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Converting Battlezone II Maps for use in the Valve Hammer Editor

Started by Jetfire, August 28, 2009, 12:55:09 PM

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Jetfire

The Hammer Editor is a tool that is used to create maps for Source engine games, such as Half-Life 2 or Garry's Mod.

Specifically, there is a modification for the Source engine called Empires which offers gameplay similar to Battlezone II.

I am converting three parts of a Battlezone II map for use in the Hammer Editor: (1) the heightmap, (2) map textures, and (3) map models (e.g. the bridge in Bridges).

(1) To convert the heightmap I am using ODLWinter to export the BZII heightmap to an image, then using DispGen to convert the image into a series of displacements in Hammer. The quality of the conversion varies between different maps. For example, large maps such as Bridges convert very well because there is lots of detail in the heightmap. However, smaller maps such as Canyons or Chill do not convert very well because they do not completely fill the area of the heightmap. As a result, the resulting displacement in Hammer has to be resized, causing a significant drop in detail in the map.

Here's Bridges as it appears in the Hammer Editor:


And in-game (the mini-map is a placeholder):


(2) I can't find where the Battlezone II map textures are located, so the maps are using placeholder textures from Half-Life 2 for now.

(3) The stock XSI models for Battlezone II are on BZScrap, however it does not come with the textures for the models.

Here's the map source for what is done so far:  http://filesmelt.com/downloader/Maps.zip

Currently there are three obstacles that I am trying to overcome: converting the heightmap with greater detail (as the resulting displacements are low quality), finding the aspect ratio for Battlezone II maps (height vs length vs width), and finding the stock Battlezone II textures. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

VSMIT

BZ2 unit/building/prop textures can be found in your data.pak file.  They will be .pic, though, so you may need to convert them to something more usable.
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TheJamsh

The heightmap must be 16bit bmp/png in OM editor for best results. There are 65536 available levels of grey there, which is EXACTLY the same as what BZ2 uses for its height's, multiplied by the maps granularity i believe (so 0.1 for stock maps).

I bet more up-to-date engines using a terrain map like this have higher bit-depths and lower granularities... maybe thats why youre experiencing loss of detail?

Its nice to see BZ2 experimented with in other engines though. Im trying to get things into the Unreal 3 engine right now.


BZII Expansion Pack Development Leader. Coming Soon.

Avatar

Quote from: VSMIT on August 28, 2009, 01:10:19 PM
BZ2 unit/building/prop textures can be found in your data.pak file.  They will be .pic, though, so you may need to convert them to something more usable.

To browse the .pak file you need something like pakexplorer, although I don't know where it would be right now...  It will let you export all of the various file types, such as .pic, so you can mass convert them or whatever you need to do.

-Av-

VSMIT

You will find everything you will ever need for basic BZ2 modding on BZScrap.
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IQ's have really dropped around here just recently, must be something in the water.

gegc

The map textures in 24 bit TGA format can be found in the "worlds" directory in data.pak; they are organized by planet. If you're looking for vehicle/building textures, they are in the "objects/<RACE>/(buildings/vehicles/people)" folders, but they are in .pic format. You can use XnView to look at them and convert one at a time or NConvert to command line batch convert them to whatever you need.

Rocket

Hidden Defenders Mod

Jetfire

Hey everyone, thank you for the replies, it has been very helpful.

The texture conversion process is going very well.

I'm having trouble importing the stock Battlezone II XSI models into Softimage Mod Tool. This has to be done so that the models can be exported into the Source engine's SMD format. It appears that Mod Tool only supports the XSI format version 3.0 or greater, while Battlezone II's XSI models use version 1.1. As a result, the Mod Tool XSI importer malfunctions when it attempts to import a Battlezone II XSI model.

Does anyone know of a tool that can import Battlezone II XSI models and export either to Source engine SMD format or XSI 3.0+ format?

ScarleTomato

i think an old version of 3dex is what i used. Someone around here has a 7zip archive of a whole bunch of old versions, not sure which one's the best though

Rocket

you could download the trial version of DeepExploration, it's a 3d file converter.
Hidden Defenders Mod

Warfreak

You are better off with creating the models from scratch.

Source engine (like most modern engines) REQUIRE CLOSED Geometry Collision. Something which BZ2's engine doesn't take into consideration.
A NEW collision model for each model successfully imported would need to be made in order to get them working properly in Source.

Not to mention that every model must have textures converted and reapplied to fit Source Criteria, Collisions have a MINIMUM size and the models would have to be rescaled accordingly.

I Personally tried the process with 3DS Max. The models either had wonky physics or imported incorrectly. IF you can get it to work, you will have done what a lot of us wish we could.

Ohioastromech

I'd love to know what map this will be in the Half-Life 2 servers.

Scot

VSMIT

I find that if I don't have a signature, some people disregard the last couple of lines of a long post.
Quote from: Lizard
IQ's have really dropped around here just recently, must be something in the water.