ElectricBee's Aerials (UPDATE 04/03/19)

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ElectricBee
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ElectricBee's Aerials (UPDATE 04/03/19)

Unread post by ElectricBee » Tue Apr 02, 2019 5:48 am

Introduction
Yes, this. This again. Most of you are probably running on fresh installations of Re-Volt by now, so I figured now would be a good time to re-release something which was languishing in Re-Volt Live.

This set of files allows you to install ElectricBee's aerials using a single batch file, rather than the madness that was before calling upon multiple batch files within a single master batch. As I had improved my skills in writing batch scripts (slowly), I figured I would revamp projects like these and make it look good while I am doing this.

This, like my other projects do not have a Bash equivalent because I am not too fussed about the very small minority of Linux users, and I have other uses for my time than just sitting there with my eyes glazed over learning the intricacies of Bash. Set things up to run it in Wine, it should work okay. If it doesn't I'll figure something out.

So wait, what the hell is this?
Contained in the archive linked below are a set of files intended to replace the stock aerial, stock beachball (yes, still on that) and stock FxPage1.bmp to allow for aerials which don't suck. Compared to Iron Bob's original offering, which was slightly buggy and offered less customization

Aerial details
Unlike the default aerials (and by extension, Iron Bob's aerials pack), the aerial stem and tips are completely separate; the aerial stem by default is also part of the tip, and for the stem to not look stupid the stem on the tip model also has to matfch, whereas these awerial models are completely independent of one another, which allows for better mixing and matching of colours.

These aerials are also vertex shaded so it is gradually lighter on top. It isn't the best way to do it, but it's a universal solution which requires very little additional work.

Beachball details
The default beachball in Re-Volt 1.2 is messed and it annoyed me, so I included it as a fix along with the aerials mod. Because the faces of the replacement beachballs are mapped like the aerials are, they have an improved appearance by having completely solid colours, rather than the odd gradients on the beachball face.

There are two solutions for the beachball, and both of them can be switched between by executing the included batch script multiple times; after the first installation, a menu will render where youj can select to replace the beachball and use another solution. As follows;

Blockfix: Uses the small island of colour on the lower right of replacement FxPage1.bmp
Scalefix: Uses the same mapping locations as on the original beachball, except mapped like the aerials so they have solid colours on each face.

Notes and caveats
The texturing for almost everything in this pack use a method I like to call zero-point mapping: The polygons which are suppose to have solid colours have their UV maps scaled down to their smallest possible size, which means they're all in a single point, with all points overlapped. Because of this, all solid colour textures appear without odd gradients from neighboring pixels.

If a map uses custom textures, the replacement beachball and aerials may look weird; you will have to edit custom FxPage1.bmp files so all supplied mdoels appear as intended. If you have to edit 3D models (you shouldn't have to), you will need Blender and Jigebren's Re-Volt plugin. GIMP 2.10 can save bitmap files in a format friendly to Re-Volt, and do so by default.

Colours
Rather than this take up a bunch of space with hex codes, I'll just show them with box drawings.

IBA / Stock
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From Re-Volt metals pickup models
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Previous requests
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Others
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Also included: Rainbow clockwise and counter-clockwise.

Updates
04/02/19.1
Modified batch script to now write a special file for remembering link preference upon link choice called .lncmd.bat so future runs will actually execute as expected for the end-user. If running the script again post-update, choose option 3, then open the batch script again to re-install.

04/02/19.2
Added UV location for white in overlay

03/03/19
Appended batch script so it actually closes on completion this time and print the game directory which will be affected per specification in the script, with advice on how to change it.

Get it!
Download
Extract EBA-EBA2 somewhere in your PC's filesystem and run the batch file therein.
You will have to edit the batch file; change line 12 so it reflects where your game directory is.
I do, not for God or country, because dead men profess no faith, neither do they have a home.
Previously-active member of Re-Volt Live. Contributor of silly things. Smart enough to be dangerous.
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