You’ll be missed Billy, my sympathy goes out to his family and all who knew him.

I Finally got my model working 95%, enough to use it although i would love to get the other 5% to make it perfect.

Here’s what i did
My model comprises of 9 parts so instead of building a single cmp (due to the mat file issue I made 9 indivdual cmps, one for each section

I built each section in 3DS Max and made sure that the centre of the model was at 0 on all 3 planes when imported into MilkShape (3DS use the base line for the X plane)

I then imported it into MilkShape with autoSmooth checked and made sure it was centred exactly. I export the cmp uising v2 and then resized it using FLModel Tool making a note of the radius.

Next I built an exact copy of the model in 3DS (I never used clone) to use as the the sur but using as few faces and vertices as possible, i.e. my model was a cone with 48 sections and 8 slices but the sur is 24 sections and 1 slice.

I made sur it was centred by dividing the height and exported it without converting to editable mesh. I found that this doesn’t matter for surs either way.

I then imported the sur into MilkShape with autoSmooth unchecked and all I had to do was rotate it. I didn’t adjust it in any other way so as not to screw it up.

I then exported the sur using v1 exporter (the only one that seems to work at the moment) and used sur_splice to mate it to the cmp using the radius I got earlier from FLModel Tool.

I then assembled the model in space by adjusting the location to match them up and made 8 of the sections as children to the main section so that it was selectable in space as a single unit

This method has worked perfectly for each section except the one with the boolean holes in, shame but it’s still early.

Using this method I can have seperate mat files for each section plus the radius when approaching is more accurate and the solar flare only shines through when you are withing that radius

As for the boxed holes for docking they work when you initially enter as i bounced off the roof section but then I tried the floor and passed straight through. Once I had passed through the floor i found that I could now pass through the roof that initially bounced me off. Weird

Has anyone been able to make their own animated docking doors?

Thx for the video Mirkha

I have found another small issue; it’s with using the ghost sheres to allocate the surs. After building up my model, following the tutorial to the letter, I found that by grouping all the main model groups together I couldn’t allocate invidual mat files to the sub groups. FL just seemed to show the first mat file on all the sections.

I ended up breaking the model down into 9 single group cmps and building the model together in space. Apart from the somewhat random collision detection on the part with the docking holes, it now works as i hoped.

I haven’t tried splines yet, still downloading the vid, I’m in Cambodia at the moment and only have 256kb broadband. It’s like living in the stone age

The screenies need to be hosted somewhere, i.e. photobucket or image shack and then a link to them is provided for posting them on a forum

I just put mine onto our web server and link them in "

Thx Mirkha

This maybe bad practice but I use
Lod = 0, 999999 for all models

So the only downside to using Splines instead of Standard Primitives is the solar flare, but the surface hit detection works better.

Hi all, great tutorial, thx to everyone who participated.

I’m having a small problem

I’ve made a base, it’s a Star Trek Starbase

Not yet complete and haven’t started skinning yet.

It’s made up of multiple surs and groups. I used the tutorial and it works a treat except for a couple of issues that I’m hoping someone may be to able advise me on.

The first is the solar radius. The distance to the object appears as 0K even when I’m still 2k away. I’ve played around with the radius in sur splice and it does reduce this range but I have to make so small 50 that the object is no longer selectable unless you are on top of it. The model is about 4000 high and 2000 in diameter at it’s largest point but if I use these values the it says 0 when I’m at the other side of the system, well almost, slight exageration.

Another issus is the sur for the top half of the main dome. I did this in 2 halves, the bottom and the top. The bottom works fine and the top works from the outside, including the boolean holes, but from the inside it seems to be a bit hit and miss, sometimes it works and sometimes i can pass through it.

I can only imagine that it is due to the complexity of the shape having internal and external detection as well as the docking holes.I used the ghost bubbles for all the parts.

Finally the sun’s glare shines through the object and I noticed this was mentioned earlier but i only used Standard Primitives and not Splines.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated?

I do intend to add an IDS Tag editor in the near future.

Send me a PM on my forum with your server information so I can add it to the login list.

I need your IP Address, the server name and the FL Server version.

Some of you may find this useful

I’ve been working on a Tools application for the last couple of weeks, adding all the other stuff I’ve done into one app.

I’ve also built, and added, the weps balance tool. It lists all the weps, ships and shields to show their relevant capacities but then you can also display a bar chart to see the differences between weps against a chosen ship or shield.

Here’s all the stuff it does

Ini Cleaner
Select the directory containg the files you want to clean and it will remove all white spaces, line feeds, carriage returns etc. and leave you with a clean ini file with one line between each section/block. It also removes the Freelancer binary encoding.

It will work on Freelancer in it’s entirity but it will take time.

Ini Search
Set the directory to search in and set the text to search for. It will load a list of all ini files that contain the search text and in each sub node it will list the line that was found

If you double click the file name it will open the file in Ini Editor for editing. If you double click the text found sub node it will open the file in INI Editor at the line where the text was found.

Ini Editor
A simple text editor (like notepad) but it can open encoded ini files (it will remove the encoding)

Ini Compare
Set the 2 file paths and Ini Compare will find all the difference between ini files found in the 2 paths

If you select a file in the list it will show the differences found in the two files or it will tell you that there are differences but you need to go to the next operation.

Select a file in the list and click view files
The next window contains the 2 files and displays the differences in red. You can go directly to a difference by selecting them in the drop down box at the top.

Each file can be opened in Ini Editor for editing.

Commodity Finder
This will list all the commodities and the base and systems they are sold on.
If you select a commodity, set the quantity to be carried, select a purchase base and select a selling base it will show you how much profit can be made for that run.

Converter
This is a simple convertion tool for converting strings and numbers into other formats.

Weapon Balance
Set the path to the files and click Load files. It will show you a list of all Weapons, Ships and Shields and their relevant stats.

At the bottom set Ship or Shield and the type of weapon to compare it against and click Graph. It will display a Bar Chart showing the effect of the weapons selected against the Ship or Shield selected. Change the Ship or Shield in the drop down box at the top.

Due to the physical constraints of Pixel/Screen size I have broken each weapons category down into parts. Select the next part using the radio buttons top left.

Here’s the link

http://forum.colourselite.co.uk/ColourSoft/FreelancerTools/V1.1/FreelancerToolsV1.1.zip

Hi all, thought I’d throw in my two penneth worth

This is pretty much what FLSM does already and the Colours server is 99% modder free.

As was stated, it’s not possible to stop everyone.

FLhook has a lot better functionality in the way it accesses FL Server and i have looked at the source code but am unable to follow it. What I would like is a FLHook dll that allows external access to it’s commands and is C# friendly

I don’t understand C++ enough to be able to modifiy the source code