Right, I need some help with textures. Let me explain first: To learn how to handle the models, i took the ukrainian academy, exported it as an .obj with egnaro's tool. Then imported it into 3dMax 9. I cut it in to 3 pieces. Saved it as .obj. Then used egnaro's tool again to turn it into an .osm. Replaced the ukraca.osm in the game files with my new one I just made. Testing in editor shows up fine. Spoiler I got a little house -ish building now. Everything seems fine (except the things I havent cared about yet, ground texture,...) I'm sure i will figure that part out. Now, I didnt change anything to the .dds texture, this is still the original one, and seems to work just fine for this purpose. What I want to do next is, cut parts of one building scene and merge them with another. Why? For editor/mapping purposes : eg take a cart from one game object, add a storehouse to it from another, take another part from another building etc... then merge them toghether into a new object. The problem for me, is the textures , as the objects come from say 3 different game objects each with their own .dds texture. How would I go about it to create a new .dds texture for this new object I created. I've never done anything like this before, and could use help/tips, but preferably a step by step guide by one of the people here on the forums who seem to know how to handle the dds textures (HugoJackson18, Setakat, Fimti, Furious Peasant,...). I know there are snippets here and there with info ( save as dtx 5,...) but i'm sorta looking for a detailed guide on the workflow you guys use, from the object in 3dmax,... to importing/exporting the texture (texporter?), to photoshop steps for the alpha masking (?), player colour,... This wouldn't just benefit me, but many people I think. (I have tried making one and it turned black ingame xD) I'm clueless at this point.
Nice work on this! So basically what you would need to do, is re-work the UVs of the models for them to fit on one UV tile together. UVs are what tells the game to put the texture at the right place on the right polygons. So let's say you've got 3 objects from 3 differents buildings, merged into one. When combining these 3 buildings, the UVs would probably be overlapping. So you would have to re-arrange them for them to be all neat and tidy. Then, you would have to bake the 3 initial buildings textures onto those new UVs of your new object. Et voila! You have your new unique texture with parts of the 3 original buildings. I could probably write a little guide sometimes, if I find the time!
Has anyone succeeded at adding a completely new building to the game without overwriting an existing one?
Me and Kiergath were trying to add an Austrian 18th Century Musketeer unit to the game but it always came out buggy, until you showed us your mod. Now I think we can implement it. As far as buildings go, after we finished with the musketeer we thought about trying to add Hugo's castle as a level 2 blockhouse of sorts. So I'm guessing your method of adding the standard bearers didn't work for the building you tried to add, cause to be honest that's what I was thinking of trying.
Yes, I took notes aswell, but should clean them up first before posting. Very basic though, just got it ingame in the mission nation without worrying about fancy stuff like attachments, smokepoints, and whatnot. It is very similar to adding a unit, with some differences here and there. I'll see if I can post it later today, else tomorrow.
No worries! I got it working after awhile it's a bit messy tho! You have to write the object name a 100 times - makes it quite prone to errors. But feel free to make a tutorial - people would probably appreciate it.
See here: http://www.cossacks3.com/forum/inde...o-add-a-new-building-in-14-steps-basic.27191/ @Hugojackson, in return i'd like to see your guide on textures
Amazing! I will definitely make the guide for the textures, although I think I'd rather make a video of it as it would be simpler to show. Would this suit you? I will probably have to write a detailed generic guide as well that has more of the concept behind it rather than a specific tutorial, as I am using Maya, and I suspect most of the people here will use either 3dsmax or Blender.
Ok so I analyzed how the building stages and death stages of the buildings were made, and they are all using the same texture. Which answers a question I had about why was there so much wasted space in the UVs of the finish building. It's because this space is for parts of the building and death stages of the building. So I proceeded the same way. NOTE that the scaffolding and other building props are NOT included into the building stages. I have found the ladders but I haven't found the scaffolding. And their placements must be driven by a text file with coordonates somwhere. So here is the new link. Now includes: - 1 building - 4 building stages - 2 death stages - 1 texture for the building - 1 texture for the ground The models still have UVs all over the place (because I haven't had time to fix them yet) but it's definitely a starting point to test the building stages and all the rest. @Ebel it would be amazing if you found a way to put some flags on those poles on top of the tower! Next thing I'm going to do now that this is out of the way (almost), is a video tutorial about Ebel's question about texture. I am going to do exactly what he did from the start, taking 3 buildings, breaking them appart, re-assembling them and baking the textures. Here's a little screenshot of all the stages Spoiler
As for the flags, I suggest you take a look at the Austrian 17th Century Barracks since as far as I remember it had flags on top
Loads of buildings have flags we can steal from, although they are .actors files and I find them a bit crappy. I have made some flags which I think are much better than the cossacks ones, but for now, I think finding out how to attach existing ones to the model is priority over integrating our own flags, but ultimately if we find a solution, that would be amazing
Awesome work HugoJackson18, The scaffolds are their own models and for the austrian temple for example they can be found in: C3 Models\buildings\aus\attach\ Each build stage has its own model. So C3 Models\buildings\aus\attach\austem1a.osm goes with the C3 Models\buildings\aus\austem1.osm file. The texture for the scaffolds is in Cossacks 3\data\materials\buildings\constructor\scaffold.dds . This file is used for ALL scaffolds for every building. This folder also has details.dds which for example has the vines from the Austrian 18th century barracks , which is an attachment, texture for the ladder you found(i think)... (often attach\modelname+a.osm) Debris.dds is for deathstage attachments. I would assume you could maybe use an existing scaffold file, reposition the scaffolds so they match the outline of your castle walls and then re-export it as model? I will update the guide with your new models and some other things soon.
Amazing find Ebel, thanks a lot for this! Yes this is EXACTLY what I was planning to do, but failed to find them haha. I will have a look at all this stuff when I get a chance!
Updated with new stuff: Part II: Adding a description, rotate/scale, smokepoints and groundtexture. Part III: Adding collision mask, Shotpoints, Properties, Build and DeathStages.
New version of the building here! https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6-HjHGVgDRmMnljbWZCRW9Eb2s Edits: Fixed placement of the building stages Fixed textures UVs for each stages Open door for the finish building Added building icon
@Hugo: - About the flags. I tried, it's not hard to get a flag to display on the castle. I took the flag from the miscommandcenter. It displays, but ofcourse in the wrong position. It seems possible to move it around by using offset properties coordinates, but this is sorta tedious to find the right spot. It would probably be better if it is its own model, exported in the correct position above the castle. Especially if more than one flag is desired, then they should be positioned correctly relative to eachother. (Does this make sense?) It probably should be a flag with player colour. The flag texture seems to be stored in the buildings .dds aswell. (The commandcenter one i used doesnt have player colour, the other single flags i noticed on the prussian 17th bar, is gold-ish coloured ,and those that do have player colour are usually 2 flags , which makes it hard to get them in the right spot, because they are in fixed positions relative to eachother(see above). Perhaps an existing model can be imported in to your preferred 3d modelling program, positioned in the right spot,and then exported again? (Like the scaffolds?) - Bonus: while looking through models i found this: Spoiler It appears to be an unused building. It's textures are in 50 shades of grey. It can be found in Cossacks 3\data\actors\buildings\commoneur\eursga.osm There's a few copies of this model under different names (eurswa, eurwga, eurwwa). They appear to be dummies as far as I can tell. Don't know if it is of any use. It would need a proper texture.
