[Starman01]

Hey,

is there a easy way, to smooth unsmoothed models without
retexturing them in TS ?

I have some models, which I don't want to retexture all from
the start.

[Bobboau]

nope, smoothing  is caused by the directions of the normals on the polygons, it's imposable to change these effectively in the pof format

[Starman01]

Autsch, that hurts.

Looks like I must retexture the models then (man, I hate texturing )

[Bobboau]

you don't have to retexture, just recompile

[Lynx]

BTW could you unsmooth the Jutland class(except the engines and the bridge) it looks totally wierd smooth shaded.

[Bobboau]

use auto-faceting

[Starman01]

Originally posted by Lynx
BTW could you unsmooth the Jutland class(except the engines and
the bridge) it looks totally wierd smooth shaded.

Now what's wrong this time ? I thought that the models must
be smoothed ? I had really a hard time converting it, what is wrong
here :


@bobboau :

I'm not that good with all this technicall stuff, where can I recompile or
use auto-facet ? Truespace or PCS ? AFAIK the textures in
TS are allready autofaceted, or what did you use Lynx ? Besides some
minor changes I didn't touched your texture-job

[KARMA]

just work with smoothgroups

[Krackers87]

how do you smooth in TS? without manually adding faces thats is...

[Starman01]

Sorry, but now I am really confused. I know where in TS(5) I can
switch the texture from faceted to autofaceted or smoothed, but
AFAIK this is only for new apllied textures. I don't know of a way to
rework the model (without retexturing, and that is not the best
choice I guess).

So can you guys pls explain to me what I must do to this models ?

I also don't know, how to compile a again model in TS (is there a
function for ?) Isn't there a smoothing tutorial in conjunction to the
new SCP-Builds out ?

Here check this model, I textured the whole model using "autofacet"
cause I thought that is the right way to smooth the complete model.
But as Lynx said, that results in bad light-effects in the game. So what
must be done ? Is it correct, that sharp-edged object (like the main-body
which consist mostly out of cubes) must be textures unsmoothed, while
the rounder objects (like the antennas und radar-dishes) must be smoothed (or autofaceted ?)



Also I remembering Lynx complaining, that the lights on this model
are bad too : What must be smoothed, and what not ?


Sorry If I'm asking to many questions, but I spend too much time
in FS-Modding, so that I don't wanna give up because of this crap.
Thanks for your help, guys.

[Lynx]

The Intrepid doesn't need any smoothing at all, just look at it, it doesn't have any detail that is supposed to be even slightlty rounded

[Starman01]

I remembered an older post of you in the SCP-Forum. So the
light-effects on the intrepid are O.K. ?

[Carl]

Originally posted by Krackers87
how do you smooth in TS? without manually adding faces thats is...

there should be 3 buttons in the shader window: facet (looks like a short cylinder without smoothing), autofacet (looks like a cylinder with smoothing everywhere but the top), and smooth (looks like a cylinder completely smoothed).

[Lynx]

Nah it's not ok the way it is...I meant that the model doesn't have a single part that is meant to be rounded so smooth shading that thing is moot.

[Bobboau]

if you have a model that is textures and good to convert and you want to chane the smoothing type on a specific texture, then in the material window if you click and hold the paint brush icon it will expand to (I think) three other tools one of them looks like an eyedroper, select that one, then click on the texture on the model you want to change, then change the shadeing mode (or anything you want to change) and then click on the  (now eyedropper) icon again and  select the tool that looks like a paint roller, click on the model on the texture you wanted to change, and you'r done

[Starman01]

I think I know what you mean. But I think this eye-dropper is just
for picking up the texture into the material editor without searching
it through the opening screen again.

I have made some more experiments here. I have a destroyer model
with some holes in the bridge, so that the windows are more realistic.
This has always bad shades, but now I made the brigde faceted, while
the rest is autofaceted. I think that is quite good.



But since I did that, I have a really scary problem. I have not figured
out yet, which is the cause how PCS calculate the object mass after
conversion. The model has les mass than the old one (but I edited it
to be equal, but it didn't solve the following problem).

Now the warp-animation is ten times bigger than it should be, looks
really stupid, and I have really no idea why this happens. Only thing
that was changed is the texture on the bridge-structure !

Any insights for this one ?

[Lynx]

Looks better than the first one, but the shading on the front part and the buzzard intakes is still scary. What autfacet angle did you use?

[Starman01]

Hah, now at least I found the place where this angle was set.
I didn't knew it even exist, so I used the TS-Standard with 32.

What it is good for, and which value do you suggest.

[Lynx]

Try to find out what angles the engine nozzles have and take that value. It could be 15-20 degrees, but I'm not sure. But I'm starting to think that it would be the best solution to add the engine nozzles as separate smoothed subobject while the mainbody remains unsmoothed. There may be one or two capships where the poly borders are visible without smoothing, an autofacet angle of 3-8 degrees should be enough to overcome this.

[Krackers87]

what about rounding edges? like adding more polygons to make it well... rounder...