Importing A Custom Character Mesh

[SixshotOverdrive]

wow, that was a huge derp moment. I was going all around the skills and particles messing with stuff, but didn't even think to check the missiles folder. Hahaha.

Thanks

[Phanjam]

Go to media\missiles, and each missile has its own layout, and properties. You're looking for the MAX VELOCITY...

Woot! a SPELLMASTER walks among us!

[Phanjam]

just to let all know, the testing of the new meshes and textures on an updated Valkyrie class character is NOT going well the textures are not applying properly and sometimes the wrong mesh is being used for an armor set. On the bright side, all the animations work flawlessly.

it might have something to do with me using the Destro's item declarations as the base (for fixing the game items) and as a last resort, I may just go back to using the Vanq as the base again.

Ah well, I'm gonna get some rest for now...

[SixshotOverdrive]

hmm, it shouldn't really matter which class you use as a base, as long as the names are changed accordingly. It might even be something I messed up.
If you want to upload one of the compiled sets I'll take a look at it.

[Phanjam]

hmm, it shouldn't really matter which class you use as a base, as long as the names are changed accordingly. It might even be something I messed up.
If you want to upload one of the compiled sets I'll take a look at it.

Heyya SixShot! I'm pretty sure it's not anything wrong with the meshes themselves since they all rendered properly in Dusho's viewer. I suspect material assignments, like maybe conflicts between what the .material files are saying vs. what the item declarations are saying.
I'll gladly share a build with you though - let me pack one up and PM you a link. It's a big mod though running 16MB even after compression...

EDIT - re-read your post and noted you just asked for the armor sets - didn't meant o frighten you with that 16MB thing!

EDIT2 - okay PMed you the link (just a 4MB downlod )

[Phanjam]

Ok I can confirm that the problem is not on all the armors just a few, and from the remaining problematic sets it now looks like they are all texture problems not mesh problems...

Spoiler: show

onward!

EDIT/CORRECTION
in the pic, the set labelled TALON should read HAWK instead. Talon is one of the sets having problems.

[SixshotOverdrive]

Yeah, I was having a play around with them, and could actually get it all to spawn. The dragon gloves still have a white background instead of a transparent one and the heavy plate's chest painted the face red. But otherwise they were fine. I was spawning them through torched though, so I'd be checking the wardrobe file references. I can't really be more help than that, sorry.

On the plus side, they do look really nice in game

Edit: The destroyer has a few textures in the base 'wardrobe' folder rather than the 'destroyer' folder, these also seem to be the ones you're missing. So maybe using him as a base doesn't quite work

[Phanjam]

The destroyer has a few textures in the base 'wardrobe' folder rather than the 'destroyer' folder, these also seem to be the ones you're missing.

Yes I noticed that too. I still have to check it completely, but if you look at the texture declarations in the armor unit .dat files, they point to those textures in the base wardrobe folder. The .material files I made to go with each mesh point to textures inside the wardrobe/valkyrie folder. That tells me the instructions are conflicting. When I get home I will check the structure of the .material files in the standard destroyer, to see (and copy) how they handle this.

So maybe using him as a base doesn't quite work

Well on problems like this one I'm like a dog with a bone - I just can't let go!

On the plus side, they do look really nice in game

Thank you!!!

[SixshotOverdrive]

When I get home I will check the structure of the .material files in the standard destroyer, to see (and copy) how they handle this.

The standard sets don't actually declare any boots/chest/gloves textures in the .material files, they're all set through the items wardrobe options.

Well on problems like this one I'm like a dog with a bone - I just can't let go!

Haha, well you can't have a solution if nobody tries to find one


Also, I've just uploaded the first version of the stormrider/demon (now called Ta'Ulra) over at RGF

He currently can't equip weapons (well he can, he just can't attack with them) and only has 2 skills, a lightning bolt and a nova-like skill. I was going for a third (demon ball) where he threw out an energy bolt that bounced around chaotically, but the idea and execution didn't really match. It was proving far too inaccurate and getting hit, no matter what you were doing or how many minions you had, was just bad luck.

The skin still needs a bit of polish, and he's probably imbalanced (how much balancing can you really do yourself?) So if you've got any suggestions, I'd like to hear them

[spacepirate]

He currently can't equip weapons (well he can, he just can't attack with them) and only has 2 skills, a lightning bolt and a nova-like skill. I was going for a third (demon ball) where he threw out an energy bolt that bounced around chaotically, but the idea and execution didn't really match. It was proving far too inaccurate and getting hit, no matter what you were doing or how many minions you had, was just bad luck.

The skin still needs a bit of polish, and he's probably imbalanced (how much balancing can you really do yourself?) So if you've got any suggestions, I'd like to hear them

Since I couldn't find the beasty anywhere in the caves, I made up a quick transforming fish to try it out, and I would recommend removing the suicidal/team killing targeting on the nova, for one.
It should really have the <STRING>TARGET:EVIL tag instead of <STRING>TARGET:EVERYBODY

And since I can't leave well enough alone, I enabled (at a 30% chance) and did some changes to demon ball, namely changing the projectile called by electricmissile.layout to be called DEMON_BALL, then adding the following entry into the missiles list:

Spoiler: show

Code: Select all

[Layout]
<INTEGER>VERSION:3
<UNSIGNED INT>COUNT:1
[OBJECTS]
[BASEOBJECT]
[PROPERTIES]
<STRING>DESCRIPTOR:Missile
<STRING>NAME:Missile2
<INTEGER64>ID:-100510086422023222
<INTEGER64>PARENTID:-1
<FLOAT>POSITIONX:0
<FLOAT>POSITIONY:-0.4
<FLOAT>POSITIONZ:0
<STRING>RELEASE:MEDIA/PARTICLES/PLAYERSKILLS/ICESHOT/FIRE.LAYOUT
<STRING>ACTIVE:MEDIA/PARTICLES/MISSILES/ELECTRIC_BALL.LAYOUT
<STRING>HIT:MEDIA/PARTICLES/MONSTERS/ZEALOT/ELECTRICBALL.LAYOUT
<STRING>DIE:MEDIA/PARTICLES/MONSTERS/ZEALOT/ELECTRICBALL.LAYOUT
<FLOAT>MAX DISTANCE:20
<FLOAT>RADIUS:0.4
<FLOAT>AOE RAIDUS:4
<FLOAT>MAX VELOCITY:15
<STRING>MISSILE NAME:DEMON_BALL
<FLOAT>HOMING SPEED:0.2
<FLOAT>TARGETING ANGLE:35
<FLOAT>MAX TURN RATE:400
<UNSIGNED INT>NUM RICOCHETS:2
<FLOAT>TURN RANDOMIZATION:10000
<FLOAT>RANDOMIZATION RATE:0.001
<FLOAT>AOE DAMAGE SCALE:0.4
<STRING>DAMAGE TYPE:Electric
[/PROPERTIES]
[CHILDREN]
[/CHILDREN]
[/BASEOBJECT]
[/OBJECTS]
[/Layout]

The turn and randomization rate follow with doomquake's random line patterns, with increased homing speed for a more accurate lock on players. And once it hits you, its still not done, and will come back again due to the RICOCHET count. Velocity and damage could probably be tweaked, depending on whether you want "slow nuisance to avoid" or "fast and deadly attack"

Another note: when I made it into a pet, it would randomly forget that it had an Attack1 animation, which is something I'm used to seeing by now with the PC zealots, but since it doesn't have a bind animation, it disappears from sight. It'll still zap the hell out of things, but you can't see it, and it will crash the client when you exit to the main menu. And when you start up again, it will repeat the process of losing attack1, so I really don't recommend getting it as a pet.

[SixshotOverdrive]

Since I couldn't find the beasty anywhere in the caves, I made up a quick transforming fish to try it out, and I would recommend removing the suicidal/team killing targeting on the nova, for one.
It should really have the <STRING>TARGET:EVIL tag instead of <STRING>TARGET:EVERYBODY

Damn it, I did notice that one, guess I forgot to change it.

The turn and randomization rate follow with doomquake's random line patterns, with increased homing speed for a more accurate lock on players.

That's a great idea. I originally had it with a velocity of 25 and ricochet of 4, it was exploding all over the place but rarely hit. I'll try this one out and see if it's a better fit.

Another note: when I made it into a pet, it would randomly forget that it had an Attack1 animation, which is something I'm used to seeing by now with the PC zealots, but since it doesn't have a bind animation, it disappears from sight. It'll still zap the hell out of things, but you can't see it, and it will crash the client when you exit to the main menu. And when you start up again, it will repeat the process of losing attack1, so I really don't recommend getting it as a pet.

hmm, seems I forgot to link the bind skeleton in the animation file, so thanks for pointing that one out. But it shouldn't ever have a need to use it. I'll have a dig around and see what's happening. As it was a pet you might not be able to answer, but do you know what it was trying to do when it disappeared?... or before it tried to attack I guess.

[Phanjam]

A quick one here - about the Zealot model not being able to use shrines.

Karl (author of the Wastelander mod) made a suggestion over at Spacepirate's Vindicator thread as follows...

On the subject of shrines, it's maddening, but on very rare occasions I can click on the things, and its mainly when I don't even need one. This provides me with absolutely no idea of how to make it work, but there's got to be SOMETHING that can be done to make it work all the time.

I wonder if this is a bounding problem? Like the mesh for the Class is scaled but the bounding region is not? This is just off the top of my head and based on experience from other games.

Again, this is just off the top of my head so it's most likely wrong but thought I'd mention it anyway, just in case.

I don't know enough about meshes and their bounding boxes to be able to assess this input properly, but I thought it might actually mean something to you

[spacepirate]

Well, my Vindicator is under-scaled from regular size (0.9) and has the standard reach bonus of 1.25. Logically, being unable to reach it would be the first thing to check, and so that's the first thing I tried. But buffing the reach bonus simply allows me to melee TNT barrels without worry of taking damage, but leaves me in the cold when it comes to shrines.

It has to be something specific to shrines, since levers, plungers, and all manners of other interactable objects pose no difficulties.

Health shrine:

Spoiler: show

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[UNIT]
<STRING>CREATEAS:TRIGGER
<STRING>BASEFILE:media/units/props/base.dat
<STRING>NAME:Shrine of Healing
<STRING>RESOURCEDIRECTORY:media/models/shrines/health_shrine
<STRING>MESHFILE:health_shrine
<STRING>UNITTYPE:INTERACTABLE
<STRING>ANIMATION_STATE_1:idle
<STRING>ANIMATION_STATE_2:open
<FLOAT>COLLISION_RADIUS:0.4
<BOOL>COLLIDEABLE:0
<BOOL>LEVELLIGHTING:true
<BOOL>SHADOWS:0
<INTEGER>RARITY:0
<INTEGER>MAXSTATES:2
<STRING>INTERACT_SOUND:Buff
<TRANSLATE>DISPLAYNAME:Shrine of Healing
<STRING>UNIT_GUID:8166359816810271198
[SKILL]
<STRING>NAME:HEALING SHRINE
<INTEGER>LEVEL:1
<INTEGER>LEVEL_REQUIRED:0
[/SKILL]
[/UNIT]

Wall trigger, for comparison:

Spoiler: show

Code: Select all

[UNIT]
<STRING>CREATEAS:TRIGGER
<STRING>BASEFILE:media/units/props/base.dat
<STRING>NAME:crypt_wall_lever01
<TRANSLATE>DISPLAYNAME:Lever
<STRING>RESOURCEDIRECTORY:media/models/crypt_wall_level01
<STRING>MESHFILE:crypt_wall_level01
<STRING>UNITTYPE:INTERACTABLE
<STRING>ANIMATION_STATE_1:off
<STRING>ANIMATION_STATE_2:on
<STRING>LAYOUT_STATE_1:media/particles/objects/sparkle.layout
<BOOL>COLLIDEABLE:0
<FLOAT>COLLISION_RADIUS:1.5
<INTEGER>MAXSTATES:2
<BOOL>SHADOWS:false
<STRING>INTERACT_SOUND:InteractSound
<UNSIGNED INT>UNIQUE_GUID:119
<STRING>UNIT_GUID:-3195029460640263714
[BOUNDS]
<FLOAT>MINX:-1
<FLOAT>MAXX:1
<FLOAT>MINY:-2
<FLOAT>MAXY:2
<FLOAT>MINZ:-1
<FLOAT>MAXZ:1
[/BOUNDS]
[/UNIT]

Lecterns, Adventurers, and Tables are under the OPENABLE unittype, and most of the rest fall under BREAKABLE. And buffing the COLLISION_RADIUS doesn't appear to do anything for shrines.

I'm still open to suggestions though while I'm trying to puzzle it out.

[spacepirate]

As it was a pet you might not be able to answer, but do you know what it was trying to do when it disappeared?... or before it tried to attack I guess.

That's the thing. It went *poof* after it executed all of its attacks. Going back to it shows no further issues. Try it out yourself. The fish is called Fish_Lightning when you spawn it from the console.

If you plan to make more monsters and testing them out like this, I would recommend doing any sort of pet testing with an fresh alchemist, and getting nether imps with your first point. That way, the imp will replace your pet if it dies, and you can still continue with a pet. As long as you don't mind it being named "Hex Imp" anyway.

Going with a speed of 10 works fairly well with the ball, it shows a slightly erractic path rather than a straight line, and bounces off its target, conveying a sense of power barely kept in check. I think it looks rather nice, if a bit too fast. Other than that, I'd think some sort of "gather lightning into hand" warmup would be nice when casting the nova, since he does a lot of standing there with nothing happening, then the lightning explodes when he finishes holding his hand in the air.

Spoiler: show

[SixshotOverdrive]

I honestly have no idea what's going on with the shrines. I can try messing about with the collision mesh, but as spacepirate said, it's specific to shrines and not just any object you can interact with.

Also it's a little difficult for me to test

Spoiler: show

That's an (afair) unedited Ammut Disciple in TorchED. I can't remember if I could use them in game or not, but I've just started a Vindicator so I guess we'll find out.
EDIT: Seems not, though likewise she could use them in TorchED, so somewhere between the two it's all going horribly awry. Unfortunately, that also makes pinpointing the cause pretty difficult

Other than that, I'd think some sort of "gather lightning into hand" warmup would be nice when casting the nova, since he does a lot of standing there with nothing happening, then the lightning explodes when he finishes holding his hand in the air.

I was thinking about that, but he's currently just using the 'buff' animation as a placeholder until I get around to making an 'AOE Cast' one. So decided I'd just leave it for now.

[Phanjam]

meanwhile, on the destroyer armors front...

Okay was able to get more armors to show correctly in-game...

Spoiler: show

Dragon, Heavy Plate and Talon

The problem with these was the textures - they had somehow lost their alpha channels

That leaves just one, the leather set. This is weird because it seems as though the game cannot find the right mesh even if it's right there in the wardrobe\valkyrie folder

...tomorrow is another day...

[Phanjam]

it's always the simplest mistakes that get you! I found the cause of the problem on the Leather set. I had named the file leather_set..mesh (note the double period ) !

So now it works and I've done enough stability testing to go ahead and upload it as the Valkyrie II version 4.0 (as I write this I am waiting for the upload to RGF to finish)

teaser pic...

Spoiler: show

hehehe...

EDIT
okay upload's done...

[spacepirate]

Sometimes, you can't win for losing. I'm wondering if it might be placement on the map that affects this, since the floor right above this I couldn't use the mana shrine it had.

Spoiler: show

[SixshotOverdrive]

Sometimes, you can't win for losing. I'm wondering if it might be placement on the map that affects this, since the floor right above this I couldn't use the mana shrine it had.

I'll try putting some obstacles on my test-map and see what happens. The whole things a bit strange and starting to hurt my brain a bit lol.


@Phanjam: Good to see you got it all sorted, and that's quite the epic screenshot. I wouldn't feel too bad about missing that double period, because I did as well

[Phanjam]

Thanks SixShot!

@Spacepirate @SixShot - wish I could be more help on the shrines challenge let me know if there's anything you think I can help with!