AH Materials in AC3D File: Behavioral Implications?

[CptTrips]

Do the AH materials defined in the exported AC3D shapes have any in-game behavioral implications?  Or are they purely visual?

Are certain named materials interpreted to be impervious to machine gun round, but vulnerable to cannon round? 

I had the weirdest bug I was fighting.  My custom objects displayed fine.  The LOD worked fine.  However, no matter how soft I set the hardness, I couldn't kill the object and make it go to it's dead shape.  That is, with machine gun fire. It would die with a single cannon round.  It couldn't be the hardness value.  I dumped an entire P-47 of 50 cal into it.

I eventually got it working after a million tries and modifications. 

I think there were two changes I made that got it to work:  one was a naming convention change in the hierarchical elements ( ) then other was making sure I used a specific  AH material.  Or maybe I was using a custom material.  I can't remember.   

So that got me wondering if there were physical properties the game logic associated with different materials, or were the differences purely visual?

Thanks in advance.

CptTrips
 

[Shuffler]

Do the AH materials defined in the exported AC3D shapes have any in-game behavioral implications?  Or are they purely visual?

Are certain named materials interpreted to be impervious to machine gun round, but vulnerable to cannon round? 

I had the weirdest bug I was fighting.  My custom objects displayed fine.  The LOD worked fine.  However, no matter how soft I set the hardness, I couldn't kill the object and make it go to it's dead shape.  That is, with machine gun fire. It would die with a single cannon round.  It couldn't be the hardness value.  I dumped an entire P-47 of 50 cal into it.

I eventually got it working after a million tries and modifications. 

I think there were two changes I made that got it to work:  one was a naming convention change in the hierarchical elements ( ) then other was making sure I used a specific  AH material.  Or maybe I was using a custom material.  I can't remember.   

So that got me wondering if there were physical properties the game logic associated with different materials, or were the differences purely visual?

Thanks in advance.

CptTrips

You mean like the difference between a brick and air?

[CptTrips]

You mean like the difference between a brick and air?

LoL. 

More like the difference between armor plate and soft steel.  Or aluminum skin vs brick vs wood. 

[Easyscor]

The materials are color but mostly shading imo. They can turn a poly to black, blue,white or invisible etc.

Three things affect hardness in the case you describe.
a. the name used in the ac3d object, "vhh0" or "str" etc.
b. the flags. In ah2 these were called polyIDs. Now they show in the .ac file as FaceFlags or GroupFlags. These are very powerful settings. I've never been able to see them in the OE's Edit Tree.
c. In the TE, there is a setting to change the hardness of an object but it was not straight forward in ah2.

 

[CptTrips]

The materials are color but mostly shading imo. They can turn a poly to black, blue,white or invisible etc.

Three things affect hardness in the case you describe.
a. the name used in the ac3d object, "vhh0" or "str" etc.
b. the flags. In ah2 these were called polyIDs. Now they show in the .ac file as FaceFlags or GroupFlags. These are very powerful settings. I've never been able to see them in the OE's Edit Tree.
c. In the TE, there is a setting to change the hardness of an object but it was not straight forward in ah2.

 

Thanks for the reply.

I eventually figured out 'a' through trial and error.  It was part of my problem.  Although I have found many HTC object exported from AHObEdit that did not have that node and started with LOD groups directly below the "objects" level and they seemed to blow up fine.

Through trial and error, a lot of error, I found that at least the HTC shapes "testobject" and "brief" exhibit the same behavior as my broken objects.
Take the HTC "testobject" and place it in a terrain and set it's type to "fact fuel" it's hardness to 0.001. 
It is impervious to machine gun fire.  But a single cannon round will destroy it.

I have a pattern now that works, but I am a little OCD, and would really like to understand all the various magical meanings and implications of those different names and materials (if those have effects).  There might be something cool content providers could do with that info.  I'm pretty certain the material was part of my problems, but that would take more work to confirm.  If someone just had a list, that would be awesome.    But I admit this is pretty esoteric stuff and won't really affect most people.   I just hate mysteries. 

I'm guessing the face and group flags are binary "AND"ing of the various flags in the Editor you see like Alpha phased and Freeze Center in hexadecimal form.   So like it (making up values) alpha phased = 0x20000000   and freeze center = 0x00040000  and void component type was 0x00000008 you might get a group flag in the actual AC3D file like 0x20040008.
That is mostly speculation, but it's how I'd do it.   

I usually set the hardness in the TE. I had assume that overrides any other settings, but it may be more complicated.

Do you have any information how "twn0" vs "vh0" vs "str0" affect hardness?


(Someday maybe you need to make a custom object handbook.  )

Thanks in advance,
CptTrips
 

[Easyscor]

Do you have any information how "twn0" vs "vh0" vs "str0" affect hardness?

Yes and so do you. The hardness is available in the 'Object Settings' in-game. The behavior will match the default "twn0" vs "vh0" vs "str0" etc objects.

I have a chapter to complete in the TE manual before cleaning up the OE manual. Then the Texture manual, and maybe a cloud editor.
An object creation manual is not a priority because nothing that isn't default is allowed in an MA terrain and hardly anyone will actually create anything for AH3 unless it's for the SEA or AvA. In that case, staff members already share what they know with fellow staff members.

Several people have dove into creating objects for AH3 and some apparently come very close but as yet I've not seen anything cross my desk.

There are many objects from AH2 that would make wonderful additions to AH3 AvA terrains. Dumb ships are great examples, but those don't attract the attention of the curious object builders. The list of desirable updates is quite extensive and some are technically pretty elementary. Consider the city building blocks from the mega cities, and factory buildings. Pretty detailed but not complicated.

 

[CptTrips]

Actually I think I was wrong on part of that.

If an object DOESN'T have a "twn0" or "str0" or "vh0" node under the "objects" level, and you set it's type to "fact fuel" with hardness of 0.001, then it is impervious to machine gun rounds, BUT can be killed with a single cannon round.    WTF.

I recreated a test where I had it working and and then changed the node from "twn0" to "foo" and then it is impervious to machine gun rounds, BUT can be killed with a single cannon round.    Bizaaro. 

[CptTrips]

Several people have dove into creating objects for AH3 and some apparently come very close but as yet I've not seen anything cross my desk.

Well, it can certainly require a high pain threshold sometimes.

I've been working for two weeks trying to get a purchased model imported into the game and working the way I want.  Well, working good enough, anyway. 
I just wish Hitech had decided to position fuel fires at origin instead of min-Y. 

I plan to eventually release a WWI mission pack with custom terrain.  It is looking like a very long project at this rate. lol. 

[Easyscor]

Well, it can certainly require a high pain threshold sometimes.

Isn't that an understatement?
At least some of us had AH2 experience to grow from.