[Herra Tohtori]

Here's the (crappy) heightmap then..

And here's a working normal map of that.

A good way to reduce height map crappyness by the way is to work in higher resolution, draw lines and stuff at, say, 4096^2, then resize the normalmap to 1024^2 before saving to DDS file. This makes it easier to draw fine details without worrying about aliasing on the thin lines.

EDIT: Did you take care of the botched smoothing on the model file yet?

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[Water]

A good way to reduce height map crappyness by the way is to work in higher resolution, draw lines and stuff at, say, 4096^2, then resize the normalmap to 1024^2 before saving to DDS file.

Apparently having info in the blue and red channel increases compression artifacts.

[Herra Tohtori]

Hmm, I'll have to remember that tidbit of information in the future, do some testing or whatnot...

EDIT: Attached a version of the same normalmap, but with black on red and blue channels. Did a little test, and sure enough there seems to be slight difference in the artefacting between the two. Nothing drastic; with both maps converted with -quality_highest setting on nvDXT, it's not even noticeable without turning diffuse map off, but it's there. So I guess that's technically the better way to have the normal maps.

[attachment deleted by ninja]

[Water]

I'm guessing we aren't as aggressive on the compression side of things for it to be a huge issue.

[TrashMan]

Thanks for the fixed normal..

B.t.w. - did anyone else notice something really strange.

When you target a Perseus DH, the model in the target box is transparent with a small cockpit in the very center.

Strange thing is, detail1 has no cockpit and uses the same texture as detail0..and shows up normally in PCS2

[Herra Tohtori]

Thanks for the fixed normal..

B.t.w. - did anyone else notice something really strange.

When you target a Perseus DH, the model in the target box is transparent with a small cockpit in the very center.

Strange thing is, detail1 has no cockpit and uses the same texture as detail0..and shows up normally in PCS2

Detail1 shows as just the cockpit and some glowpoints on the Ship Lab as well, when selected.

I'm not very knowledgeable about modeling, but perhaps you could post a screenshot of the model hierarchy so the wise people can ogle at it and possible determine what's wrong? And check if you've accidentally set the cockpit as detail1 hull instead of the actual hull, because that's what it seems to me... or something. At any rate you should re-convert the model to get rid of the excessive smoothing, so might as well tackle this issue before uploading another version to FSMods...

[TrashMan]

Damn...I keep converting between 3Dmax and TS when working on models and sometimes I forget that Max sets the smoothing to the extreem. I forgot to return it to normal in TS.

EDIT: Fixed the smoothing issue and also fixed the insignia the HTL Perseus never had working properly. The LOD1 problem still persists.
Here's the conversion scene*


*If you wonder where are the insignias, I made a new model just for them, converted with PCS1 and then imported insignias into this pof

[attachment deleted by ninja]

[TrashMan]

Well....anyone got any ideas? I'm at a loss here to explain this odd behavior.
As one can easily see in the hierarchy, detail1 has no cockpit subsystem. My guess is that PCS2 treats the cockpit as detail1, but that by itself still doesn't make much sense. It's not named properly and is attached same as all the other cockpits I added on other craft....hmmmmm

[Vasudan Admiral]

Which object in that list is the cockpit submodel?

[TrashMan]

Blast it. I ported it from the HTL Persues model. It's named pilot and not cockpit (as it should be). Would that make any difference?
Well, Off I got to re-convert and we'll find out!

[ShadowGorrath]

Maybe you mixed up the name of them hull LOD maps?

[TrashMan]

Nope, no effect. And no, I haven't mixed up the names. PCS2 shows them all correctly.Open hte model in PCS2 and look at the subobjects yourself.

Detail0 appears as detail0 - with the cockpit and everything. It looks OK in game.

Detail1 appears normally in PCS2, in-game it's totally screwed.

[Vasudan Admiral]

Open the model up in PCS2 and look at the Header chunk. Now look on the right hand side under LODs at what submodel is assigned to each detail level. In short, there are 5 assigned detail levels and 4 actual LOD subobjects because somehow debris01 has been interpreted as LOD 1. That is probably due to where it was placed in the hierarchy in relation to the actual debris objects - PCS has always had a bad habit of just using the next objectgroup it encounters in the file for the LOD it's looking for next.

Fix it by deleting the problem LOD in the header section,.... and while you're at it, have PCS2 generate MOI data in the header chunk as well, so your models won't cause unnessecary debug-build warnings.

[TrashMan]

I really don't understand how this could happen. I used hte exact same procedure and naming convention I always do.

Oh well, now I know what the problem is.

EDIT: Fix0red and uploaded.