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Wood Toolbar

Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2015 2:44 am
by Davinci
Anybody want a wooden toolbar.

I had nothing to do today so I decided to experiment with the toolbar.

Nothing real fancy, just a few edits here and there!
The attachment WoodToolbar.jpg is no longer available
davinci

Re: Wood Toolbar

Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2015 5:46 pm
by Little Powell
Very nice. Great job, Davinci.

And the little pocket compass is a nice touch. I'll get it in the Released Mods thread.

Re: Wood Toolbar

Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2015 11:44 pm
by Saddletank
Is that your 10 mile map? Have you been adding buildings?

And... have you been making buildings? I don't recognise that low stone house on the right from any NSD map.

Re: Wood Toolbar

Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2015 12:10 am
by Marching Thru Georgia
I am making another nappy scenario using that map now.

Re: Wood Toolbar

Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2015 12:42 am
by Davinci
Thanks, Little Powell , I’ll add that the pocket-compass wasn’t included with the download; it’s just a static-graphic.

I do think that I could get it to work by replacing the default compass with an arrow that rotates and placing that arrow inside of the static-compass.

Saddletank – The building in question is one of the default buildings; I just changed the height and size of it using the properties of the PR-Program which makes it very simple.

As far as I know there are only about three people that can make buildings for this game, Tim, Bedbug, and Louie Raider .
I think that Louie Raider made most of the buildings for 2ndTexas .

The making of the buildings requires a program that cost several thousand dollars, that’s a little steep. I did read on the internet not that long ago that they were giving that program away for free to people in college.

Now, the buildings can be easily-altered-by changing the buildings graphics or re-skinned .

Yes, it is the 10MileMap that I’m still playing on which is sort of strange since I have only played on this map for several years and still haven’t tired of it.

The icons from the toolbar seem a bit out-of-place now that I’ve altered the toolbar, so I’m stealing the icons from the previous game to add to the wood-effect.

I just have to add an Alpha-Effect to them and change some of their positions.

Pictures of altered buildings:
The attachment 2_2015-01-19.jpg is no longer available
The attachment 3_2015-01-19.jpg is no longer available
davinci

Re: Wood Toolbar

Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2015 2:10 am
by Saddletank
You can make buildings like these with any 3D modelling program, not just 3D Studio Max. 3D Crafter (used to be called 3D Canvas) should be fine, as would Blender. GMax is a sister product to 3D Studio Max but is completely free.

The buildings are very simple shapes for the most part with just a few polygons (triangles). It just has to be able to export in the format Norbsoft uses. If its a proprietary file format then yes, there may be limits to which program you need. There are several free programs out there, I used to use one when I was modelling for Train Simulators about 10 years ago.

The things you need to watch most are numbers of polygons used and the size/number of your texture files. The fewer polys and the smaller/fewest number of tex files the better.

I used to do a fair bit of 3D modelling in Train Sims but I have so many other calls on my time these days I've lost the touch of doing it.

Re: Wood Toolbar

Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2015 2:26 am
by Davinci
You can make buildings like these with any 3D modelling program, not just 3D Studio Max. 3D Crafter (used to be called 3D Canvas) should be fine, as would Blender. GMax is a sister product to 3D Studio Max but is completely free.
Hmm, I didn’t know that, I have heard of the Blender-Program but never took the time to research it.
The buildings are very simple shapes for the most part with just a few polygons (triangles). It just has to be able to export in the format Norbsoft uses..
There is a program that came with the Power-Render 5.09 that’s called ProEdit . This is the format that is used in the game on structures, but I have absolutely zero knowledge about how it works.
The things you need to watch most are numbers of polygons used and the size/number of your texture files. The fewer polys and the smaller/fewest number of tex files the better.
True, I think that they use the term “faces” when referring to the number of polygons on a particular objects but it would probably take a while to understand and use such tools.
I used to do a fair bit of 3D modelling in Train Sims but I have so many other calls on my time these days I've lost the touch of doing it.
True, once you learn how to use these programs and then stop using them over the years you forget how to use them.
The good and bad about this game is that you can mod just about everything in the game, the bad is that there is just not enough time to learn how to mod everything!

davinci

Re: Wood Toolbar

Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2015 3:14 am
by Davinci
Using icons from the previous game this is what I have come up with so far.
First line : Visible to eneny : Leader Bonus : Follow
Second Line : Support Bonus : Defensive Bonus
The attachment 4_2015-01-19.jpg is no longer available
davinci

Re: Wood Toolbar

Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2015 11:04 pm
by JohnVW
seems like you added maybe 1 "action" to each line, so does the link in the 1st post (see above) now include these new changes? (if not, where would I find the updated wood toolbar?)...thanks

Re: Wood Toolbar

Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2015 7:20 am
by Davinci
seems like you added maybe 1 "action" to each line, so does the link in the 1st post (see above) now include these new changes? (if not, where would I find the updated wood toolbar?)...thanks
I added the one in question to the first post.

I didn't add the icon or even line them up, the game did that on its own after I resized them in the gfx.csv file.

Test the Wood Toolbar2 and let me know how it works.

davinci