the amazing JUNK

[Armada]

Well encounter chances are going to be small decimals, here. :wacko:
As a comparison, the San Felipe manowar has a 0.03 chance of being in a Spanish convoy, and period chances varying from 0.0 to 0.4, so she's fairly rare.
For a Lorcha, are we talking, say, a 0.01 national chance (at best?) and up to a 0.2 period chance, perhaps?

 

[morgan terror]

hell if i know. i don't remember seeing a manowar for several build versions. and junks are far more common than manowars in general, so if you'd take distance from their construction locations into account, their spawn chance may wind up the same.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

If she's going to be that rare though, maybe it isn't quite worth the trouble.

 

[morgan terror]

depends on how useful the ship will be, i think.

 

[Armada]

I almost never encounter steamships either, but they were worth it, don't you think?
And now that you mention it Morgan, maybe they should be just as rare as manowars. At least that way, they should show up enough times to be noticed.

Either way, I've already started to put a Lorcha together. I've done the sail texture, and picked a few 'rey' models to experiment with.
I'll post a picture when I get it working in-game...

EDIT: In terms of usefulness, this should be a particularly fast, manoeuvrable trade vessel, with a decent cargo capacity and hull strength.
Also, she shouldn't need many crew compared to similar-sized ships, because the rigging is very simple to use.

 

[Captain Maggee]

Yep agreed Armanda with how it should perform and crew wise

Looking forward to seeing the screens of the sails and such

 

[Armada]

Well, here's the first in-game screenshot:



I've currently only done one sail of the three, as a test.
Clearly some scaling needs to be done (I forgot how small the yacht was!), but I think it's getting there.
The sail texture itself is curved on one edge, to get the curved shape in the sail.
So, what do you think so far? :will

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Wow; that's brilliant! Actually does look Chinese!

 

[morgan terror]

ah, i thought you'd do that. i take it that the reys stay in place while the sail is furled in one piece?

 

[Captain Maggee]

That is brilliant

 

[Armada]

i take it that the reys stay in place while the sail is furled in one piece?

Um, actually the extra reys between the top and bottom are part of the sail texture.
However, at least you've shown that they look convincing. That's bump mapping for you!

The only downside is, of course, that the whole lot furls up, so it's not perfect.
It's much easier, though, than trying to use several rey models in perfect positioning, especially considering that the angle of each one increases very slightly each time.
That wouldn't be too hard, if it weren't for TOOL's limitation to rotating by a fixed amount of something like 45 degrees at a time.

The only other thing I need to sort out is adding the sail texture.
For now, I've replaced one which isn't in common use, but I don't know how to add the texture as a totally new one, with its own description etc.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Adding the sails as separate selectable ones is not too difficult. You need this code in PROGRAM\InternalSettings.h:

// CUSTOM SAILS -------------------------
#define QTY_LOGOSAILS_WHOLE_WHITE		17		// INT - increase this when you add new whole white sails.
// The files should be named sails_whole_white_pirate0.tga.tx, sails_whole_white_pirate1.tga.tx, sails_whole_white_pirate2.tga.tx, etc.
// So if the value above is set, for example, to 15, then the file numbers should be 0 - 14
// They should be put in RESOURCE/Textures/Ships/
#define QTY_LOGOSAILS_TORN_WHITE		15		// INT - increase this when you add new torn white sails. the files should be named sails_torn_white_pirate0.tga.tx etc.
#define QTY_LOGOSAILS_WHOLE_RED			17		// INT - increase this when you add new whole red sails. the files should be named sails_whole_red_pirate0.tga.tx etc.
#define QTY_LOGOSAILS_TORN_RED			15		// INT - increase this when you add new torn red sails. the files should be named sails_torn_red_pirate0.tga.tx etc.
#define QTY_LOGOSAILS_WHOLE_BLACK		17		// INT - increase this when you add new whole black sails. the files should be named sails_whole_black_pirate0.tga.tx etc.
#define QTY_LOGOSAILS_TORN_BLACK		16		// INT - increase this when you add new torn black sails. the files should be named sails_torn_black_pirate0.tga.tx etc.

Then add the description in PROGRAM\INTERFACE\kam_selectsails.c here:

void InitInterface(string iniName)
{
PChar = GetMainCharacter();
PCharNation = sti(PChar.Nation);

GameInterface.title = "titleKAMSelectSails";

SendMessage(&GameInterface,"ls",MSG_INTERFACE_INIT,iniName);
CreateExitString();//MAXIMUS: standard exit-string for exit-button

if (GetCharacterShipClass(PChar) > 4) // Petros: Was 3, changed to allow Fleut and Caravel
{
LowClassShip = true;
}

SpecialSailsNormal[0] = "sail_BlackPearl.tga";
SpecialSailsEmblem[0] = "sail_BlackPearl.tga";
SpecialSailsDescr[0] = "Black tattered sails characteristic to Black Pearl."
SpecialSailsNormal[1] = "sail_whole_black_patch1.tga";
SpecialSailsEmblem[1] = "sail_whole_black_patch2.tga";
SpecialSailsDescr[1] = "Black patched sails used on Black Pearl under Captain Jack Sparrow command."
SpecialSailsNormal[2] = "sail_barbarossa_plain.tga";
SpecialSailsEmblem[2] = "sail_barbarossa_plain.tga";
SpecialSailsDescr[2] = "White sails with blue stripes.";
SpecialSailsNormal[3] = "sail_petros_plain.tga";
SpecialSailsEmblem[3] = "sail_petros_plain.tga";
SpecialSailsDescr[3] = "Red sails with yellow stripes as used by the notorious Petros the Pirate.";
SpecialSailsNormal[4] = "sail_petros_black_red.tga";
SpecialSailsEmblem[4] = "sail_petros_black_red.tga";
SpecialSailsDescr[4] = "Red sails with black stripes as used by the notorious Petros the Pirate.";
SpecialSailsNormal[5] = "sail_petros_blue_white.tga";
SpecialSailsEmblem[5] = "sail_petros_blue_white.tga";
SpecialSailsDescr[5] = "White sails with blue stripes as used by the notorious Petros the Pirate.";
SpecialSailsNormal[6] = "sail_dutchman1.tga";
SpecialSailsEmblem[6] = "sail_dutchman1.tga";
SpecialSailsDescr[6] = "Khaki whole sails as seen on the Flying Dutchman under the command of captain Will Turner.";
SpecialSailsNormal[7] = "sail_dutchman2.tga";
SpecialSailsEmblem[7] = "sail_dutchman2.tga";
SpecialSailsDescr[7] = "Green torn sails as seen on the Flying Dutchman under the command of captain Davy Jones.";
SpecialSailsNormal[8] = "kam_nologosails.tga";
SpecialSailsEmblem[8] = "kam_catalansails.tga";
SpecialSailsDescr[8] = "White sails with emblems of Catalonia.";
SpecialSailsNormal[9] = "sail_purewhite_common.tga";
SpecialSailsEmblem[9] = "sws_christian_pgl.tga";
SpecialSailsDescr[9] = "Sails for a Portuguese galleon.";
SpecialSailsNormal[10] = "sail_purewhite_common.tga";
SpecialSailsEmblem[10] = "sws_christian_spa.tga";
SpecialSailsDescr[10] = "Catholic sails for a Spanish galleon.";
SpecialSailsNormal[11] = "sail_purewhite_common.tga";
SpecialSailsEmblem[11] = "sws_christian_maria.tga";
SpecialSailsDescr[11] = "Catholic sails with a picture of the Virgin Mary.";

 

[Iron Roger Flint]

Wait... In that screenie with improvised chinesse sail. Did you add a bump map? I remember that POTC engine didn't support them, even in COAS they did not seem to work as they should. The two textures would simply be merged: the RGB values of bump would simply be added to RGB values of the base texture. The actual bump should make the renderer create shadows around surface's "bumps" if it was the real deal. In that screen I DON'T see that happening

Still... nice looking impostor chinesse sail!

 

[Armada]

The only bump mapping I did was directly on the texture itself, to at least create some kind of '3D' appearance. It works well enough, in my opinion.
Even if the engine did support real bump mapping, I don't have the foggiest how I'd adjust the model to work with it... Maya continues to be a mystery to me. :wacko:

 

[Iron Roger Flint]

So you merged a bump into the base texture via photoshop then? I did this with the kraken tentacles a while ago...

I agree on that it improves the image a bit

 

[Armada]

It certainly helps to give very flat textures some depth.
Works particularly well for wood, I've found (for example, the improved deck texture I've been working on).

 

[Legendary_Spider]

Hey whatever happened to this topic? Did it get abandoned or what? It'd sure be cool to see the Empress one day in the game.

 

[Iron Roger Flint]

When exporting with Maya, how exactly should hypergraph hierarchy look like? I can't seem to make locators appear in GM viewer no matter how I export the model

 

[Armada]

I have the same problem mate; I've no idea why I can't get locators to export with any model.
I even tried the sample files of early stock ships, which are set up correctly locator-wise, but still failed to export them with locators.
The only way I've managed to work around this is to use TOOL to add the locators after exporting a model.

Surely some modellers must be able to do this correctly, though. I think we should ask around for some advice on the matter.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I think ZarethPL knows; Kazeite too. Not entirely sure about Pgargon, but maybe him too.