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[WxTech]

L to R: The 2 NEW bare trees, the 2 single trees, the 2 groups of 5 trees each, and one group of 'normal' bushy palms for comparison.



Get 'em here:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/zzfuj9bjvd88tez/Warpalms_Type_A_%2528Pacific%2529.7z/file


From the included readme file:


Modified 'type A' (pacific) warpalm objects by WxTech

The warpalms objects represent palm trees damaged by blast or fire, the stock objects thus having no fronds. There are eight objects in total; four of type "A" (pacific palms) and four of type "B" (desert palms). Within each of these groups of four, two are single trees and two are groups of five trees.

This mod addresses ONLY the four 'type A' (Pacific) trees; the 'type B' (desert) trees are left as is. These objects here now have their own dedicated textures, meaning that the 'type B' trees still use the stock textures. If you wish, you can tweak these textures without affecting the 'Type B' warpalm objects.

The stock objects all use the very same full meshes as for the undamaged palms were used, the fronds having been made invisible via the quick expedient of making that part of the texture fully transparent. This means there is a needless waste of resources, with many plygons being drawn, even if made invisible.

I have simplified the meshes by eliminating the original '3D' frond polygons, which involved a large number of polygons. However, based on many pics of damaged palm trees commonly having a couple or few dangling fronds remaining, I have added a simpler texture for those droopy fronds which is comprised of very few polygons. These trees are now resource friendlier.

As for my other bushy palms, I have added neither shadows nor collision boxes, for maximum frame rates.

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NOTE: There are a number of "wartrees" objects which are essentially duplicates of the "warpalms" objects, although they reside in their own folder. Keep this in mind when scrolling through the long object list when building your map or mission. The relevant "wartrees" look just like the stock "warpalms" did before my tender ministrations.

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I have created NEW versions of the two single trees having no fronds at all. The static.ini entries to add for these:

[buildings.House$FurniturePalmAs1bare]
Title           PalmAsingle1bare
MeshLive        3do/flora/warpalms/LiveAs1bare.sim
MeshDead        3do/flora/warpalms/LiveAs1bare.sim
IgnoreShadowData
Body            WoodSmall
Panzer          50  //9.96

[buildings.House$FurniturePalmAs2bare]
Title           PalmAsingle2bare
MeshLive        3do/flora/warpalms/LiveAs2bare.sim
MeshDead        3do/flora/warpalms/LiveAs2bare.sim
IgnoreShadowData
Body            WoodSmall
Panzer          50  //9.96




WxTech
Jan 10, 2023

[Piotrek1]

another great improvement, Thank You, WxTech.

Best Regards,
Piotrek

[genXgamer]

Thanks Glenn

Once again you've gone above and beyond.

[genXgamer]

Hi WxTech

I'm trying to add shadows to the two bare warpalms, I've taken the shadow data from the other in-game warpalms.
They show a shadow for the trunk only but as you can see I'm getting a shadow for the entire tree.
What is happening to the other models to only display the trunk shadow?   Because in mesh viewer they have a shadow for the entire tree.

[WxTech]

He he. I was wondering if adding shadows to the bare trunks would have been worthwhile, then promptly forgot all about it! 

To get the correct shadow vertices, simply copy the model vertices and paste them into the shadow vertices section. Which of course can be done with Notepad.

Shadow vertices don't use the surface normals, which is why they normally have just the X, Y and Z coordinates, leaving out the 3 surface normal vector values. When you bulk cooy all the data (6 numbers per line), the game ignores the last 3 numbers.

If you want to be slick about it, paste the vertices into a spread sheet, selecting also that space characters be a separator (else all 6 numbers in a line of data will occupy a single cell.) Then select all cells in the first 3 columns and paste that data block into the shadow vertices section. This will leave out the superfluous surface normals.

You can choose which LODs are worth adding shadows to. The two nearest should be sufficient, perhaps just the nearest only.

You need not use the same vertex data from the LOD you're working on. For instance, you could take the vertices from the next farther LOD and put that into the nearer LOD's shadow vertices section. This can be a useful strategy for saving computational resources when the object is complex, or a large number of objects is anticipated to display simultaneously.

This procedure can be done for any object missing its shadow.

[genXgamer]

Thanks for the explanation, something for later this afternoon.

P.S.  Spreadsheet?   I have enough trouble with Microsoft Excel at work!