What's wrong with this SHP?

[Whiteboy]

Hey guys, I downloaded a SHP a while back to use as my mod's "Flag" in Cannis' Assault game mode. I decided to edit it a little since it looked crap, to be frank. Its shadows were all over the place as well as other problems.

Well, the SHP now looks much better but there is still a strange problem with it. These pics are actual size, and the black line is there to mark out something - when this structure is seen in the game, the bottom section you see below the line is not there. In it's place, there is a shadow in the shape of the silohette (sp?) of what the bottom of the structure looks like. The black line is not in the exact position where the structure goes "invisible":, I just approximated it. And the second frame isn't finished yet, so don't gripe about how it's remappable areas are different please.





I should also mention that I am no SHP editor. I do cameos, game loading screens and some misc. SHPS only, so infantry or structure editing for me is a rather alien subject. Do I simply need to make the structure's selection bracket lower? 'Cause I think the problem might be that the image is drawn too low down, and the game doesn't like this so it doesn't draw the lower part (just a silohette in it's place)...

[Renegade]

The SHP is far too low, that's causing your problem...either download the SHP grids from somewhere or open up a Westwood 1x1 to see it. The base of the structure is always in the center of the image. Also, cutaways are not unusual in this engine, several of Westwood's own structures suffer from this, although not as severe as yours does. Plus, it's no coincidence that Westwood's buildings have 8-corner-bases instead of 4.

[AAG]

You may d/l SHP grids form here
http://yrarg.cncguild.net/downloads/shpso.htm

[Whiteboy]

Thanks AAG. But which grid do I downlaod to use for my 1x1 structure?

[Renegade]

They are packs. And I suggest you download all of them, since this won't be the last SHP you'll have to align

[Whiteboy]

OK, got it. I'm looking for one that caters for a 1x1 SHP in the center right now.

After this, my mod will be finished, I just have to finish fixing some more things and making the manual... then I can finally make V1.5 public! And then it's on to V2.0 or 1.7 since I have so many more neat ideas... no rest for the wicked, eh?

[Whiteboy]

Right. I have just fixed it - the SHP appears in-game as you can see in the pic below - sorry for the bad quality JPG format. You will have to click on all of the images in this post to see them in their proper size.



Which brings me to the second problem. See the shadowy thing poking out the top right of the structure? Why the heck is it there? It is actually part of the second frame of the SHP (the damaged frame) but why is it showing in frame 1, and why is it shadowy instead of coloured, and why the heck is it even THERE? I am confused. Here are the frames - frame 0:



And frame 1:

As you can see, the in-game image is displayed as if I had taken frame 1, made it a single colour (dark/shadowy), and placed it behind frame 0.

Am I even doing this right? I want to make a very basic SHP with no animation frames (that comes later hopefully) or shadows (also comes later). I just want the thing to look right for now. So is that what I'm supposed to do - create a 2-frame image with fram 0 as the normal appearance and frame 1 as the damaged appearance?

Here is the art code:

[CAFLAG]
Remapable=yes ;Must show player colour
;Cameo=SCLFICON ;CLONICON ; No cameo needed, as this is never built
Foundation=1x1 ; MUST be 1x1
;Buildup=NACLONSOVMK ;NACLONMK ;DUMMY ;NACLON2MK ;doesn't work for some odd reason  ;MUST have no buildup, so AI cannot sell it
Height=4 ;6

Image=GGCOMPST ;ggcompst ;CGMORR10 ;CAGARD01
Normalized=no ;;;yes
NewTheater=no ;yes
;;;ActiveAnim=CAGRD1_A
;;;ActiveAnimZAdjust=-50 ;;;-100
DemandLoad=true
CanHideThings=true
CanBeHidden=false
OccupyHeight=6 ;4 ;;;3
DamageFireOffset0=-1,16
DamageFireOffset1=2,40

The damaged image appears perfect in the game by the way.


Side note: I just downloaded the Tiberium terrain from that link at YRArg. Out of curiosity, how would I put all of those terrain files into a mod - do I have to edit a bunch of stuff or can I just drop the files into the Video section of XCC Mod Creator and that's it?

[Renegade]

As long as that Tiberium is a bunch of .tem, .sno, .etc files, you put them in the tmp-category.

Rule 1 of code-posting: Delete all comments that are unnecessary for us to read.

Your problem is indeed the count of frames: You are having a two-frame shp. Meaning, your shp consists of caflag0000.pcx and caflag0001.pcx. That is wrong. That way, the game interprets 0001 as the shadow frame.
You have to have the following structure:
caflag0000.pcx - Normal image
caflag0001.pcx - Damaged image
caflag0002.pcx - Occupied image (redundant for your purpose, but should be there, just take a copy of the damaged frame)
caflag0003.pcx - Normal shadow
caflag0004.pcx - Damaged shadow
caflag0005.pcx - Occupied shadow
(if you don't have shadows yet, make these three blank)

That should be it.

P.S.: If it wasn't obvious enough: Of all the frames you have, the second half is always interpreted as shadows by the game. That's why infantry-shps have hundreds of empty frames in them.

[Whiteboy]

Can I have just 4 frames, where the order is: normal, damaged, normal shadow, damaged shadow? Or do I HAVE to put in occupied and occupied shadow frames too?

I tried to insert 2 more frames into my SHP, and I made iit have the order above. But when I tried to put it into XCC Mixer, it didn't recognize the file type... and now when I open the SHP in the SHP editor I'm using, it appears messed up (I'm using OS SHP Editor). Now I have to paste the imgae into the grid again... which takes ages with SHP editor... can't I just do it in Paint, and then paste the image into SHP Editor? Or will this mess up the palette?

I should also mention that I tried changing the pavement's foundation in the artmd.ini file to 5x5, but it didn't work. Now the structure is a 1x1 foundation. Now that's weird. Maybe it's hardcoded to be 4x4.

I just tried the Tiberium files in the tmp section. The Report says "wrong file type" for all of them (they are TS SHPS). Then it seems that the mod won't export to an exe file - I tried to export it but the file it created was no bigger than the last file, and it should have been about 1.7 MB bigger. Plus the ore was still present in the game. Damn. What the heck is going on?

[DCoder]

The Search button is your best friend...

http://www.deezire.net/modules.php?n...&p=87548#87548