Hubbabubba's Corner

[Johnny]

~S~ Hubbabubba,

As per your instructions, I have created a box 10X10X10, with a COG of 0.0,0.0,5.0, with the AAC_Destroyer at the model. Did you want me to color or texture it?

j

[hubbabubba]

Did you want me to color or texture it?

...it depends...

... if you have made it out of six square parts, do paint the "floor" in black, the "ceiling" in white, and the other four "walls" red, blue, yellow, and green.

Tell me if you can get them to show without bleed (it is possible).

...but if you have done it as a component, you only have one choice of color. I suggest grey.

In both cases, do produce and, then, with MDLDisAs, do disassemble the MDL into a SCX file and send it to me via e-mail.

The fun will begin here...

[Ivan]

Hey Folks,

Just out of curiosity, what is the theme here? I believe the rest of us are missing some crucial information without which this doesn't make sense. I can tell you are trying to build a 3D model but I am not sure of the point being demonstrated.

- Ivan.

[hubbabubba]

Hey Folks,

Just out of curiosity, what is the theme here? I believe the rest of us are missing some crucial information without which this doesn't make sense. I can tell you are trying to build a 3D model but I am not sure of the point being demonstrated.

- Ivan.

You're quite right Ivan...

Johnny is "jumping the gun" here and I am no better. This came out of an e-mail Johnny sent me a couple of days ago asking how I was painting my jeep. Here are excerpts;

(...)
As for painting outside AF99, it is a bit intensive and long to explain. Suffice to say for now that it involves SCASM, Easy Object Designer and MDLDisAsm.

SCASM= http://www.scasm.de/txt/download.htm

The assembler program build by Manfred Moldenhauer. To be used with about every program that works with CFS1 to make things, airplanes or scenery. Get the latest version and the ancillary programs and files (some don't work on XP, sorry...). Sortava Swiss knife, to be used with other programs.

Easy Object Designer= http://www.echos.ch/eod/download.htm

EOD is a "macro maker", created by Matthias Brückner, another German genius like Moldenhauer. It is oriented toward scenery object creation. It creates API macro files that are, in turn, integrated in sceneries with program such as Airport for Windows. The latest version was oriented towards FS2K2 constructions and the resulting API needs "tweaking" to work under CFS1.

But here, it is is "texturing facilities" interface that we exploit.

MDLDisAS= http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/tdestig/id17.htm

By Trevor de Stigter, a "Kiwi" from New Zealand. This program is a front end for SCASM that decompile the BGL portion of a MDL file, let you do your things, and recompile the work you've done.

I have a registered version but the non-registered version is fully functional. Quite frankly, I don't see any difference betweeen the registered and non-registered versions! Maybe a little longer delay to start, 5 seconds instead of two???, but otherwise exactly the same.

You will also need a very good plain TXT editor. I use EditPadPro, but it is payware.

Go get those programs installed and come back to me.

In short, here is what you do;

1- Create something with AF99 and "produce" without any textures. Use specific colors to pinpoint parts later;
2- Decompile with MDLDisAs, clean the SCX file it creates;
3- "Tag" your parts and components so you know which is which, replacing the Labels alphanumeric system with a more comprehensive naming procedure for you;
4- Replace "old" manual vectors colors by "automatic" coloring;
5- Figure out which sides of polygons needs to be shown and the order they will be shown;
6- Apply textures where you need using different techniques depending on what kind of polygons you are painting, what kind of effect you want (hard or soft shading, transparencies, etc...);
7- Recompile the new SCX file and hope you have not screwed anything... ;-)

Remember, this is the "short" version. Details will come along the way.

It would make for a good tutorial at SOH, they now have plenty of space over there...

Regards,
Hubba

While on TS, I asked Johnny to build me a cube of 10x10x10 feet sitting on the ground with a POV dead center. This is where we are at this point.

Sorry again for the way it went, but I did ask Johnny to let me finish the jeep first, although I understand his impatience.

[Johnny]

~S~ Hubbabubba and Ivan,

I knew Ivan was curious about what was going on. It is a cross between "snatch the pebble from my hand Grasshopper" and Hubbabubba having me build balsa wood tanks.

I did jump the gun and I am sorry, but building the box with no bleeding was like building the balsa tank. I learned a lot from just that experiment.

Hubbabubba wants it done at the Outhouse so he will not have to put up with future interruptions. I thought I could push the issue with this thread.

Anyway the Box.SCX is on it's way, but I did it with textures. I would jump into the PT-Boat with this knowledge, but the restrictions in AF99 would have to be pushed to the limits. About like Khloee being larger in MB size then all of AAC_Ripe, when in fact it would be dwarfed inside Ripes smallest hanger.

j

[hubbabubba]

OK Johnny, I received your CUBE project.

Looks great, but...

...you send me the "whole shabang", sound files included!!!, while I needed only the .SCX file. It took a good 30 minutes for it to download.

How to make the .scx ? Open MDLDisAs (that you have installed according to instructions in it), go get the MDL file, decompile it and save it. This is all I need. It should look like this; Box.scx. You can read and write in it with any TXT editor. And it will take seconds for me to receive it.

I have made my own SCX file, and I have found some anomalies in it, but I will wait for you to make your own and send it to me. It is crucial that you learn how to decompile-assemble a SCX file into a MDL file, upstream and downstream.

[hubbabubba]

OK...

Good news first; congratulations! You know how to decompile! I have received your two SCX files, colored and textured.

Now, the bad news; A cube is formed of six square polygons, each of them formed with four vertices (English plural of vertex, also known as vertexes, that means a 3D point in computer-assisted 3D design).

All six polygons in your SCX files have five points. That's one too many.

Go back to AF99, find the superfluous vertex, remove it, produce, disassemble and send me the resulting SCX, with colors and textures if you want.

Funny thing is that it does not interfere with the outside view, only with the inside! You must adjust section 301 of the AIR file to have the POV at the center of rotation of AF99 (0,0,0) to see that.

But, apart from that, you're on the right track, Johnny.

[Ivan]

OK, OK, now I am really confused.

I KNOW there are texturing effects you can't do with AF99, but I haven't found a use for them yet. If you want the left side of a piece on one texture file and the right on another, you need SCASM. If you want variable scaling on a part, you need SCASM. If you want to locate different textures on one component, you need SCASM. (Then again, the concept of a component really does not exist in SCASM.)

There are probably many other things I have not thought of, but in general, AF99 does a pretty good job of laying out textures on the various parts of a project.

I found that to accurately lay out a texture on a piece of an airplane, I needed to write a utility to calculate the range of numbers to use with a given scale and pixel or half pixel location in 3D space. The program itself wasn't all that complicated, but saved a lot of calculator use. AF5Paint also is very useful.

What specifically are you trying to accomplish that can't be done via AF99? It sounds like the first part is just to get some familiarity with the tools such as MdlDisAs, SCASM, etc.

Yes, You've gotten me curious!
- Ivan.

[Ivan]

Hey Hubbabubba,

Do you remember that about two years ago, you and I were discussing scaling in SCASM and I tried to prove my point by putting a 1 or 1.5 inch cube at the POV of the AIR file? I don't believe that you are trying to prove the same point, but the method sounds quite similar.

BTW, If it is a PT Boat you are trying to build, I am not convinced it isn't possible to do it within AF99 and keep all the development visual rather than going crazy looking at numbers within SCASM. I figure the hull can be the center gear, Most of the deck and accessories can be the body, main and the masts and such can be canopy/high wing. The torpedo tubes / depth charges can be the wings. If this needs SCASM to accomplish, there must be something I am not seeing here.

- Ivan.

[hubbabubba]

There are probably many other things I have not thought of, but in general, AF99 does a pretty good job of laying out textures on the various parts of a project.

(...)

I found that to accurately lay out a texture on a piece of an airplane, I needed to write a utility to calculate the range of numbers to use with a given scale and pixel or half pixel location in 3D space. The program itself wasn't all that complicated, but saved a lot of calculator use. AF5Paint also is very useful.

(...)

What specifically are you trying to accomplish that can't be done via AF99? It sounds like the first part is just to get some familiarity with the tools such as MdlDisAs, SCASM, etc.

(...)

I was never able to figure out a good way to work with AF5Paint and ended up doing all my texturing with my own "pencil N' paper" calculations. It is tedious and very limited.

Within AF99, painting is done with commands that dated back to FS95 and FS5!!! CFS1 is almost on equal footing with FS2000 when it comes to coloring and texturing.

SCASM goes well beyond texturing and coloring, but this will be for another thread. Let's just say that, if all goes well, Johnny's cube will teach him all the basics to go beyond AF99 lame texturing functions. To name a few advantages;

1- AF99 components are colored all the same. SCASM let you use one color per polygons on the same component.

2- In fact, you could use different textures on that same component. Try that with AF99 sets of instructions!

3- You can use shaded textures for part of a component and "hard" textures for another portion of the same component.

4- It is not only very flexible; it saves in terms of byte-size. To make a cube with all six faces showing different colors-textures in AF99, you will need six calls to a label, six vertices arrays of four points, two polygons per call. With SCASM, only one call with eight vertices array is necessary.

5- You can paint only the inside, only the outside, or both. No more bleeds from "manual" AF99 texturing method, which always paint a polygon twice.

6- You can do transparent-translucent textures-colors without that "mauvish" effect my Taifun is showing.

7- You can adjust brightness as well. Very useful to create "dim" lights.

8- You are no longer limited to only half of the surface of a texture, you can use the whole 256x256 pixels to create very crisp details.

My experience in scenery design gave me an insight of the limitations imposed by AF99. They're is no reason to stop you from making concave components, or from making as much components as needed for that matter! In fact, as shown above on point #4, it saves on code lines.

As for other matters not related to coloring and texturing, I will gladly share my findings with all... as soon as the jeep is rolled-off the production line.

[Johnny]

~S~ Hubbabubba,

I am sorry it took so long, but the box has been changed. That too, helped with the PT-Boat. Sorry again but it will only be reflected in the last parts, making the final boat lighted then it would have been.

j.

[hubbabubba]

What you send me look OK. I will install it in your project and look at it in situ within CFS1 environment.

Then we will commence tweaking ...

[Johnny]

~S~ Hubbabubba,

I received the new box, and could not get to it because of a computer problem. In fixing the problem all of the downloads you instructed me to get were returned to their zipped state. I unzipped them again, but now I can not figure out how to turn the .SCX back to a .MDL.

Happy Thanksgiving,

j.

[hubbabubba]

(...) now I can not figure out how to turn the .SCX back to a .MDL.

Very simple.

Open MDLDisAs > go get your MDL > DO NOT SAVE, instead, click on "Use Existing File" and go get the saved SCX > Assemble > Wait for the compiler log to show > click on "OK" if no error is found (as it should be...) > click on "Update.MDL" > voilà!

During intensive work, I leave my MDLDisAs open but reduced and start my CFS1 "working edition" from a shortcut on the desktop. This way, I can return to MDLDisAs without having to repeat the search for the MDL or the SCX path. You can even rework your SCX and start the game from the MDLDisAs menu, but I prefer to work outside, going directly to the game or to the TXT editor when I have to.

Once you have learn how to do it, we will use this procedure quite often. So, better get used to it right now!

[Johnny]

~S~ Hubbabubba,

I have fixed my pc and while I was at it I made all of the suggested downloads run in Windows 98 ME mode, so we will be on the same page. All of the programs are in one main folder, for ease of access. The semi-annual garage cleaning has been done and I can get to work.

J.

Well I am really confused. I did exactly as instructed and the box is still a box. It looks the same. Well I took it apart and put it back together.