Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 4:33 pm Post subject:
Deployable Shp Tank Problems
Subject description: Starcraft units into RA2:YR
Hello again! Thought I might just use this topic from now on, since it's kinda related.
Okay so today's challenge for me was to make the Siege Tank deploy.
So far I have made the shps for both undeployed and deployed tank and the deployanimations as well. Now my problem is though, after I deploy it, the animation is shown perfectly BUT.. it is back to the undeployed shp! Although it can't move, so it's clearly deployed, just showing the wrong image.. I have been lurking at the Siege Chopper flags a lot, and I can't seem to find the mistake.
I hope somebody will be able to locate the mistake I've made
After 3 years of absent, I have gained interest and courage for modding again.
What I am still working on is a Starcraft mod for RA2:YR. So far I have went through a lot of forum threads and tutorials to get some knowledge again, but I haven't been able to find an answer for this question so far:
Is it possible to make voxel files from picture files like pcx?
Now, what I have done so far is:
exported and converted the .grp to .bmp from Starcraft's data files. Afterwards I have converted them to pcx and renamed these to Vulture00XX.pcx
Now I remember people recommend using shp files for 2d stuff like this, but isn't that only recommended for infantry? However if I make my Vulture as shp, I might still run into a problem when I get to the Siege Tank, which has a turret. As far as I know turrets require voxels (or .hva, I am not so sure about these terms yet)
So the main question: Is it possible to make a vxl unit from pictures? And if not, is it possible to use turrets with shps?
One extra question. As you can see on the linked picture, the transparent color for units in SC is pink when exported, however this can be exported as a blue-ish grey color as well. What does RA2 use for transparent color? Or is that something I can pick in one of the editor applications?
All kinds of help is appreciated!
Greets!
Kedde Last edited by Kedde on Sun Jul 24, 2011 9:36 pm; edited 4 times in total QUICK_EDIT
A volumetric pixel is nothing like a normal pixel. I really doubt some kind of translation from an isometric image to a voxel set is possible. _________________ You come for the modding but you stay for the Crap Forum. QUICK_EDIT
Yeah I guess it can't be done.. So shp would be the end solution. That is possible with vehicles right?
.. and I guess I have to combine the turret with the Siege Tank, so the whole tank moves around whenever it wants to shoot something, just like the Mirage Tank. QUICK_EDIT
Yes, .shapefile vehicles can have a rotating turret.
Word of warning to you though. If you plan on making some kind of Starcraft mod; don't. Blizzard Entertainment will crucify you for doing so. There are several mods that have been given a legal notice to cease and desist in regards to using copyrighted material, such as any unit design featured in Starcraft and Starcraft II, as well as all of the Warcraft franchise assets. Microsoft holds a similar no tolerance policy towards usage of copyrighted materials. _________________ You come for the modding but you stay for the Crap Forum. QUICK_EDIT
Word of warning to you though. If you plan on making some kind of Starcraft mod; don't. Blizzard Entertainment will crucify you for doing so.
Indeed. believe it or not, Blizzard visits these sites and vigorously looks for any and all of thier assets being used in mods. So be careful. _________________
The enemy shall be injected with toxic poison - Venom QUICK_EDIT
Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2011 12:14 am Post subject:
bit
screw Blizzard, lol.............actually I loved Diablo 1 & 2....you just made me to want to install it again.........hopefully it works on Win 7. Ah...good times. Um........maybe contact them about it. Tell them what you plan to do....I mean you are not selling the stuff so they might not have a problem.... _________________ I am authorized to send out the TMP Studio, PM ME IF YOU WANT IT And check this out, these were sent to me for help with terrain and zdata help along with TMP Studio/Builder
They even shutdown the mod that get creation by their own tool like "World of Starcraft" it'll be best to avoid to make everything base on their right.
Word of warning to you though. If you plan on making some kind of Starcraft mod; don't. Blizzard Entertainment will crucify you for doing so.
Indeed. believe it or not, Blizzard visits these sites and vigorously looks for any and all of thier assets being used in mods. So be careful.
That explains why I haven't been able to find many Starcraft mods for other games... Although C&C Reloaded includes two Starcraft units.
Anyhow, for now the mod is mainly ment for myself (and a friend I have who is also loving both RA2 and SC) and therefore not available online, so Blizzard wouldn't really be able to bust me for that, right
Regulus wrote:
Yes, .shapefile vehicles can have a rotating turret.
Nice! Do you maybe have a guide or just an example of one? I am very curious how it works compared to a voxel one.
Holy_Master wrote:
They even shutdown the mod that get creation by their own tool like "World of Starcraft" it'll be best to avoid to make everything base on their right.
Hah yeah I read that.. ironic when they even wanted to let people mod SC2 to death, but then still limits the outcome in the end.
Nikademis Von Hisson wrote:
maybe contact them about it. Tell them what you plan to do....I mean you are not selling the stuff so they might not have a problem....
Yeah I could do that.. but for now I don't think it's needed, unless I plan to make it a public mod, and there is a loooot of work ahead of me before it's even playable. QUICK_EDIT
I long ago modded a bit Starcraft as well and iirc did the units had only 16 frames for a 0 (north) to 180° (south) rotation and the other side was simply mirrored by the engine ingame.
In Ra2/YR you can give an SHP vehicle only 8 frames for the chassis and 32 for the turret, while both perform a full 360° rotation.
The definition inside the SHP goes like this:
-first the chassis moving frames (might be only 1 frame for each direction if it doesn't has a walk anim or similar)
-then the 32 turret frames
-after that you can have additional/optional standing frames for the chassis
-then come all shadow frames with the same order as the normal frames
The rotation inside the SHP for turreted units is clockwise for non-turreted units counterclockwise. Best take a look on the tiberian sun units like the titan (turreted SHP) and wolverine (non-turreted shp), so you know the order of the frames, which is the same in Ra2 afaik.
In addition you might also get problems with the perspective of the starcraft stuff compared to the C&C stuff, as both games use a slightly different camera angle, which in turn looks odd ingame. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
I tried putting the images into a shp file (counter clockwise as you said Lin, 8 images, and 8 shadow images which are basicly just the images in greyscale for now, but if I didn't add those 8 extra frames, half of the shp (after frame 3) would get weird: half of it greyscale on the same layer as the regular images).
As this was my first attempt in making a totally new unit (I only worked with rulesmd.ini editing back in the days), it of course made me fail badly
First of all, the remap doesn't seem to work. It stays pink (well the whole unit is darkened). So I need to manage how to fix that. I tried making it red in Photoshop, but it seems that wasn't the "right" red then. So question one:
- How do I make sure I get the right color to make it remappable?
Second of all, the unit can't seem to move around correctly. One thing is that I apparently made it chrono. I can't seem to find where I managed to make it like that (afaik chrono requires a locomotor flag right?)
But also it seems to be in only in a upright position (pointing up) I don't think this is because of the chrono only, because when the Vulture comes out of the War Factory, it seems to spin like hell So I must have entered something wrong in the artmd.ini file.
Here is my entry in the artmd.ini file:
[VOLT]
Voxel=no
Cameo=TRKAICON ;test cameo for now
AltCameo=TRKAICON ;test cameo for now
Remapable=yes
WalkFrames=8
As you can see I thought WalkFrames=8 was to indicate that the first 8 frames are the walking as well, but I most clearly have misunderstood the way that works.
Here is my entry in the rulesmd.ini (based on the Grizzly Tank but also on a "how to add a tank" tutorial):
To make sure the remap is correct, you should check that the reds are the bottom half colors of the lefternmost column in the unittem.pal.
Making a conversion pallette with no other red colors would help.
Joined: 22 Nov 2010 Location: Iszkaszentgyorgy, Hungary
Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2011 7:56 pm Post subject:
Chrono is the default locomotor. _________________ "If you didn't get angry and mad and frustrated, that means you don't care about the end result, and are doing something wrong." - Greg Kroah-Hartman
=======================
Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
=======================
WeiDU mods: Random Graion Tweaks | Graion's Soundsets
Maintainance: Extra Expanded Enhanced Encounters! | BGEESpawn
Contributions: EE Fixpack | Enhanced Edition Trilogy | DSotSC (Trilogy) | UB_IWD | SotSC & a lot more... QUICK_EDIT
As you can see I thought WalkFrames=8 was to indicate that the first 8 frames are the walking as well, but I most clearly have misunderstood the way that works.
No, WalkFrames defines the amount of frames for each direction and not the amount of directions which is fixed.
So you told the game to rotate through the 8 frames instead of using each one for a certain direction.
btw, i was writing from memory so i am not that sure about the clockwise/counterclockwise arrangement. If it rotates ingame in the wrong direction, you would have to change the order in the shp.
The right setting is WalkFrames=1.
You also forgot Facings=8
the correct code should look like this
Code:
[VOLT]
Voxel=no
Cameo=TRKAICON ;test cameo for now
AltCameo=TRKAICON ;test cameo for now
Remapable=yes
WalkFrames=1
Facings=8
StartWalkFrame=0 ;not really necessary as it's by default 0. just in case you've changed the order in the shp
To make it easier to have the correct remap colors, i would suggest you create a new palette just for the conversion.
Download OS Pal Editor, take the original unittem.pal, change the bottom left red colors into the remap pink that starcraft uses. Save the palette and then use it during the conversion. SHP Builder will then match starcraft remap to the pink remap of the custom palette. If you then change the palette to the normal one, you'll see that the remap colors have changed to red remap. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
Thanks for the locomotor tips! It seems indeed I didn't specify one at all, which I of course should I have done.
Lin Kuei Ominae wrote:
No, WalkFrames defines the amount of frames for each direction and not the amount of directions which is fixed.
So you told the game to rotate through the 8 frames instead of using each one for a certain direction.
I just checked the Brute shp and it does rotate counterclockwise like my Vulture, but it still seems that the movement in-game was wrong somehow, so I did it clockwise instead and it worked! So far so good.
Lin Kuei Ominae wrote:
To make it easier to have the correct remap colors, i would suggest you create a new palette just for the conversion.
Download OS Pal Editor, take the original unittem.pal, change the bottom left red colors into the remap pink that starcraft uses. Save the palette and then use it during the conversion. SHP Builder will then match starcraft remap to the pink remap of the custom palette. If you then change the palette to the normal one, you'll see that the remap colors have changed to red remap.
This worked 100%! Thanks man!
Here is a picture of it in-game now:
Now my next goal is to get it fire correctly. Right now it's firing from the middle of the unit which kinda look odd. Is this specified in artmd.ini under the unit itself or do I have to look for the art of the weapon? I have to make my own weapon in the end anyway so I might as well just try to do that. Are weapons' graphic also made from shp files? Haven't been able to find information about this yet. I will have an extra look now though, but if anybody can help me with this it's of course very appreciated! QUICK_EDIT
Now my next goal is to get it fire correctly. Right now it's firing from the middle of the unit which kinda look odd. Is this specified in artmd.ini under the unit itself or do I have to look for the art of the weapon?
Joined: 26 Apr 2003 Location: Somewhere in Germany
Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2011 11:52 am Post subject:
Kedde wrote:
I just checked the Brute shp and it does rotate counterclockwise like my Vulture, but it still seems that the movement in-game was wrong somehow, so I did it clockwise instead and it worked! So far so good.
The Brute is an InfantryType, which are handled differently. QUICK_EDIT
Hello again! Thought I might just use this topic from now on, since it's kinda related.
I've been working on adding the Siege Tank, which has a turret. The turret is of course a shp file made from the bitmaps from Starcraft.
Thing is though, there are only 16 turret frames, while the Red Alert 2 normally reads 32 frames for a turret. At least that's what I have been reading.
Is it not in any way possible to limit it to 16 frames?
No, 32 is hardcoded.
Though it shouldn't be a problem at all to duplicate the 16 frames to get 32. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
Okay so today's challenge for me was to make the Siege Tank deploy.
So far I have made the shps for both undeployed and deployed tank and the deployanimations as well. Now my problem is though, after I deploy it, the animation is shown perfectly BUT.. it is back to the undeployed shp! Although it can't move, so it's clearly deployed, just showing the wrong image.. I have been lurking at the Siege Chopper flags a lot, and I can't seem to find the mistake.
I hope somebody will be able to locate the mistake I've made
remove the DeployingAnim=TERTANKANIMZ from tertank2 and it should work. If not post your artmd codes as the problem may be there. _________________
The enemy shall be injected with toxic poison - Venom QUICK_EDIT
Voxel=no
Cameo=MINDICON ;test cameo for now
AltCameo=MINDICON ; test cameo for now
Remapable=yes
WalkFrames=1
Facings=8
PrimaryFireFLH=48,0,184 ;Needs adjustment!
SecondaryFireFLH=60,0,184 ;Needs adjustment!
[TERTANK2] ; Terran Siege Tank (Siege Mode)
Voxel=no
Cameo=MINDICON ;test cameo for now
AltCameo=MINDICON ; test cameo for now
Remapable=yes
WalkFrames=1
Facings=8 ; I have basicly added the same facing 8 times, since I didn't have any shp vehicle deploy knowledge - all of them were voxels.
PrimaryFireFLH=60,0,184 ;Needs adjustment!
So does both .shp have different image? I mean do they look different than one another? I really dont see any reason why this wouldnt work.
I see they both have Turrets, you did add the turrets in the same .shp file as the vehicle itself right?
Also, you dont need Voxel=no "it's an art tag only", and TurretAnimIsVoxel=no "Building Code" in your code. _________________
The enemy shall be injected with toxic poison - Venom QUICK_EDIT
Yes they have different images.
Tertank1.shp has 8 facings, and 32 turret images.
Tertank2.shp has 1 facing copied 8 times and 32 different turret images.
So I don't think there is anything wrong with the shps.. Is it because the game can't transform one shp into another? QUICK_EDIT
After testing this myself, it does Indeed seem this type of function is hardcoded to only work correctly with vxl's. I turned the schp and schd into .shp units and the results were the same as yours. After deploying it, it displayed the original schp instead of the schd.
Why not just use, DeploysInto= and UndeploysInto= ? But keep in mind that if you do it this way, tankter2 must be coded as a building and the turret will need to be removed and made into it's own .shp file. _________________
The enemy shall be injected with toxic poison - Venom QUICK_EDIT
You have to do the deployed form as actual building, simple deployer is...well simple, it just switches artwork and changes to using secondary from the basic entry, else the unloadingclass entry is not used for anything and it wasn't even made for shp artwork. QUICK_EDIT
So what I have done so far is to make the tertank2 a building instead and removed the turret from the shp file itself. To test it I added the LASER Sentry Gun turret, however this doesn't show up.
The deploy and undeploy "transfer" is working now though. Only some bugs that needs to be eliminated like to remove EVA voice saying "New Rally Point Established" when the tank undeploys. Also I wonder if it's possible to make the tank turn to another direction/facing before deploying? Right now it looks kinda goofy the way it turns to one direction, and then suddenly have another facing.
Here is my code:
Tertank1 is basicly the same, except it now got:
DeploysInto=TERTANK2
DeployingAnim=TERTANKANIM
; Siege Tank Siege Mode (Dummy)
[TERTANK2]
UIName=Name:TERTANK1
Name=ZZZ Siege Tank Deployed
BuildCat=Combat
Prerequisite=GAWEAP
Primary=120mmxE
ElitePrimary=120mmxE ;Now I don't know if this is possible now that it's a building?
VeteranAbilities=STRONGER,FIREPOWER,SIGHT,FASTER
EliteAbilities=SELF_HEAL,STRONGER,FIREPOWER,ROF
Strength=500
Armor=steel
Turret=yes
TurretAnim=LASER
TurretAnimIsVoxel=yes
;TurretAnimX=-8
TurretAnimY=10
TurretAnimZAdjust=-20
ThreatPosed=30 ; This value MUST be 0 for all building addons
Captureable=false
TechLevel=-1
Sight=8
Speed=7
DetectDisguise=no
Owner=British,French,Germans,Americans,Alliance,Russians,Confederation,Africans,Arabs,YuriCountry
Cost=1000
Soylent=1000
Points=40
ROT=5
Powered=yes
Power=0
Crewed=yes
IsSelectableCombatant=yes
Explosion=TWLT070,S_BANG48,S_BRNL58,S_CLSN58,S_TUMU60
VoiceSelect=SiegeTankSelect
VoiceMove=SiegeTankMove
VoiceAttack=SiegeTankAttack
VoiceFeedback=
CreateSound=SiegeTankCreated
DieSound=SiegeTankDestroyed
MoveSound=GrizzlyTankMoveStart
CrushSound=TankCrush
Weight=3.5
Size=6
UndeploysInto=TERTANK1
IsBaseDefense=yes ;I added this because it thought it would eliminate the "New Rally Point Established" voice, but it didn't.
ImmuneToPsionics=no QUICK_EDIT
ElitePrimary is of course possible. _________________ "If you didn't get angry and mad and frustrated, that means you don't care about the end result, and are doing something wrong." - Greg Kroah-Hartman
=======================
Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
=======================
WeiDU mods: Random Graion Tweaks | Graion's Soundsets
Maintainance: Extra Expanded Enhanced Encounters! | BGEESpawn
Contributions: EE Fixpack | Enhanced Edition Trilogy | DSotSC (Trilogy) | UB_IWD | SotSC & a lot more... QUICK_EDIT
I still don't get why the turret doesn't show up though. I hope somebody knows the answer to that one.
Turrets are kinda funny sometimes.
try TurretAnimZAdjust=-132.
You may also have to adjust the
TurretAnimX=
TurretAnimY= _________________
The enemy shall be injected with toxic poison - Venom QUICK_EDIT
TurretAnimX and Y are only used to move the turret if it isn't in right position as is in the artwork and ZAdjust is used to bring it more forward above the body, just use the amount needed until it shows enough, the problem of using big values is that it may draw infront of other nearby things where it makes no sense and the bigger negative value, more it is brought forward on top of the body.
Rallypoint bug comes with all deploy into building things in RA2 due to change in rallypoint setting command which was tad more special in TS while here its set when selected building held active is clicked in an area and most modders actually just disable the eva event using a blank sound wav. QUICK_EDIT
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Deployable Shp Tank Problems
