99.9% of the rest of the time, however, and if I'm dealing with regular Silent Hunter series models be they game stock or fan created, 3D Ripper DX is going to capture it complete. The only time this doesn't happen is when I'm dealing with an ultra-high model ported into the Silent Hunter series from something else, such as World of Warships (yes, you can get those models to work in the Silent Hunter series), and in those cases I'll only get those parts of the model that the "ripping camera" can actually see. All the same I get my best results with the Silent Hunter series games with this old chestnut of a model ripper, and here's why: the models almost always rip intact, with everything in place where it should be. Development stopped years ago so it hasn't been updated for later versions of Windows (from Win7 on) or later versions of DirectX (the highest it supports is DirectX9). This used to be the best Windows-based 3D model ripper around until NinjaRipper came along. Oh, and you can extract any models or model parts directly into the common OBJ model format and textures into TGA format (Truevision Targa), which makes things a lot easier when it comes time to rebuild things in your preferred 3D modeling software. Master it even more and eventually you'll be able to figure out how to put your own stuff into the game, but as I said it takes a lot of time and a lot of practice. Once you begin to figure it out, then you can do things with it that you can't do with the other two tools, such as extract parts of a model that either don't come up in the game properly (or at all) and extracting textures embedded within the model data and so on. It's got a steep learning curve so it's hard for Silent Hunter n00bs to figure out at first, but stay with it. Conversely, you can use it to extract everything that's there: ships, aircraft, static objects, scenery (!), deck crew figures (!!), and so on. This is the same tool that the Silent Hunter modders use for putting custom stuff into the game. And while the games themselves have been years out of production, they were top-of-the-line for their time in the graphics department, their original models still hold up well today, and so do the many, many, many, MANY fan-created models for them. That's the online Silent Hunter series community, based on the Ubisoft video games Silent Hunter 3 (SH3), Silent Hunter 4 (SH4), Silent Hunter 4 Gold Edition (SH4G or SH4 1.5), and Silent Hunter 5 (SH5). It's not going to be as good as the ultra-detailed and high-poly-out-the-wazoo stuff where you can see every bolt on a watertight door like what World of Warships has, but it's still very good within its game engine constraints and it's been both embraced by its many fans and blessed by many a talented fan CG artist over the decades. It's also almost all retail quality by the standards of its time (mid-to-late 2000s). That will probably change with time, but for now it's the best place to go. In truth there's a better place to look, one that's been around almost long as Garry's Mod (GMOD) for Source Engine video gamers, and to this day has a depth and variety in both military and civilian vessels that has yet to be matched. These days you would think that the obvious answer is with World of Warships, Navy Field, War Thunder, and other such online multiplayer gaming sims. I say all that to set things up for the inevitable question that crosses the lips of almost everyone in this particular situation. A lot of you are like me in that you like to collect models of those vessels, and those of us with a more, uhmm, "modern" bent naturally go for CG models. Not surprisingly, there's a lot of naval video games set during the World War II era and there are lots of CG models made both free by fans and for those video games of World War II era vessels. It's quite understandable, given how much has been written and produced about World War II as a whole and the naval side in particular, with such great media productions as In Harm's Way, the original Midway (1976), Run Silent Run Deep, Up Periscope, The Enemy Below, Das Boot (any version, I personally prefer the 3-hour director's cut), Sink the Bismarck, PT-109, They Were Expendable, The Winds of War/War and Remembrance, Submarine X-1, Yamato, Tora! Tora! Tora! - the list goes on and on and on. For most of you you're probably thinking of the interwar and World War II eras (1919-1945), and that quarter-century or so represents the epitome or apex of classic warship design for many. Let's narrow the range still further, because that's a pretty wide range and while some of us have likes as wide as that range might be, most of you have something more narrow in mind.
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