Modeling and Texturing

Changing the file extension does nothing, it will still be a CMP as far as FL is concerned, all your doing is giving it a different name.

A 3db is nothing more than a holder for simple meshes ie no animations or destructibles and no ROOT.

The CMP is supposed to be for compound/complex meshes, ie more nodes than you can shake a stick at.

There’s a thread around here somewhere where mknote & myself discuss how to rework a SUR to work with a ROOTless 3db.

:evil: you could try adding the engines as well 😛

makes for an interesting time, especially if you have F1 disabled or penalise ppl for using it :evil:

Thanks for support.

finally I figured out how to do it without editing the center position.

Just put a non_targetable invisible solar, they will attack it and so shoot the tradelane, they will shoot the object first, BTW, this way it is possible to make NPCs first destroy station turrets, and only after that Attack the station(well, didn’t test attack preference regarding dockable solars, but this way they will definitely shoot turrets, not stupidly firing only the centre of the base.

Hope this will be useful.

yes yes that’s the version… 😎 i used the other newer one and it does wierd things to the .sur 😠

thanks for the help Bejaymac ;D thats the method im using now… yes far from “perfect” for those
big slabs of “space” but it’ll do for the time being (hehe time i recruit a hitboxer hehe) ;D

if you want to create wireframes of a simple object than the wireframe tool is good enough and it takes somewhat between 2-5mins to create a working wireframe

unfortunatly that tool fails if you have very complex models and try to build a wireframe coz there seem to be a limits that the tool can not handle

thx

Hi Mindhunter.

According to Bejaymac, when you use a ship sur as a solar it will do this.

But in my experience it is not the case, my big ship surs test OK all over when I make the ship a satellite temporarily for testing.

Here’s my solararch.ini entry for my avioki:

[Solar]
nickname = test_ship3
type = MISSION_SATELLITE
DA_archetype = SHIPS\Babylon\brakiri\avioki\avioki.cmp
material_library = SHIPS\Babylon\brakiri\avioki\avioki.mat
material_library = fx\envmapbasic.mat
envmap_material = envmapbasic
LODranges = 0, 15000
mass = 100000
solar_radius = 450
hit_pts = 1000000
surface_hit_effects = 0, small_hull_hit
shape_name = NAV_smallstation
fuse = pirate_base_explode_fuse, 0, 1
explosion_arch = explosion_pirate_depot
destructible = true

In my experience,

1. boxes (i.e. cubes) do this. Never use boxes. They sometimes are OK but mostly are bad.

2. if you did not name your sur parts the same as the model groups. (i.e. if you didn’t name them xxx_Hull for the model hull and xxx_Hull_lod1 for the corresponding sur part, etc) then you must import the cons_fix.dat file after you splice the sur. If you use this naming method then you do not need to import the cons_fix.dat, it will be the same.

There are several tutorials out there, I’m not boasting, because it took me months to work out what other people meant and where they were going wrong, but mine works every time:-
http://forums.seriouszone.com/showthread.php?t=55837

If you have 3DS MAX then with Havok tools you will always get convex sur parts using this method :-
http://forums.seriouszone.com/showthread.php?t=56306

Back to your problem…

For the boxes there are two things you can do…

1. Replace all the boxes with spheres, and use “Scale” to adjust each one into the shape you need.

You can also use cylinders, but I found if I push up one end of the cylinder and scale it down, it will make a tiny dent in at least one face edge which is extremely hard to see but either crashes FL or the sur won’t work! Best way to see this problem is to do it, then you will know what I mean and you can then avoid it.

So for best results and time saving, use spheres as much as possible.

If you need to squash any section of a sphere by using selected vertexes, e.g. one of the sphere’s “rings”, then be very careful to not make an inward dent (concavity) anywhere over the sphere’s surface.

You can easily make a dent when you scale a “ring” section of the sphere smaller than the next “ring” section further out from the centre. This will kill the sur.

So be sure that as you start from the centre of the sphere and work outwards, that each “ring” section is smaller than the previous one, and you should be OK.

Ensure you have the same quantity of model groups as you have sur parts, because each sur part needs a model group with the same name to be attached to. If you need another group in the model, (e.g. if you have only 6 groups and the sphere sur will make it 7 sur parts) then make a very small sphere in the model and re-export your cmp again.

2. This second method is unconfirmed (i.e. I have not tested it personally to be sure): In cases when you can export your sur as a single group, then only the root sur part needs to be convex.

In this case…

Make one sphere that fits just inside the ship, and as large as you can make it without showing. Put it in the centre of the ship. Name it xxxxx_Hull_lod1 and make sure it is at the top of the list of groups, so it will become the root automatically.

Export your sur - remember this is only for single-part ships.

Good luck.

Erm, wouldn’t you want the entire bay to have a SUR? Methinks it would be odd just having the doors with collision. The bay should’nt be overly complex to model and make a sur for.

Though, if you’re making something for cap ships, I guess I can see the possible collision problem.

The only issue is that all the SURs I’ve seen have a Root. Root cannot be a sliding / rotating part. So you’d need one point some where out of the way to assign Root to for it’s small sur. Then you could have the only other two parts with collision be the doors.

It’s also worth noting that since DDS is smaller on disk, it’s also faster to load and takes up less memory, therefore increasing performance across the board for a very small drop in quality. This is especially important for older machines with little amount of GPU RAM.

Why485, that is EXACTLY what is happening…… i recently got 3ds max 9 and it says that the UVW information is missing from the Lightwave files…

Now i have a NEW problem >.<
_To fix this, i have to know how to:

-Fix the UVW of the lightwave-editted models (in lightwave preferably, or in milkshape, or in 3ds max…… any one, really)
or
-Figure out how to export 3ds max 9 models into milkshape. (this entails rebuilding all the models, which isnt THAT big a problem, I would be willing to do this if it would work out in the end)

What do other modders use to make freelancer models? what programs and plugins?
I cant use gmax for some reason (stupid vista), but I CAN use milkshape, and 3ds max so far, havent tried any others._

Check this out guys…

I’m Very Sad it did not emerge until now that this is possible, it saves HOURS of work making sur parts convex. 😮

http://forums.seriouszone.com/showthread.php?t=56348

@F!R:

All our custom stations are setup like this:

station -> HpDockMountA -> HpDockPointA01 -> HpDockPointA02 -> space

F!r,
So are mine, I just have HpMount before MountA.

And if HpDockMount is inside the sur, launching won’t get you in space but 2 the desktop

Not DockMount, just plain HpMount, like what is found in a ship. All HPs are outside of the sur, So there is no issue there.

Fus

It was an entire collection of stuff, it covers every area of max (heck even MAX Scripting) and tutorial was the wrong word

Its a awesome step by step manual. lol

ill see if i can find the name of it 🙂

Did you say LARGE?

Duhhh…

Where are my glasses?..

-O^O-

Aha! 😛
;D ;D

Actually the front of mine is from a Ranger Gunship(SW) (I liked the front of it).

It doesn’t seem to work with glowmaps. Only me ;D

@mknote:

Hmmm, sounds familiar….

root_health_proxy = false

This line (in shiparch.ini) would do that. If this is what your code shows, try switching it to true. Otherwise, I’ve got bupkis.

MK

Yea thats exactly the line that is needed, and set to ‘true’ . Actually have not got onto the large ships yet but will let u know how well I get on… or not!

The models not working do require some fixing and it’s a right pain the ass to say the least…

Good luck with your models I hope you get the sur splicer working right…

I sent you the e-mail. Hope it helps.

If your model over 10000 polygons, when you exporter it to CMP, that will be error when you use HardCMP to open it.

And it can’t use in FL too.

So to solve it, make sure your model don’t over 10000 polygons.