Editing Creature Morphs (Help)

[Isaak]

Howdy everyone. After a number of years I've decided to pick up B&W again, and in the past I was doing some messing with Milkshape on the creature morphs, nothing serious, but I didn't have any issues at the time. However in picking it up again now and trying to do the same thing, I'm having a problem that I can't seem to solve on my own, and although this forum is pretty close to dead, this may be THE last place I could come to for assistance.

Basically I'm only messing with the _fat, _thin, _strong and _weak versions of the creature meshes. I am NOT trying to change the base mesh or the texture in any way. However, my problem is that whatever .l3d I export from Milkshape and put into B&W results in my creatures skin becoming messed up, becoming dark and blotchy as if it's ability to receive light sources is broken.

I've tried various combinations of the import and export settings, and nothing appears to be effecting this issue. I can even literally import one of these morphs, change nothing, and export it again and get this problem. The only other piece of information I have to add is importing any of the morph meshes now always results in this error showing "Warning: Found bad texture ID. Cannot set texture image properly." and it will appear twice before resuming. However, this error only just started showing up, it wasn't appearing earlier today and I'm not sure what changed.

Any assistance would be appreciated, I will be checking back regularly, and will post an image of the issue if it is needed. And if I do find a solution I will share what I did to fix it.

 

[SkelApe]

I'm sorry if this seems really obvious, but have you downloaded the associated plugin? http://www.bwfiles.com/files/file.php?id=208

MilkShape can be tricky to use at all, but there's one or two people still around who uploaded altered creatures recently. Maybe it's a good idea to contact them directly.

EDIT: Khazar seems to be one such member. He modded the chicken in BW fairly recently: http://www.bwfiles.com/files/?display=1411

 

[Isaak]

Yep, I am using the B&W Milkshape plugin, I wouldn't be importing and exporting without it.

I can sure take a look at which ones have contact information, but that chicken one you linked to me seems to be suffering from the same problem I'm having. You can see in the picture of it how it's shading looks blotchy and without direction.

 

[Isaak]

Well I think I made some headway and think I know the source of the problem, but I may need outside help.
I think my issue is directly related to the "Warning: Found bad texture ID. Cannot set texture image properly." error I'm getting.

Contrary to popular belief, the four morph files (strong, weak, fat and thin) DO in fact contain textures like the base good and evil ones do.
Unlike the base, good and evil files, the morph ones only contain a basic shader texture, which impacts how light effects the model in-game.
EDIT:
Okay, this might not be true, I'm trying to use the .l3d to .tga converter found here: http://www.bwfiles.com/faqs/index.php?action=file&id=48. And I can get a texture file out of the default morph files, but it's pretty much just black, and using the converter again to get that texture back into my newer exported ones doesn't solve the problem.

I'm thinking it should be a simple grey sphere texture with 256x256 dimensions, and it gives me the error twice because there are two of them. And for some reason Milkshape and the B&W plugin is unable to find these textures when I open up the morph file, even when opening it from the game directory. Milkshape however CAN see the textures for the base, good and evil ones, and doesn't generate this error for those.

I've tried searching the error, but nothing comes up, if anyone can help me identify how to solve the error, knows how to open up the .l3d files in another way to rip that texture out. OR isn't getting the error themselves and can upload a copy of that texture for me, I'd be grateful.

EDIT 2:
Alright, apparently I'm just wrong, and I'm fine with that, as experimenting with the original morph files has revealed some more stuff to me, and I guess they don't really have textures in them at all? I'm not totally sure. But I think somehow I accidentally added empty textures into the ones I modded, which were blank. However I still have this issue, even after removing those empty textures to return my modded ones as close to the original as possible. This whole thing has got me stumped.

 

[Isaak]

Alright, I'm back again, and still having no luck.
My day job kept me pretty occupied for a while, but someone sent me a message here, offering to lend me some assistance.
I've tried to send a reply twice, but nothings showing in my outbox on my profile here, so I don't know if it's working.  :suspect

Because of the time-frame I've decided to just make a new post instead of editing my old one, I hope this is alright.
Since my last post I decided to try uninstalling everything related to B&W including Milkshape, then I took a small break from it.
Reinstalling everything again the next day had no effect and the problem is still present. But this time I got pictures.

This is right away in the start of the game, and I just used Kong to bring my test horse creature to max size.

Using the default A_horse_strong.l3d : https://www.dropbox.com/s/k0hnzz41spcx6e3/Before.jpg
Using a modified A_horse_strong.l3d  : https://www.dropbox.com/s/a40h4r14y795plm/After.jpg

The effect isn't permanent, and using the original file will return the creature to it's normal look, but during the import and export process of the .l3d into Milkshape, something is being lost, and even trying a fresh exported .l3d with NO model changes will result in this strange effect.

 

[Handsome Matt]

Black and White models tend to have certain levels of detail that vary depending on how far away the player's camera is from the object. These are stored in the model files as different sets of vertices for each level.
From the looks of it, Milkshape isn't exporting it properly, I don't know if the source code is available but I could more than likely recompile with the required fixes.

This does however mean if you want to make any model changes, you're going to have to provide a model change for each level of detail yourself manually, the engine doesn't handle that I'm afraid.

 

[Matt]

^ that's weird, I have two accounts it seems. :L (that is me above though)

 

[Isaak]

Just letting you guys know I'm stll here, just various things have been robbing my ability to give this issue more attention.

Since my last massage I have tried one new thing, a fellow named Land here on these forums is allowing his Friend to send me some PM's  through his profile in at attempt to assist me, and he has had lots of good information.

He suggested I look into the "groups" tab in Milkshape, where at the bottom is a toggle box labeled "auto smooth".
My "auto smooth" already has a check mark next to it, so I tried with it unchecked. Sadly there was no change in the problem.

Handsome Matt, thank you for the offer to recompile for me, but I would rather not have to be making work for anyone else.

I'll probably be willing to try a few more things before I just drop the thing entirely.