Texturing in Milkshape
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You’re stepping into a totally different field than kitbashing vanilla ships. You’ll need to learn how to model and texture if you want to start creating new parts.
Time to think about what you want to achieve dude, most people model because they really like to do it, not because they want to make one or two ships for a mod.
It’s an effort vs reward scenario, not worth the effort required to learn modelling techniques unless you’re going to do a lot of it. Plus you’ll get sidetracked from all the other things you’ve got going on if you’re modding. That’s why most mods with original content are made by teams.
I’ve got a shed load of content in my mod, but it’s all stuff I’ve 3d ripped or converted from other games, it’s easy to convert stuff but hard to create stuff.
Do you plan on releasing a mod? If not then just rip the hell out of other games and you’ll have the world at your knees lol. I’ve got half the x universe, darkstar one, spaceforce etc spiralling out of control in my world. Right mental!
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I had set up a post with links to tutorial and programs on EOA, unfortunately it’s still lost.
These will help:
UV Mapping Programs
UV Mapper Classic(free) and Pro (buy):
http://www.uvmapper.com/
Lithunwrap 1.3 (free) - Low poly models, basic mapping:
http://www.geeks3d.com/wp-content/plugins/download-monitor/download.php?id=34Tutorials
LithUnwrap
Video Tutorials:
Tutorial 1 of 3: http://spinner.northern-studios.com/tuts/lu_tut1.htm
Tutorial 2 of 3: http://spinner.northern-studios.com/tuts/lu_tut2.htm
Tutorial 3 of 3: http://spinner.northern-studios.com/tuts/lu_tut3a.htmUV Mapper Classic
UV Mapper Classic User Guide
http://www.uvmapper.com/tutorials/tutorial_classic_win.pdf
Creating sharp edges in programs that use auto-smoothing:
http://www.uvmapper.com/tutorials/tutorial_edge.pdf
How to make UVmaps with UVmapper:
http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/tutorials/htm/14.html
The Basics of Steve Cox’s UV Mapper:
http://www.afn.org/~afn07395/UVMappertut/UVMappertut.htm3DSMax
UVW Mapping an Object in 3DS Max:
http://www.3dtotal.com/ffa/tutorials/max/UVW_mapping_an_object/UVW_mapping_an_object1.aspBlender
Blender Tutorial 12 : Basic UV Mapping (Video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7tp1dH64l4 -
Kuze wrote:
Forget about texturing in Milk…install some free 3D program or buy one and texture in those…MS sucks in modelling and sucks in texturing.Texturing might indeed suck, but the modelling sofar has gone nice; it’s kinda self-explanatory and intuitive to do, which is good. 3DS Max is much less of those, although the basic forms are better than those of MS - luckily I found out how to export them and open them in MS.
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_Timmy51m wrote:_You’re stepping into a totally different field than kitbashing vanilla ships. You’ll need to learn how to model and texture if you want to start creating new parts.
Time to think about what you want to achieve dude, most people model because they really like to do it, not because they want to make one or two ships for a mod.
It’s an effort vs reward scenario, not worth the effort required to learn modelling techniques unless you’re going to do a lot of it. Plus you’ll get sidetracked from all the other things you’ve got going on if you’re modding. That’s why most mods with original content are made by teams.
I’ve got a shed load of content in my mod, but it’s all stuff I’ve 3d ripped or converted from other games, it’s easy to convert stuff but hard to create stuff.
Do you plan on releasing a mod? If not then just rip the hell out of other games and you’ll have the world at your knees lol. I’ve got half the x universe, darkstar one, spaceforce etc spiralling out of control in my world. Right mental!
Thx for the good advice!!
I dunno whether I want to ‘publish’ my mod -that’s such a big word- but I might put it up for download when (if) it get’s finished before I die.
I mainly want to use existing models, and alter those, but occasionally I’ll be willing to add something. So I’m sure gonna delve into the tutorials SB posted in this thread. For the matter at hand, I assume I can take a relatively easy (but still painful) way by ‘paving’ the wings I’ve made with loose faces - which will prolly (so I hope) match easier with the existing textures.
Btw I have collected a huge load of ship packs that, in the days, were released to be used as seemed fit - if due credits were given. Baene’s packs, e.g., and there were more, including Gibbon’s packs (still to be downloaded from his site, although he left here in anger). Now that I’m using MS again, and able to create a .sur for them, I think I’m kinda free to use these, as they were released that way. I dunno if it’s still possible to write the authors (many of them used nicknames and have since left the scene)
And like you say, most of these supposed copyright issues(more a matter of ‘honour’ than of legality - as none of us actually got permission of DA/Microsoft to modify the vanilla models) only become important when you think of ‘publishing’ the mod.
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StarTrader wrote:
These will help:
I’m sure they will. Great post man, thx!!
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Kuze wrote:
Forget about texturing in Milk…install some free 3D program or buy one and texture in those…MS sucks in modelling and sucks in texturing.Moonhead wrote:
Texturing might indeed suck, but the modelling sofar has gone nice; it’s kinda self-explanatory and intuitive to do, which is good. 3DS Max is much less of those, although the basic forms are better than those of MS - luckily I found out how to export them and open them in MS.I agree with Moonhead. Although MS is limited I’ve been able to do almost everything I needed to in modelling with no difficulty, by using smaller building shapes,and faster than going through the learning process in Blender, 3DS Max or Bryce.
As for texturing, I’ve overcome many limitations in MS by breaking out the detail shapes I need from models and texturing them individually or in groups with solid colours or textures - that is an easy no-brainer task really. This technique gives crisper, shinier textures too.
I do enjoy playing with more complex packages like 3DS Max and Blender, but for FL I enjoy MS’s simplicity.
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Wow, I just found (in MilkShape), under the Tools menu, the ‘Tile texture mapper’. That might be an inadequate tool for the pros amongst the modders, but for me, at this point, it is a nice and convenient option. I’m gonna play with it for a while.
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Moonhead wrote:
the modelling sofar has gone nice; it’s kinda self-explanatory and intuitive to do, which is good. 3DS Max is much less of those, although the basic forms are better than those of MS - luckily I found out how to export them and open them in MS.Try Cinema 4D it have a really intuitive GUI.
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You know you can use the selection editor and tile texture in combination with the tex coordination editor it’s good. But Khed 3D is better to UVmap object and it can load Milkshape models, you can do cylenderical or spherical maps. It is realy easy to use. And you aren’t obligated to do Tools/Extend primitivs to have torus.
