[valakii]

About Meshes:

Ok so meshes are obviously applied to templates via "class bCString MeshFileName" string.

Is there a way to apply more than one mesh to a template's "class gCItemCloth_PS"? If not so: are we able to edit mesh files (especially SkinnedMeshes) and maybe combine two meshes that way?

Example: imagine a headgear which makes the player wear both sunglasses and a hat at the same time, for instance.

[tombom81]

Example: imagine a headgear which makes the player wear both sunglasses and a hat at the same time, for instance.

Mean something like this?

Spoiler:(zum lesen bitte Text markieren)

[Bild: Mesh_Male_Hat_Bsk_Mid_01_L1_with_glasses.jpg]

Not sure whether it's worth the effort; too many steps to do, too many chances to fail...

Maybe look at Grumbledore's research about glasses/usetypes. Or, timewarp back to Risen, Rimi 3D to deal with meshes (but it can't handle Elex meshes, afaik).

[valakii]

Mean something like this?

Well, kind of

I already had a look into Grumbledore's work, I don't think it will help me on this

How were you even able to open/edit/merge those two meshes??

[tombom81]

How were you even able to open/edit/merge those two meshes??

Some basic understanding of 3D formats, hexediting, like such.
No mesh editing, no merging. I just loaded the two separate meshes and adjusted the position of the glasses.

[valakii]

Some basic understanding of 3D formats, hexediting, like such.
No mesh editing, no merging. I just loaded the two separate meshes and adjusted the position of the glasses.

Well if you're able to load two separate meshes at once, shouldn't it be possible to save them as one file afterwards? And what about texture mapping?

What about this idea I came up with: I'd like to join upperbody armor and pants in order to create full body armors like it used to be in the old Gothic games (and like it's the case with Alb armors).

Or maybe the other way round: make Alb armors have two separate meshes for upperbody and pants, respectively. In any case, I'd like to have all armors consisently, either all of them full body or all of them separated into upperbody and pants...

[tombom81]

Well if you're able to load two separate meshes at once, shouldn't it be possible to save them as one file afterwards?

Yes - but you're limited to the exporters of your preferred 3D editor (blender, 3dsmax or similar). There's no elexmesh exporter, afaik.

And what about texture mapping?

Getting the uvs into blender should be possible but the exporter problem still remains...

I could think of combining vertices in a fake elexmesh file but combining the uvs would require the creation of a combined uv map, afaik. (This is where the effort "explodes".)

[valakii]

Hmm too bad...

Another idea would be to use the empty "class bCString BlendShapeFileName" slot in order to apply a second mesh to an equipment template. I suppose this string refers to the BlendShape folder, right? Any chance we might be able to put a copy of a SkinnedMesh there? Is there any file conversion necessary?

To be honest, I don't even know what BlendShapes are supposed to be - can you enlighten me on this?

PS:
How about splitting up the full body alb armors into upper and lower body, would you be able to do this? I guess you wouldn't have to create new UV maps for this, right? Since you're only deleting part of the mesh and leaving the texture map untouched...

[tombom81]

Hmm too bad...

Another idea would be to use the empty "class bCString BlendShapeFileName" slot in order to apply a second mesh to an equipment template. I suppose this string refers to the BlendShape folder, right? Any chance we might be able to put a copy of a SkinnedMesh there?

I don't think you'd achieve what you're trying to that way. (If there were a simple solution someone would have found it already, I guess.)

To be honest, I don't even know what BlendShapes are supposed to be - can you enlighten me on this?

Spoiler:(zum lesen bitte Text markieren)

"Blend shapes are used in 3D animation to interpolate between different sets of geometry. For instance, blend shapes are often used in facial animation to transition between expressions — like a character breaking into a smile or a frown from a neutral expression."

from here

PS:
How about splitting up the full body alb armors into upper and lower body, would you be able to do this? I guess you wouldn't have to create new UV maps for this, right? Since you're only deleting part of the mesh and leaving the texture map untouched...

Should be doable; sadly I'm too busy with other things. (btw, it's not a simple splitting of a file - you'll need to care for vertices, normals, uv coordinates, face indices. In fact you'll need to understand the structure of an elexmesh file before.)

[valakii]

I think I found a way to remove part of a mesh. Though I haven't been fully able to make it work yet (which is due to my incapability of texture editing )...

The idea is this: if we make part of the texture transparent (by editing the corresponding texture dds files), it should ingame look like there just isn't any mesh - whereas in fact, it is simply not covered by any visible texture.

Now I only need to understand how to create transparency in Elex texture dds files (afair it had to do sth with alpha channels? )

[tombom81]

yeah, "transparency"! Cool idea! Didn't handle that with ELEX dds textures so far.

Here's a post for Risen 3 where OC-Burner names programs/plugins which could help.

(btw, I remember having seen window glass in ELEX 2. When I could find the image files I could tell more how they did it.)

[valakii]

yeah, "transparency"! Cool idea! Didn't handle that with ELEX dds textures so far.

Here's a post for Risen 3 where OC-Burner names programs/plugins which could help.

(btw, I remember having seen window glass in ELEX 2. When I could find the image files I could tell more how they did it.)

That would be awesome. Any hint on how Elex handles transparency is highly appreciated!

[tombom81]

This is what I found so far for Tex_Ti_Glass_01_AlA.elex2img.dds:

Microsoft (R) DirectX Texture Diagnostic Tool
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp. All rights reserved.

Tex_Ti_Glass_01_AlA.elex2img.dds

        width = 1024
       height = 1024
        depth = 1
    mipLevels = 11
    arraySize = 1
       format = BC3_UNORM_SRGB
    dimension = 2D
   alpha mode = Unknown
       images = 11
   pixel size = 1365 (KB)

edit: problem - you can convert to DXT3 using texconv but it doesn't look like the original glass then

[valakii]

This is what I found so far for Tex_Ti_Glass_01_AlA.elex2img.dds:

Microsoft (R) DirectX Texture Diagnostic Tool
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp. All rights reserved.

Tex_Ti_Glass_01_AlA.elex2img.dds

        width = 1024
       height = 1024
        depth = 1
    mipLevels = 11
    arraySize = 1
       format = BC3_UNORM_SRGB
    dimension = 2D
   alpha mode = Unknown
       images = 11
   pixel size = 1365 (KB)

edit: problem - you can convert to DXT3 using texconv but it doesn't look like the original glass then

How did you analyse that dds file? Can't find anything like that in dxdiag...

But first things first: I actually wasn't even able to figure out which texture file and layer exactly is used to produce transparency. Equipment items like armor come in with several texture files like

*_Cv.dds (channel: grey)
*_Df.dds (channels: red/green/blue/alpha)
*_Em.dds (channel: grey)
*_Nm.dds (channels: red/green/blue)
*_Sm.dds (channels: red/green/blue)
*_Sm2.dds (channel: grey)

As far as I was able to figure out, only one of these files includes an alpha layer, see above. Yet I haven't succeeded to replace part of that with transparency, though I tried different changes to the different dds files. Neither filling in black space, white space nor transparet space will do the trick, while at least altered textures actually do show ingame.

Edit:
I read that sometimes meshes need to support transparency. Maybe that's the problem?

[tombom81]

How did you analyse that dds file? Can't find anything like that in dxdiag...

I can upload the exe - later (needs to be tested with Win10 before).

As far as I was able to figure out, only one of these files includes an alpha layer, see above. Yet I haven't succeeded to replace part of that with transparency, though I tried different changes to the different dds files.

Not sure if armors are supposed to use transparency. It's for window glass, and water (maybe). (For visual effects they use particles, afaik. I were surprised if transparency was used there, but who knows?)

Edit:
I read that sometimes meshes need to support transparency. Maybe that's the problem?

What I know from static meshes that sometimes their textures are invisible when using wrong face winding or inverted normals.

But, yay, that's the point: I'll try out inverting the normals of parts of a full-body-armor and see that happens.
(Keep fingers crossed!)

edit: decided to "erase" the lower body uv data (which was much easier than recalculating the normals). I handled the skn file not the texture, btw.

result: [Bild: Sestak.jpg]
Not what I've expected, just seeing the "raw mesh". Not sure whether flipping normals would do (skinned meshes are different to static ones).

edit 2: better transparency example from ELEX 2:

Spoiler:(zum lesen bitte Text markieren)

[Bild: E2_Female_Skirt_Alpha.jpg]

[valakii]

Wow, that's some really nice progress!!

So, what do we need to do in order the render part of the skinnedmesh completely invisible? Is the rest done by texture transparency, or will the mesh need some more adjustment?

[tombom81]

Wow, that's some really nice progress!!

So, what do we need to do in order the render part of the skinnedmesh completely invisible? Is the rest done by texture transparency, or will the mesh need some more adjustment?

I was in the hope that it could be "solved by texture" only. (So without any weird mesh manipulations.)

The dds file imported into gimp (see previous post) had the original data, only header bytes before "DDS" were cut.

A template for Albs (with full body armor) is required for the lower body, like Berserks have: "It_Pants_BSK_High"

and then (in an NPC worldsector file) a BodyPart3 for Sestak (for example) similar to Ragnar:

                        BodyPart3 {
                            MeshFile1 = "Mesh_Male_PantsShoes_Bsk_High_01_L1";
                            MeshFile2 = "";
                            Unknown1 = <00 00>;
                            Unknown2 = <00 00>;
                        }

But first you'll need to create those transparent upper and lower body textures.
Maybe we don't need transparency at all, just cutting the fullarmor texture into two parts?
Will test this asap.
--------

Well, seems I lost the basic problem out of sight.
You wanted separate meshes, didn't you?

Are you sure that "Grumbledore's work" isn't a solution?

-------------------
finally:
after having thought about this another minute I've come to the conclusion that the solution is in the class eCAnimation3Controller_PS in Worldsector files. (The confusion arose from class gCItemCloth_PS in templates which uses fullbody armor or upperbody and lowerbody armor in separate templates.)

(Creating a lowerbody-only part from the fullbody mesh should be doable in a simple way, I hope...)

edit: I woke up in the morning and the slots came into my mind:

gESlot_RightHand

gESlot_Amulet
gESlot_EarRing

"gESlot_Body"

"gESlot_Hat"
"gESlot_Head"

WeaponSlot

They are "ruled" by the UseType, iirc.
Guess there's a "one slot, one item" rule, too.

So hat or glasses, that's the question. (Grumbledore solved it, afair.)

(That also might be the reason that the weapon slot can hold a Bow or a sword, but not both together.)

[valakii]

edit: I woke up in the morning and the slots came into my mind:

gESlot_RightHand

gESlot_Amulet
gESlot_EarRing

"gESlot_Body"

"gESlot_Hat"
"gESlot_Head"

WeaponSlot

They are "ruled" by the UseType, iirc.
Guess there's a "one slot, one item" rule, too.

So hat or glasses, that's the question. (Grumbledore solved it, afair.)

(That also might be the reason that the weapon slot can hold a Bow or a sword, but not both together.)

But how does that help us create separate meshes from fullbody armor? It might be useful when it comes to applying more than one mesh to a template, but not the other way round... or am I missing your point? Anyway, it still leaves us with the "one slot, one item" problem, as you pointed out. Was Grumbledore actually able to apply more than one mesh to an item, or what did you mean?

Well, seems I lost the basic problem out of sight.
You wanted separate meshes, didn't you?

Haha yeah well, those things happen when you're brainstorming. I'm always excited to see where creativity leads us .
But yes, initially we tried to find a solution on how to split fullbody meshes into upper and lower body parts, respectively .

(Creating a lowerbody-only part from the fullbody mesh should be doable in a simple way, I hope...)

How's that? Without touching the meshes or textures, you mean?

I was in the hope that it could be "solved by texture" only. (So without any weird mesh manipulations.)
[...]
But first you'll need to create those transparent upper and lower body textures.
Maybe we don't need transparency at all, just cutting the fullarmor texture into two parts?
Will test this asap.

I'm happy to contribute any way I can! But I'm a little confused now: will a combination of mesh and texture editing do the trick, or did you come to another conclusion? If you want to continue the mesh/texture thing, you can simply hand me your adjusted mesh and I will try some texture manipulation on it...

Btw, cutting the texture in half will probably not work, since the textures aren't simply mapped that easily. Different body parts are randomly spread all over the place, it's not stricly separated by upper and lower body.

Edit:
Correction: I just had a closer look at the alb fullbody armor textures and it turns out they are actually neatly separated into an upperbody _01 and a lowerbody _02 file!! (so two texture files for one skinnedmesh)
Didn't notice that before because I had been trying the texture transparency thingy on a headgear at first (trying to render the Elexetor hood invisibly so it only shows the breathing mask part).
I will try "deactivating" one of these files and see what happens.

[tombom81]

But how does that help us create separate meshes from fullbody armor?

This is where I've lost the path. Why do we need separate meshes?

(I'll try to create and send them asap.)

Btw, cutting the texture in half will probably not work, since the textures aren't simply mapped that easily. Different body parts are randomly spread all over the place, it's not stricly separated by upper and lower body.

Yeah, the rule is "you can simply merge meshes but no uv maps". You'd need to do a complete uv unwrap then (afaik). And recreate the textures; a "nogo".

Edit:
Correction: I just had a closer look at the alb fullbody armor textures and it turns out they are actually neatly separated into an upperbody _01 and a lowerbody _02 file!! (so two texture files for one skinnedmesh)

That's funny. Good to know!

[valakii]

This is where I've lost the path. Why do we need separate meshes?

My intention was to implement Alb and Alb Separatist armors into the game and make them function like any other armor does. Which means, separate upper and lower body which might even be combined with other faction's armor parts.

Yeah, the rule is "you can simply merge meshes but no uv maps". You'd need to do a complete uv unwrap then (afaik). And recreate the textures; a "nogo".

I'm really not particularly familiar with 3d meshes, so please don't mind if thats a silly question, but being able to manipulate UV like you did on Sestak's armor, wouldn't it be somehow possible to "simply" cut or at least turn off one half of the mesh?

[tombom81]

My intention was to implement Alb and Alb Separatist armors into the game and make them function like any other armor does. Which means, separate upper and lower body which might even be combined with other faction's armor parts.

Ok, got it.

, but being able to manipulate UV like you did on Sestak's armor, wouldn't it be somehow possible to "simply" cut or at least turn off one half of the mesh?

That's what I did here:

[Bild: Sestak_ohneUnterleib.jpg]
(PB won't be amused! Will remind them to a bug in Gothic 3, I guess.)

There's a good chance that the graphics engine won't be amused, too, when I combine upper and lower body created by simply erasing face indices.

(I need to change Sestaks bodyparts, so may take awhile...)

There's some polygons left (left knee protection), hard to find the "border".

edit: surprisingly it worked:

EqdReM4hHMWectBMesh_Male_LowerBody_Alb_High_01_L1.zip

(FullBody contains UpperBody only, so should be renamed)

Sestak entity in ABE_NPCs.elexsec(doc) needs to be updated like such:

                       BodyPart3 {
                            MeshFile1 = "Mesh_Male_LowerBody_Alb_High_01_L1";
                            MeshFile2 = "";
                            Unknown1 = <00 00>;
                            Unknown2 = <00 00>;
                        }

(No additional template required for the lower body, surprise.)

LowerBody means Pants & Shoes. Too lazy to split that up further. Also keep in mind that there's 3 Lods to deal with - have fun!