Talk:X2mdl/a guide by Wolf

needed changes and thoughts

Here is a growing list of changes just to keep things factual.

• Can't do stuff, needs to be rephrased as "cannot YET do" or there needs to be a third section (if there are indeed things x2mdl is not meant to do) ie. handling all types of animations is technically possible via the MDL format, though some cases might require a loss in terms of fidelity.
• The thing about not using more than one bmp is not accurate. You can have at least four 256x256 TIM images in a MDL file. x2mdl has always been able to do more than one. Possibly many more than four for smaller images, depending on how accurately the format replicates the PSOne frame buffer or whatever it's called(I don't recall running any tests)
• Technically we don't know if the animation ids are just conventions or what. All we can say for sure is these are the ids Som files traditionally use. The ultimate call in terms of what does what might be made by the PRF files. I've been told before by others they think this is probably the case. Don't know anything about PRFs yet myself.
• Please phrase stuff in terms of what we know. Wiki's are not places for speculation. Ie. what 4 and 5 does for traps. We don't know unless you tried. Generally though for each class of assets, the ids are totally different. Ie. NPCs and enemies don't necessarily share IDs even though many IDs server the same function. And like I said, it may be entirely a PRF thing. Also there may be stuff implemented that we don't even know about / just never happened to be used by the stuff on the disc. Experimentation is called for.

• I've not really read thru the "The Process:" section. But it needs to be framed in terms of a "tried and true" example of what you can do, rather than a one size fits all guide.

• Truth is we're going to have to give some thought in terms of how to organize this wiki. It's totally different functionality wise from any wiki I've ever seen/worked with.

In general for example I think Tinman animation would be a good place for the animation ID info and an explanation of what exactly it is. X2mdl would be a good page for what x2mdl's function is and its history. I'm seriously considering using / pages for this wiki. I think at the least I want to mirror the VCS at som.net, so like /Pool/look/new/rm_som_000.mdo could be used by an artist to make a page about an asset they've created whenever they feel like it. My gut tells me /X2mdl/examples might be a good page for examples. Then it could get turned into a directory if it got too big.

If pages are categorized and linked via "See also" sections, they're pretty easy to find.

Anyway, good job. This page reminds me the headlines need to stand out more... and I'm really not pleased with the paragraph/line spacing.--Holy Diver 01:13, 9 March 2011 (CST)