From Nothing to a working model in game.

Drizzt’s tutorial is in the downloads section, and covers it from the moment you open a modelling program (GMax in the tut) to the moment you finally fly your fully kitted out Defender clone.

You don’t -need- 3DS Max, and none of the tutorials (at least that I’ve seen) cover it’s use anyway. For someone new to the process, like yourself, Milkshape is a much simpler program, in both possibilities and ease of use.

It shouldn’t be a problem unless your model has over 36k polys. I think that was the number anyway.

I’m not sure if this tut covers sur creation… I’m pretty sure it doesn’t, but regardless, Gibbon has put up a tutorial on using Schmackbolzen’s (Schmack something anyway. :P) obj-sur utility. If it’s not here, look on TLR.

EDIT: I lie, i actually think I saw a tut from Sushi in 3DS. Or he said he had one. Something. Regardless, milkshape will serve you fine until you want to do something out-of-your-mind amazing like FWTOW.

I know how it’s frustrating not being able to see your work when you don’t know how to put in a model.

So here’s a quick-view method…

The simplest way to get a new ship into the game is to make the model files (shipname.cmp, shipname.mat, shipname.sur, shipname.3db) and replace those into the folder of an existing ship, e.g. \Freelancer\DATA\SHIPS\CIVILIAN\CV_ELITE is the Falcon. I use this one as I rarely use it myself.

BUT: Choose a ship which only has four files (xxx.cmp, xxx.sur, xxx_shield.cmp and xxx_shield.sur) in its folder, the others have more which are damage parts which won’t be found or won’t fit and may cause problems.

Note that the standard ship’s xxx.3db files (shipdealer icons) are in the folder \Freelancer\DATA\EQUIPMENT\MODELS\COMMODITIES\NN_ICONS and not in the ships’ folders.

If you have your own icon, you can either replace the 3db file with your own, or you can place your icon file inthe ship folder and change the path in \Freelancer\DATA\EQUIPMENT\goods.ini.

To use this method, you must also ensure this to avoid crashes:

Your ship must have the same number of hardpoints and the same hardpoint names as the ship you are replacing. But you can put them where you like on your ship. And you can have more of the same name hardpoints in your model, but not less - if they aren’t used you’ll be ok with less but if they are the game will crash.

Once you know what you are doing you can alter the hardpoint names and classes in shiparch.ini and loadouts.ini and goods.ini to fit your own ship hardpoints etc.

So for this example, to replace this ship, the Falcon, with your own model:

1. goto the folder \Freelancer\DATA\SHIPS\CIVILIAN\CV_ELITE and rename the two files cv_elite.cmp, and cv_elite.sur to “Falcon.cmp, and Falcon.sur”

2. paste in copies of your own ship’s files and rename them all as cv_elite.xxx, so that you have cv_elite.cmp, cv_elite.sur, cv_elite.3db and cv_elite.mat

If you don’t have your own shipname.3db file (it’s the icon displayed in the ship dealer) then just keep a copy of the Falcon’s cv_elite.3db file in the folder for now.

Now we have to tell FL to use your .mat file instead of the vanilla one for the Falcon, which is \Freelancer\DATA\SHIPS\CIVILIAN\cv_ships.mat, and also tell it where to find your shipdealer icon…

Here is how:

Note: Make a saved copy of any file you want to alter before you change anything!!

Using your favourite ini editor (I use TinyFish but it has some bugs and I know how to avoid them)…

A. Open \Freelancer\DATA\SHIPS\shiparch.ini

Find this section:

[Ship]
ids_name = 237018
ids_info = 66536
ids_info1 = 66537
ids_info2 = 66608
ids_info3 = 66538
ship_class = 0
nickname = ge_fighter5
msg_id_prefix = gcs_refer_shiparch_hfighter
mission_property = can_use_berths
LODranges = 0, 75, 150, 1300
type = FIGHTER
DA_archetype = SHIPS\CIVILIAN\cv_elite\cv_elite.cmp
material_library = SHIPS\CIVILIAN\cv_ships.mat
material_library = FX\envmapbasic.mat
envmap_material = envmapbasic
cockpit = COCKPITS\CIVILIAN\civilian_elite.ini

Note carefully this line:
nickname = ge_fighter5

This is one of the “internal names” for the Falcon. In some other files the Falcon is named “gf5”; so this can be very confusing.

Change this line:

material_library = SHIPS\CIVILIAN\cv_ships.mat
```to this:
material_library = SHIPS\CIVILIAN\CV_ELITE\cv_elite.mat

Note that if your ship is far different in size from the one you have chosen to replace, the cockpit and external views may be all wrong. The internal cockpit view is set by this line:
cockpit = COCKPITS\CIVILIAN\civilian_elite.ini

This line:

camera_offset = 8, 35

Once you know what you are doing, you can make your own cockpit files and views and just change the path to your own file.

Immediately after the end of the Falcon's [Ship] section, there are three [CollisionGroup] sections. These are for the break-off parts when the ship is damaged, and we must comment these out by putting a semi-colon **;** in front of each line, like this:

;[CollisionGroup]
;obj = cv_port_wing_lod1
;separable = true
;parent_impulse = 120
;child_impulse = 60
;debris_type = debris_small_ship
;separation_explosion = explosion_small_ship_breakoff
;mass = 5
;type = Middle_Wing
;dmg_hp = DpDmg_portwing
;dmg_obj = cv_fighter4_port_wing_cap
;hit_pts = 1033
;root_health_proxy = true
;[CollisionGroup]
;obj = cv_star_wing_lod1
;separable = true
;parent_impulse = 120
;child_impulse = 60
;debris_type = debris_small_ship
;separation_explosion = explosion_small_ship_breakoff
;mass = 5
;type = Starboard_Wing
;dmg_hp = DpDmg_starwing
;dmg_obj = cv_fighter4_star_wing_cap
;hit_pts = 1033
;root_health_proxy = true
;[CollisionGroup]
;obj = cv_topfin_lod1
;separable = true
;parent_impulse = 120
;child_impulse = 60
;debris_type = debris_small_ship
;separation_explosion = explosion_small_ship_breakoff
;mass = 5
;type = Top_Fin
;dmg_hp = DpDmg_topfin
;dmg_obj = cv_fighter5_top_wing_cap
;hit_pts = 1963
;root_health_proxy = true

B. Now for the shipdealer icon:

Open Freelancer\DATA\EQUIPMENT\goods.ini

Find these lines:

[Good]
nickname = gf5_hull
category = shiphull
ship = ge_fighter5
price = 2700000
ids_name = 237018
item_icon = EQUIPMENT\MODELS\COMMODITIES\NN_ICONS\cv_elite.3db

Replace this line:

item_icon = EQUIPMENT\MODELS\COMMODITIES\NN_ICONS\cv_elite.3db

item_icon = SHIPS\CIVILIAN\CV_ELITE\cv_elite.3db

Now you can start the game and buy the new ship at the same bases as the Falcon before.

After you launch, you can take a picture of your ship in space to make your own shipdealer icon (shipname.3db).

I alter the camera_offset to something like 50, 150 and using the external Turret View (press Ctrl-V then H) I can swing around the ship to get the best viewpoint, move to a location with a light background for best contrast, and then take a screenshot, switch out of the game and paste into IrfanView and save it, then later I remove the background of the picture in Photoshop etc, resize to 64x64 x 8dpi, and import it into a copy of the .3db file of the ship you are replacing using UTF Editor. (Phew!) ;)

Note: If you are _adding_ your new ship and not replacing the Falcon, whenever there is a Falcon at the same shipdealer you will get the same icon for both ships. So then you must create your own icon file and this is a bit tricky - look for Osprey's tutorial to do this.

Once you gain a bit of confidence, you can change the maximum quantities of nanobotts, batteries, etc in the shiparch.ini file in these lines:

nanobot_limit = 35
shield_battery_limit = 35

mass = 120

If you want to carry more (or less) cargo:

hold_size = 30

Later you can learn to alter the values for the cv_elite in goods.ini file to set what equipment and weapons come with the ship when you buy it.

And when you are a master you can change the values for the cv_elite loadouts in DATA\SHIPS\loadouts.ini to set what the NPCs who have this ship will get in the way of equipment and weapons and ammunition.

But start simply, with this brief method. It doesn't take as long to do as it took me to write this for you.

When you want to restore the Falcon, remember to undo the changes you made in the shiparch.ini and any other file you changed.

Then when you get to 3rd DAN you can create your own infocards and shiparch.ini, goods.ini, loadouts.ini, and the other files. It's not so hard but everyone makes mistakes and it is frustrating spending so much time to find the errors rather than playing the game. ;)

I saw you had model scaling problems in the other topic, I didn’t read all the responses, so did you discover that the CMP exporter scales at 1/92?

it’s a bug.

You have to set the scale to 1, and then you must Save Settings or it will still export at 1/92.

Or you can import a pre-saved settings file, doing that works too.

Make your models in proportion to one of the standard ships.

I actually use the pilot model - import it as it is, then make your ship size to fit him.

I use 1 Milkshape unit = 1 metre.

Hope this helps.

A while ago I wrote a little guide,
which covers most of those steps:

=> F!R’s Guide 2 fast + dirty model conversion (rev.2b)

Seems it vanished during a upgrade of TSP.

PS: It doesn’t cover the creation of SUR files
with the new tools, cause I didn’t test/use these by now.