Enlarging a (vanilla) Ship using FLModelTool

I made myself a Rhino clone, which, after some trouble and frustation, is fine now.

But - I want to enlarge it, preferably 1.75 times.

The ideal (if not only) tool for this, is FLModelTool. And it gives a fairly good result, except for two issues:

(and please note that these issue only occur in the enlarged version - not in the same-size Rhino clone)

1. The glass of the cockpit (as seen from the outside - not talking about the player-view cockpit here) is gone: the pilot is sitting in the open. (Btw the glass is present in the showmodel at the shipdealer. Maybe also in the equiproom, but the ship is too large - no matter how i turn, I never get to see its cockpit windows)

2. There is some rectangular ‘lid’ type surface, on top of the ‘body’ of the ship, which has lowered considerably as compared to the original ship. Like, the enlargement had no effect on the level of this surface.

I tried different multiply factors: 1.75, 1.6 and 1.5; all produced the same issues.

I fear that these issues might be because FLModelClone was meant to use on custom ships rather than on vanilla ships (what my ship basically still is).

Anyway, I hope to get some advice how to overcome them!

So, any suggestions anyone?

PS: theoretically it seems to me that it should also be possible to create an enlarged ship entirely from the XML project files, but I wouldn’t know where to start. I can’t just multiply each and every number, as not all numbers are size-related. But if someone knows how to, I’d love to learn this!

I tried it with a factor 2, to see if an integer multiplication value would render a desired result, but it doesn’t matter.

Here’s a screenshot of the issues.

I do not really care about the lid (except that it bugs me because it shouldn’t be), but the glass issue makes the difference between being using or not using the ship. So I’d really like to tackle it.

Please note that this model does not point to a custom-made glass or so - it’s just the stock/vanilla glass in li_playerships.mat

Looking into the .cmp of the ship with the UTF editor does not give me any clue. It looks just like the .cmp of the un-enlarged file.

If I only could use UTF-XML (which unfortuantely doesn’t work) I might be able to see more.

Timmy51m wrote:
Yeah, flmodeltool screws up some of the vanilla models, not a lot you can do about that. Milkshape has no problem resizing the model though, I just tried. If you want, just let me know how much bigger you want the ship and I’ll scale it up for you and upload it. It’ll be a single mesh job though as I’m not sure about all the business with groups and what not.

Hey thx for the feedback and offer. Yeah maybe that’s best, if there’s no way to fix it otherwise.

1.75 would be ideal.

If it’s a single mesh, I guess I then need to eliminate the collisiongroups /simples from ShipArch?

Btw I just installed MS, so in theory I should now be able to do what you propose (xcept my gf is emitting non-verbal signals that I should close the comp now ). After I learned (partly re-learned) MS, that is.

Timmy51m wrote:
It’s easy in milkshape. Import the cmp, edit/select all. vertex/weld together. Scale (top right corner) 1.75 in all three boxes. export the cmp. job done.

Thx, will try that 1st thing tomorrow! BTW - this will then also incorporate the 3db files that accompany the .cmp? Or should I do the same operation on each of these too?

Freestalker.fr wrote:
Edit rev or fix on UTF edit it will probably help you a lot.

Thx!! Sounds great, but could you plz give slightly more explanation; tbh i have no idea what you’re talking about, especially the elusive “rev or fix” part.

Freestalker.fr wrote:
Rev origine part for Baydoors and Fix origine for Glass and others. So Rev is for animated and Fix for static parts.

I now see these are options in UTFeditor. I am so used to the old version, that, even after using a newer one (in which I was amazed at, thrilled by, and soon to be in love with the multi-window feature) I didn’t even look at these new options :oops:

First thing tomorrow (even before trying it in MS)

Meanwhile, do you have any suggestions on how / waht parameters I should edit? Both options open a fairly complex / elaborate interface.

EDIT: now that I look at it while I am not sleepy, I still find it hugely complcated

First of all, in which branch I need to be doing the edits?
In the one simple called “****”?
Or in the one called “Parts”?

Then, what should I be doing? Just hit “apply”? In other words, is this some sort of auto-correction option? Or should I be tweaking each parameter? In the case of the glass, there

**Btw this is fairly elaborated. I can’t expect you to write a grand tutorial on these functions of the UTF editor :**D But maybe you can point me into some general direction, e.g. where to read up on the matter.

Timmy51m wrote:
It’s easy in milkshape. Import the cmp, edit/select all. vertex/weld together. Scale (top right corner) 1.75 in all three boxes. export the cmp. job done.

I indeed found it easy, until the exporting part.

There are a lot of options to choose from! I left anything as it was, choose “new”, clicked on the .cmp file in the explorer window that opened, and exported the model. Now, the ship is totally invisible. So, what did I do wrong?

On a side note: the bright side of this complexity, is that the exporter apparently has been much more developed since the last time I saw it (which might very well be >5 years ago). Looks like it can be great fun using MS (if I learn how to properly use it, that is)

Timmy51m wrote:
In the cmp exporter: Select “back to front”, scale 1.0, “new” to enter the file name, save the settings first and then export it.

Thanx, that helped!!!

It’s almost perfect now, except that one of the baydoors is invisible (or open?) most of the time. Sometimes they’re both invisible (or open), sometimes they’re both there.

I’d prefer them to be closed all of the time, as this is not a freighter anyway, so I’m gonna find out how to get rid of the animation, and have the body closed permanently.

Btw cool to use Milkshape again! I used it years ago to make some additional satellite type buildings (by breaking them off of existing base archetypes) and I’m looking forward to get into it again. I need at least 8 house navies & police forces and a bunch of villains, lol.

Freestalker.fr wrote:
BTW root isn’t supported by edits if you want to rescale it by UTF edit make another part with the root mesh reference. I didn’t try but I think if you make Part/Root/Root and add it to the fix, it could work. I will try this evening. I will edit with another letters like Moonhead.

I’d appreciate that! Mainly to get to know these functions better, and make better use of the fine tool that the improved UTF-editor is.

Practically however I’m on the path of using Milkshape to pimp my gunboat. And about Milkshape I have some beginners questions for which I’ll open another thread (for reference purposes).