76 replies to this topic

[Roderick]

Ehm I think I have not the p/w for the private dev thread. Can you sent it to me?

 

I am not having recent progresses to mention other that I'm putting new banners with their corresponding texture (a dedicated one) yet they are named either with a common name or a dedicated one (depending on the race progress state: those mods who are being already wip don't need to rename the banner texture name in the models, while potential ones for the future probably will need to).

 

Once I got a set of banners I consider useful to be supported, I will do the OE.

Edited by Roderick, 15 March 2018 - 12:59 PM.

[thudo]

Sent however I'm brutally confused.

 

Why do we need a set of pre-made faction banners (ie. if_banner.rsh for Imperial Fists or um_banner.rsh for Ultramarines) for all the missing 10+ factions when we could use a single one we know works, change its name temporarily to the corresponding banner name in question associated to the faction its looking for, quickly do the OE work for all missing factions, done! I can give you a unique banner name for each faction so OE can look at both the _race name and the texture path to the unique banner. Done! This can be done in minutes and be agreed to by all the faction mod teams because, honestly, we're behind the 8-ball here.

 

I'm also confused: all faction mods in the list already have banners done years ago so why do we need new ones? They have to have em because otherwise they're sergeants would have banner displays all grey: we've taken care of that a very long time ago. Even if the faction has no "official" banner we'd do a quick google image search, mock it up, then using the dimensions required to adhere to the standards doddle it up in Photoshop so it conforms to what the game expects.

 

Its farrr more important to get all the OE work done and use a quick unique name for the banner per faction. Then, we can quickly test it per faction.

[Roderick]

Not exactly. You need proper 3d objects: banner, pole, flag made explicitly for the faction (you can copy one) and made in max since copying meshes in FFE is nigh impossible, you need to add the vis_anim information to avoid overlapping of several objects at once (you want to be visible that of the race you choose).

 

Then each object has a proper texture which its own path, which can have the name you prefer (some inherit the original name that Relic gave from the copied model, others not). Indeed the most important is the path and the concordance with the name in the models which will plant this flag. The thing is that when you make copies of the same object for different factions you can easily forgot which ones are already done or not unless a) you rename the texture in the material list or b) you make a different default texture that is visually indicative of the faction you're doing (and therefore, the name, even shared, cannot lead to confusion). I'm doing more the second approach, a personalized texture for each material for each race banner and the name can be shared or not. Notice that this texture isn't going to appear as long as the race has the wtp to get the "X_default_banner" layer so that it can be made almost carelessly.

 

Once this is made, you export and get the sgm (or ebps?) to be opened in the OE. There is where you replicate the same structure for many races and link the newer races names.

 

I'm a bit delayed as I tried to understand the material assignment (there are some oddities the way the importer orders the materials) and how to add some extra bits for some banners. Of course, I could do several copies of the same banners without any customization to speed up the process but at this point I think I can invest it a little more time. Also RL is delaying me a bit extra.

Edited by Roderick, 15 March 2018 - 04:31 PM.

[thudo]

At this point beggars cannot be choosers.. we need to cut our loses and just add "temp banner poles" and a "best fit" banners themselves because, honestly, I do not ever see LotD getting a custom banner pole with flaming ethereal skulls.

 

We should at this juncture just aim to use vanilla banner poles with a banner that just works for the faction in question: there is no sense in waiting any longer otherwise we'll be waiting on models. Lets just do what we did for the Eldar Craftworld: use the default vanilla Eldar banner pole then have some default Eldar banners and call it a day (that was Eldar example of course).

 

This way we'll expedite and get a "good fit" for the faction without reinventing the wheel.

[Roderick]

>honestly, I do not ever see LotD getting a custom banner pole with flaming ethereal skulls.

 

That's what I was having in mind tbh...

 

Nevermind, the banners can be made that way if you prefer. Thus, the exporting can be made in a weekend if there are no unexpected issues (one cannot get that for granted). The OE will be the trickiest one as I have to refresh the knowledge.

Edited by Roderick, 15 March 2018 - 04:28 PM.

[thudo]

- I would die to see that but unless we have the cycles to do each custom banner pole for each of the 10+ factions still waiting I would simply default to what Eldar Craftworld did: just pawn off the existing vanilla source and.. done! Very few will notice and it gets all those projects waiting for years and years finally seeing 100% support that works, honestly, just as well.

 

- That is my direction 100%! At least all the backlogged factions can see immediate OP support that will look just as well as something far more elaborate but, in all honestly, will consume a lot of cycles UNLESS someoe pipes up and becomes our dedicated custom banner pole developer.

 

I'm chopping at the bit to test this as, personally, I've been waiting for this support for a very long time.

[Roderick]

honestly I was training my skills with the banners to jump to another more ambitious projects. But anyway, if I can do it once, I can update it again.

[thudo]

Utterly magnificent!

[jONES1979]

What the next race you need to update?

[thudo]

Any or all of them in THIS thread!

 

That would be utterly massive beyond the call!

[Roderick]

A not so ideal build will be based on replicas mostly for those factions which are marines, guard or chaos conveniently mapped with respective textures; I've made tga to rsh proxies for each banner texture to avoid confusion when re-assigning them.

 

Then second phase is to add the praetorian banner which is in the ad-hoc objective points object in Praetorian guard mod. And with this, the oe code necessary to make flag disappear if LP is build (is the same as in Thousand Sons I guess, but the oe can be seen in that Praetorian guard mod too).

 

Third phase would be assign or copy the tyranid tentacles from unused mod to the tyranid swarm race as they have a default banner currently.

 

Some mods like SW hadn't a proper banner object so that I will polish that on the oe too.

 

Wait for something for testing purposes in the end of the month.

Edited by Roderick, 08 May 2018 - 07:50 PM.

[Gambit]

Progress! 

[jONES1979]

 And with this, the oe code necessary to make flag disappear if LP is build 

 

 

it is not possible this way

[thudo]

So what is the proper way to see this get done?

 

Need you chaps to come together as this is an incredible keystone project that has tentacles everywhere impacting MANY projects waiting.

[jONES1979]

OP_SS mod updated: Added proper Ultramarines mod support. Have fun!

 

http://www.moddb.com...d-for-dc-and-ss

Edited by jONES1979, 14 May 2018 - 06:52 PM.

[thudo]

Much incredibly praise!

 

Tested with UM on strat/crit/relic... all good!

 

I take it the only test scenarios are just with those point types? Nothing else like extra banners elsewhere?

 

Hope this did not take too long.. there are now ~16 more to go!

[mdcertainty]

The most important is of course Emperors Children

Thanks jONES1979 for the Ultra's OP fix

Edited by mdcertainty, 15 May 2018 - 09:41 PM.