Ah, nothing like having a fine misunderstanding. Hopefully I haven't managed to annoy Parabolix or Redeye with my insane exhausted ramblings too I really should've have set a new record for the use of the word, "crap", either... crap, I did it again!

At any rate, I think we both understand (now) what we're doing, which in my case involves some sleep, and with luck ... not having to answer any hate mail about Alpha 4

Argh,

No problems from mine...

I like you detest the "secrecy issue - for personal kudos" that prevailed when I first joined TLR.. and the superior attitude that some ppl have when it comes to "I did it first.. so its mine and I aint gunna share it with anyone.. and if you do it I'll accuse you of theft" etc et al, that predominated in the early days, irrespective of the fact that it benefited the community as a whole.. There is a lot less of it now thankfully...

A couple of tips on making weapons:

1. Group names ABSOLUTELY MUST be unique - for instance - if you take the same names and apply them for the groups, Base, Body, Barrel etc.. for the next model then the .cmps WILL get confused.. so you need to say call the base a turntable, the body a breech, and the barrel, say muzzle and then think of brand new names for the next one. lol *reaches for the thesaurus* or better yet switch languages... he he.

2. Textures must also be unique or when you go to buy the weapon then it may crash the game when you select it

Harrier



Retreat[![! ---- I'm too badly messed up now[![!

Yeah- here's my list of notes... badly-edited and all... I think I mention the unique naming conventions...

STEPS TO MAKE CUSTOM WEAPONS:

1. Make the gun's turret, and the barrel, in your 3D software. The turret must be one piece, and the barrel another- so group them appropriately at the end of your modeling process.

2. The barrel must be on 0 Y.

3. Make an appropriate skin. Note that you can use one skin for both the barrel and the turret (using UVMapper) and the skin will be usable for both objects. Save the skin as DDS- you cannot use TGA textures on weapon objects.

4. Export the model to Milkshape, and in Milkshape name the turret and the barrel something unique, like "Argh_ballturret_turret" and "Argh_ballturret_barrel". Name the skin something unique, such as "Argh_ballturret_TEX".

5. Export the resulting model as a CMP file.

6. Open up UTF Edit, and use it to open the CMP you've just created. Export the VMESHDATA and VMESHREF as "VMESHDATA" and "VMESHREF", respectively. Put these two files into the same directory as meshconv.exe.

7. Use Meshconv.exe (you must open this via cmd-line, manually) and then run it like this: "meshconv VMESHDATA VMESHREF /g". Tell it that there are 2 parts, and 1 mesh for each part.

8. Now you'll have three new files sitting in the same directory as meshconv.exe: newvdata, meshref01 and meshref02.

9. Open up the working custom weapon file, and import newvdata into the VMESHDATA segment of the file. Rename the "something_something.lod0.vms" to "the name of the CMP you exported.lod0.vms"

10. Import the meshref01 into the first part (usually, this is the turret), and the meshref02 into the second part.

11. Rename the two 3DB files from "whatever they are now" to "the names you assigned the Groups in Milkshape".

12. Last but not least, go into Cmpnd-->Part_BARRELS_lod1-->Object name and change that to the name of the barrel object.

13. Check the CMP file, using HardCMP to view it. If nothing shows up (you should see the model, but it'll be dark gray because it doesn't have a MAT assigned to it yet), then the vmeshrefs are backwards- import meshref01 into the *second* part (usually the barrel) and meshref02 into the turret...

14. Assuming that things are showing up at this point, then use MS3D to import your texture into the CMP file, using the MAT exporter's option to "update an existing CMP, MAT or 3DB". Hopefully, you gave this Material a unique name in the CMP, as stated in the instructions... if not, you have to start OVER FROM THE BEGINNING. Which sucks.

15. Now you have a working weapon... you'll need to open up weapon_equip.ini and alter a weapon's instructions to fit... for example, with the Liberty Justice (li_gun01_mark01), change the following lines:

DA_archetype = equipment\models\weapons\li_heavy_ion_blaster.cmp
material_library = equipment\models\li_equip.mat

to

DA_archetype = equipment\models\weapons\name_of_your_new_weapon.cmp
material_library = equipment\models\weapons\name_of_your_new_weapon.cmp

Note that the archetype and material_library are exactly the same now... this is because we're no longer referencing a MAT file, which keeps things nice and tidy

Edited by - Argh on 11/29/2004 7:24:46 PM

Argh,

Sorry I haven't posted in here with comments on your tute.. however, I needed to go through the whole process myself.. with some new/old weapons that needed to be updated as I had the old .cmp confusion issue I needed to solve, this required that I redo the groups and rename them.... etc.., then re-export them, and do the conversions... it is now early in the morning my time.. and I am tired but I'll try to be brief.

1. The gun must be built with the base located exactly flush with the "Y" axis and centered on the "X" and "Z" axis...
2. there are various renaming actions that need to be done otherwise the bloody things are invisible
3. The additions of pictures explaining the above would be immensly helpful.
4. its a bloody hard thing to do.. lol

My process is the "old way" tho I recognise that there are new tools that are extremely helpful...

I might do another very simple gun and provide some pictures of the process in the utf editor..

Harrier.


Retreat[![! ---- I'm too badly messed up now[![!

Yeah, it's not easy, until you get the hang of having to rename everything. And screenies of the steps in UTF Edit would be extremely useful. HardCMP makes it relatively easy to understand the steps, and the CMP/MAT Exporters make it relatively easy to implement them. I'll be going back through the steps today (today, I'm working on some of the new custom guns I needed to implement), so I'll be double-checking everything...