LOD ranges can do that. Level of Detail. Make sure they are set to 0, 9999, 9999 which should sort it out if its that. Sorry, not a model maker, but that is one thing that makes ships invisible. Worth a mention - just incase

Check that in the shiparch file it is refered to your mat file and also, in Milkshape, make sure all the materials are named the same as the file that they refer to.

Btw if you are using the tutorial that was recently published on this site, you need to change Dc_name in the .mat library to Dt_name

Edited by - pSYCHO on 1/29/2004 11:15:25 AM

thnx, hope itll help

hello have read the info on the previous posts but am also having the invisible ship problem. im new to the ship creating and used the tutorial created by Dritzz4.0 as the guideline for creating the ship. Everything works apart from the invisible problem (tho not sure of orientation as i cant tell!), the shiparch file is reffered to correctley as far as i can work out and have changed the Dc_name into Dt_name in the mat creating programme. have checked milkshape to and the names are the same. the only thing i cannot work out to change the level of detail settings, the exporter programme im using Freelancer CMP v0.2.1 and only offers three differing options and was wondering if everyone else was using a different exporter prog? and if so where can i get it! have been trying everything to get this to work and would be really gratefull for any advice

MaD BaRoN HahA

LOD settings are in the shiparch.ini file. If you copied and modified an entry from an existing ship, its usually under the nickname.

[Ship
ids_name = 237034
ids_info = 66570
ids_info1 = 66571
ids_info2 = 66608
ids_info3 = 66572
ship_class = 0
nickname = li_fighter
LODranges = 0, 40, 60, 140, 300, 1000
msg_id_prefix = gcs_refer_shiparch_Liblf
mission_property = can_use_berths
type = FIGHTER


However, on custom models, the detailing cannot be done for whatever reason -so this would leave you with an invisible ship if the ship / cockpit cam is further away than the settings there. You need yours to be saying:

[Ship
ids_name = 237034
ship_class = 0
nickname = li_fighter
LODranges = 0, 9999, 9999

LOL you will never believe this.

I got the ship visible now, but its only visible when im flying, when its landed i only see the guns!!!

anyone, idea??

change the LOD settings to 0, 1000.
the 3rd value is not needed as u don't have several LOD models.
3 values mean that u have 2 models, one from 0 to the 1st, then from the 1st to the 2nd value.
Thats also the reason why ur ship is invisible - u dont have the 1st model - the game assumes that u only have the last one.

i usually dont set it as high as 9999, ships are only visible to 5k range anyway (in MP).
1000 is used for all fighter sized ingame ships as the max visible distance.

hope this helped, Fjord

---------------------------------
Excelcia forever
www.excelcia.org/forum

Hello, just to say thanx for the tips but realised my ship was invisible because i managed to miss one of the r's out from the word library in the .mat creator

whoops

MaD BaRoN HahA

oh yeah - check your spelling as well lol - that goes for any problems in any form of modding!! Its ALWAYS a spelling error.

bini iq with a spelcheck, now that would have helped so many times XD