You can use a .tga file or a .dds file for the textures. TGA seems to be the easiest to work with. I have used 256x256 and 512x512 textures on models with no adverse effects.

OK, so what program should I use? I've got PSP 7 but nothing else.

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PSP7 will work fine. Just make sure your TGA's are not compressed.

Sweet, thanks

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Hi guys i need help and it seems like you guys know what your doing...i want to just change the colors on my ships..nothing more what and how do i need to do this????

Battleship's?...ya we got that

That's going to be very hard (read: impossible), I think. As far as I know there isn't a way to play with the textures on the existing ships since we cannont open the files required. Someone who knows something can feel free to correct me.

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If you head over to the Utilties download sector of Lancers, you'll see a program called "FreeLancer UTF editor (w/ MFC)"

Download this file.

Once you have done, you're going to have to play around with it a little before you get the hang of it, but the premise is simple once you know how.

As a starter, I'll quick explain. To texture edit, you need to load the program then click on the "Open File" button. Once done, browse though the various directors until you reach the Data/Ships/ folder of the Freelancer directory. Go into the folder of which type of ship you want to edit (Liberty, for example) then double click on the *.mat file that's stored there. (Example: li_capships.mat)

That *.cmp file stores all the textures for the various liberty ships.

Once you have it loaded into UTF, expand the file listing, and select the texture libary. You should see all the main textures being store there. Expand the one you want to export (Example: Engine_grill.tga) then click on the MIPS branch.

Once click on, select "Export" and save the file somewhere as "Name.dds" (Where name is what you want to call it). Make sure you have the .dds plugin for Photoshop (Search google!) and then open up the file to edit.

Once you'd got it how you like (and as it has Mipmaps in there, you'll have to play around with this somewhat too, but it's easy to figure out) save it as a .dds with the DXT3 (Explicit Alpha) setting, then *import* it back over the original file via UTF.

Texture has been changed.

For more information (if this wasn't enough) make good use of the "Search Forums" option.

wow ok that helps...i'll give it a shot...i dont have photo shop though....

Battleship's?...ya we got that

I dont know if this well help but there are some good tutorials on how create a 3d model. There is a good article in maximum pc winter 2002 issue tga format is covered some, its on 3ds max but the principle applys. The milkshape web site is another good sorce. I have seen other good info on some other sites that deal with graphics. I dont consider myself on expert on any topic so I dont write tutorials but I like to help others with similar interests.
---Got visual switching to weapons---

ok i got the download "tryout" of photoshop7....i did what u told me im pretty sure "found the file with the UTF and found the MIP but what i dont understand is when i go to save it it just asks for the file name not the type of save...and when i go to load it up as a .dds it says that its not the right kinddocument...i didnt see any files listed as .mat just SUR. and CMP. i got a plug in am i just doing somthing out of order?...or is there something else im missing?


Battleship's?...ya we got that

This one took me a while to figure out too.

You need to have the dds.8bi plugin in \Plug-Ins\File Formats
*and*
You need to have NormalMapFilter.8DF in \Plug-Ins\Filters

dds.8bi won't work alone, as it needs that other nVidia filter thing, with all the mad settings. (You'll see the explicit alpha option in those settings, too!)

Now personally I managed to find an older zip file with the filter in that was around 400kb(ish), and that seemed to work better than the new one. But I'm using Photoshop 6.0, so using the older one seemed a better idea anyhow...

...but I digress. So, yeah, have those two files in those two folders, and it should load just fine.

When you're saving the MIPS, remember to add ".dds" onto whatever you call the filename too. I'm assuming you're doing that already, but I'm putting it here again for posterity. So, instead of saving a MIP as "Wing", add the extension "Wing.dds" otherwise Adobe won't read it. Wordpad will try to though, and that's no fun for anyone.

You'll also find the .mat texture file in the *root* group-ship folder.
So, for the Liberty Capships.mat file, you'll need to look in \DATA\SHIPS\LIBERTY\, and it's there under the name li_capships.mat

Extracting from any other file type really won't get you very far.

Hope that helps!

Edited by - Kasdia on 07-05-2003 01:22:32

I am using Pain Shop Pro 8 and any .tga file I make and use on the ship will crash the game when I click on that ship in Ship Dealer. Any clue what could be wrong

o)==[::::::::::::> May strong survive and weak perish <::::::::::::==(o

Are you making textures for a new ship model, or editing existing ones?

For new ship model.

o)==[::::::::::::> May strong survive and weak perish <::::::::::::==(o