could i get some help on this plz? i have found some tutorials on this, but they are very vauge and not very helpful...i would appreciate it if someone could write up an in-depth artical about creating ships and swapping skins. and a cmp IMPORTER for milkshake would be nice too . somehow i got a "drathi example" which looks an aweful lot like a kilrathi ship from WC: Vengance, and i saw some of those triangles that i assume are hardpoints, but i have no idea as to how he named them...or even IF he named them.

I have used DOGA L1, L2, L3 to create ships.
you can get it from: http://www.doga.co.jp/english/software/index.html


But I have no idea how to import them to freelancer.



Edited by - Leonhart on 07-04-2003 05:25:31

And to tell you truth I would like answers to most of your questions too because I too have problems with creating ships.

I am about to check the program you gave link to.With hope I will try to give some information on it tomorow and hope that it will help with creating ships.

Edited by - Leonhart on 07-04-2003 05:31:22

1) what is the best known program to use for modeling a ship? i have a trail version for Milkshape, but i dont really like it...its not a very efficiant editor in my opinion. what other programs are there? heres what i have on my computer right now: Photoshop 7, Flash 6, Fireworks, Paint (not pro tho), AutoCAD, Milkshape trial (with 27 days left), a ship editor, and Milkshape CMP plug in (which can apparently only export, no imports).

There is no best known modeling program for modeling. A modeler who can make a kickass model with one program can make a kickass model in another program. Personally I use 3dstudio max. Just like you I didn't like MilkShape but after a bit of work with I kinda figured it out.

2) whats a "mesh"? is this just referring to actual model? and if so why are there multible kinds of meshes?

A mesh is just a bunch of verts and tris. Or just a very big polygon.
Example: Say you have a cilinder, a box and a very wierd object that has no name.
Each object is a seperate mesh.

3) how do you make the nice textures? are they hand drawn?

Most of them are handdrawn. You can do it on paper and scan it for editing. Some others just make it in photoshop directly. Or you can take photos of things and composite the photos to make a texture.

4) how do you add hardpoints? as far as i can tell it has something to do with "nameing" triangles, but how do you do that?

Read the readme that came with the plugin. The plugin uses these triangles for Hardpoint placement. The center of the triangle is the origin of the HP. The nearest triangle on the ship mesh is use for the orientation. Read the readme to learn why you have to name them Hp/Fixed/Hpblablablk01

5) am i the only one who makes cylenders with 4 slices instead of squares?

No idea.

6) is there an easier way to make ships than using milkshape's autofigures and moving and welding the vertexes togeather?

Not really. You have to start out with nothing and MODEL your ship.

7) why can you place vertexes...how is this remotely helpful? i think it is somehow the answer to question 6, but i dont understand it.

If you want to edit your mesh at a certain point, it can be handy to add a vertex and make some new faces.

You can also place each vertex manually and make triangles, this way you don't have to start out with a box.

Well tomorow is today.
The program from link, that is Dark Basic can open most of the files in freelancer but it opens them with text. It says that it is used for programing.
I just opened DATA\AI state_graph and it comes up with whole bunch of numbers.

Example:

0.00 0.05 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00
0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00
0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.09 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00
0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.05 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00
0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00

Have no clue what it means.

The only way to open these files is if you right click it and select open with Dark Basic. It can also open configuration files (ini).