[Ryan_]

A list of buildings to follow would be great.
I am looking into different methods of polygon reduction and was wondering, has anyone used Max's or lightwave's poly reducer?
I would like to see how low I can get the col file polys while still keeping a fair amount of accuracy.

[Hammer83]

Ryan, back when GTAVC hasn't yet came out, I made a few cols to solidify ghost town for GTA3 using ZMod/3dMax. I don't have access to 3dMax anymore but this is what I remember (it was from a tutorial on somebody's site, i forgot too whose site it was):
- Import dff into ZMod.
- Export it as max-model (note that model name may be truncated).
- Open the model 3dstudio max. There is a tool called Optimizer there (at least that's what I think). You can play with parameters and reduce the number of faces that way.
- Export optimized model as x-file (you need Panda DirectX Exporter for that). Export model only, no materials, textures, just vertex data.
- Using Steve's ColMaker make a col out of x.

[Ryan_]

Hammer, I am on that exact tract right now. Thanks for boost of confidence!
I can get the col file polys reduced by about 65%, but the trial software I am using right now does not export 1 out of every 5 polys when you save (NuGraf). So, I can not use it unless I want invisable holes in the building. LOL
Again, ZMod and 3DMax I think is an answer.

[Craig Kostelecky]

It's nice to see some progress going on here. I've also renamed this thread so it looks like the official place to discuss the COL files.

I'd also like to publically thank Ryan_ for his efforts in tackling this subject. It's always nice to get new people involved in the mod.

[charlesbesso]

can someone help me I'm missing something obviously.

ok I'm trying to add collision to the dock crane in portland, which the col for is in /gta3maps/making/making.col listed as "dockcranescale"

I open the dff in z-modeler, add a new spline to the hole in question, fill it's surface so it's just two polygon's, I then exported it as .x and edited the file as per steve-m's tutorial, then I used colmaker and fliped the x axis as ryan suggested in pm, and saved as dockcranescale.col. then I used coleditor to load making.col and replaced the default dockcranscale with the newly created dockcranescale.col from colmaker. but when I go ingame it's still unsolid where I just edited it. any clue what I'm messing up in the process?

thanks for the help.

note the model has a slanted top, and zmod wont let me see the orginal vertices otherwise I'd just do a spline fill as two poly's on the col and export it, this model has high poly's on both the dff and col as it's a fairly complex object, I've tried using a new spline fill as stated but I have no idea how to weld the new spline to the orginal object.

This post has been edited by charlesbesso on Tuesday, Mar 22 2005, 10:45

[jcab42]

That's the same problem Ryan had before. Remember, the COLs you need to edit are the ones in the GTA3.IMG, not the ones in the directories.

Actually, I'd like to see all COLs taken out of the IMG. The IMG has a limit to the amount of files you can add to it. Does anyone know of a reason why we shouldn't just link the COLs in the gta_vc.dat (GTA3 style)?

[charlesbesso]

I'm using max now and the panda express is giving me errors the text it's generating has alot of referrances to "DWORD" so I think there's an api problem going on.

I have good news thanks to your help I have edited the dock crane and it is now solid as a rock ;] only took 6 more poly's to do it too. I'm going to try tackling some other collision's today, now I'm off to do another collision file, ryan you and me should start networking on what collision's which of us should handle so we don't overlap each other's progress. alright I'll be back in the forums later today hopefully with another postive update.

update - ok I did the same with indhibuild2, it's the building in collision1.jpg, it is substantly high in polygon's though if anyone comes up with a open source or freeware way to lower the polygon counts please point it out to me (ryan mentioned NuGraf but that's a $395 dollar plugin) one benefit of building the col out of the dff was that the balcony is completely solid including the barrier on the edge (high rise sniping anyone? ;] )

second update - ok I found a stand alone program called VizUP that automaticlly reduced the .col's without marring the model in any visual fashion problem being it's $700, if anyone knows modeler's ask around about an open source or freeware solution to this issue.

This post has been edited by charlesbesso on Tuesday, Mar 22 2005, 15:22

[Hammer83]

QUOTE (jcab42 @ Mar 22 2005, 07:09)

That's the same problem Ryan had before. Remember, the COLs you need to edit are the ones in the GTA3.IMG, not the ones in the directories. Actually, I'd like to see all COLs taken out of the IMG. The IMG has a limit to the amount of files you can add to it. Does anyone know of a reason why we shouldn't just link the COLs in the gta_vc.dat (GTA3 style)?

I'd like to see this too. I'm not sure myself why cols were placed there, but I think the reason is because they didn't work outside of img.

[charlesbesso]

ok so I've got these items converted

indhibuild2
dockcranescale
redlightbuild11
newbuildind
Chinabuildnew1
Chinabuilds05
Chinabuilds07
ind_mainten5
pharmas

but the game now crashes, not to worry though I'll restore the beta 2 gta3.img and continue making new .col files for problem buildings and then once we work out the polygon reducer situation all these files will be available to be reworked. this also brings up another issue if all the added col's make the engine crash then perhaps we will have to use the polygon reducer on the actual ingame models themselves at some point, just a thought but something to consider if we want to get this mod finished.

[Craig Kostelecky]

If we can get it to work outside of the image, I fully support removing them from there.

[Ryan_]

Problem is that there are mutiple cols im mutiple places.v I guess this is something Pine did when he converted?
Anyone ever think, now that hammer has a kick ass lancher, it would be good to properly reference all the files?
maybe get rid of unused vice files in the LC game folder ect?
just a thought.


This post has been edited by Ryan_ on Tuesday, Mar 22 2005, 22:03

[spaceeinstein]

I got an idea. First make a roof of the building. Then make the collision. Then delete all the collisions EXCEPT the roof. Now MERGE it with Rockstar's collsions. Just my theory.

[jcab42]

Yeah, there's alot of unused stuff floating around. Like, I don't know how long it's been happening but:
comNbtm folder contains comNtop files (they should be deleted)

As an experiment, I deleted all COLs from the gta3.img EXCEPT for train.col and then I added this to the gta_vc.dat:

CODE

COLFILE 0 DATA\GTA3MAPS\comNbtm\comNbtm.col COLFILE 0 DATA\GTA3MAPS\comNtop\comNtop.col COLFILE 0 DATA\GTA3MAPS\comroad\comroad.col COLFILE 0 DATA\GTA3MAPS\comSE\comSE.col COLFILE 0 DATA\GTA3MAPS\comSW\comSW.col COLFILE 0 DATA\GTA3MAPS\indroads\indroads.col COLFILE 0 DATA\GTA3MAPS\industNE\industNE.col COLFILE 0 DATA\GTA3MAPS\industNW\industNW.col COLFILE 0 DATA\GTA3MAPS\industSE\industSE.col COLFILE 0 DATA\GTA3MAPS\industSW\industSW.col COLFILE 0 DATA\GTA3MAPS\landNE\landNE.col COLFILE 0 DATA\GTA3MAPS\landSW\landSW.col COLFILE 0 DATA\GTA3MAPS\making\making.col COLFILE 0 DATA\GTA3MAPS\subroads\subroads.col COLFILE 0 DATA\GTA3MAPS\temppart\temppart.col

Seems to work great. Sure would be cool if we could have area 1, 2, and 3 like in GTA3, but it works fine with all 0's. I don't see any difference from IMG style.

Could you go into more detail about using Hammer's launcher to reference the files? Anything that helps us organize is good.

[Ryan_]

well i dont really know much about how issues were overcom when pine put liberty city together, but mainly the col and map files.
i dont even know what exe restrictions there were before the launcher was out. just a thought that spilled out on my keyboard.

so, did you export the cols from the image and copy them over the ones already in the maps folders, or are you using the ones that were already in the maps folder and just deleted the ones from the image?

This post has been edited by Ryan_ on Wednesday, Mar 23 2005, 05:20

[charlesbesso]

a stern warning needs to be made, I am using windows xp sp1 updated as much as possible on an AMD Athlon XP 2400 using an nforce2 chipset, after I launched the game with the list of new collisions I modified the game crashed with a memory error before it could launch the opening movie and this corrupted explorer.exe to the point where if I tried to copy a file or move an icon it would continuely crash, rebooting did not fix it, so as a general rule of thumb I believe we should import new collision models one by one for testing and then collect them into an archieve for when the poly reducer situation is handled that way there will be a far less chance of this error happening to anyone else contributing to the project.

[QUOTE]I got an idea. First make a roof of the building. Then make the collision. Then delete all the collisions EXCEPT the roof. Now MERGE it with Rockstar's collsions. Just my theory.

that seems like a great idea but as to how we go about that I'm clueless, I have no way of measuring the areas that are without collisions, without being able to access the orginal vertices there is also no way to weld the objects together but if we could measure the dimensions of the gaps then we could generate a .col though it'd have to be manually added to the orginal .col's which is beyond the scope of my knownledge. also some buildings such as block_maindrag to the left of the hospital in portland when facing west is a problematic model that has multiple level's of heights as well as the center which is unsolid even after running the .x of the .dff through collmaker.

as for getting rid of all unessacary vc content, I'm all for it and moving the projects .col's inside or outside of the img is all fine and dandy the less confusion and the more organized the smoother the project will progress.

well I'm off to make more col's from the images i've collected.

update - I did what Jcab did and it seems to load the .col's faster outside of the image, I didn't notice any problems at all having the files outside of the image but I just crashed with this exception

Exception at address: 0x004BB557
Last opcode executed: 0001 wait
In thread: ambul_m

seems like every crash I've seen has been in the ambul_m thread or in the train thread. anyways moving the col's out of the image seems perfectly reasonable.

This post has been edited by charlesbesso on Wednesday, Mar 23 2005, 11:04

[Ryan_]

Well things are going well at this end. I have all updated cols for relevent objects within the temppart.col and I am 75% of the way through industne.col files.
My game runs just fine with my colfiles, however they are largewr than gta3's original cols. My average col is 150-300 polys (which is on par with a lot of gtavc's cols), but there are 2 so far that are still rather large 1000polys.
I have used a polygon cruncher with 3ds max 7 to recieve my results, and my results have been around 40-65% decimation.
I was thinking that when I get some cols with a lot of polys after crunching, a modeler could use their skills to trim out what poly cruncher could not. (for instance, one of my high poly cols 1000, has a bunch of picnic tables with unbrellas on top in the mesh, i cant go any further with poly cruncher without losing the shape of the object. If a modeler could edit those unbrellas in the cols mesh, the ploy count could drop much lower). In case your wondering, the original poly coun for the object was near 3500, poly cruncher brought it to 1000 while keeping a good mesh.

Well, im back to the cols.....

Any advice?

Edit: industne.col/temppart.col complete

This post has been edited by Ryan_ on Thursday, Mar 24 2005, 01:36

[Hammer83]

Accuracy is not necessarily important with cols. In my opinion lower poly count is priority. BTW, you cans see if the game considers col model to be huge by having DbgView open while running the game. If you see a lot of "Colmodel x is huge" then you need to further reduce it.

[jcab42]

QUOTE (Ryan_ @ Mar 22 2005, 23:18)

well i dont really know much about how issues were overcom when pine put liberty city together, but mainly the col and map files. i dont even know what exe restrictions there were before the launcher was out. just a thought that spilled out on my keyboard. so, did you export the cols from the image and copy them over the ones already in the maps folders, or are you using the ones that were already in the maps folder and just deleted the ones from the image?

I used the cols that were already in the folders. To my knowledge, they are the same, but that is a good point.

re: Pine Creek, you know there's another guy that was just as important even though it's rarely mentioned, REspawn was the pioneer for getting rid of Vice City, and alot of the leftover VC stuff was his idea, like the generic.ide... after trying myself to get rid of it I talked to the spoon man and we are at least in agreement that it's more trouble than its worth because of the myriad of bugs it causes. And then there's the many VC models that have replaced the GTA3 ones, like the phonebooth. So if there's a program that could parse the DFF's into the same groupings as the IDE/IPL/COL folders, that would help us to identify unnecessary crap.

QUOTE (charlesbesso @ Mar 23 2005, 03:43)

QUOTE (spaceeinstein @ Mar 22 2005, 18:07) I got an idea. First make a roof of the building. Then make the collision. Then delete all the collisions EXCEPT the roof. Now MERGE it with Rockstar's collsions. Just my theory. that seems like a great idea but as to how we go about that I'm clueless...

You guys gave me an idea. You could import both the COL and the DFF into zmod, then select the four vertices that make the roof of the COL and move them together until they are in line with the roof of the DFF. Then delete the DFF and export the col. That should keep the face count down while retaining R*'s detail. I actually think the GTA3 cols were way too detailed, but if you guys want detail, that'd be the way to do it. Incidentally, col models should never exceed 500 faces.

[Ryan_]

Well, I tried debug viewer and guess what, I had 3 col files that dbg said were huge, but, there were even more huge cols that I had not edited. ones from gta3 i guess.
Anyways, things are going good. I dont think the object cols that i am making will at all hurt game performance, but we can all check it out when i finish it up.
Thanks for the info.

[charlesbesso]

for the umbrellas a modeler could make a box around the table it should be around 10 faces then for the pole another box with no buttom or top but just the four sides so 8 more faces then for the umbrella top you just do 6 faces pointing to the corners of the umbrella and then just connect them to a vertice at the top point of the umbrella, since you can't jump on the bench anyway (it just moves when you run into it) so bamo it becomes a simple 24 face model and duplicate for the others. what do you think guys?

This post has been edited by charlesbesso on Thursday, Mar 24 2005, 04:41