Lee Towers' assets

[Lee Towers 179]

It's been a really long time since I've submitted anything new, apparently. You might've missed the General Cargo Ship (ploppable version here) that I uploaded back in September. I might optimise the LOD some day, who knows... I haven't worked on any other stuff since then until I randomly decided to make a train this week. That's right, this thing doesn't even float ^{(probably...)}! But here it is anyway, a Dutch train that I thought was missing on the workshop: the DM'90, also known as the Buffel (Buffalo). It's a DMU so I'll be looking into adding turbodiesel sounds with vehicle effects tomorrow, but I didn't want to wait any longer with uploading this thing. It does have a working third headlight, though.

Vehicle: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1295371511

Props: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1295383089

Cheers!

[Lee Towers 179]

I'm having some trouble with submeshes. I'm reworking my old container ship with a smoother hull and more variations. I created an empty version of the ship as a base model, and tried to add the containers as a submesh (using Avanya's textures from the large container stacks). The main problems I'm running into is that the submesh 1) don't support shadows, and 2) do not generate/use a LOD. I'm suspecting I can fix this by using a different shader, but which one? And how do I change the shader of a submesh? I tried changing up some of @Ronyx69's scripts, but to no avail...

Also, if anyone's wondering, since ships are never sailing around empty (they'll just despawn) there's no way to hide the submesh automatically or something. Too bad, but I'll probably add the forbidden flag "custom name" to the submesh, so you can still hide it on command

Oh, and I almost forgot - does anyone know why this model doesn't create a wake when sailing around? All my other ships do...

[Ronyx69 2,413]

32 minutes ago, Lee Towers said:

The main problems I'm running into is that the submesh 1) don't support shadows, and 2) do not generate/use a LOD. I'm suspecting I can fix this by using a different shader, but which one? And how do I change the shader of a submesh? I tried changing up some of @Ronyx69's scripts, but to no avail...

I haven't tested sub meshes much but it seems really weird if it doesn't support shadows, maybe it only doesn't cast shadow on the vehicle itself? 

As for the LOD, again I haven't tested but so many people are complaining about that, I am suspecting there's some kind of a problem with sub meshes.

Overall we get annoying limitations which we have to sneak around using scripts and mod tools, like can't add sub meshes to trailers through the ui, can't set all the appropriate flags for hiding/showing main mesh, all flags don't show up by default...

 

You can change the sub mesh [1] shader using this:

var asset = ToolsModifierControl.toolController.m_editPrefabInfo as VehicleInfo;
var shader = Shader.Find("Custom/Props/Prop/Default");
asset.m_subMeshes[1].m_subInfo.m_material.shader = shader;
asset.m_subMeshes[1].m_subInfo.m_lodMaterial.shader = shader;

 

 

37 minutes ago, Lee Towers said:

Oh, and I almost forgot - does anyone know why this model doesn't create a wake when sailing around? All my other ships do...

Are you using a sub mesh for that, maybe that wouldn't generate that.

[Lee Towers 179]

The shadows are fixed by using the prop shader! See attached picture of the shadow side of the ship: prop shader above, default shader below. Other shaders will probably work as well, maybe there's one that doesn't create the LOD problem? Otherwise it seems like a stupid bug... agreed on your other points regarding sub mesh modding though. It's great that we have access to it now, but the choices of default flags seem kind of arbitrary. I mean, a ship is never going to be driving on gravel...

The wake problem is something that existed before sub mesh modding, though. Looking at my screenshot folder it seems like older versions of some of my ships used to have the same problem, not sure what fixed it in the end. 

[Lee Towers 179]

Finally found time to work on this again, but I'm still stuck with the submeshes. The submesh disappears when LOD distance is triggered (the submesh follows the LOD distance of the main model). Using the same files for a building, it works fine - but for vehicles the LOD will not show up. I'm contemplating giving up on the whole submesh idea and just making the containers and ship in one file...

If anyone knows a fix, I'd be very grateful!

 

By the way, the wake problem was solved by raising the pivot... so at least that's fixed.

[Ronyx69 2,413]

I'm guessing you're trying to use the prop shader for the lod as well which probably won't work, at least it didn't for my suspended monorail so i left the ship for the lod but made it brighter to match with the main model.

You can also try other shaders for both the main and lod like the default vehicle shader for example.

[Lee Towers 179]

I think it's inherent to the way vehicle submeshes work. Changing the submesh shader doesn't work, I tried building shaders, prop shaders, vehicle shaders... It might be a bug, is it worth reporting to CO?

I'm thinking of ways to circumvent this, like adding and baking the submesh LOD into the main model LOD or to just add everything to one model and texture. The latter kind of defeats the purpose though, I was using Avanya's container stack textures so they'd get shared with LSM...

[Ronyx69 2,413]

I am 90% sure you're doing something wrong, but I don't know what.

Send me the saved asset and also the source files for the ship and the submesh, I'll look into what's happening.

[Lee Towers 179]

New ship is up! https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1494826966

The issue was mostly that I was looking at the LOD in the asset editor instead of in-game, which is apparently not a good idea. Thanks to Ronyx for the help!  

Now on to more variations, I've almost finished the ship for container pack 2...

 

[Lee Towers 179]

Wew, it's been a while again! I've finally found some time to work on some assets again. I'm finishing up this Art Deco water tower (based on the one in Aalsmeer, NL - never seen it in person, just needed a big water tower for my city and I liked pictures of that one), only some LOD stuff left so should be up some time this week. I'm also slooowly working on texturing some kind of boat, virtual cookie for whomever knows what kind of boat it is . It won't be functional, just something do decorate your harbours with.

I also realised I've never finished the container ships for container packs 3 and 4, so if anyone is still interested in me making those, let me know and I might do that!