FriendlyFire wrote:
@Bas: All bloody MMOs. Can’t devs see the incredible popularity of moddable games like Half-Life 2 and try to tap into that for their space sims instead?

Popularity doesn’t pay in the long run, OK maybe at first but give it a year and the only people playing it are modders.

And seeing as modding is free, no one is going to pay a highly skilled team of developers to make an awsome game with amazing gameplay that can be easily modded when they can just spend half the time and money making an MMO which will pay them for the for-see able future.

The people who put these projects together don’t really care for love of the games, they just enjoy counting money, and unless some game developer wins the lottery, thats pretty much how its going to be.

StarTrader wrote:
Scale_boy looks like you have a flame or engine or damage fuse effect attached to a hardpoint there?

Can you post your DATA\EQUIPMENT\goods.ini entry for the ship? And also the DATA\SHIPS\shiparch.ini entry for it too, then we may be able to help you spot the problem.

prime got it, was a fuse problem. Theres a copy of my whole script on page one of this thread.

thanks for the help anyway.

Xarian_Prime wrote:
Thats a fuse… 8-)
and probably b’cuse its set higher than the hitpoint value of the ship.

Fuses “kick in” at a certian points in the ships hull degradation, if set higher than the maximum hitpoints they will always play (same as setting it to -1) they can be altered by changing the last param in the shiparch block for instance…

fuse = intermed_damage_smallship01, 0.000000, 300
fuse = intermed_damage_smallship02, 0.000000, 150
fuse = intermed_damage_smallship03, 0.000000, 50

Should be nice for a ship with

hit_pts = 500

your right, mine was set to:

fuse = intermed_damage_smallship02, 0.000000, 525
fuse = intermed_damage_smallship03, 0.000000, 263

good explanation, but whats the 0.000000 for?

Quarks wrote:

Scale_Boy wrote:
i only put one group in as that part confused me but i don’t seem to have any side effects as of yet, so all is good.

Those part settings in the cmp-exporter have to do with components of the model (e.g. wings that con be blown off). If you export as a 1-part-model, the ship just is not able to blow up into pieces. If you want to export with multiple parts, you have to group your model in milkshape first.

Thanks, that clears up what I thought it did (although I wasn’t 100%)

I wish people who knew the stuff would add there knowledge to the modding handbook on this site so people don’t have to second guess everything, would help me learn a lot faster and with a lot less crashes

StarTrader wrote:
Just for the record - sometime ago I imported the pilot model and a vanilla ship into MS3D and always make my new ships to the same scale as those. I often use the pilot to get the scale right if I’m not sure.

Then when I export I always set the scale to ‘1’ - but remember to SAVE Settings - if you don’t, then the export plugin has a bug and it will still scale the ship down to 1/92 even though the scale shows ‘1’!

I wondered why when I exported the model, it was so tiny, I got into a routine of resizing with the model tool, but knowing the bug with the plug in will save me time in the future. Thanks,

one quick question…. why is there like a flame coming from my ship shield hard point, ignore the massive gap between the hardpoints and the ship and the rubbish texture i haven’t finished yet, i just want to make a non buggy custom ship.

adoxa wrote:
I’d suggest SurResizer to resize surs, FLMT doesn’t quite do it right. Updating FLMT is something else I’ve yet to get around to.

Ok ill use that instead, thanks

Davis wrote:
I forgot to tell, when you export from ms3d to cmp the settings are:

orientation: back to front
model type: ship
scale down: 92 (default)
level of detail: level 0

heres a tutorial made by frozen, how to make custom hitboxes, you can see the proper ship orientations on the pics:
http://discoverygc.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=30770

post#2

thanks for the link, looks like good stuff, ill start that soon.

i used the upside down orientation instead of back to front and the rest of default, i only put one group in as that part confused me but i don’t seem to have any side effects as of yet, so all is good.

Xarian_Prime wrote:
hehe… no worries

& yer… its quite amusing flying upside down & engines first, i’m pretty sure we’ve all done that during the first few attempts 8-)

so easy to forget to flip the ship just before export… few more things…

always center your 0
ship should face “you” in front view & down in topview

for .sur’s grab the “FLModelTool10ab6” to re-size any existing .sur (& ye ship as well if needed) or try “FL_Sur_Builder_0002” both good proggys and easy to use.

oh and… Paint.net is good to get a grasp on texture manipulation & exportation… but the mighty Gimp is vastly superior if your looking further at this task… but for simple conversion & export Paint is pretty awesome… just dont try anything fancy with .dds (alpha channels mainly) in Paint as it wont save the data right… that’s what gimps for

been using model tool to resize…took a few attempts but i got it right in the end, ive been using paint for my textures saving as .tga and then converting using dds converter, that got annoying with the whole “cannot convert not a multiplier of two”, but i finally got a ship that works now even if it has got a shield thats on fire.

Xarian_Prime wrote:
“Paint.net” & there’s a dds progy somewhere here i think in the downloads if that fails to work with dds (it should convert easily just save as)

Davis wrote:

how much i love this day… vga memo off, im off, shop almost off…

heres an other:
http://www.filefront.com/3577988/DDS-Converter-2-1.0/

converted the dds and exported my .mat……it worked! finally some progress.

only thing wrong with it now is the ships upside down and orientated the wrong way…i know how to fix that though, thanks to davis, oh and the sur is crazy it makes me collide with planet after venturing a little distance from the docking ring…probably to do with it not being custom .sur.

Thanks prime and davis, helping others is re-warding in its own way.

Davis wrote:
wait with that.
first check the textures in cmp, click “w”
if you got dark color without textures then you have problem with the mat, there is no reason to redo your ship again.
first dds convert, swap the textures in milkshape to the dds formats with same name, mat exporter again, check your cmp, if you got textured model thats a good start.

ok ok, will do, quick question (probably a nooby one) how do i convert to dds, google isnt helping at all

Davis wrote:
could be then. so you renamed the vanila textures if im right, and put them on your ship… have you modified anything? color, hue etc… if they are in tga format yet, then convert them to dds as Xarian mentioned.
i have no more idea, do the texture names matching with the material names in milkshape?

What i didnt read, do the textures appear in cmp?

I renamed the vanilla texture yes.

put them on my ship yes.

modified anything i.e color…. no

.tga format? yes*

texture name match with materials in milkshape yes.

do the texture appear in hcmp? never thought to check it and just makes the ship a dark colour…there could be my problem…

think i’m gonna start a fresh from the importing into milkshape stage, thanks for the help davis and prime, just need to learn a bit more on .mat creation as everything else “seemed” to work…

Davis wrote:]

thats not good… ok:
first you have to turn your entirely model anticlockwise 90 degrees in milkshape, ctrl+a, rotate y -90, and then still assigned your model, move/ absolute x,y,z= 0 (very important in cmp the ship must be appears in the front!!!)

in regard you wrote i suspect you havent used flmodel_tool, what is necessary, to put that ship in game properly.
if you dont know this great prog then download the version 1.0a beta 6 simply open your cmp in that and scale up to 25 at first then save, open its sur, if it is orig then rescale it to ship/automatic, if its custom then first ship and after scenery, save it and thats all.

done the whole resize, definitely not that, just made my hard points further away from my ship and the collision corresponds with that,

am i right in saying it must be the .mat thats not working correctly?

Davis wrote:
Yeah, because you answered my question i wanted to ask while i was writing my post. k
So my last question is the scale.
What was the last setting in cmp export and in fl model tool?

It would have been the default settings, my hardpoints are all in the right place but the ship is flying it the 90 degrees clockwise instead.

the placing of my hardpoints looks like the right scale but is obviously wrong.

Davis wrote:
No, i didnt missed but hps are orig your ship is not.
Your entirely ship is missing so it cant be that only your textures are wrong because i cant see the glass either.
So as your hps appear on the ship in order, only problem is: the model itself.
Its very simple, you wrote you made new cockpit for this ship. Have you modified the camera_offset? If yes, to where?

EDIT: where is your prev post?

I removed it as you changed yours and it didn’t need to be there.

Xarian_Prime wrote:
to check the .3db worry… just use this line…

item_icon = equipment\models\commodities\nn_icons\EQUIPICON_nomadpower.3db

that solves the prob if its your icon… this icon is good for when you have no good icon as well.

and i’ll second the 4 or more entry’s in the ship markets prob… seen that one… easy fix just use 1… your custom ship & never more than 3

also… you used a lot of tools for the task… when in theory it’s easyer (for some things) to do by hand… tools can make BAD mistakes that when starting out will stress you alot (as you don’t know… you don’t recognize them…) we normally use tools to place & template our data… then handcode (lol… copy/paste… edit…) our final file… Hcmp dont fall into that category though… brilliant proggy, BUT… it will show you a working ship… and FL still crashes as it handles the CMP with less vigilance than the game… it will also show textures the wrong way on many ships… but they flip fine ingame and look correct (mainly a .dds thing)

If i were u… I’d swap out the icon 1st… if still crashing, scrutinize your goods & arch (or have another do it for you)… if all else fails… send someone like me (who lives inside his shiparch.ini & ms3d) your ship for simple debugging… the 3rd is costly though… as you may have to share your ship as payment for services rendered… mwhahaa… erm sry…

The new icon fixed it with no crashes……now for the bad news.

the ship still doesn’t appear on the ship floor but i know it exists, how do i know this? well this is what happens when i take the ship out for a spin…

For positioning information the gun is supposed to be on the left wing if looking at it head on.

Davis wrote:
When you exported the model from gmax, what uvw did you use? shrink wrap?
How did the model appear in ms3d when you imported from md3? black or white?

How did you make entry for the ship? by manual or FLe? If you use FLe, can you see the ship at the shipdealer when you clicking on preview?

Its gonna be a good idea if you post your goods.ini and shiparch.ini only that part which contains your ship of course.

I did use shrink wrap and when i imported it appeared white.

here is my entire xml file for the entry of the new ship,
the file paths to the corresponding " MyMod.* " are in mod folder.

Sure it isn’t selling a fourth ship, I’m using xml script to replace the second ship instead of just appending.

OK so heres my problem,

I get to my ship dealer, and then when I load the menu itself i get a crash, i’m thinking its something to do with the .3db file as i’ve had this problem before and putting a fresh .3db in before has worked.

(Currently using the br_fighter.3db and .Sur although everything is renamed)

Also the ship itself does not appear on the shop floor(thinking this has something to do with scaling but when i resize it by about 100 (also tried 15) it still doesn’t appear.)

Additional information:

• I used gmax to create the ship from scratch––>exported to milkshape for texturing(imported .tga texture)—>exported .mat file and .cmp using the plug ins—>edited the hardpoints using hardCMP–>put into mod folder–>scripted the ship with ship scripter—> tried freelancer and failed.

•This is my list of hardpoints:

HpEngine01
HpEngine02
HpEngine03
HpEngine04
HpThruster01
HpShield01
HpContrail01
HpContrail02
HpContrail03
HpHeadLight01
HpDocklight01
HpDocklight02
HpBaydoor01
HpBaydoor02
HpMount
HpTractor_Source
hppilot
HpWeapon01

• It used to crash on as soon as I clicked on the ship dealer until I used the vanilla .mat of the br_fighter.

• Ran Freelancer error checker and it says no errors in any sections.

• I know it exists because I’ve got a screenshot of its entry(no Icon) right before it crashed.

Any help is much appreciated, as I’m at my wits end and haven’t got the knowledge of custom ships to get it into game.