Modeling and Texturing

Seems i’ve found a dump of all the Starlancer textures online with reflection maps, shine maps and normal maps. Yay. Problems solved

Hi booth 🙂

Thank you BASEFlow.

It works fine. But the Issue is, yo have to find the internal engine.

But i find it and it’s all right now

Best regards
Boomer

traversal wrote:
Oops! Well done @Alucard!

Yeah @Kuze, would be cool to check them out!

Ditto! My bad. Thought it was yours, Kuze. lol

Well done Alucard! 8-)

Yeah that’s probably just a prop (.3db) attached over the head. I haven’t seen any effort to do anything with .dfm in all those years and I haven’t seen any internal development tools being ever released.

Most of the stuff needed to export .dfm are already implemented, it’s just not finished. I’m thinking of having it all somehow tie to 3ds max character animation toolkit, but it is tricky.

thanks for doing that, I’ve been a bit busy with rl stuff.

Alucard if you need any more just ask on the Discord and I’ll post them up for you

Hi guys
Can somebody help me?
I have a problem in single player, it will be in mission 1b
prison ship always destroyed before i get there! mission failed!!
What could be the mistake? prison ship not enough armor, or the npc too strong? How could I change that, in which files?

Managed to import a CMP using CMP Importer 2.7 using Windows 10 (Milkshape 3D 1.8.5) today (27 October 2021). So, you might be able to remove that red text warning now, unless people have older updates still present.

If you want to use LoDs your cmp should look like this:

\ ----xyz.3db ----|----MultiLevel ----|----|----Level0 ----|----|----Switch2 ```You need to add values to the Switch2 node; In the vanilla models, it is a float array, that needs to contain a value for each Lod inside the model +1. So in your case, add a 0 and another value for the distance(in meters?) where the model isn't drawn anymore. You need to do this for every .3db in the file!

May be it’s will be interesting. If you working with milkshape, better to use the P1p3r CMP exporter. This plugin can create wireframe models faster and easier.

Example on large stations:

1. Create simple 3d model in milkshape:
https://www.elite-games.ru/images/freelancer/modding/wire_ku_tgk.png

2. Export:
https://www.elite-games.ru/images/freelancer/modding/wire_export.png

3. Copy to existing model (small_station_b_lod is dock model for my large station):
https://www.elite-games.ru/images/freelancer/modding/wire_dock1.png

4. Result:
https://www.elite-games.ru/images/freelancer/modding/wire_ku_tgk_screen.jpg

I completely forgot about this line in shiparch.
So I changed the pilot_mesh entry and it works just like I wanted, thanks!

@.Nx: I used the orignal FL model as base, but I changed the posture and removed the chair. That is why I needed to put a specific pilot in my special ship.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/sug6x84saia2lhu/Exclusive3DShips4FL4TspRuChatFellowsFromHeIIoween.zip?dl=0

Yes they do. Nothing wrong with the link. Just click on the big DOWNLOAD button and there you go. You do need to have an account on Turbosquid to be able to download them. All the JSNcalif models are also in the Genesis mod on Moddb if you want to save time converting them. Just ask Gibbon, sure he won’t mind if you want to use them.

This discussion was six years ago…

Send the model by e-mail

You might want to hop over to the model showcase and pick up the new equipment base and textures I made. Feel free to grab the models I have there to see how I manage things. Or just post some pics of your own ships!

Installing versions of 3DS Max & 3DS Max Designer
On another drive than 😄

FOR VERSIONS 8, 2009 and 2010. If later versions crash on boot and are installed on another drive than 😄 try this!

Product must be installed. DO NOT START PROGRAM.

Go to you drives Documrments and settings folder to your user name. That folder and run a search for " infocenter.xml " Now you must copy this exact directory tree on your 😄 drive. Once you have copy all the files from infocenter.xml up the directories till the folder named for your version of 3DStudio max. This incudes subdirectories contained in those folders. Once back to the folder with youre version number you are finished and can start your Max version and register.

My tree in 😄 went:

Documents and Settings\MY USER NAME\local settings\Apllication Data\Autodesk\3DSMAX\2009 - 64bit\enu\plugincfg\Infocenter\xmlfiles\support\

With many subfolders needing copyies just copy the enu folder into the version directory the rest will follow. V8 went into other directories, but same process.

Edit: After a day of using 2009 Design and 2010 Design (Have to use both as one has plugins the other doesn’t. Welcome to 3DS MAX ) Both never blinked at startup in Win 10. This method worked with spectacular results. It was also the last problem I’d have thought to explore on my own.

Still looking for the fabled MAT exporter for 2009 and crossing my fingers it works in Design version.
A scout of Autodesk knowledge base found listings of program differences between MAX and Max Design before 2012 when differences reconciled are no longer posted there. In fact obvious gaps where they were removed. Will get this and other information including gmax info from other databases later. Consider Autodesk info and support to be of little help on versions from 2011 and earlier.
In fact make that any info on 2011 and earlier usually limited to “operator error” topics.

What would be awesome is for you to get SolCommand to re-do the Vanilla models, and for you guys to texture them.

That would be the ultimate HD upgrade to the ships!

Just to give you an example of his work…
http://www.solcommand.com/2013/09/14-ships-pack.html

Just imagine that style, with your texture upgrades, in the game 🙂

This looking easest than I expected. 🙂

Sorry for my bad English in advance ((

First about export:
I don’t know exporters from blender and you need to convert models to 3ds max or Milkshape to export models to FL.

And now - how create animation for your model.

1. Before export

You need to check center of animated objects. For rings it’s not needed, but needed for doors. Milkshape by default setting center of part in center of full model.
Example of fixing it in Milkshape:
http://www.elite-games.ru/images/freelancer/modding/le12.png
All animated objects placed in center of model. Later in UTF I will set correct place for them.
I don’t know how it working in 3ds max, but if this problem will appear, this is simplest way to fix it.
You need to set correct center of doors. Correct point here:
http://i.imgur.com/t6nuWRQ.jpg

Next. About bottom doors: is very hard to calculate correct positions of animation, but we can avoid it.
A. Set positions of bottom doors similiar to top door.
B. Add 2 “virtual” parts of model. Create small polygon, set name (for example) “door2_poly” (and similiar to third door).
That’s all. We will use it later after export.

2. Exporting

In 3ds max you need to set “Rev” type to all parts.
In Milkshape you need to export model as Weapon:
http://www.elite-games.ru/images/freelancer/modding/le15.png

3. After export

Model exported. We need to set model positions and add animation. We will do all job in UTF Editor.

A. Set bottom doors relations to polygons.
In UTF click “Edit Rev data”.
Example: http://www.elite-games.ru/images/freelancer/modding/le18.png
You need to connect door2 to door2_poly and similiar to door3.

B. Set doors positions.
You need set real positions of doors. It’s not hard to do. Just open “Rev data” and Model View. Change positions of parts and it will appear on Model View right away.
For top door you need change position of door1, for bottom doors you need change positions and rotation of parent polygons.
Example: http://www.elite-games.ru/images/freelancer/modding/le19.png

C. Configure animation directions
It configuring in Rev Data menu:
http://www.elite-games.ru/images/freelancer/modding/le22.png
Change Axis Rotate and Min, Max values. For rings you can copy data from vanilla jumpgate (but you need change direction of second ring).
For doors:

you need set animation only for children doors, don’t touch polygons do not set null values to polygons directions and min/max values. Model part will not appear if you will set nulls. copy min/max values from vanilla jumpgate set direction “rotate to top” (may be it X axis, you need to test it in game) animations want to be similiar on all doors. bottom doors will rotate to top too. Don’t remind - correct position already fixed by parent polygons.

D. Add animations
Just use Animation block from vanilla jumpgate and rename objects. But for bottom doors you need to set correct parents. For example:
http://www.elite-games.ru/images/freelancer/modding/le24.png
For rings you need to create two different animations.

Sorry, I only told how fix problematic places and my tutorial not full.
I wrote russian tutorial about liberty wings animations and you can find screenshots of UTF and milkshape here:
http://www.elite-games.ru/conference/viewtopic.php?t=63972
If you will have problems with it, I can animate this model. But only one model.

DwnUndr wrote:
For the invisible part, be sure to run it through FlModelTool as well as making a sur for it. Lacking either makes it invisible.

I did that — but under Win10; I hope to have some time during my work this night and try it on my Win7 laptop.

I made a .sur as well (simply a renamed version of the vanilla jumpgate .sur, as there were no alterations in size).

Actually there is a third thing, I used 32 bit tga textures once, invisible as well. Convert to 24 bit.

Thanks. The images that I changed, while having a .tga extension, would not be opened by P’shop, so I figured they were .dds files, and treated them accordingly. Btw I did not change all the textures, and the unaltered ones where invisible as well.

Treewyrm wrote:
I could explain how to do this in 3ds max but not milkshape as I don’t use it.

Though regardless of what you’ll use if you intend to keep animated parts at their original locations I’d suggest to import them without offsets and rotations applied (so they’ll be sitting at the center of the model instead), this way you can copy relevant revolute/prismatic blobs from cmpnd/cons into your new model file and restore their original offsets/rotations.

Thanks; I hope this will be useful in time. For now, I’m already having trouble to simply clone a jumpgate with FLModelCloner 😐