Last Month the Japanese try to retrive this mod a little bit more. They played in the at 2pm CET. At the moment the gametracker,com Server Monitorring is off. Hope soon they turn it on. The ranking seems to work.
Registered Member #2587 Joined: [ 17:13 ] [ 07 Oct 2013 ] Posts: 132
The billboard system can be used for quick and easy sign sprites and the like for custom maps without the hassle with trying to code sprites through the effect system.
I've provided a simple cube geometry as the host TreeMesh and with that you can attach any kind of billboard you want to it. Example code below:
Set billboard distance to zero so treeMesh is never visible which means your billboard can be seen even while close up.
"BillboardResolution" is an unused command (remnant of code used in Rallisport Challenge that still works in BF1942).
This code can be used to define the resolution/aspect ratio of the texture. The first two vectors define the resolution.
The third defines the "view angle" stored in the billboard texture. In this case there is only one which makes things easy to use for simple things like arrow signs and the like. "Normal" billboards default at 8 view angles I think thus the default resolution has the texture being 8 times wider then it is height. This was to store the extra view angle versions of trees.
But you can set it to 1 avoid having to create "duplicates" of your billboard texture across all the other view angles. You can create more if you like if you want to try something fancy. But in this example, I've set it to 1.
This code can be used to create simple yet effective sign sprites. However, remember that billboards only rotate on one axis to face the camera where as sprites rotate on all axis to face the camera, Keep that in mind with designing your billboard texture item on whatever map you are adding this too.
Also BF1942 uses the geometry name for knowing which billboard texture to use in the billboards folder.
For the example shown above, The geometry name is "LocationArrow_Blue_m1". Thus your billdboard texture must have that same name.
Change the name of the geometry if you wish to use a different name for your billboard texture. Multiple geometries templates can be created to have alternate textures used for multiples of different objects. So yes you can have multiple billboards "share" the same tree mesh geometry. So you don't have the worry about that. The simple TM mesh I provided will allow you to customize any billboard you want.
If you wish to stretch the billboard, you can alter the "scale" command to something that isn't square or you can keep them all the same if you simply want the billboard to be larger ingame. This will allow you to code up your billboard to any size you want without having to open up a complicated 3d modeling program. All you need is the texture and the rest is code.
Here's my example treeMesh geometry that you can employ for use in any custom billboard you want to create:
Here's a video from my BFH'42 mod that shows what this looks like. (it's the blue arrow hovering above the supply crate. This is an example of the billboard system. )