[REL] Moby's Steel Jungle volume1 (v1.3) :: RELEASED

[Moby]

The other thread for v2 is here.





A flexible set of aligning steel bars, popular as coaster supports. All quarter-tile and recolourable.





About the naming system
The naming system has been carefully thought out to make the set user-friendly. All object names follow the same pattern;

• First word: type of object. e.g. Bar, Flange, Cap etc.

• Second word: shape of object. e.g. Horizontal, Slant, Angle etc.

• Third word: Indicates size or angle of object. e.g. H1, H2, Quarter, Extended etc. Quarter means a quarter of one tile's width (not a quarter-tile). H1 stands for Height=1 but can represent the angle of the bar (some new pieces are half height).

• Word in brackets: Position of object (if horizontally offset). e.g. (edge), (centre). This tells you if the positioning of the object is horizontally offset (not aligned to the corner of each quarter-tile). If it isn't offset, this is not used.

• 'Offset': Some other objects (e.g vertical caps) have 'Offset' in the name. This means the object is vertically offset (by 0.5units).

Height Displacement:
Objects will not move up or down when editing terrain. This means you can build a coaster on flat terrain, build all the supports (which is easier on flat terrain), then terraform as you wish without messing up the height of the supports.

Backwards Compatible:
I've worked hard to ensure that saved parks using previous versions of this set will not be disturbed. There has been a small number of minor changes that will have effect though, e.g. there is no more 'knuckle diagonal', so that will need to be replaced using the new 'knuckle'.

Installation:
IMPORTANT - Delete any older versions you have of this set before installing.
Place the two extracted folders into style\themed as usual.

Download:
Download v1 & v2

[errt]

I like the idea, but the texture isn't very good. You should try to make it looking like steel a bit more, especially when colored grey.

[Moby]

Well it's just a plain colour texture. I do want to improve how they look before releasing this set, though. Not sure how.
I tried using a glossy texture style but i think this looks better. Although that did look good.

I've been using this set and it is incredibly useful, for supports and buildings. I'm kind of surprised this hasn't been done before.
When it is released, you will see how flexible and customisable these bars are.

[pteri3]

Very handy Even though the texture does look a bit strange at the moment, but I'm sure it's gonna be fixed.

Looks like a new great support set (Jcat beware )

[-Nuclear Fish-]

WOW! I can't wait to use these, I can see them coming in really useful! JCat's supports, although great, have never really been extremely varied, so these will be perfect

Do the textures and shinyness of your bars match the Steelworx supports? Could you post a screenshot of both used together?

[tyc00n10]

I can see this becoming one of the most versitile packs on the streets when its out. Since its quarter tiled, the versatility (in conjunction with JCat's Steelworx), every coaster, building, and maybe even water rides will have them incorporated into a more "realistic" support system.

I do agree with -NF- on how the textures should match (or at least be pretty darn close).

Fantastic set you have here!

[CoasterSim.Fan]

Loking good.

What your going to need to do is use a blue 255 recolorable texture (if you want them to match with most sets) for the showdows that neds to be fixed with welding / unwelding.

[NeonHurricane]

This set looks really handy! But as already said, it could use a better texture (rather than just a solid color). Perhaps something like this or this?

Good luck!

[poekie1337]

Oh, yes, I'm really exited about this, especially those diagonal ones! great work moby, I've missed these objects a long time, glad you are willing to make them!

[Moby]

@ pteri3; tyc00n10; poekie1337 - Thanks very much.

Originally Posted by -Nuclear Fish-

Do the textures and shinyness of your bars match the Steelworx supports? Could you post a screenshot of both used together?

I did want to make these to be used seemlessly with J-cat's supports. He used a plain colour texture for his, so i did too.
They do look identical, at least i couldn't see a difference.

Originally Posted by CoasterSim.Fan

Loking good.

What your going to need to do is use a blue 255 recolorable texture (if you want them to match with most sets) for the showdows that neds to be fixed with welding / unwelding.

Didn't understand that. How does welding affect shadows? Don't you mean lighting? They have been unwelded as necessary.

Originally Posted by NeonHurricane

This set looks really handy! But as already said, it could use a better texture (rather than just a solid color).

Thanks. If i did that they wouldn't look like steelworx pieces, but maybe better. Although it could take a long time to UV map them so they all fit together perfectly, so i probably wont.



______________________________________________________________________
???

Now i think the problem here is the appearance, but not the texture. In the shot below you can see the same piece but the top one has been rotated twice in the game. And it's not the same. On all of these bars (and all of steelworx), at any time, one side is light, and the other dark. In the pic the light side has also been rotated and it shouldn't. For horizontal pieces (there are only 2 - 'bar horizontal' and 'bar diagonal') this doesn't apply and they're perfect. But for all the 'bar angle' and 'bar slant' pieces, they can look different to neighbouring pieces on the same plane.

It's hard to explain, but i'm sure if i can find out how to make the vertical piece look the same when rotated, they'll all work right.

[Old-Spice]

i think you should texture it, it would look alot nicer, great start tho. maby a weatherd concreat

[Obi_Wan_Cannoli]

Try completely unwelding it to start with. That might help, and it should look to bad on the round parts.

[alienastronaut]

I think I could use this.. I think it looks extremely good. About the problem with the darkness and everything, I don't have a clue.

[coinich]

I dare say it is a welding issue, but since I'm still relatively new to the importer and 3d editing I can't pinpoint the issue for sure. Did you unweld the top and bottom parts?

[Moby]

Originally Posted by In_Honor_Of

Try completely unwelding it to start with. That might help, and it should look to bad on the round parts.

Originally Posted by coinich

I dare say it is a welding issue, but since I'm still relatively new to the importer and 3d editing I can't pinpoint the issue for sure. Did you unweld the top and bottom parts?

Yes the top and bottom parts have been unwelded. The rounded parts are welded, i have made some other cylindrical pieces that are completely unwelded, and they look very different to this. Not the effect i want here.

In the pic in the first post, look at the white bars at ground level. The game has decided to make the left side of each bar dark, and the right side light. I want the top side light, and the bottom side dark. Like the horizontal pieces. With the vertical piece, i think if the origin ran through the middle of it it would work right. But the origin needs to be one unit away for it to be placed at the tile centre and tile edge. ANY IDEAS?

This set will be released when i fix this.

[alienastronaut]

I actually have an idea, however, not sure if it will work. What I am thinking is you change the color of blue or whatever color ever so slightly to a light blue (blue is my ex.) where you want it to be having that lighted side, and darker on the other side. That is my only idea. What are you using for your 3D Modelling program?

[ThingMaker]

Originally Posted by pteri3

Very handy Even though the texture does look a bit strange at the moment, but I'm sure it's gonna be fixed.

Looks like a new great support set (Jcat beware )

jcat beware? Were you on crack when you stated this?

By the way, great start/idea moby, I love jcats steelworx (still one of the best sets every made), and any new supports to add to the mix is always awesome. keep up the good work!

[pteri3]

Originally Posted by ThingMaker

Were you on crack when you stated this?

????

I would say it was a welded/unwelded issue, but that doesn't usually happen when I make welded stuff...

[Belgabor]

Lighting is done by the vertex normals and has nothing to do with the texture. If your texture is one-colored blue the picture above is completely strange. Either it's not completely blue or you've hit a game bug. Also always unpause the game for a bit. It's known for shadows that they sometimes don't update immediately.

[Moby]

Can you tell me what makes up the vertex normals? Is it to do with the origin? Or is it just 3d coordinates with welding and texture coordinate information? EDIT: It's nothing to do with the origin. I'm lost. How did JCat do it?

I'm using a plain texture, R=128,G=0,B=0. It's recolourable. I know about the pausing, it's not that.

Also the pieces that have no height change (horiz) work fine. Does that tell you anything?

[coinich]

Do you mind posting the failed attempt? It might give us some ideas. Have you tried using other modellers for this?

[Moby]

Originally Posted by coinich

Do you mind posting the failed attempt? It might give us some ideas. Have you tried using other modellers for this?

The results of the failed attempt are the same as the pic above. I just centered the vertical bar to the origin, and made it full tile instead of quarter, but it made no difference. I'm really stuck here. This is such a useful set, but i wont release it until it's perfect.

[-Nuclear Fish-]

How is this coming along Moby? Are you any nearer to fixing the problem?

[Moby]

No i'm not. I've tried a few different things, but the problem remains.

Originally Posted by Belgabor

If your texture is one-colored blue the picture above is completely strange. Either it's not completely blue or you've hit a game bug.

If i have hit a bug, how did JCat get around it? His supports look the same when rotated. With my pieces, the lighting data is rotated with the object. With JCat's pieces the data stays the same when the piece is rotated.

I have built another set of bars. That set seems to have the same problem, but for different pieces. I mean in that set the vertical bars work, but the horizontals don't. In this set it's the other way round. Very strange. I think it must be to do with the way i modelled the piece. I'll try other methods.

[The_Cook]

It has to be your surface normals that are wrong. Go back into your 3d program and check that they are all pointing outwards, away from the center of the tube.

[Moby]

Excellent, thankyou so much that makes sense. Although i dont know how to view or change surface normals in 3DS Max. I'll try and find out.

[. Style .]

This will be very, very helpfull.

[Old-Spice]

Originally Posted by Moby

Excellent, thankyou so much that makes sense. Although i dont know how to view or change surface normals in 3DS Max. I'll try and find out.

its easy in sketckup pro 6, all you have to do is right click on the surface and click revers faces, and done.

[Moby]

Yes i found it, but all the normals are right. I thought that they might be facing a slightly wrong angle but now i see that they can only be facing 'in' or 'out'. I'm going to remodel them differently.

[Vodhin]

I've been playing with something like this and have already hit this problem (I have new ones that are even more of a heradache...)

When you make a cylinder, if you have the option to "Turn Edges" disable that (when on, the triangles alternate the diagonal of each face). This will keep the diagonals all going the same way. Now....

Once you have made the cylinder, duplicate it so you have two meshes. On the first, delete the top and bottom faces, and on the duplicate delete the sides. Now you have two meshes, one for the sides, one for the ends. Unweld and re-weld each mesh separately. this will give you a good sharp edge and also smooth sides.

Here's an early shot from my experiments:



I'm now playing with reflections, and finding that the texture mapping controls how the reflections are added to the surface, and I think it also affest how shadows and other effects like specular lighting are added in game. In the shot above, you can see I'm close to getting the reflections to aligh between the tops and bottoms of the pieces, but it's not steady- sometimes it loads way off. I think all the problems we have with Glass, Transparancies, Reflections and other texture effects are inter related and might need exacting SID data to further "Pin" the effect to the mesh.


So far it looks like no matter what, you need to make your texture fill a 4x4 (MilkShape grid) area, so if your object is 2X 8Y 4Z, then you would need to tile the texture so it maps half way in X, twice in Y, and once in Z. I'm not 100% certain of this, and there are other factors that may be skewing the results of my experiments, but so far it looks like lighting, reflections, and transparancy may depend on the mapping of the texture on the mesh.

Good luck, and I wish you luck