Strange Happenings

[Pen32Win]

Over the past week I've been following Rami's excellent installation tutorial for what's current in the ETO and MTO. Late this past weekend I actually got to do some flying, exploring, shooting....etc.

I've run into a couple of what I'd call "Anomalies" where I can't strafe (AKA Hit With Bullets) any objects within a given area. The bullets pass through the DP's and strike the ground on the far side. The DP's of the objects are fine. Outside of that specific area everything is fine.

The places I've noticed it are at airfields with T2, TJ, and Belfast 1,2,3 Bay Type Hangars. They're beautiful objects but there's something odd going on with them.... As soon as you destroy these type objects (with Bombs) everything returns to normal. If I put a Stock Building Type A Large next to one of these objects and one three miles away I can shoot all day at the one next to the TJ/T2/Belfast Hangar and never hit a thing. I shoot at the one three miles away and bullet strikes are visible and behavior normal. Now I've copied, renamed and attached the DP's from the Hangars in question to another object (bgl) and everything was fine. This same type behavior happens in the new Arnhem Scenery but I've yet to put a finger on the object(s) that are causing it.

My question is, Does anyone know what is causing this behavior? Has anyone else noticed it?


P.S. I have a funny feeling I'm finding out what everyone already knows....

[Robert John]

I notice many strange things with dps.
When I test my models close to other models in gsl scenery they do not destroy even though they should do because I use easy to destroy dps. I have to destroy other objects nearby to get things started. There may be a small order of things in the gsl file. First placed first to go in a gob area or part of.Hope you understand because I dont. ROFL, LOL.
Robert John

[sc7500]

I PM'd a similar question to Rami regarding my ongoing BoB detailed install last week - I don't think it has anything to do with the individual infrastructure per se' - and it' will be news to me if it's a GSL-related challenge.

All I know is this - if I start out with a BARE RUNWAY area - say Middle Wallop - and add known / proven structures [like the Belfast Hangars], some but NOT ALL of those structures will take damage or show hits when fired upon.

If I take an existing / Populated airfield and add structures. most will NOT take damage.

I was thinking that this had something to do with my particular installation. Now that others are piping up, I'm not so sure that's the case...!

SC
:kilroy:

[Pen32Win]

Thanks for letting me know that SC.

I've tried them as GSL INF. and MB placed INF. Same result. I think it has to do with those particular objects. If I remove them, all is well, even in GSL.

I was talking to Robert John over in another thread and had a memory flashback. I think this may be the old Size Issue when compiling the objects. I seem to recall there was problems like this if you set the Size much larger than the object really is. The object "swallows" up all of the other objects around it in CFS2's digital mind. I also seem to recall the old issue with placing the object(s) way off center. You'll see this in the MB. The object indicator will be in one spot and the visual object way off in the distance; but that doesn't apply to these Hangars. They're centered very well.

Is gary20 still around? I haven't seen him here since I returned. If so I wonder if he still has his original SCA files to see what it was set at. In his READ_ME it says they were done in FSDS and the source files are available upon request. I can look at the SCA but the FSDS files I can't. Someone with FSDS will have to get on that wagon. Or, what formats can FSDS Export to? If I could get a .3ds file I could open it in gmax, convert it, reapply the textures and update the whole deal..... Maybe.....



UPDATE: He's still around. I just sent Gary20 a PM with all of the questions above.

[Robert John]

Modelcoverterx can open fsds files and export them as 3d32447Garys Blister Hanger.
Robert John

[kdriver]

I've also experienced this frustrating phenomenon. An example is the Poltava mission where B-17s are parked all over the already populated Poltava airfield. No matter how many bullets are fired or bombs dropped, the B-17s are invisible to these weapons and I just get explosions of dirt.

[Pen32Win]

RJ;

Is that the bgl you opened? If so you may have solved the problem of getting them into gmax....

kdriver;

Are there any of Gary20's RAF Buildings/Hangars on that airfield you're talking about?

[Robert John]

Pen32Win
I was not talking about any aifrield.
I opened the fsds file.I can open up most bgsl\sca, somtimes with tweeking, sometimes without, and sometimes they just dont, (sounds like Forrest Gump is talking to me LOL.) also most apis,Opening m3d files from cfs3 a lot of messing around.l I use modelconverterx by Arno to view and export models in to 3d.
You have to use Chris Cookson's import3d script in gmax to have the textures.( Comment for learners)
Some models open up with bits upside down or in the wrong place or both.
Robert John.

[kdriver]

Are there any of Gary20's RAF Buildings/Hangars on that airfield you're talking about?

Pen32Win Yes - there are number of duxhut1's there. I'll substitute them with different objects and see what happens.

[sc7500]

Just For Reference:

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/3dsimporter

[Rami]

I've also experienced this frustrating phenomenon. An example is the Poltava mission where B-17s are parked all over the already populated Poltava airfield. No matter how many bullets are fired or bombs dropped, the B-17s are invisible to these weapons and I just get explosions of dirt.

Really? I can make those puppies flame. It's kind of like bub's avatar gremlin, though. They don't blow up unless you hit 'em juusst riighht.

[sc7500]

Pursuant to this discussion, I have taken one of my "troublemaker" areas [a custom Guernsey [UK occupied] layout] and am PURPOSELY reducing the DP box outlines of all buildings by 30% to test later today.

IF the original DP file [OR the building "zoom" as done when created] is too large, this should make them hittable while conversely more difficult to hit... I've noticed that a lot of our older infrastructure is REALLY easy to flame, and it has nothing to do with the damage box numbers being low...

IF the DP box is too large... Apparently they're just too danged easy to hit.

I'll report back later !
SC
:kilroy:

[Pen32Win]

Robert;

The question about the Airfield was directed to Kdriver.


SC7500;

It's not the DP's, the problem resides in the BGL. I get lots of CTD's after a TJ, T2 or Belfast1,2,3 is destroyed, not every time but more often than not, even by AI's. I've replaced their DP's with a Renamed Stock Large Hangar A DP and get the same results.

Last night I did a little test. I started at an airfield with several of these hangars. Going East there are two other airfields about 7 miles apart. The first field you get to (the middle one) also has a lot of these hangars but the furtherst field east has none. Just a couple of the RAF Brick Barracks and a Watch Tower. In the first try I assigned 8 flights of He-111's to bomb the field I started from. As soon as they destroyed one of the Belfast Hangars I got CTD'ed. JFYI, all of the fields involved are achim's.

So I assigned them to hit the field without any of these hangars. They bombed, we fought, they died, no problem. I then (same mission) went to the field they just bombed and finished off every object left standing with GUNFIRE ONLY. Then on the way back home I stopped at the middle field, just 7 miles away which has numerous TJ/T2/Belfast1,2,3 Hangars and could not shoot the very same objects I had just destroyed with gunfire 7 miles back to the East...... As soon as I bombed one of them .....CTD.

[sc7500]

Does this mean we hafta redo ALL the major infrastructure BGLs to get the desired result ?????

[Pen32Win]

No Sir, only those individual objects that cause it.

Right now I can positively identify only the TJ, T2, and three models of Belfast Hangars. Possibly the "Duxhut1" that kdriver spoke about.

I'm almost certain that this has to deal with the SIZE setting in the .SCA file when they were compiled into .BGL's. Gary20 hasn't been on-line today so I'm still waiting to hear back from the author.

Just found that Gary20 has posted the FSDS v3.0 Files. Everything is there except the three belfast hangars.

[Steve2112]

Good to know - All though I have not seen this issue it's good to know so that I don't create any of these issues when building objects.

Thanks

Steve2112

[sc7500]

...Pursuant to this discussion, I have taken one of my "troublemaker" areas [a custom Guernsey layout] and am PURPOSELY reducing the DP box outlines of all buildings by 30% to test later today.... IF the DP box is too large... Apparently they're just too danged easy to hit....I'll report back later !...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It's later.

And the [U]30% Smaller Rule Worked. An attack on Guernsey's infrastructure destroyed ALL buildings - everything took hits, showing dp box damage all over the place.

The DP files I modded were for:

inf_hangar_largea
inf_hangar_largeb
oiltank0
oiltank1
inf_xb_warehouse6
br_bl1
LW_BARRACKS_D1
xbbarrack_b
inf_stone_buildinga
LW_BARRACKS_D1
inf_radio_antenna_bldg
inf_hangar_largec

Now - I'm not saying Penn's wrong, or that I'm right - but these buildings were indestructible BEFORE the 30% damage box size reduction, and now they burn quite nicely...

Please Discuss...
SC
:kilroy:

[Pen32Win]

I just noticed something, there are two versions of the Belfast Hangars by Gary20!!! The ones that Achim used in his Airfields are called, Belfast1, Belfast2 and Belfast3. In the BoB Manual Install Package there are three others by Gary20 called Belfast1bay, Belfast2bay and Belfast3bay. I don't know if they're the same object renamed but it's something worth checking out. Which I will do tonight.

[Rami]

Pen32Win,

Aha! This is a common problem. Gary20 actually did two sets of objects. The first set goes with the BoB airfield pack, and you can find the second one here.

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/page.php?lloc=downloads&loc=downloads&page=info&FileID=4221

Though they share common items, they are not the same. This will solve your head-scratcher.

[Pen32Win]

Exactly Rami;

Those are the one's (the RAF Buildings you linked to above) I'm seeing the issues with and are the ones that Achim used in the GSL for many of his English Airfields. I've got to test the others (BoB Package) tonight.... This might be why different people are getting different results.

SC, what Gurnsey Sceney are you using? I'd like to test this when I get home... I'm glad that worked for you but I think it would be a real chore to reduce every other DP in your system to correct an issue caused by 5 or 6. If the other Hangars in the BoB package do the same thing I'm going to proceed with importing as many of them as possible into gmax an updating them.

[Pen32Win]

OK, where do I start...

Gary20 has two different BGL's. BritObj.bgl (BoB Package) and RAFLib.bgl (GSL RAF Buildings). There are 5 objects that are the same in each one. Barracks1, Blister, Mobstore, TowerWith and TowerWithout. I thought at first this might be the issue.... I replaced all of the objects from the BritObj.bgl in a GSL Gob and deactivated the BritObj.bgl in the INF/SCENERY directory. I still get the same thing, mostly. Now I can shoot a couple of his objects at a time but never two of the same type, even though they're right next to each other. By time I get down to a couple of his objects all of the other objects in the area start to react properly. The objects in question, which is everything in the BGL, not just the big hangars as I first thought, all react to Ground Explosion FX OK, they just won't take direct hits from anything, including bombs, there's a very audible sound difference between a ground strike and a direct hit on the DP.

This weekend I'm going to try to reverse it and take out all of the objects from the RAFLib.bgl and deactivate it.

BTW, the CDT's were from two bad DP's, TJ Hangar and T2 Hangar.... Took a Large Hangar A DP and reshaped it to fit the old DP's shape and walla, no more CDT.

I've got to get get ready for the next couple of days, meeting agendas written, etc. I'll pick this back up this weekend.

[Pen32Win]

Couldn't sleep last night, got back up and flew some more. During this session I noticed something. If I started from the SW corner of an airfield and worked NE I could shoot the RAF Building Objects 2 or 3 at a time; but they had to be the ones furthest South and West. I had to work my way across the airfield like a bulldozer blade moving North and East. Mind you, I could still not shoot any other objects other that the ones contained un the RAF .bgl until they had been almost eliminated from the area. The problem is the bgl....

Well I guess I've just got myself another new project. The Flakvierling just got moved to #2 on the list....... I like the looks of these buildings way too much to chuck them and cull them out of all of my GSL but I'm not going to live with this issue either. Time to stop talking about it and act. New gmax BGL's will be started this weekend. Same textures, same scale, same type damage mdl's, same DP's (though 3 are bad and cause CTD's), etc. You'll just delete the RAF and Brit blgs and drop these in, call them replacement bgls. They will be named exactly the same so they'll work with existing GSL, mdlnames, DP's, etc...

[Jean Bomber]

....... I like the looks of these buildings way too much to chuck them and cull them out of all of my GSL...

I like these hangars :jump:, thanks Pen32Win for this update objects project,I've also noticed ,in my very sensible poor powered laptop,they shoot down the fps in the scenery where I put them ,by this,I've "forgotten" to use them in my last and current gsl,adding the fact about the confusion in the name ,BOB/RAF,and contents of the obj.bgl this rebuild is welcome.:applause:

JP

[Pen32Win]

Jean it's going to be my pleasure. I actually got started tonight and things went very well. I started out with the Barracks1 as a practice conversion and rebuild. The process isn't perfect and parts get lost, changed and moved but enough gets through to give you the main body of work. The Barracks1 went so quick I decided to tackel the most complicated of Gary's objects, the Belfast Hangars starting with the one bay. After converting it to a .3ds file and importing it to gmax it took about 4 hours to rebuild and retexture it. In the process I cleaned up the model too. I was able to cut it from 1948 Polys down to 1314 and you'll never notice the difference, other than better FPS that is.

BTW, Jean, one of the reasons these objects are so hard on FPS, 1024x1024 Textures. That's something I'm not going to mess with. Gary's original RAF Buildings READ_ME say no messing with those textures. All you'll have to do is deactivate the two existing BGL's and drop these in. That's it.

Now it's time to play "Live or Memorex" two of the Hangars in this SS are the original FSDS models, two are the new gmax models.

Robert John;

Thanks for the heads up on modelconverterx.

[kelticheart]

...I can't wait to d/l your fix Pen! Thank you! :jump:

They are my favourite British airflied buildings, too, and I filled your ETO RAF 2TAF airports with them. I then added them to the GSL layer, making the whole airport GSL-ised.

I too noticed the heavy fps drop with them in sight and another thing that I'd like to report.

When I get at a certain distance from TJ/T2/Belfast Hangars, their roofs disappear, giving an unlikely bombed, damaged look to them.

Have you ever noticed the same strange effect?

Cheers!
KH :ernae:

[Pen32Win]

Hey KH;

Thanks, it's going to turn out well in the end. I did notice a few other things about the FSDS File in the D/L. Some are not the same as the ones in the RAF Buildings package. Example, the Belfast 1 Bay, the doors on the model in the FSDS Version are accordian style doors while the ones in the RAF Pak are overlapping sliders. So, there may be some slight differences. The difference in the process also seems to impact the outcome. In Gmax both are the exact same size; but the bgl's display differently. My Belfast is a bit longer and the doors look a bit higher but the roof peak is the same height.

No, I have not seen parts of them disappear.... In a couple of weeks or so you won't either. LOL

[Robert John]

Robert John;
Thanks for the heads up on modelconverterx.

There are a few versions of modelconverter x there is the 1.2 the 1.3 and I have a few beta ones.
each one has diffrent bugs one will open from bgl one you can get the damage model. It get a bit confusing which one to use.While you are doing the hangers why not cat animate the doors on one hanger or two. lol
Dont forget lods.
RJ

[Pen32Win]

RJ;

I've got 1.2 as it, from my readings, is regurded as the most stable. 1.2 does have the BGL Import option but I have not been able to open a Library BGL with it. It does not see any objects in the bgl. Do you know if one of the versions can open Library BGL's?

I'm not going to do any animations on these. I just want to fix the Size Error so they don't impact every other object around them. If you'd like, when I'm done you can have my gmax files and animate them.

LOD's.... Probably with the more complex ones, not with anything simple. You end up putting more load on system rescources switching models than you gain in having a fewer polys. Even as complex as the Belfast Hangars are with the Arches, which is the biggest poly hit, at 1314 Polys there isn't a lot of wiggle room there. Like I said above I've already cut over 600 polys from the original FSDS model.

[Robert John]

I will send all I have now. When I started with 1.2 I had to do lots of tweeking ie take crash boxes out of the sca and other stuff. I think they call it variables. One you dont have to do that. then the newer ones more problems but will do other things, so if one dont do what you want try another.
The newer ones does open some cfs1 and cfs2 bgls
1.2 opens fsx. bgls
RJ

[Pen32Win]

Thanks RJ;

If I can open the Library bgl and extract a .3ds file it will save a lot of time. I might be able to get the Damage models too.

Several of the objects in the RAF & BoB are not included in the FSDS Source Pak. This will save the time of having to rebuild them from scratch. There is also one item in the FSDS Pak that's not in any of the others, a C Type Hangar, two versions infact. One with workshops and one without. From my recent readings these were the largest hangar the RAF built for Lancasters, etc.

[Robert John]

sent email.
Dont jump for joy just yet.IT has to be .sca
ModelConverterX_latest_build opens damage. no lods.
Try ModelConverterX_latest_build 1.3 set v 0,0 import sca
then set v 32767.
Rj

[Pen32Win]

RJ;

Thanks for the reminder about BGLAnalyze. I forgot all about it since it's no longer part of my BGL creation process.

I was right about the SIZE in the SCA. Just one example, Belfast1 = Belfast 1 Bay Hangar from the RAF package. The size is set to 134326, which means it thinks its Radius is that big.... So for 67,000 meters around it everything gets affected. Put a bunch together and compound the affect.