybe some modeler can. Though I like the challenge that you have to recognize the shiptype in order to determine the nation

<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->And doesn't this greatly decrease the FPS on the worldmap now? There must be a lot more polygons.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It was still much too fast for me <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_mrgreen1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheeky" border="0" alt="icon_mrgreen1.gif" /> , hence the speedtweak. Thank's to Akella for the performance of the engine. In that part at least they delivered good work.
 
The Fleut is quite Dutch, yes. But it's defenitly not the only Dutch ship. I do like Dutch VOC ships; just not the Fleuts. I have added some pictures of two Dutch VOC ship replica's to the bottom of this post.

I like those models quite a bit and will add them into the modpack. If I manage it, I will also add a toggle on it, so people can choose whatever they want.

The FPS shouldn't influence the speed of sailing. The FPS influences how fluid the animation works. The speed is not related to that.

Here are the ship pictures:
<img src="http://www.bmz.amsterdam.nl/adam/pics/pakhuizen/oosterdok.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
This is the VOC ship "Amsterdam", which is my favourite VOC ship. Please note: She isn't a Fleut. <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_mrgreen1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheeky" border="0" alt="icon_mrgreen1.gif" />
You can also see a painting of this ship in my signature. <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="icon_wink.gif" />

<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/nl/9/9a/Batavia_zeilt_uit_sydney.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
This is the VOC ship "Batavia", which I don't really like too much. She <i>is</i> a Fleut and I don't like the high sterns on Fleuts. <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/no.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":no" border="0" alt="no.gif" />
 
Yup, she's a beauty, I would'nt mind having her myself, and Im certainly waiting for other ships to dock at port also. <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/par-ty.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheers" border="0" alt="par-ty.gif" /> <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/whistling.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":wp" border="0" alt="whistling.gif" /> <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/par-ty.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheers" border="0" alt="par-ty.gif" />
 
<!--quoteo(post=137291:date=Jan 8 2006, 12:39 PM:name=Pieter Boelen)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pieter Boelen @ Jan 8 2006, 12:39 PM) [snapback]137291[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I like those models quite a bit and will add them into the modpack. If I manage it, I will also add a toggle on it, so people can choose whatever they want.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Then there IS demand, and I'll write the togglecode. Should be easier for me as I wrote the rest as well. I'll mail you the files.

RE FPS, all looks smoth to me. The size of the .gm files, if that is related to the pologon count, increased from 142KB for the old shiplets to 300-600KB for the new ships.

RE High stern: do you happen to know, being close to the source, WHY they built those towering poopdecks?
 
They towered the poopdecks so the captain can look over the shoulder of his men, and when needed scrape some off his boot. Im very interested this small "tweek", it would make game play a little more "understandable" as specially if you only want to sink da nasty french, and the odd bit of plunder from the pirates, therefore telling the difference between them.
It would be also really cool to have small tinni flags for them too, makes identification much more clear.......... If ya want that sort of thing, I thing it would rock, Im totally behind ya on this 1 mate.
 
You can set the flags to show on the sails in BuildSettings.h: set WDMAP_SHIP_SHOW_MODE to 0 and the nations can be seen on the worldmap.

Judging by the size of the GM files, the polygon count didn't increase too much. I suppose it'll work fine then. And if it doesn't for some people, they will need to use the other old ship models.

I'll be looking forward to your update. <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />
 
Hey this is really neat CCC! Though I probably won't be able to remember which ship goes with which nation...
I wonder if you could go any farthur and make the worldmap ships reflect the actual ships, so a real corvette would be a corvette on the worldmap, and so on?

The worldmap speed bugs me too, way too fast. Something that takes a few seconds in ship mode, like coming about 180 degrees, literally takes days in mapmode... I've played other games where you sail around the Caribbean and they don't take nearly as long to get between islands. I don't know which is more realistic, but it's irksome in PotC.
 
<!--quoteo(post=137265:date=Jan 7 2006, 03:46 PM:name=Pieter Boelen)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pieter Boelen @ Jan 7 2006, 03:46 PM) [snapback]137265[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Nice! <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_mrgreen1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheeky" border="0" alt="icon_mrgreen1.gif" />
Shame the Dutch ship is a Fleut though. I don't like Fleuts (their stern is too high in my opinion). <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="icon_wink.gif" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

gotta agree with pieter on that one, fleuts look like oversized bananas. <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="xD:" border="0" alt="laugh.gif" />
 
i'm not sure if this is the reason for the fluet but i know a lot of the deep sea tading vessels back then had a high stern on them to stop following sea's from swamping them.
being voc ships they'd encounter some nasty weather on their way around the world so having something to stop you losing the ship in a bit of a storm is a good thing
 
That would make sense. Though a high poopdeck protecting against breakers from the stern would make FAIK a ship more susceptible to gales and breakers from the side. But probably those tubs had in heavy weather anyway only the choice to ride out the storm (and pray for enough searoom)
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->QUOTE(Pieter Boelen @ Jan 8 2006, 12:39 PM)

I like those models quite a bit and will add them into the modpack. If I manage it, I will also add a toggle on it, so people can choose whatever they want.


Then there IS demand, and I'll write the togglecode. Should be easier for me as I wrote the rest as well. I'll mail you the files.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

I have to eat my words there. I followed your hint about the code for WDMAP_SHIP_SHOW_MODE and found it rather easy to make a switch for the ENCOUNTER shipmodels. BUT I couldn't find a single byte of code related to the PLAYER shipmodel. Seems to be hardcoded: the engine simply always takes the model named "Ship.gm". So I can't make a toggle that would allow you to switch between original and new ships.

Also no progress on national colours on sails or flags. Those are integral part of the original "shiplet" modeltexture, and I have no texturing knowledge at all. (Though I personally don't miss flags. I find it easier to remember that Portugese sail their famous worldexploring caravels than to recognize a red stripe as their colour)

While sifting through the worldmap code I found tons of additions by NK which seem to me unfinished or disabled. Among them was a speedtweak for the worldmap which works better than mine, here in worldmap\worldmap_globals.c :
<!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1-->#define WDM_TIMESCALE        1 // run map at (this)x time.<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->
Though that speedtweak was unfinished (or got partly overwritten) cause the gamespeed wouldn't rset to normal when you left the map. But that can easily be fixed by adding these 3 lines to worldmap_reload.c :
<!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1-->void wdmReloadToSea()
{
    ref pchar = GetMainCharacter();    // ccc Jan06 fix for NK's basetime, reset to normal time from WDM_TIMESCALE
    pchar.basetime = 1;    // ccc
    SetTimeScale(1.0);    // ccc<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->
My proposal for all this:

-I'll mail that fix to Pieter so that we'll have a working mapspeed tweak in the next modpack update

-My tweaks can then be dumped, I'll delete all code from the FTP and leave only the models and textures for my new ships there

-Pieter, IMHO those models shouldn't be added to the modpack without toggle. Those players who don't want new mapships should be spared the additional 6MB, and those who DO want them can easily download them from the FTP. Or you could add them to your page as seperate download, which would be unproblematic cause they will always work with every PotC version.
 
Ok then. I'll make it a seperate download. Unless we can change the player model to something else by default. I think the main character might deserve a better model than the regular ones. I also always have trouble to distinguish between my own ship and the other ships when I pressed TAB to scroll around the map. So it might not be such a problem that the player's ship would have a new model. <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rolleyes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":rolleyes:" border="0" alt="rolleyes.gif" />
 
Would the red frigate be easier to recognize? In the screenshot above that one is directly behind the players blue corvette.

Those could be swapped easily by exchanging the filenames of ship.gm and french.gm . And IMHO a blue corvette would suit France just as well <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_mrgreen1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheeky" border="0" alt="icon_mrgreen1.gif" />
 
That's not what I meant. I suppose the choice of ship models in the improved model mod you made is just fine. I meant that in the default Build 12 situation, the player ship is a small bathtub model with white sails, as are all the other ships that are not pirate. So I am having difficulty distinguishing between ship models there. What I was suggesting is that we could maybe replace the player's ship with the blue corvette model by default. If we do that, we <i>can</i> add in a toggle. So if you play the game on default, you will have one blue corvette sailing around a bunch of bathtub models. Or would that look odd? A seperate download would also be fine, of course. Depends on what people think about it. <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/dunno.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":shrug" border="0" alt="dunno.gif" />
 
There are two things I'd like to know about this mod (I just thought of these):

1) If it is made as a seperate download and you'd install that, the sea would be filled with blue corvettes by default. Is that what you want? The worldmap showmode should be 0 for your shipmodels mod, but it is 1 by default in the modpack. I don't want to add BuildSettings.h to the seperate download, so I was wondering if you could think of something else to do about it. if you want to do anything about it, that is.

2) What is this piece of code in Worldmap.c for?
<!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1-->    // ccc maptweak
    worldMap.date.hourPerSec = MAP_VOYAGELENGTH;    // ccc maptweak original 4.0
    SetTimeScale(MAPSPEED);            // slow motion
    Logit("Age of Sail speed on (off = 2 x R key)");    
    SetWeatherScheme("seashore_weather");        
    // ccc maptweak end<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->Will this display "Age of Sail speed on (off = 2 x R key)" every time you enter mapmode? Won't that be annoying? Or are you going to change this file anyway?
 
1) Yes, if you install the new models and don't set worldmapshowmode to 0 all ships will be blue corvettes. But I think that the average player should be able to execute the following instructions:

1. If you want the new models unzip the download mapships.zip into your PotC folder

2. set WDMAP_SHIP_SHOW_MODE to 0

IMHO that would be the easiests solution

2) Yup, the whole code can be dumped if we fix Nathan's speedtweak. The message was supposed to explain to the player why the ships were suddely so slow.


<!--quoteo(post=137510:date=Jan 12 2006, 05:22 PM:name=Pieter Boelen)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pieter Boelen @ Jan 12 2006, 05:22 PM) [snapback]137510[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That's not what I meant. I suppose the choice of ship models in the improved model mod you made is just fine. I meant that in the default Build 12 situation, the player ship is a small bathtub model with white sails, as are all the other ships that are not pirate. So I am having difficulty distinguishing between ship models there. What I was suggesting is that we could maybe replace the player's ship with the blue corvette model by default. If we do that, we <i>can</i> add in a toggle. So if you play the game on default, you will have one blue corvette sailing around a bunch of bathtub models. Or would that look odd? A seperate download would also be fine, of course. Depends on what people think about it. <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/dunno.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":shrug" border="0" alt="dunno.gif" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Toggling only the encounterships and giving the player always the corvette can be done. I have that already finished, so I can mail it to you if you and the players want. It would look sort of odd though, but IMHO less odd than a toyship.
 
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