The Legions of Skaro

[OvermindDL1]

BZ2 does do a material lookup and if one 'like' the current one has already been loaded then it just shares it out (faster processing when rendering things, less passes to do), so yes.  If a material name is not specified then the Engine will create one at 'random'.

Yes, I said a material can have a name.  The material declaration can start with "Material" for the old .x style material declarations, or "XSIMaterial" or "SI_Material" for the .xsi style material declarations, as far as BZ2 is concerned, they are identical (no semantic or typographic differences, in other words, all three of those words can be used interchangably when used inside a mesh, but not in other places, described next).  You can define a set of materials pre-bound to names to 'pre-load' the materials (theoretically faster .xsi loading, not that it matters) by defining a material section with the "Material" name before any mesh/frame declarations.  But getting back to the name, if you want your material to truly be unique, regardless of any similar ones, then just give it a name like this:

/*snip*/
         0,
         0,
         0;

         SI_Material myUniqueMaterialName {
            0.700000;0.700000;0.700000;1.000000;;
            200.000000;
            0.500000;0.500000;0.500000;;
            0.000000;0.000000;0.000000;;
            2;
            0.000000;0.000000;0.000000;;

            SI_Texture2D  {
               "Z:/modelsdirectory/ISDF_vehicles/PICTURES/ivscout00.pic";
               3;
/*snip*/


The bold word is where you can put the name, and be forewarned, any material in any other mesh that you define to have the same name will use the exact same material, meaning that if the materials are different in the meshes, then they will all use the one of the first loaded one, might make for an interesting effect as you could give a races ships different 'skins' based on something that was built 'first' (do note, BZ2 pre-loads things, so it would probably have to be dll pre/loaded so BZ2 would not just preload everything in-order).

And here are some other basic material stats:
A single mesh can have up to 256 unique materials, although it would be pretty stupid to do that as it would make rendering of the mesh very slow, to put it mildly.
There can also be up to 256 unique textures, again, stupid to do, same reason, but even more costly so it is more stupid.
The model has multiple 'emissive' properties, one for each material, and a global one, if the global one is turned off then the model will not be emissive, regardless of other settings, I do not think you can set the global one using xsi's, seems to be pretty .msh style only.

Do note, some of this is guessed, just from the way I would make the engine, but does seem to be confirmed by diving into BZ2 and some other tests.
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[mrtwosheds]

That makes sense. Thanks.
I thought about giving some materials a unique name, for about 4 seconds, then decided it would be better to let the computer work hard instead of me. 

[mrtwosheds]

Eeeek!

[Warfreak]

is that thing honestly Dalek controlled?

[General BlackDragon]

okay, sorry, but i have to say it...


That big stem has a brain stuck to it 

[mrtwosheds]

is that thing honestly Dalek controlled?

No. But I like it. cyber-spider-walker, 6 legs.

That is Phobos. I dunno how it got there or why its pink.

[General BlackDragon]

LOL...

[Nielk1]

Now that is a nice piece of work. Reminds me of the first time I saw he Crabs on Tremor in FleshStorm.

[Avatar]

Interesting... I thought you'd go for:

[mrtwosheds]

Yes I have seen that, and something else like it. I think it must be fairly old, with that humanoid inside it.
Cant see how to do it, too complex a model for bz2 I think.
The "Araknoid" I have just built, Is not of the Dalek race, or even one of their slave races, They are fairly low tech, I have just equipped it with twin harpoon guns and bile (much like resin)
I figured that they could turn up in the one player missions, which have yet to be created.
They are fast, like a mauler (and somewhat better animated! I think) and jump too.
Here's another Pic, now with his harpoon guns.

He looks complicated, but he's made from 3 sided cones and cylinders plus a couple of simple geosphere's, I gave him metal armour so his boxy look does not look to weird.

[General BlackDragon]

that, is awsome...

[mrtwosheds]

Now I have to make some sound fx...
cough cough.."rrrrawk"   

[bigbadbogie]

you havent started the SP missions yet?? well good luck - they are the longest and hardest part of any mod - ESPECIALLY MINE!!!!!

[Warfreak]

LIES...... I really think the models are what gets people....... I mean BSer left us with a great gift...... THE SCRIPTOR!!!! and then there is Python....
You cant really not know how to make a sp mission, expecially with BSer's scriptor, IT HAS EXAMPLES OF FE MISSIONS, you CAN not know how to convert models from gmax......its a long and diluding process....

also, sufficient planning always helps..... its good to NOT make up what your doing in the mission WHILE MAKING THE MISSION...
That is all I have to say about sp development being

the longest and hardest part of any mod

[mrtwosheds]

And I can't very well make the missions until I have made the content.

You cant really not know how to make a sp mission,

I can. Along with writing dll's it the one thing I have no experience of doing. I started one a while ago, sort of got the idea.

I really want some people (not just me) to make some missions for this mod. It would be better that way.