Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Desertfox287 on November 28, 2009, 04:38:18 pm
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Does anyone know how to downscale a model? I only have gmax. Can anyone tell me how to do this in a detailed fashion? Thanks in advance
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Well unless it's a max model with smoothing you can do it using PCS2.
Open the model in PCS2. Go to the options and set the scaling to 1.
Save the model as .cob.
Set the scaling factor to what you want the new size to be. (.5 for half for example)
Exit PCS2
Open the .cob with PCS2
Reset the header options for the lods and debris if needed
Save under a new name
Do a global import from the old model
Manually scale the coordiantes and sizes for the firing points, subsystems, etc.
Copy the MOI from the old model or let PCS2 calculate it.
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You can theoretically do it to a max model with smoothing (if it's already been converted to POF) but you'll lose the fancy smoothing.
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Also, the process isn't 100% foolproof.
For example (something I had to deal with once), sometimes, subobject centering data is totally annihilated, so you get ships that have all their turrets damaged simultaneously when you shoot at it from any point, etc...
If that happens there's no hope of fixing it with just PCS2.
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If you have that happen it most likely means the model wasn't converted correctly in the first place and has hidden issues.
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Thanks for all the help just downloaded PCS2
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If you have that happen it most likely means the model wasn't converted correctly in the first place and has hidden issues.
I can't rule that out, it having been an INFR1 model.
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I downscaled one model now fred is saying that it's the right ship but the model is of the Ulysses in the fred window
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You change the $Pof file: section of the table?
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It sometimes happens after rescaling, I don't know why.
Somebody said somewhere that it had something to do with LODs.
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I'm not personally a fan of the COB rescaling method. Just me though.
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Reset the header options for the lods and debris if needed
I'm guessing you skipped that step and detail-0 (or whatever the main object is) isn't set up as LOD0.
Done a lot of COB rescaling and it works just fine. [Hint] Be nice if there was just a PCS2 option to rescale.[/Hint] Until there is it's not worth a reconvert just to scale.
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:wtf:
Gmax won't just let you re-scale a model?
As in, "set scaling on this axis to 50% and 102% on the other... leave the last axis at 100%"?
...I'd like to think most programs would let you do that...
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We're trying to avoid reopening the model in another modeling app. You tend to lose a lot of data that way.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0obVtzltng this is what I am doing, I hope this gives a better description.
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I'm not personally a fan of the COB rescaling method. Just me though.
So what's your method? I just tried to use the pof-cob-pof procedure and ran into problems (while pcs 2 sees the rescaled model, it appears to have a special ability of crashing freespace when I try to load a mission with it).
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Well usually if you need to rescale you're best doing it from the original source and re-exporting the same way, until PCS2 can do it properly. But for ours we can do POF to Collada, rescale in Max, and then send back to PCS2.
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Alright, I have some success with pof-cob-pof. I found out you need to manually set which model is which LOD, and delete the LOD's that won't have any models.
That makes the ship work in game with it's new size. What I still didn't figure out is why does the rescaled model have the same height, width and depth as the original one (while all the subobjects show are rescaled, and the game sees the ship rescaled; I think it might have something to do with global importing everything from the original model, I'll try another rescale later with manually adding everything and see what happens), and if it has any effect on gameplay.
I'll post something when I figure this part out (but I don't have any more time for this right now, so it might take me a while...).
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You may find the guide in my signature below to be of some use.
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Does it have the same dimensions after you save and reopen the model in PCS2? I don't think it updates the bounding box sizes until after the save.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0obVtzltng this is what I am doing, I hope this gives a better description.
Ok I watched the vid.
What you want to do with the LOD:
In the drop-down menu, go to 5-9 and just delete them so that you're back with 4.
Just make sure the LOD and the subobjects match up again after that. (ie. 0 is detail0, 1 is detail1, or however it was in the original.)
Repositioning firepoints and susbsyetms can happen later - they only affect in-gameplay statistics and their positions are basically arbitrary. It's more important just to get the model to appear.
Also make sure that when you're saving, the new model has the same name as the old one (or change it appropriately in the tables, actually - that's safer)
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kay thanks
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Alright, I rescaled without doing a global import and the dimmensions are maybe 10-15% off from the ship's LOD 0 subobject's size. It's either a coincidence with something else that didn't mess up this time, or making the global import copied the dimm's as well as everything else.
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Try clearing the cache before or after the import.