Is anyone able to model me a ship that's just a big sphere?
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Yeah, I’m REALLY no modeller, and I thought something like this existed like a resource, but I guess not.
Anyways, is anyone able to model me a simple ball, about the size of a rather large cruiser, give it an engine, and that’s it?
Don’t ask, it’s a rather long explanation, but I want a big ball that I can put an image on for later. -
Borg Sphere already exists in mods I think?
Here’s mine, with a .mat file (make your own anyway) and a good .sur file. You will find many hardpoints, you can delete the ones you don’t want using HardCMP and save it again.
And you can resize it using FL ModelTool. If you do, resize the .sur file too but do it using the manual X,Y,Z scale and check it as you go in HardCMP.
Or do you mean more a Death Star?
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Keep the original zip file somewhere safe.
Open the borgsphere.mat file using UTF Editor.
You will see what’s called a “tree” - it’s just like a folder structure, the top “” is the root, the folders are known as branches and/or leaves I think? For simplicity I always call them all “nodes” (when I’m talking to myself, which is the normal thing!).
One of the two main nodes is named “texture library”. It contains one texture node, which is named “borgsphere.tga”. Under that node is another which is named “MIPS”. This is the node that actually contains the picture (the texture). The UTF Editor can export the picture, so to do that just click on the MIPS node and click the Export button. Give it the name oldborgsphere.dds - this is important because the format of the texture is .dds (Microsoft Direct Draw Surface).
Now you can open that in Photoshop or another good editor that supports .dds images, and take a look at it. Check the size of it and resolution (pixels/inch).
When you make or find the texture you want to use, make it the same size as this one and the same resolution. You don’t have to, you can make yours exactly double in both width and height if you want, so it is more clear, but no funny in-between sizes.
Once you are happy with it, save it as yourtexturename.dds, in DXT-1 format. You can also use DXT-3 if you know what you are doing so you can fix it if it doesn’t look right in the game.
Then re-open the .mat file again and go to the same MIPS node in UTF Editor, select it, click the Import button, and find yourtexturename.dds, and click Open.
Save the .mat file with the original name borgsphere.mat in the same folder as borgsphere.cmp and borgsphere.sur and check it out in HardCMP.
Rinse and repeat if necessary!!
Then, when you are happy, you need to get the ship into the game - over to you!
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Glad you like it.
