hi

HCL was looking into sur files but i havent heard any news on his progress. at the moment i think the only option is to find an in game ship thats almost the same shape/size and use its sur file.
i tried looking at them myself but i have the computing skills of a retarded whelk and ended up needing a quiet lie down in a darkened room.


dr del


the bagpipe was originally intended as a device for castrating pigs - this can be easily proved . start playing the pipes anywhere near a pig and it'll run for cover. the reason any nearby englishmen also start running is thought to be mere racial memory and can be safely ignored.

Perhaps an untextured simpler version of the model can be used as the sur file by renaming its file extension?

Wanderer you are probably correct in your assumption it is an "untextured simpler version of the model". the problem with "can be used as the sur file by renaming its file extension?" is we do not know what the original file format/extension is.

there was a discussion a while back that it was in the format of a program Qhull. i do not know. there were far too many instructions for me to work out how to do anything meaningful with it( the program is a command line use only to provide various forms of surface file/Delany computations(what ever they are and i have no idea what type of input/output it needed).

American Scientists spent millions developing the perfect writing utensil; It writes in Zero-gravity, upside down, under water, in space... The Russians used a Pencil.

I wonder if we can use a modified cmp file for that?

hey wanderer,

sadly not - if it was in the same format as cmp files wed be able to open it with utf edit . so far no one has managed to get any usfull info out of it at all - we think its some kind of asci model but nothing can look at it


dr del


hows your granny off for soap!?!?

Has anyone tried just changing the file suffix and seeing if they are openable in any of the standard modelling programs? Just an off the top of my head suggestion. (Suggested programs to test with would be 3DS Max, Lightwave, Blender, Maya.... etc.)


Shannon Bentley
AKA LordDrow
AKA Marcus Santistivan in Narfell (Neverwinter Nights Server)
AKA Viperious (Freelancer Servers)
MTS Dev Lead
Freelancer Super-Universe Dev Lead

tried 3DS Max, Lightwave, Blender,Rhino, every importer in Milkshape, 2 3d file browsers(1 opens every 3d format i have ever found) ,hell i even tried photoshop .in a hex editor the first 3/4 characters(header) normally give an indication of something to open it, all that is in sur files is "vers" (if this helps anyone go for it) and cannot find any info on this on the net.


American Scientists spent millions developing the perfect writing utensil; It writes in Zero-gravity, upside down, under water, in space... The Russians used a Pencil.

I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head, but there WAS an ascii based modelling program that was pretty popular a few years back. Is it possibly something related to that? Damn... Now I'm gonna have to surf around and see if I can find that damned proggie floating around somewhere still.

Sorry to sound like a puppy dog arguing over a favorite bone, I just can't stand to see us all stumped by one damned file type. **grins**

Shannon Bentley
AKA LordDrow
AKA Marcus Santistivan in Narfell (Neverwinter Nights Server)
AKA Viperious (Freelancer Servers)
MTS Dev Lead
Freelancer Super-Universe Dev Lead

sur file allows your ship to get damaged right, and also to collide with objects right. If that’s it than I made a sur file by renaming cmp to sur.

dosent work. free lancer just ignores your ship.sur file(incompatible file format). did you try this with the ship_shield.sur file as well (this is the one you are probably seeing the "i'm hit" animations from).

a test- back up your ship.sur file. make a copy of your ship.cmp file(somewhere else or windows will have a fit). rename this to ship.sur. put it back. activate mod. launch freelancer. get/buy your ship. unmount your sheild generator(click the small jigsaw piece for it). launch to space. attack the nearest ship/dockingring/station until every one hates you. then stop your engines and just sit there not firing back(this is a test not a game of space invaders). watch the hull damage indicator and the way 90% of all fire passes through you(you do take some damage but it is actually your weapons/hard point mounted gear taking damage (i think)). note the time it takes to die( this same effect can be produced by just removing your ship.sur. i.e not have one at all)

do this test again with your/a real ship.sur file in place. i lasted 20 sec(my ship hull hit points are quite high) before i was destroyed.


this test (i think) shows that you cannot use a renamed ship.cmp file for your ship.sur file

American Scientists spent millions developing the perfect writing utensil; It writes in Zero-gravity, upside down, under water, in space... The Russians used a Pencil.

---

LordDrow

Sorry to sound like a puppy dog arguing over a favorite bone, I just can't stand to see us all stumped by one damned file type. **grins**

---

hey i totally agree. .sur files (and making brand new 3db files, i can aproximate them just now but they are not perfect) would make ship modding complete.




American Scientists spent millions developing the perfect writing utensil; It writes in Zero-gravity, upside down, under water, in space... The Russians used a Pencil.

Edited by - free spirit on 17-06-2003 11:36:45

I'm curious. How are 3db files done?

they are basically cmp files with some bits deleted and some bits fudged.

i cannot do VMeshWire/VWireData i have basic specs for it and am still working on it.

open 2 copies of utf editor(you can have as many as you want open) in one open a cmp file and in the other open a 3db file.you will see what i mean

to make one- make a cmp (exported from milkshape)- open it in utf editor and export the bits you need as any name you want. open another utf make your file structure as needed (using another 3db file as a template if nessecary) and import the bits you exported earlier. in utf files only the end of a branch ever hold data.

ok this is probably not the clearest procedure around (i cant write tutorials to save myself) but when you look at both files and mat files you will see how close mat,3db and cmp files really are.

American Scientists spent millions developing the perfect writing utensil; It writes in Zero-gravity, upside down, under water, in space... The Russians used a Pencil.

Okay, incredibly, I think I MAY have found something regarding the .sur files. I am doing some further investigations, but wouldn't mind a 3rd party to have a look into this as well. I have stumbled onto a program that apparently does models. The kicker here is that its models have the file extension .sur.

You can have a look at the following URL.... http://www.ice.mtu.edu/online_docs/gm-sys4.6/

Hope this turns out to be helpful!

The Edit - Okay, don't know if this will help us at all, this appears to be a geological modelling system now that I am looking more into it. I am assuming that the .sur stands for SURface, but I could be VERY wrong. Anyhow, sorry if I got anyones hopes up too much, I am going to continue searching around for some for additional information regarding this particular file format. Hopefully we'll come up with something soon.

Shannon Bentley
AKA LordDrow
AKA Marcus Santistivan in Narfell (Neverwinter Nights Server)
AKA Viperious (Freelancer Servers)
MTS Dev Lead
Freelancer Super-Universe Dev Lead

Edited by - LordDrow on 18-06-2003 06:53:55