heh, those cargo containers remind me of the Enclave containers you find in fallout 3/new vegas.

they look awesome man.

this is truly epic. well done on the work you’ve put on so far into creating this beautiful video man.

i really look forward to seeing how your mod turns out when you complete your work with it.

i especially LOVE the lighting you’ve added to the stations and the trade lanes. they look grand, and fit perfectly with the lighting as well.

sorry for the late reply mate, been busy with uni etc.

what version of 3ds you using, 9 i presume?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5M_Ttstbgs

StarTrader wrote:
Excellent work, frozen

Any chance of you to upload this as a .pdf so we can download it?

heres your .PDF. apologies for delays, been caught up with stuff.

http://www.mediafire.com/?7ganjj8c92ic7pu

That is seriously awesome work mate. well done to you as well as FF and his ALE effects work

That’s incorrect DVDman. models and images are made by Treewyrm, a member/dev member (to an extent) of the disco community.

if you contact him, im sure he can show you some more of the stuff he’s worked on in both 3ds as well as photoshop, since he alongside a few others (me for one) started off the keepers on the disco actual server (nomad faction fyi)

Jinx doesn’t do the nomad related stuff, only thing he’s contributed toward the nomads would be a unique ship, called the Tundra (a nomad/lib cruiser hybrid of sort), but that’s about it afaik.

I’ve been busy with a wedding for the past week now, hence me not paying attention. I’ll get you the .PDF version done tomorrow and posted here asap (not home atm), and ill fix the links as well.

glad people find it useful.

The next step, you can either do however you are used to doing it, or you can use my tutorial + tools to do it, it doesnt matter. in the case of stations/bases, as long as the model can be sur spliced for hitboxing etc, its not a problem.

================================================

Preparing the CMP for exporting/ Sur splicing.

Right. I thought if im going to write the tutorial explaining how to texture, i might as well go all the way and explain how to prepare the CMPs for Sur splicing. Problem is, its kind of hard to explain with words, but i will try my best to explain it as simply as i possibly can.

Preparing the groups:

Right. This part requires a bit of your own judgement and decision making. You need to look at your model, and rightly guess how many different CONVEX primitives (ie boxes/cylinders etc) will it take to make a fully fitting, as accurate as possible hitbox for your model. Bear in mind, if you are creating a station etc, you have not got any other choice but to use the Sur splicing method to create the hitbox anyway, so youll have to go through all of this process anyway.

Looking at this model, i approximate that it would take me about 14 primitives to hitbox, assuming i wish to make the hole in the hitbox like the mesh has if you can spare mesh groups , then go for it, but remember, the hitbox must cover 100% of the ship before you worry about details for the hitbox. The next step involves breaking the model up into 14 groups accordingly.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/24.png

REMEMBER: due to the way the cmp exporter is currently setup, we are limited to 18 mesh groups per cmp. There ARE ways to pass that limitation, however, that requires alot of work, and ill let you master the basics before i begin the next step for obvious reasons.

To split a mesh in 3ds max into different groups, you need to make sure your model is already an editable poly. Once you make sure, you need to go into polygon mode, and start selecting ALL the faces you wish to detach from the main group to make a new group

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/25.png

As you can see in the image above, after you select all the faces, you need to hit the button on the right hand side option set called detach. It will open a new window prompt, asking you to give the detached mesh a new name. MAKE SURE YOU GIVE IT A SENSIBLE, UNIQUE NAME. Do NOT call it box 1, instead try something like… central body. Furthermore, AVOID USING NUMBERS WHEN NAMING THE GROUPS. I will explain why further on.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/26.png

As you can see, i ended up with 15 groups. Remember, the initial approximations do not necessarily have the be exactly how it turns out- that depends on how you wish to split the mesh up, as long as the hitbox which you make covers the mesh as best and as accurately as possible.

The next step is for you to download this script, and put it in the Scripts folder for your 3ds max 9. While youre at it, download this obj exporter for 3ds max (this is slightly different than the wavefront obj exporter, but works 100%). To install the exporter, just drag the icon into one of your viewports and drop, it should automatically install it.

http://www.mediafire.com/?g2wzjmzuzdz

The next step is important, pay attention. You need to re-arrange the groups there according to how they are connected. Remember, the each mesh you group must be connected in some way to another group, and as such you need to set them up in the window. Now, Click on the button on the top tray that when highlighted says Schematic view. This button is on the left hand side of the material editor button. Once open, youll see a new window with loads of blue/purple coloured buttons. As you can see in the image below, ive re-arranged the groups properly so each group is touching the next group in the cmp

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/27.png

Before you do anything, you need to press the button called connect (third button on the tray), followed by the hierarchy mode button (sixth button on the tray. Once youve done that, you need to click on the blue button on the right hand corner (in this case, exhaust three), drag your mouse whilst clicked onto the next blue button (exhaust two) and drop once your mouse is above the exhaust two box as shown below:

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/28.png

You will need to do this from right to left for each box, so you click, drag and drop onto next box, then from the box you dropped on, you click, drag, and drop onto the next box until you have something like this:

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/29.png

Next step involves using the plugin you just downloaded from me. Close the schematics window, click on the option called MAXscript, click on the option called Run script, it will open a new window. Select the script that is called detachbyID, and click open. This will open a new window. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE SAME SETTINGS AS I DO AS SHOWN IN THE SCREENSHOT BELOW:

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/30.png

If everything is as it should be, youre ready. Click on DETACH button. This script will detach the meshs groups and prepare the cmp to be just like how the cmp would be in milkshape (3ds normally doesnt do this due to being far superior than milkshape etc, but using this script will help you when you export your model to milkshape to prepare the cmp)

What you end up with after detaching is a multicoloured mesh. Click on the schematic view option again, and youll notice instead of the initial 15 groups you had, youll have alot- more now. What this script has done is it has split the mesh up into subgroups per mesh. In milkshape, you get groups based on what texture is applied per face. This script has done exactly that, split up the sub groups inside each mesh according to the textures applied to the faces, but it has kept your overall 15 groups total. (this bit may be a bit hard to understand, and i cant exactly word it properly, if you still need further assistance understanding this part hit me up on skype [Gurjiv.singh is mine, afaik] and ill try and explaining it as best as i can).

What you need to do is re-arrange the groups again if need be ( i will have to) so that each subgroup is grouped together before you move onto arranging the next mesh. Hopefully the screenshot will be able to explain better:

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/31a.png
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/31b.png

After you re-arrange the groups, you do the same step as before. You select the connect button, then hierarchy mode button, and from right to left, start connected all the groups again. Close the schematics mode window once youre done connecting.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/32.png

Congrats. Part one of the tedious journey is complete. Next, you need to export the mesh for the second step to creating the cmp via milkshape. Click on file -> export, and in the options, select the new obj format (youll see it right below the wavefront obj option in the dropdown), give it a name, and click export. When you do so, youll see a new window opens up. Make sure the settings are EXACTLY THE SAME as shown in the screenshot below:

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/33.png
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/34.png

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Exporting to Milkshape, then exporting as a CMP

With the mesh now exported as an obj, you can save your work (remember, save copy as) and close down 3ds max 9. The rest of the work involved will be done in milkshape.

Open milkshape. Click file -> import, and click the option wavefront OBJ. Select the file you have just exported from 3ds max. Hopefully the model will open with all of its groups, texture mappings etc intact as it should be. Remember to re-orientate your model accordingly (for example, i had to rotate the model after i selected everything [control + A] along the x axis, 3 times by 90 degrees [or once, -90 degrees], whichever strikes your fancy).

Once you rotate the model, you should make sure it is centered correctly. With the model selected, click the move button. In the dropdown, change the option from relative to absolute, and hit move. This should ideally ensure your model is centered correctly.

Open the textures you have applied to the mesh. Click on the materials tab, and you should see the names of the textures you used. Check the next screenshot explaining what to do next:

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/35.png

Make sure your model is scaled/sized as you wish it to be before you prepare it to export the cmp. Once you do that, and are happy with everything and just want to get on with exporting the mesh as a cmp, you need to do the following.
Due to the cmp exporter being kinda broken, the scale down option
doesnt work. The way ive learned to negate this is by scaling the model uniformly along the origin by 92 along all 3 axes. In order for you to do this, press control + a, selecting your entire mesh. Click the scale option, and for all 3 axes, change the value from 0.0 to 92, and change the checkbox option from center of mass to origin, and hit scale.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/36.png

Remember you did all that group splitting up in 3ds max? Well, nows when it becomes important. Grab a paper and pen, and get ready to do some counting and jotting down numbers.

Click the option called groups, and in there you should see a list of all the groups you have. Remember, in the end before you exported the mesh in 3ds max, i had a grand total of 15 different mesh groups. So you KNOW that youll have 15 meshes in total, but the number of sub groups per mesh will vary. Go through the list from top to bottom, jotting down how many groups are per mesh.
Going by my example, this is how i count them:

Nose_tip02 = 1
Nose_top02= 1
Center_main02 = 1
Nose_bottom02 = 1
Nose_fin02 = 1
Center_behind02, center_behind03, center_behind04 = 3
Top_towers02-1
Center_bottom02 =1
Central_body02=1
Bridge_top02= 1
Bridge_bottom02= 1
Engine02=1
Exhaust_one02=1
Exhaust_two02=1
Exhaust_three02=1

As you can see, there are 15 total groups, but the number of SUBGROUPS varies per mesh. (the reason there is mostly 1 for all of the meshes is because i never really textured the model completely. Had i done so, id have a different value than 1 for all the mesh groups, something like the mesh called center_behind, which has 3 subgroups. Now that you know how many sub groups there are, you can prepare to export the cmp.

Click on file, export, export as cmp. This will open a new window. Click the new button, to make a new cmp, give it a unique name, and click okay. Click on the back to front orientation. Where it says number of groups, change that to the number your model has (in my case, 15, so i change it accordingly). In each of the group quantities, you change the values to however many sub groups are per mesh. I will show this in the screenshot below.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/37.png
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/38.png

After you export it, when you open the cmp via hard cmp, if you did everything correctly, youll have a proper cmp ready for sur splicing to hitbox.

–----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thats the end of it. questions/comments/criticism/flames (hopefully none ) welcome

Mapping the texture in place:

Double check all your steps first. Have you done everything correct up to the last paragraph? Are you sure? Are you REALLY- sure? Excellent. Lets carry on.

Mapping textures comes AFTER you finish applying all the textures to your mesh as you want to. In order to map textures on a mesh, you need to first open the unwrap UVW modifier from the modifier list on the right hand menu. Scroll down in the dropdown list till you see the option, then select it as shown below:

REMEMBER TO EXIT POLYGON MODE OR ANY OTHER MODE BY RE-SELECTING THE APROPRIATE ICON BEFORE YOU OPEN THE MODIFIER OR TEXTURING WILL NOT WORK AS REQUIRED.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/18.png

Notice when you open the unwrap UVW modifier, you can see the textures applied to the mesh, but they seem to be stretched/distorted etc? This is because the textures are only APPLIED, not MAPPED. We need to do the mapping for each face, and this is what the UVW modifier allows us to do.

Once youre in face mode, begin to select the first face(s) you wish to work on/map textures for. I decide that i want to map the green textures surrounding the windows _http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/19.png

Hitting the quick planar map button after selecting your faces and selecting the averaged normals option will automatically map the texture for you without any distortions/stretched faces etc, HOWEVER, it does not necessarily mean it mapped it in the correct rotation as you want it, or the size you want it to ideally be. It only maps the faces to the size it should be, nothing more, nothing else, but is an extremely useful tool nonetheless. Youll use it often. Sometimes the texture may not map properly with the averaged normals option, just experiment with the x, y or z axes then till it works.

To ensure that the texture rotation is to the standard you want, and is the size you want, you need to hit the edit button, which opens a new window displaying the texture, and the faces selected on it.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/20.png

The triangle button next to the dropdown, when selected, will only display the selected faces from the viewport in the window. Very useful if the window gets rather cluttered/messy (which it may at a later stage). The 4 buttons at the top left corner of the window are for moving, rotating, scaling, and freeform mode. Youll mostly be working in freeform mode, but you may from time to time need to use the other modes as well. For example, in this situation, i need to rotate the selected faces map co ords, so i select the rotate icon, and rotate the faces by clicking, holding and dragging around in a circle till i have the faces lying in a desirable direction. In freeform mode, i select one of the corners, hold down control, and drag the corner outward to increase the size. Holding down control means the size increase will remain in the same shape as before, no distortions.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/21.png

As you can see, the selected faces now have correctly mapped textures, which means youre ready to move onto the rest of the models. From here on its basically a repetition of this step again and again until youve mapped the textures on every face of the mesh.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/22.png

–-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Finishing up…

Once youre finished texturing, you need to complete the final few steps before you can export the model to create the CMP/inclusion into the mod.

To complete the mesh, you need to use of the symmetry modifier. Making sure your unwrap UVW modifier is now deselected (the yellow highlight should be grey), go to the modifiers list, find the symmetry modifier, and open it. Select the axis which will correctly complete the mesh, and mirror the mapped texture co-ordinates as well.
Having done that, right click on either modifier, and click the option collapse all to make the changes permanent, save copy as to ensure youre work is saved.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/23.png

---

A word of warning. i should have mentioned this before, but i forgot to, so please forgive me. ill be keep on adding onto this tutorial as i remember what else i miss/anything of interest/to make stuff easy for you.

Mapping textures also means moving them around in the new window which opens after you hit the edit button, so that they LOOK good as well. clear example:

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/clampz.png

as you can see there, the textures are all mapped correctly, but not placed in a way that they are aesthetically appealing to the eye. this is why it is crucial to have a second opinion, since someone else can help pick up what you miss. furthermore, as you can see, many of the textures have abrupt edges- one texture ends randomly just as soon as another one starts on another face. this is a problem as well.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/test.jpg

now, here is another example.

number 1= distorted, unmapped/wrongly mapped faces.
number 2= correctly mapped, correctly placed (so the textures are “understandable/fitting” so to speak)
number 3= correctly mapped, not placed (just hit “quick planar mapping and left it at that”
number 4= applied the textures, did nothing to them (since you had done some mapping, it had save the co ords)

the top square (inner part) on number 3 shows what happens if you hit planar mapping, but do it along the wrong axis. this is something you have to judge on your own- which axis does the planar mapping thingy produce best looking results ( i didnt do the border around the top part, just the big middle one for 2). As you can see on 2, you notice how i placed the panels so they have an equal amount of border on all 4 sides and when i do the trimmings, it doesnt seem random anymore, but fits in? thats the stuff you need to do not just map it and leave it be.

Symmetry modifier:

This tool can be utilized both during texturing as well as modelling. a clear example is the gallic trade lane. i built 1/4th of the model, then using the symmetry modifier, i mirrored the mesh in all 3 axes, giving the final result which i posted in the thread for the trade lane. clear example:

before i used the modifier
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/before.jpg

after i used the modifier
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/after.jpg

This is a trick many modellers (even DA) used, so i dont see why you lot cant use it as well.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

I will be using Mouth shot’s Kusari Cruiser mesh as an example for this tutorial.

The first step involves importing the .3ds version of the model (if you created the mesh in another software), or opening it in 3ds max (if you created it in 3ds max). If you created the model in 3ds max, ignore this step. If you imported the model, you will have to change the orientation of the mesh first before you can do anything else.

To change the orientation of the model, you need to first select all of the meshes. You can press the hotkey for this “Ctrl + A”, which selects all the meshes. You will then need to click on the icon in the top tray that resembles an arrow down a 360 turn around a pivot. This is the rotation tool. To ensure rotation is easy, you should also select another icon that is further right from the rotate icon- it looks like a magnet outside an angle sign “<”. This is a snap toggle, which means when you rotate the mesh, it will turn around the x, y or z axes in degrees of 5.

Ensuring everything else is selected, you can rotate the mesh by clicking and holding any one of the three circular “lines” you see in your viewport (yellow, blue or red circle denoting one of the three axes).

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/1.png

Looking at the mesh, you can see it is currently lying on its side instead of being straight up. So, rotating it around the required axes, you get this as a result

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/2.png

As you can clearly see, the model is NOT centered correctly. This is the next step you need to do. Next to the rotate icon, there is an option called “select and move” when you highlight it, which looks like a four pointer + cursor. Select this. At the bottom of the screen, you can see 3 boxes, next to which is written x, y, and z, and each of these boxes have some numbers in them. You will ensure that all the meshes are selected, and change the value in all the three boxes to 0. This will center the model.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/3.png

The model is now centered, so the next step involves converting the model to editable poly. To do this, you ensure that all your meshes are selected, then you right click in one of the view ports, go down to the option called “convert to”, and select the option “Convert to editable poly”. This is a key step to texturing models in 3ds max.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/4.png

The next step is completely optional, however it will probably make your life much easier. Deselect all the meshes by clicking anywhere in the viewport, then click on the mesh, ensuring you select only one of the meshes out of all the others. You will see a new list of options on the right hand side of your screen. Out of all of the options, there is one red icon, in the shape of a cube, which is called “element” when you hover above it. Select that button. Look down the list, and you will see a button called “attach”, and right next to it, you will see a smaller window shaped icon. Click this icon, which will open a new window for you. The new window will show you a list of all the meshes in the viewports. Click the button called “all”, which selects all the meshes in the list, then hit the “attach” button. This will ensure all the meshes are now part of one group instead of having loads of groups everywhere, and this makes texturing a helluva lot easier. Best thing, once you finish texturing, you can detach the meshes just as easily.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/5.png

Once you’ve done that, click the “element mode” button again to deselect it. The pivot of the mesh should currently reside at 0,0,0 co-ordinates. Just as a precaution, i suggest doing this step even if the pivot is at 0,0,0; it doesn’t hurt and is very easy.

Making sure that the mesh is selected, but the element mode is deselected, as shown in the screenshot below, click on the button to go into the hierarchy mode. Once there, click on the option “affect pivot only”, and click on the option “center to object”. This will center the pivot of the entire mesh at the absolute center of the mesh. Click the “affect pivot only” to deselect it once again, and click the button on the left hand side of the hierarchy button to ensure you don’t accidentally change the pivot again. Click the button to move the mesh around, and make sure the x y and z co ordinates are at 0,0,0; if not, make it happen.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/6.png

This will ensure that the model is 100% definitely centered correctly now, and you are now one step closer to texturing your model. Once the above steps are done, the next step involves slicing the model in half along the correct axis to reduce the workload regarding texturing as well as reducing the possible amount of errors that may have been missed.

On the right hand side is a dropdown called “modifier list”. Click this, and navigate right to the bottom till you see an option called “symmetry”. Click this button. This will show you a sort of “list” in the tiny window below the dropdown which looks something like:

Symmetry
Editable poly.

The symmetry modifier will help you ensure that the mesh is, as the name suggests, symmetrical.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/7.png

Depending which axis you wish to apply the symmetry modifier, choose the option from one of the three- X Y or Z. Try all three, till you find the one that works correctly (remember, you wish to mirror the ship along the left and right, so the chances are you’ll need to select the Z option). If you need to flip the symmetry modifier, tick the box, etc.

Once your’re satisfied, right click on the “symmetry” word, and click the option when you see it “collapse all”. This will make your symmetry change to the mesh permanent, and you wont lose it (unless you deliberately undo your work).

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/8.png

Remember, the same rules apply for texturing as they do for modelling- model one half, mirror it across, reduce workload by half, ensure quality is high and errors are non-existant. The next step involves selecting one half of the ship and deleting it. Press the red square icon, which is called “polygon mode” when you hover over it with the mouse (next to element mode), and then click the “select and move” icon so you can select the faces in the viewport. Having done that, select all the faces on either the left side or the right side of the model’s center as shown in the screenshot below, and once selected, hit delete:

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/9.png

You will now have half a mesh, and you are now ready to texture.

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Doing the actual texturing of the models in 3ds max:

Again, as i said before, easy as pie, just time consuming. To begin, press the M key to open the material editor. This is where you will be opening textures in first, before you actually apply the textures to your model. Alternatively, you can press the icon with the 4 spheres as shown in the screenshot below:

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/10.png

To open a texture, you need to do the following steps-

Click one of the spheres to select it. Having done that, click on the expandable option called maps below. When you do that, youll see loads of options, the first one being something like diffuse color and next to it a button called none. Click the button. This opens a new window, out of the list you need to double click on the option called bitmap which opens yet another window. This new window is where you navigate to the folder where you have saved the texture you wish to use for texturing purposes.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/11.png

Once you navigate to the folder where the texture is saved, select the .dds file, and click open. This will open the texture in the sphere, and that is your first texture open, -nearly- ready to be used for texturing. Repeat this and the last few steps till you have all the textures you wish to use open in all the different spheres. Since the model is a kusari cruiser, ill use kusari textures. The first one is found in Ku_capships, and is called k_panel01_256.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/12-1.png

I have not opened all the textures i need, since i will not be texturing the entire mesh, just a small section to show how texturing works. You will need to open all the textures you will need in order to texture the model properly- remember, dont just select panel textures, freelancer ships tend to include alot- of trimmings and beautification texture mappings, so you need to strive to work to that quality.

Once youve opened all your textures, you will need to give each texture a unique name. Not only will this help with texturing, its a necessary step before you export the cmp, or youll get errors in your model.

In order to rename the textures to unique names, you need to do the following:

Making sure you have the first sphere selected, click the dropdown where you can see some text that looks like Map #1. You should see two options, click the other option that ISNT map #1. This will take you back to the maps screen, where you first selected your texture. Instead of seeing the none button, youll see some text there- you will see the name of the texture youve currently got opened. In my case, since i have the texture k_panel01_256 open on my first sphere, ill see that texture. The dropdown next to the button called standard is where youll rename your texture to a unique name- i normally just give the unique name as the texture itself, as youll see in the screenshots below:

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/13.png
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/14.png

Once you rename the texture, there is one final step you need to do- this is so that you can view the textures on the mesh in the viewport. There is an icon that looks like a chequered cube- click that

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/15.png

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Applying the textures to the mesh and mapping the textures:

Assuming you’ve done all the steps labelled above correctly, you’re now well on your way to actually beginning the actual texturing of the model you’ve created.

Once you’ve opened all the textures in all of the spheres, renamed them, selected the chequered cube to display the textures on the mesh, made sure you mesh is optimized/centered etc, you can begin texturing. You should have a general idea as to which texture you’d like to apply where. For example, i know that the k_panel01_256 is a generic texture i can use for the majority of the mesh, since the ship is made of ‘Panels’, i can basically apply the texture to the entire mesh.

Making sure that the mesh is still selected, you simply drag the first sphere over the mesh and drop. If you have the chequered cube selected, you’ll notice the color of the mesh change from the generic color to the color of the texture- in my case as the screenshot shows, the mesh goes from grey to brown.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/16.png

This is the easy part. Now comes a bit of imagination and a bit of common sense into play- you cant apply the windows texture to the engine section and vice versa (the common sence bit) and you cant have just the same panel texture all over, you need trimmings for the textures (the imagination bit).

Texturing is mostly done in the perspective viewport, so you can just maximize this viewport by pressing the button in the bottom right corner of the screen that looks like a small box expanding into a big box with an arrow to signify size change.

After you applied the generic texture, you want to apply the details/other textures to the mesh, but you find a simple drag and drop just replaces the original texture. To prevent this, you will now need to pay a bit of attention to detail and concentrate.

In order to apply more than one textures, you need to do this:

You need to click the “polygon mode” icon (red square) on the right hand menu, click the “select object icon (mouse cursor) and then select the faces in the viewport to which you’d like to apply the new texture to. Once you select all your faces you wish to apply the new texture to, you simply select the new sphere from the material editor window, and then drag and drop it onto the selected faces:

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/admin/17.png

You will find that you will need to repeat this step in order to apply the different textures to the different faces around the mesh. Repeat the step as necessary to assign different textures to the different faces. If you wish to stop selecting any faces, just deselect the red square for polygon mode.

For the sake of a blatant different and to show how to texture, i will be applying the engine (green) texture to the faces surrounding the faces i applied the windows textures to. You will normally apply a trimming style texture to such areas to ‘beautify it further’ and make sure it fits.

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Right. i was meaning to do this a while back when i first spoke to friendlyfire, but i never got round to doing it. lazy me, i know. but without further ado, heres the tut i wrote and posted on the disco forums for people who may find this interesting:

=============================================

Optimizing the mesh before beginning

Right. Ive been meaning to write this tutorial on how to texture models in 3ds max for freelancer models for quite some time now, but i’ve just not had the chance to do so. So, without wasting any more time, let’s dive straight into it, shall we?

All freelancer textures + a few custom/newly created ones in .dds and .tga format:
http://www.mediafire.com/?mmytfzcmoec

The most important thing you need to know about texturing in 3ds max is, you –need- to have patience to do it. It isn’t hard to do, so anyone who tells you otherwise is an idiot. It IS time consuming, so you should automatically think to yourself “right, this model is rather complicated, i will devote x amount of hours to this to do the texturing job to the highest quality i can possibly achieve”. If you were making a model for a game, you don’t really think the game lead designer would accept pathetic quality work, do you? So why should the mod suffer, even if you’re doing any mod work for it in your own free time? Remember, everytime you submit a horribly done piece, god smite’s a kitten. Think of the kittens.

This tutorial is meant to teach you the basics of texturing in 3ds max, nothing more, nothing less. As you proceed to use 3ds max, you will learn new techniques and tools, and your experience will grow as you move along. Before you actually begin texturing in 3ds max, there are a number of precautions you must take into consideration.

1. The mesh must be as optimized as possible. This means no errors such as floating vertices, unwelded vertices or faces, holes or gaps in the mesh, double, triple or quadruple faces one behind the other, etc. Such errors can either have a minor consequence (double faces = increased poly count) or major consequences (floating, unconnected vertices = game crash), and either way, you should keep the mesh as clean as possible.

2. Furthermore, multiple faces occupying same space can lead to z-buffer tearing and blinking effect as the renderer is uncertain which surface it should render- increased poly count is just one of the consequences.

3. The mesh must be centered. This will not only ensure that when you finish everything and are ready to export the model as a .cmp for hardpointing etc, there is no problems, plus it will make hardpointing easier (plus, its one of the rules you must comply with for submitting anything for discovery).

4. Dont do anything unnecessary when it is not required. This is regarding modelling- for freelancer, we want to keep our models’ poly count as low as possible. As a general approximation that i go by, all fighters/bombers/freighters = 1-2.5k polys, gbs and small transports = 3-4k polys, cruisers and big transports = 4-6k poly, battleships, battlecruisers, etc 5-10k poly. Ofcourse, you can go higher, but try to keep in such ranges.

Freelancer ships are most of the time, symmetrical, except for a few (the spatial is a good example) i will explain further down how to ensure there is no problem with the models, and how to ensure your mesh remains symmetrical.

5. Here is a trick you can utilize whilst optimizing the mesh: customize->customize user interface->look for “Display Edges Only Toggle” and assign some key to it, like “F”. when your viewport(s) are in edges mode press “F” and you’ll see the hidden lines displayed in punctured lines as opposed to hard edges. Also in the same customize preferences set key for “Display Vertex Ticks Toggle”, say “G”. This will allow you to see vertices even when you’re not in vertex editing mode.
Clear examples of bugs (screenshots provided courtesy of Treeywrm.):

Gap in mesh: http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurj…crosis_bug2.jpg
Mesh before optimization: http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurj…ocbs_wrong1.jpg
Mesh after optimization: http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurj…s_wrong1fix.jpg
The importance of trims:
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurj…n/trimmings.jpg
clear example of well-done trimmings:
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurj…min/bs-head.jpg
the power of symmetry:
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurj…ad-symmetry.jpg

another important and useful tool to help with texturing:
http://www.renderhjs.net/textools/

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(More parts to follow, please dont post just yet for continuity’s sake)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjGfgV7rJHI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzjolHvOAOE

nah, thats made by my mate lohingren over at discovery

all the same, its pretty awesome

anyhoo. been somewhat busy, but spent the last 2-3 days finishing off some major texturing work for some structures i made for discovery. here is what ive done so far:

Gallic Shipyard:
http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/6933/64576732.png
http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/1922/49314683.png
http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/231/40491667.png
http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/7491/34202630.png

Gallic Manufacturing Plant (Model by Dartstriker/Travis):

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/1007/gallicmanuf.png
http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/759/gallicmanuf2.png

i have to make some changes to the gallic shipyard, but otherwise its mostly done.

Holy #$%%, that is amazing o_O

awesome work man

To be quite honest… its hard to answer a question like this imo. prepare yourself for a WoT nathan.

Each modder has his own setup that he/she is comfortable with, and then modified exceedingly to help/suit them best. for example, i have 1 external HD dedicated to just modding related stuff for both 3d modelling and photoshop work- tutorials, video tutorials, projects, different renders, textures, inspirational artwork/design, etc.

When you start off modding for freelancer, or any game for that matter it can be quite overwhelming if you dont know a thing and have to learn everything from scratch. prime example- When i first joined the dev team for discovery, i was kinda clueless as to how to help the mod. i sifted through different aspects of the modding, found a spot i liked, and set to work (in this case, having to rebuild around 80% of the ships’ hitboxes for 4.85, for both older ships and new ones).

before i began, i bugged multiple people to learn the basics of hitboxing, what are the do’s and dont’s, what precautions to take, what must be kept in mind, etc, and from them i just went ahead and piledrived through the work. each new hitbox i made gave me a different result. i learned from my mistakes, fixed them, and moved on.

modding -can- be frustrating at times. believe me i know. it was only cuz i was a right stubborn #$%% that kept me, and still keeps me going. example: when i was making the hitbox for the BHG destroyer for discovery, it took me 3 full days, and 84 failed attempts to make the hitbox working 100%, both registering hits + collision detection.

over the course of time, as the need for hitboxes decreased, i moved on to learning how to texture models. i got alot of help from one particular modder for discovery (treewyrm), and then i figured the rest through trial and error and youtube tutorials etc.- alot of what i know is self learned now via tutorials i found by googling for it.

looking back now at how i began my modding “career”, i know how hard it can be, and that is why i try to document and write a tutorial regarding everything i know how to do, so i can share my knowledge to others, and hopefully inspire more people to start modding for freelancer (not just discovery), and perhaps create something that was unimagined so far. human brain = pro at imagining stuff, can create some pretty amazing results if put the proper energy into the projects

for setting up, it was again by going around and asking what tools are needed, then doing searches to see if i can find tools that could further help to make my job easier. it was by actively searching i found a couple of tutorials that helped me improve my texturing techniques 5x, id say.

that said, i would always advise people to get the proper tools to do any modding work. one of the biggest issues i have with people who use milkshape for modelling/texturing is the number of problems that come with it, and then the modders who’ve been submitted it tend to have to fix it, etc.

im not saying milkshape is bad, dont get me wrong- discovery has a couple modders who use milkshape for things such as texturing (doom is a prime example), but still manage to produce top notch work… its just that if you DONT know how to use it properly, your results tend to be horrible, and THAT is something you want to avoid.

there isnt any one “right” way to modding for freelancer. sure, there are certain rules you should follow, to stick with the general consistency of how the other stuff in the mod/vanilla are created, but i wont say that there is just one method to modding freelancer.

i would definitely recommend people to get used to the tools they use first before making any submissions for modwork/ own mods etc. another example: it took me 7 complete retexture jobs to finish my first texturing job (the kusari bc model) in 3ds max. i was still new to texturing, and i learned something new each time, which allowed me to revise my work to a much better standard/quality (though i think its time for me to revise the mesh, it could be 100% more cleaner :P)

a problem im seeing alot nowadays, even on the disco forums, is that people fail to accept negative criticism- they fall into a protective “NO U” shell everytime, and refuse to listen, instead trying to shout louder than the other person. if you wont accept criticism, you cannot improve, and its pretty much a stalemate there. i know, taking negative criticism can hurt, but its the only way to improve your own work quality.

that said, the people posting the criticism need to be considerate with the words they choose to express their feelings toward models. personal feelings toward people is not enough reason to be a complete bastard towards someone you dont like whose made a model and has posted up pictures of it etc.

also, NEVER be shy to ask for help. if you’re stuck, ASK someone who knows how your problem can be fixed/solved. a second opinion on models is never bad either, it allows double checking for errors as well (both for mesh as well as texture errors). i have a select group of people i show my models to before i make the images available to public view on the discovery forums, i find i work better that way.

–---------------------

That’s all i can think of for now.

On a side note, its 4:30 am. i should be in bed, but you kept me up for the past 15 mins, Making me post this. :-<

sorry bout that, i kinda got caught up with #$%%. <_<

as it stands, i think ill be alright, but if your offer still stands and if i run into problems, ill bug you.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/gallicDRfinal2.jpg
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/gallicDRfinal1.jpg

PNG renders (smaller versions)

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/finalDR-1.png
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/gurjiv/finalDR2-1.png

its a gallic docking ring for planets for the disco mod. model made by mouth shot, textured and put ingame by me.

(well, ill be putting it ingame, i still have to do the animations for the CMP

aha. thank you for your assistance, people

ive a question though. is it possible to have stuff like missile projectiles as CMPs instead of .3dbs? i always assumed stuff like that -has- to be built as a .3db.

i will try the model sushi’s done sooonish and will post up teh results asap.

i WILL take you up on the offer for having a sleep etc, i just realized i fail’d at reading your post star -_-

so i cant shoot my own missile down, but others can. time to hire me a testing monkey

thanks mate