YAY, ignored as usual.

Patience is a virtue.

Well I have been ignored 99% of the time I ever post here, sorry to bother you.

anyone? lol...

Well, you can't change anything in the engine yet.
You can assign a different engine to a ship, but changing it's color or shape is Impossible ! Nobody has managed to.
Also, if you searched, you'd discover that by yourself !


Edited by - Archangel on 8/5/2004 5:28:40 PM

Edited by - Archangel on 8/5/2004 5:29:05 PM

well, I did search, but I didn't find anything... lol maybe thats why I didnt find anything, it can't be done... ok lol thanks

I haven't got the slightest clue if this would work or not but have you tried extracting the textures from the .txm files and changing the colors there? If you look at the engine ale ini you'll find each one uses certain .txm files for the effect and color. I've opened up a ale file and it's just so much jibberish to me but the .txm can actually give you something to work with. Here's the pic from planetflare:


I guess if you were to change the colors and import the tga back into the .txm FL wouldn't have a choice but to use your new color, unless the ale file determines the color.
Good luck.

ohh why didnt I think of that before!
I have done lots of .txm editing, including making new planet textures and editing the navmap, but I couldn't think of this? lol

thank you yet again kaegogi, let me take a look at that.

*edit*

From what I can tell, they use the same .txm's as the weapons... so I don't wanna edit them, cause I risk screwing up the weapon colors lol...

Edited by - shadow51689 on 8/5/2004 6:54:32 AM

Have you tried making a new .txm? All it is is an exporter version and the tga. From what I've read FL will default to the original at times but you never know until you try. Just copy the .txm, open it export, change, import, save with a new name, edit the engine with a new ale entry that includes your new .txm. Might work.

yea, I was thinking about that too... but I don't knowwhat to put in for the effects_crc...

sorry for the late reply, got caught up testing some new weaponry I made lol

Right. That's what I'm talking about when it comes to FL defaulting back to the original. It's one of those 'try it and see if it works' things. For example if you want to change gf_rh_smallengine03_playtrail for your ship to a bluish tint then take the planetflare txm and change the tga color to blue. Make a new txm called shadowblue.txm and edit the ale entry to:

[VisEffect
nickname = gf_rh_smallengine03_playtrail
alchemy = fx\engines\gf_rh_smallengine03_playtrail.ale
effect_crc = -513757699
textures = fx\sarma.txm
textures = fx\shadowblue.txm

Might be that FL will just ignore your changes, might be that you'll get a new trail color, might be you won't get a trail at all. Never know until you try.

Nice thinking Kaegogi

I dont think that the color in txm is used in the effects...
Just take a look at the proj for the rheinland's Hornviper, witch has a green effect.

[VisEffect
nickname = rh_tachyon_03_proj
alchemy = fx\weapons\rh_tachyon_03.ale
effect_crc = 279623060
textures = fx\planetflare.txm
textures = fx\sarma.txm
textures = fx\beam.txm

I'm affraid that most of these txm are in gray scale... Nothing green !

I think that the alchemy file combine, colorise and scale the listed textures.

Also, I'm pretty sure they are editable : try to extract the two nodes in an ALE file and open it with Notepad : you'll get sometimes readable things !!!
I took the example of the br_capgun01.ale.
Here is the content of the first node.
And the second.

If someone could decode it...

Edited by - Archangel on 8/5/2004 5:48:36 PM

In the data\fx\effects.ini file there are references like this:

[Effect
nickname = gf_co_smallengine02_trail
effect_type = EFT_ENGINE_TRAIL
vis_effect = gf_co_smallengine02_trail
vis_generic = gf_min_smallengine02_trail

Since these are similar to the weapon effect there must be a file somewhere for the engine effects that allow for the color, length of trail, width of trail etc. just like beam_effects.ini for the weapons. I just can't find it yet, but it must be there somewhere. The .ale file would only tell Frellancer what to use. Maybe you do have to change the txm files for this, but it would not be consistent with the way the rest of Freelancer works... of course I have been constantly amazed at the inconsistencies of Freelancer before.

Even so, it seems like you could make a new txm and refer to it in the effects.ini file with a new name, and then in the .ale file with the new name and not mess up the old engine files. That is, just point it toward a new effect without permanently modifying the old effect by copying the old effect as a template and then renaming it and modding it. Then just make a new engine, put it in the goods.ini and equip the ship you want to buy with it as a Mk2 version of the ship, also in the goods.ini file. That way you don't change the original and the npc's won't get them if they use that kind of ship.