1) I wasn't using AL in my case.
What I did was to load the relevant bump mapping shaders kindly modified for by GG in order to have a controllable constant by DBP at runtime.
i.e.
load effect section:
load effect "TSbump01.fx",1,0:load effect "TSbump01UV.fx",2,0
shader section for UV scroll:
VS_OUTPUT GGBumpVShader(VS_INPUT In, VS_OUTPUT Out)
{ Out.Pos = mul(In.Pos, wvp);
Out.Tex = In.Tex + float2 (scrollU, scrollV);;
float3x3 TSM = {In.Tangent,-In.Binormal,In.Normal};
TSM=transpose(TSM);
float3 temp=-mul(lightDir.xyz,winv);
Out.Light=mul(temp,TSM);
temp=mul(eyePos,winv)-In.Pos;
Out.View=mul(temp,TSM);
return Out;
Then applied the shader (effect in DBP) to all my limbs after loading the images and the bumps :
:active=100
if vtype$="crawlers"
load effect "TSbump01.fx",1,0:load effect "TSbump01UV.fx",2,0
token$=mid$(objectname$,8)+mid$(objectname$,9)+mid$(objectname$,10)+mid$(objectname$,11)
vehicleimage$="TTex"+token$+"-trk01.jpg"
load image vehicleimage$,100,1
bumpimage$="TTex"+token$+"-bump.jpg"
load image bumpimage$,101,1
manimage$="man01l.jpg"
load image manimage$,102,1
manbump$="man01l-bump.jpg"
load image manbump$,103,1
rem texture and set effect on existing limbs
perform checklist for object limbs active
numberoflimbs=checklist quantity()
for n=1 to numberoflimbs-1
limbname$=checklist string$(n+1)
if right$(limbname$,7)="flwheel" then texture limb 100,n,0,100:texture limb 100,n,1,101:set limb effect 100,n,1
if right$(limbname$,7)="frwheel" then texture limb 100,n,0,100:texture limb 100,n,1,101:set limb effect 100,n,1
if right$(limbname$,7)="blwheel" then texture limb 100,n,0,100:texture limb 100,n,1,101:set limb effect 100,n,1
if right$(limbname$,7)="brwheel" then texture limb 100,n,0,100:texture limb 100,n,1,101:set limb effect 100,n,1
if right$(limbname$,7)="topltrk" then texture limb 100,n,0,100:texture limb 100,n,1,101:set limb effect 100,n,2
if right$(limbname$,7)="botltrk" then texture limb 100,n,0,100:texture limb 100,n,1,101:set limb effect 100,n,2
if right$(limbname$,7)="fltrack" then texture limb 100,n,0,100:texture limb 100,n,1,101:set limb effect 100,n,2
if right$(limbname$,7)="bltrack" then texture limb 100,n,0,100:texture limb 100,n,1,101:set limb effect 100,n,2
if right$(limbname$,7)="frtrack" then texture limb 100,n,0,100:texture limb 100,n,1,101:set limb effect 100,n,2
if right$(limbname$,7)="toprtrk" then texture limb 100,n,0,100:texture limb 100,n,1,101:set limb effect 100,n,2
if right$(limbname$,7)="botrtrk" then texture limb 100,n,0,100:texture limb 100,n,1,101:set limb effect 100,n,2
if right$(limbname$,7)="brtrack" then texture limb 100,n,0,100:texture limb 100,n,1,101:set limb effect 100,n,2
if right$(limbname$,6)="ltrack" then texture limb 100,n,0,100:texture limb 100,n,1,101:set limb effect 100,n,2
if right$(limbname$,6)="rtrack" then texture limb 100,n,0,100:texture limb 100,n,1,101:set limb effect 100,n,2
if right$(limbname$,7)="slwheel" then texture limb 100,n,0,100:texture limb 100,n,1,101:set limb effect 100,n,1
if right$(limbname$,7)="srwheel" then texture limb 100,n,0,100:texture limb 100,n,1,101:set limb effect 100,n,1
if right$(limbname$,4)="body" then texture limb 100,n,0,100:texture limb 100,n,1,101:set limb effect 100,n,1
if right$(limbname$,6)="engine" then texture limb 100,n,0,100:texture limb 100,n,1,101:set limb effect 100,n,1
if right$(limbname$,3)="man" then texture limb 100,n,0,102:texture limb 100,n,1,103:set limb effect 100,n,1
next n
endif
Then controlled the scroll at DBP runtime:
trackscroll#=trackscroll#+(scrollspeed1a#/20.0)*sign#
set effect constant float 2,"scrollU",trackscroll#
2)
Quote: "I used boneless animations to add simple animations to background objects, for example rotating wind turbines, moving vehicles, and other things, now backgrounds appear lifeless, only trees are animated normally because of the tree and vegetation shaders."
Ahhhh, Limb rotations stopped working after a while after several DBP upgrades ( but I also think it was due to Windows upgrades which modified DirectX libraries, not sure)
At that point I had to add rotation joints to all my objects . I do that in Milkshape. see attachment.
