A while ago BILTZ_Molloy had a ripper suggestion on the old forum (https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=18201) to integrate Total Annihilation (actual TotalA.exe Total Annihilation) into FAF.
So what do you think of this as a demonstration? https://youtu.be/FbkKLR9DljA
Now I'm wondering whether FAF maybe has a spare node I can host such a thing on ... who would I talk to about that?
There are some plugins for blender to import / export Supreme Commander SCM and SCA files. But unfortunately the process of getting from Total Annihilation's 3DO format to SCM, complete with textures and correctly placed, oriented and named bones, isn't straight forward (or at least I couldn't find an easy solution). So I put together a tool to help. I released it on github for others to use, maybe it can save you some hours. See https://github.com/Axle1975/3do2scm/releases/
Big shout outs to Michael Heasell for writing the Robot War Engine (https://github.com/MHeasell/rwe) and the many developers who worked on the Blender plugin itself (https://github.com/Oygron/SupCom_Import_Export_Blender). The 3do2scm converter makes heavy use of code from both of those fine projects.
For your porting pleasure, as of release 20200907, 3do2scm includes a tool to assist you convert TA animation scripts to SupCom SCA format.
As of release 20200911, 3do2scm is able to generate SpecTeam (team colour) textures, and now saves textures in .PNG format. The user interface to nbos2sca.exe is also simplified, allowing user to drag/drop nbos files onto the exe.
This document will walk you through a process to import the heightmap from a Total Annihilation map into Supcom.
Unfortunately for the rest of the map creation process, its business as usual - ie hand painting albedos, placing decals and mex patches so there's nothing to be gained from reading this document in that regard.
Maybe there's an easier, less fiddly way to do this that I'm missing. If you know one, leave a comment!
Step 1: extract your original TA map
Tool: HPI View by JoeD (https://files.tauniverse.com/files/ta/utilities/hpi-view-pack-dump)
Run HPIView and "file" "open" any .ufo, .hpi or .ccx that contains some maps:
Extract the .tnt and .ota files of the map you want to recreate.
Step 2: export height-map
Download and install "annihilator" map editor: https://www.fileplanet.com/archive/p-11530/Total-Annihilation-map-editor
Run Annihilator and open your map
Go "map" "export heightmap" and export to .bmp
Step 3: convert to 16bit and re-scale
You may have another image editing tool that can do the job for you, but you'll need some specialised features. Specifically, the tasks we're going to carry out are:
One such tool that can accomplish all these tasks is ImageJ (https://imagej.nih.gov/ij/)
Load the .bmp into ImageJ
Go "Image" "type" and select "16 bit".
[edit] As of at lest v2.10 it seems Gimp is able to work with 16 bit greyscale imges. So you may find Gimp can do the job too although I haven't tested.
Go "Process" "Math" "Multiply" and choose 10. You may need to experiment a bit with this.
There seems to be a bug in imagej where the image appears saturated, but don't be alarmed. That's just a rendering issue, the underlying numbers are fine.
Go "Image" "scale" and re-scale to some power of two plus one. I've chosen to scale to 513x513 (10km x 10km) in this case.
Now go "File" "Save As" "Raw Data" and give a filename such as "crystal cracked.heightmap.513x513x10.raw" to record for posterity the scale factors you used.
Step 4 create the SupCom map and import the heightmap
Install OzoneX's fine map editor (https://wiki.faforever.com/index.php?title=FA_Forever_Map_Editor).
Load it up and create a new map, set the map size to match what you scaled your height map too (512x512 in my case).
Go "Terrain" "Import" and navigate to your "crystal cracked.heightmap.513x513x10.raw" file. Go to "add height" and add a bit elevation as required. eg I added +10 to bring the islands just above the water line (which I set as 16).
Step 5. Get Creative
Now its time to get creative. Look at the original map to see where the resources (mexes, hydros, rocks, trees, spawn points) are placed. Copy or approximate or re-blance as you see fit. Do a bit of play-testing.
And then get to work making it look beautiful with layered albedos and decals.
If after having done all that hard work you find you want to change the map size, take a look at https://github.com/Axle1975/ScmpRescale/releases, a tool for rescaling SupCom maps and/or importing them into other maps.
Great to see work continuing on Raevn's fine mod. I kind of forgot about this project. I meant to put my git repo online to show the exact changes I made on top of Raevn's last release on the off-chance that it might assist those that followed. I'll take this as a reminder! See https://github.com/Axle1975/SCTA-v18
A while ago BILTZ_Molloy had a ripper suggestion on the old forum (https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=18201) to integrate Total Annihilation (actual TotalA.exe Total Annihilation) into FAF.
So what do you think of this as a demonstration? https://youtu.be/FbkKLR9DljA
Now I'm wondering whether FAF maybe has a spare node I can host such a thing on ... who would I talk to about that?
Check out release 20200911, which now generates team colour textures in PNG format, and some improvements to nbos2sca interface (it is now possible to drag/drop .nbos files onto the exe without opening a command prompt)
yeah something gone wrong there, its a fiddly process. My guess is that you scaled the height (the "multiply" operation in ImageJ) by too much and then when you imported into FAForever Map Editor you selected the "clamp top" option when it complained about "distance between lowest and highest point is higher than 50".
Another possibility is that in ImageJ (if you're not careful) the saturated rendering can affect the numbers. I can't remember exactly what to do in ImageJ to make that happen, but if you mouse-over the pixels you should be able to see what intensity (ie height) the pixel is at the top left of the window. Check that just before you export to .raw. If those numbers seem saturated, then that's the problem.
Check out release 20200907, now with a tool to assist efforts to convert TA animation scripts to SupCom
(please note the new release also fixes a bug with SCM bone/vertex coordinates that showed up when trying to apply animations)
No worries MadMax, I hope it helps someone
This document will walk you through a process to import the heightmap from a Total Annihilation map into Supcom.
Unfortunately for the rest of the map creation process, its business as usual - ie hand painting albedos, placing decals and mex patches so there's nothing to be gained from reading this document in that regard.
Maybe there's an easier, less fiddly way to do this that I'm missing. If you know one, leave a comment!
Step 1: extract your original TA map
Tool: HPI View by JoeD (https://files.tauniverse.com/files/ta/utilities/hpi-view-pack-dump)
Run HPIView and "file" "open" any .ufo, .hpi or .ccx that contains some maps:
Extract the .tnt and .ota files of the map you want to recreate.
Step 2: export height-map
Download and install "annihilator" map editor: https://www.fileplanet.com/archive/p-11530/Total-Annihilation-map-editor
Run Annihilator and open your map
Go "map" "export heightmap" and export to .bmp
Step 3: convert to 16bit and re-scale
You may have another image editing tool that can do the job for you, but you'll need some specialised features. Specifically, the tasks we're going to carry out are:
One such tool that can accomplish all these tasks is ImageJ (https://imagej.nih.gov/ij/)
Load the .bmp into ImageJ
Go "Image" "type" and select "16 bit".
[edit] As of at lest v2.10 it seems Gimp is able to work with 16 bit greyscale imges. So you may find Gimp can do the job too although I haven't tested.
Go "Process" "Math" "Multiply" and choose 10. You may need to experiment a bit with this.
There seems to be a bug in imagej where the image appears saturated, but don't be alarmed. That's just a rendering issue, the underlying numbers are fine.
Go "Image" "scale" and re-scale to some power of two plus one. I've chosen to scale to 513x513 (10km x 10km) in this case.
Now go "File" "Save As" "Raw Data" and give a filename such as "crystal cracked.heightmap.513x513x10.raw" to record for posterity the scale factors you used.
Step 4 create the SupCom map and import the heightmap
Install OzoneX's fine map editor (https://wiki.faforever.com/index.php?title=FA_Forever_Map_Editor).
Load it up and create a new map, set the map size to match what you scaled your height map too (512x512 in my case).
Go "Terrain" "Import" and navigate to your "crystal cracked.heightmap.513x513x10.raw" file. Go to "add height" and add a bit elevation as required. eg I added +10 to bring the islands just above the water line (which I set as 16).
Step 5. Get Creative
Now its time to get creative. Look at the original map to see where the resources (mexes, hydros, rocks, trees, spawn points) are placed. Copy or approximate or re-blance as you see fit. Do a bit of play-testing.
And then get to work making it look beautiful with layered albedos and decals.
If after having done all that hard work you find you want to change the map size, take a look at https://github.com/Axle1975/ScmpRescale/releases, a tool for rescaling SupCom maps and/or importing them into other maps.
The .exe is in the zip file in the release. Here's a direct link to the zip file: https://github.com/Axle1975/3do2scm/releases/download/20200905/3do2scm-20200905.zip
Very interesting, thanks MadMax. Yeah I can see how if you need to edit the models and re-texture them anyway, Upspring and Blender works well.
Ah that's awesome. You must've got a decent workflow down pat if you did a fair few conversions already. For my own curiosity and the benefit of the thread and those that follow, what tools did you use?