Shadows

[Conrad mana]

He guys,

I'm working on some vehicles now and noticed the shadows are in 360 degrees sequences.


I took 50 degree as a standard for both the vehicle and the sun because this matched the first shadow.
Now I'm not toally sure on what degree the vehicle shadow starts and what specifications the sun has in the original sequences.


Somehow the shadows do not match the vehicles, have I forgotten something?



Thanks in advance!

PS: Sorry for the poor quality picture

[Cathartes]

make sure the shadow graphic you are using exactly matches the angle of the shadow graphic you are replacing, and all should be good. For example, if you start with shadow "0" and it matches up precisely, and you rotate each succeeding shadow 5.625 degrees, all should be right.

Also, you need to make sure the offset is correct relative to your vehicle graphic. I know of no fast and easy way to do this since the older CC editing tools no longer supported/updated to work with PitF.

[Conrad mana]

Thanks Cath, the 5.625 degree tip worked great.


What I did was I took the original 3d object in the exact same scale as the graphic and animated this in a 360 degree turn in 64 steps.


I'd like to know what method and specification the designer used so the shadows will match, this would save allot of time for every vehicle and it's 128 shadow images.

[Manu]

we need Mafi... or that Matrix releases more tools... [:)]

[Conrad mana]

*Update


The shadows are now alligned but the orientation of the center has been distorted (as seen on image)
My vehicles are +/- 5% larger than the original so are the shadows. I replaced the original sherman m4a1 shadows with mine. is there a data entrance which I have missed?

*Edit: I've been experimenting with the TEXDATA.txt file inside the Tanks.azp file. The numbers seem to be the allignment of the main body and turret. It seems whenever I change the values the shadow as well changes in allignment. There should be a line or rule somewhere which forces the shadow to allign to the old values of the sherman tank but I cannot acces it (or I've missed something)

[Cathartes]

The files have sequence and offset information in their file names. This matches up with the text file you are talking about. I suspect the turret graphic is hard-coded to float above the hull graphic, but I'm not certain. Every shadow angle/file offset is going to be different as the vehicle is changing position relative to the angle of light and I'm sure the graphics guy used some program to quickly make these and set them up accurately. There is a tool called CCVehShEdit that Mafi made a ways back and it enabled modders to quickly and accurately line up shadow graphics relative to the vehicle graphic. Mafi indicated a few weeks ago he would NOT update this (or other tools) to work with PitF. The exception to this was an updated 5CC mapmaking tool.

[Conrad mana]

Thank you for replying, as I understand it means that there is currently no way to allign new vehicle shadows (if new vehicles are introduced)


It would be wise to concider such a tool soon because newly introduced mods to Pitf would only raise sales...and fun

[Manu]

ORIGINAL: Cathartes

Mafi indicated a few weeks ago he would NOT update this (or other tools) to work with PitF. The exception to this was an updated 5CC mapmaking tool.

I understand that he has other things to do but what a pity for the (very few) remaining modders! pfff discouraging... [:(]

[Conrad mana]

ORIGINAL: Manu

ORIGINAL: Cathartes

Mafi indicated a few weeks ago he would NOT update this (or other tools) to work with PitF. The exception to this was an updated 5CC mapmaking tool.

I understand that he has other things to do but what a pity for the (very few) remaining modders! pfff discouraging... [:(]

I agree manu very discouraging [:(]