Making a ground object invisible

[andyp_uk]

Can someone please help.

 

I want to make a working ground object invisible.

 

I'm using Oct 2008 sfp1 and none of my infantry units turn to fire when defending.  Maybe Oct'08

messes up the axis (I don't know as every infantry type I have does the same).

When they move its ok because they turn to fire, but defending troops won't turn at all.

 

So to fix it I have used the M55 LOD (which rotates nicely) and added the infantry LODs as weapon

attachments.  This all works fine so far.

 

To hide the M55 I have hex edited it's LOD to use tga instead of bmp files and then copied the

CompletelyClear.tga  as Quadmount.tga and usgunner.tga

 

The problem is that I can still see the M55 but as a solid black object (it's not transparent).

I know its using the transparent tga because if I remove the new tga's it appears as a solid white object as you would expect for a missing skin.

 

Note:  I have gone for this solution after spending forever trying to get the original infantry LODs axis rotations to work correctly and given up.

 

Does everyone on Oct'08 have the same problem ?

 

Thanks

 

   Andy

 

[+RAVEN]

Wrong .tga for what you want. Convert the stock . bmp to a tga with a compleatly transparent (black) Alfa channel. I'm not 100% sure it will work, but that's what I would try. As for the infantry, for myself, I just removed them from my games, nice, but too many problems.

[andyp_uk]

Hmmm...  thanks.  Tried that but I still get solid white model.  I think its because the material specified within the LOD inself needs to be something like  diffuse???  or something ??? 

Simply masking out the tga with an alpha channel just shows whats left underneath i.e. the unpainted solid LOD.

I'm sure it the LOD's material definition that is making it impossible to appear invisible.

 

groan..... lol

[+RAVEN]

I forgot, in max, transparency has to be Enabled for that to work, sorry.

What if you used the Fakepilot.lod instead of the m55, you'll need the mesh name for it instead of Hull and remove the Turret statement from the .ini I use Simi-transparent boxes all the time as ground objects for size testing. The game don't care what the .lod shape is, just the 'Pivot Point'.

[+Wrench]

I've never really had problems with infantry. Mainly because I've usually rewritten the movements ini to account for the slow pace of the troops.

In fact, most movement inis for all the stock terrains have their waypoints set too far apart. Which is (kinda) ok for tanks, but even their guns don't have the ranges their Real World ™ counterparts have.

 

There's only a couple of ways around it ...

 

don't use infantry

give them (exceedingly) unrealistic movement speeds (ie: truck --this was done purposefully in the Falklands mod)

recompute/rewrite the GroundAttack sections of the terrain's movement.ini, to move the "engagement" points LESS than 1 tile width apart (apporx 2km)

or have them "already there" emplaced via addition to the _targets and _types inis, allowing them to "support" the AFVs. The same can also be said for artillery units -- defending units should already be there (again, placed via _targets and _types ini edits)

 

the last one is the most difficult, as it ensures one side or the other will always have a 'friendly' unit (somewhere) in Enemy Territory. That may also cause issues with (enemy) side strike missions being tasked against them.