Eagle clone

Timmy51m

There’s a thread here and somewhere in it you should find a link to lancers sur tool. If not click on his profile and find the link to his site, I know there’s a download there. It’s simple to use and can make a useable sur tool for near enough any ship.

LancerSolurus

http://digitalbrilliance.com/Downloader/index.php?action=downloads&id=59

cvekiboy

Thanks guys for another easy solution fixing this.
The .sur made from my .cmp failed to work - again (see attachment).
The mounted guns and ship at dock/dealer is invisible.
Maybe couse that .cmp was edited after sur splice method as tutorial says (cons.fix)?
Will try again to make one from scratch importing original eagle cmp, rename each shape, assign new material and sur build new sur (is this right method?).

BTW in shiparch.ini the clone of eagle needs also custom:

[CollisionGroup]
obj = M18_sheriff.cv_topfin_lod1_lod1
.
.
.
```?

P.S. Curious to know is anyone did this already? Pure vanilla eagle clone with different texture on each part?
… sry for to much questions - maybe I learn something - someday ...

? Offline

In a word, yes, been there done that. Try this sur

cvekiboy

Well dunno how u did that magic sur trick which looks almost like original but hat down for it.
The thing is my old cmp was wrong after my failed spliceing and thus ur sur didnt worked at all.
So I made again new fresh cmp with no groups and puting it all together got some results.

my old mat + your new sur + my new cmp = visible ship in space and dock!
```- in attachment is current combination -

But now on original eagle even I have no wing I see my guns mounted.
Also, new eagle shows ripped bottom wings while docked - dont matter, that not hurts.
![](http://i557.photobucket.com/albums/ss15/3MAJ/Post%20pics/sheriff.png)

My process of making cmp in MS:
- import original cmp
- rename all parts except HPs
- assign new textures to them
- select all
- rotate 180 0 0
- scale 92 92 92
- export with default options that comes (like scale down 92 with no any groups)
??? is that OK?

Also tried making groups (7 of them) to separate wings from body (to be able maybe in shiparch.ini rename [Collision Group]s to those) but that cmp in space showed no material except on body. Also failed to make HPs attached to right places like original has.
![](http://i557.photobucket.com/albums/ss15/3MAJ/Post%20pics/old-newcmp.png)

Is it rly that hard to make one?
Gibbon u r atm closest to have credits next to its STATS

? Offline

Regarding exporting and the scale function 92. I’m not moaning at you or anyone else but why does everyone leave it at 92? This means your model is 92% in size of what it should be. Set it to 100% and this means the model you import gets exported the same size, That simple.

The process you are describing for a single group model should work, the repainted eagle i use went through the same process.

The sur is the standard eagle sur, resized in FLModelTool so no credit required

Let’s talk textures, are you using tga or dds? I feel this is maybe where you are going wrong but i’ll wait until you provide the info

TheDvDMan

Do you really need to re-model it? Just making another MAT file won’t be good enough?

FriendlyFire

Never do that, DvDMan. You’ll get CRC conflicts all over the place.

cvekiboy

Gibbon wrote:
Regarding exporting and the scale function 92. I’m not moaning at you or anyone else but why does everyone leave it at 92? This means your model is 92% in size of what it should be. Set it to 100% and this means the model you import gets exported the same size, That simple.

Following your hint after rotating did:

scale all 100 100 100
export as seen on pic

(why it must be scaled up/down?)

Gibbon wrote:
The sur is the standard eagle sur, resized in FLModelTool so no credit required

Thanks for learning me using that tool proper way. Finally I am capable making vanilla surs.

Gibbon wrote:
Let’s talk textures, are you using tga or dds? I feel this is maybe where you are going wrong but i’ll wait until you provide the info

They r .dds format saved like this:

All OK?

Deleting [CollisionGroup]s form shiparch.ini I got rid of original broken bottom wings which r ripped when viewing trough original skin.
The problems that still remains:
1. On original eagle ship with no main wing in dealer (docked) guns show up on list look here
2. I think on scanner new eagle will not show up correct (only guns) - not confirmed!
3. Still need icon to make for it

Bout 2nd point is that VMeshWire that is imported to cmp?

Sorry for to much questions all but at some point I get feeling to drop this - but on the other hend to much time and work learning/building and in the end not to succeed.

P.S. I attached new files for ur expert examines!

? Offline

Regarding the textures. Firstly make sure they are square. 256x256, 512x512 and so on. I always save them as DXT1 no alpha and i never have an issue doing it this way.

The resize option, make sure it’s reads 100, if necessary, type the number into the box as i see it reads 99.blah blah.

Re VMesh. Not got round to doing those yet, plenty of others here more clued up on that than me.

Icons are easy, use milkshape for that, takes seconds

StarTrader

I don’t understand why you have had any problems at all with the FL Model Cloner. It always works for me and is literally 2-5 minutes of work to rename the meshes, groups and textures and produce the new mat and cmp files?

Then the sur is exactly the same too if all you want is the same size ship with new colour scheme?

Or is my mind getting foggier by the day?

adoxa

Regarding the exporter’s “Scale Down” value - it is a divisor, not a percentage. That is, 92 means X / 92, Y / 92, Z / 92, so 100 will actually make it smaller. What you want is 1, to preserve the existing size. There’s also a bug where it won’t actually use the value you give it, so you must save and load the settings. (I believe the original reason for the scale in the first place, was due to the original author importing Starlancer ships, which needed to be resized for export to Freelancer.)

cvekiboy

This thing sometimes rly can go on nerves.
OK! The new eagle is finally operational. Even his wings cant be broken/lost dont matter he will have strong armor anyway. The original behaves like it should/did.

About MS cmp export resize thing - I played a lil and got I think identical size with this setting:

resize before export 88 88 88
export with 92 default
(with 100 up, than 100 down - Eagle is bigger in game)

@ StarTrader - I have v1.1.1 b20 Fl Model Cloner which fails to produce valid cmp. Simply in HardCMP preview is blank! Can u make one with new names for preview?
BTW it will not be same as mine cose my parts use separate texures (left wing not same as right wing and top fin his own, …).

After all this my frustration again begun!
In process of updating .mat file with new fixed textures trough UTF Editor simply my dds cant be clean anymore! The old files was made with diff. v. plugin with this settings used with no problems.
Using new shown in above post with next settings I got this:
DXT3/Alpha

DXT1/No Alpha

@ Gibbon (or anyone else) - May I ask you to save me this psd files in attachment to correct dds formats?

I rly like this forum and watching all development u masters do.
God bless u all!

TheDvDMan

FriendlyFire wrote:
Never do that, DvDMan. You’ll get CRC conflicts all over the place.

Oh thats why it didn’t work when I tried to enter 2 Order ships MATs! Hmm… seems I’m gonna have to make another Osiris.

@sumanuti: Won’t it be easier to use Tagra?

adoxa

I was finally curious enough to give it a go myself, so here’s a different approach. This is the bare minimum to enable separate textures just for the wings.

1. Copy cv_vheavy_fighter.* to sheriff_cv_vheavy_fighter.*. Surs work on object names, so it remains unmodified, but the file is taken from the .cmp, so it needs to be copied.

2. Use UTFXML (extract includes) on sheriff_cv_vheavy_fighter.cmp.

3. Use a text editor to replace every data.ships.civilian.cv_vheavy_fighter.cv_vheavy_fighter with data.ships.civilian.cv_vheavy_fighter.sheriff_cv_vheavy_fighter in sheriff_cv_vheavy_fighter.cmp.xml.

4. Replace cv_star_wing_lod1020911030058 with sheriff_cv_star_wing_lod1020911030058. Similarly with port.

5. Having already viewed the model in Milkshape, I know the texture for the main part of the wing is g_fighter_G. Using the start mesh within each wing’s level, find the texture in the associated sheriff_cv_vheavy_fighter_cmp/lod*.xml file. Replace it with sheriff.main_{left,right}_wing (from sheriff-eagle_skin.mat in sumanuti’s original attachment).

6. Use XMLUTF to convert back to .cmp.

7. Duplicate the ge_fighter6 shiparch entries. Prefix sheriff_ to the nickname and DA_archetype; add the new material library.

8. That’s it. Attached is the new .cmp and a screenshot, showing the Eagle on the left and the Sheriff version on the right (where I duplicated suprise_ge_fighter6 in solararch.ini). I shot off the wings to show you can.

? Offline

TheDvDMan wrote:

FriendlyFire wrote:
Never do that, DvDMan. You’ll get CRC conflicts all over the place.

Oh thats why it didn’t work when I tried to enter 2 Order ships MATs! Hmm… seems I’m gonna have to make another Osiris.

@sumanuti: Won’t it be easier to use Tagra?

Using TGA’s is not easier. For a start you have to flip the texture to get it to work, second, it creates a mat file that is outrageous in size compared to a dds texture mat file.

@sumanuti

The textures are nearly all black, one of them i can’t open (sheriff_body_edge.psd). I don’t know if they are supposed to be so dark, i can’t make out anything in them

cvekiboy

U R A GOD!
respect!

1st try

Thanks for solving big mystery of vanilla ship clones!
Ur credits r without doubt secured long before!

cvekiboy

@ Gibbon The truth is they r nearly all black! I started with bright textures and going down with Brightness tried to make them nearly same as pure black where I ended at this point.
Looking at this thread I assumed its connected with Dc/Dt_flags where by me no success was made.

For them to not look sharp in space is the problem they r 8 Bits/Chanel ?
I know the resolution is small but if sharpness will be corrected by rising it, I try.

Here is single layer .psd file u cant open, so just save them with ur .dds settings u use to try!

What a mess with this thread :roll:

cvekiboy

adoxa wrote:
5. Having already viewed the model in Milkshape, I know the texture for the main part of the wing is g_fighter_G. Using the start mesh within each wing’s level, find the texture in the associated sheriff_cv_vheavy_fighter_cmp/lod*.xml file. Replace it with sheriff.main_{left,right}_wing (from sheriff-eagle_skin.mat in sumanuti’s original attachment).

Please, can you peak what Im doing wrong here?
After renames data.ships.civilian.cv_vheavy_fighter.cv_vheavy_fighter (30 times total) in sh…cmp.xml and cv_star_wing_lod1020911030058/cv_port_wing_lod1020911030058 (3 times each total)
I change lod.*.xmls like this?

And why I have edges textured - not wings?

adoxa

You should have generated the strings list, which would have allowed converting the material CRCs to names. Having done that, you’d see the first material is the edge, the second is the main texture and the third is the hardpoint mount.