beginners questions

Sun Dec 03, 2006 7:43 am by Cold_Void

1. bingo but its also because those scripts work on different files - when they conflict though, the XML code usually works anyway and appends everything fine.
2. i have no idea- are the two groups named uniquely, and are your textures uncompressed targas/DXT1-5 DDS's?
3. there's no tutorial - just remember to select 'float array' as your edit mode,
opacity can be changed by opening the 'Oc' node in the .mat and editing the float value, 1.000000 is opaque and 0.000000 is totally transparent.

btw, if you're concerned about the polycount impacting game performance, you can reduce it quickly with the DirectX Mesh Tool, simply drag the slider to the left and when you have the desired polycount click the save work button. then export this lower poly model as lod1, (cmp exporter version 0.3!) and add another LOD range to your INI. 0, # is the range your Lod0 is displayed in- #, # the next(Lod1) and so on. low polycount gets less noticeable the farther away you are, and at 10k (SP/Dev's limit breaking hacks only) every small ship is just a few pixels or less. i'd recommend using a range setup like 0, 1000, 5000 with full polys at less than 1k, and half that beyond 1k - of course all this depends on the size of the model, and polycount - a high poly capital ship model in the 5000-7000 range usually has four LODs or more.

getting farther off topic, using the new LOD capabilities in the exporter and the multiple-mesh export you can make a ship with ten thousand polys and a scale-mile long that will only display a quarter or less of those polygons at near distances - because the engine is smart enough to use the given LODranges on a per-part basis, meaning that a 5000 poly part on the other side of the ship will render a lower LOD(and less polys) than the same part on the near side, if it's setup properly of course.

Sun Dec 03, 2006 8:25 am by Leopard2A6

Thanks for that, but i can definitively exclude poly count as reason for the problem, all my ship models have just about 2000-4000 polys.

I also can exclude the textures, as i use the same texture (tga 24bit uncompressed) on other groups of the ship and there they're shown properly!
The groups are named unique. To avoid doubled names i allways use the three first letters of the ships name at the beginning of the groups names. E.g.: ships name is "Gepard", so all the groups names start with "Gep", then i go further with the ships part, e.g. "Gep_wing", then i add the side "Gep_wingR", and so on.

Concerning the transparency: all i have to do is to open the mat with UTF and set the oc node to the desired value??? And then i have transparent cockpit glass?
There's a tut posted by argh, and there he described the process of making transparency on models much more complicate than you told me, and i don't fully understand it, that's why i'm asking like a fool.
All my textures in UTF only have Dt_flag, Dt_name, and Type. Do i have to add the oc node manually, or do i have to use the ending "glass" in the materials name (like argh described)?
I have no clue where to start making transparent glass. Should i prepare the texture as transparent, or is it enough to use the transparency slider in Milkshape, or even just changing the oc node with UTF, or alltogether???
It would be very helpful if you could give me a short tut about that. I don't expect you to go step by step how to use the applications and stuff, just where to start and pointing out the important steps, you know?
I would appreciate very very much.

Edited by - Leopard2A6 on 12/3/2006 8:47:02 AM

Sun Dec 03, 2006 9:22 am by Cold_Void

name your cockpit material something-something_glass - having glass in there tells the material exporter to use a default glass opacity setting for that material

complex glass - using a DDS or TGA with an alpha channel, you can replace your usually plain glass with a normal texture(alpha channel forms the see-through part of the glass), so you could apply cockpit-struts as decals, or put a fixed target-reticle in the center of the cockpit interior model's glass, etc. the glass-export feature in milkshape does not support textured glass so therefore, you must manually add the dt_name and dt_flags(copy from int mode) nodes to glass, or export your glass texture as a normal material and add an 'Oc' node, as well as changing the 'Type' from DcDt to DcDtOcOt

all in all freelancer supports approximately 15 different material types from emissive textures and environment maps to detailmaps and animated textures, so it's no suprise the exporter-support is almost nonexistant

Mon Dec 04, 2006 3:16 am by Leopard2A6

Ok, got it, thanks for that.
Last night i accidently managed to have glass on my cockpit window without reading your reply. I think glass should be glass, so i won't use textures on it.
But good to know what possibilities there are.
But what about glowing materials? After i accidently made my glass i tried to use that knowledge for making some glowing cockpit interiors, like monitors, buttons, etc., but it doesn't worked, so what's the difference between glass and glowing things?

By the way, fixed that "only few groups invisible", just by regrouping.

Finally i got my mod working properly, good feeling. But there are plenty things i could improve, e.g. the glowing things i mentioned, and most important, the sur. file. I don't really have the nerve to create custom sur.files, i don't even get the sur Exporter working because it's a source code and i 'm a noobie and have absolutely no idea how to install it! So i think i will use native FL sur. files and resize them, i think that should be enough for the purpouse. For this i need to use the FL model tool, don't i? Unfortunately i can't find it in here, do you know where a download link for this is?

And besides all that, many many thanks for your patience, you guys "saved my life"! If i wouldn't have been able to finish this i would have gone crazy.

Wed Dec 06, 2006 10:14 pm by flybyu

Leopard2A6 can you show us a screenshot?

"It doesn’t matter what universe you’re from. That’s got to hurt!"

Mon Dec 11, 2006 9:08 am by Leopard2A6

sure, i'll try to post a screenshot. But as i said several times before, i'm a noobie, not just in modding but also with computer things in common, so it could take a while untill you can see my ship.
Where is the best place to post a screenshot? May i post it here because i was asked for?

Hey guys, how do i post a screenshot in here???
I read the rules and regs, there's something about "yourmainimagedomain", but i don't have a website. Do i need one to be able to post images in here???

Edited by - Leopard2A6 on 12/21/2006 8:09:46 AM

Thu Dec 21, 2006 9:05 am by H.Q. Victor

Get a free hosting site, http://photobucket.com/ . Open your screen shot in MS Paint, choose "Save as" and make it a JPEG as it is smaller in size. Upload to Photobucket, copy and paste the link in a thread. When posting, codes are on the left side of the box. {url=www.whatever.com} picy{/url}

Substitute [ for {

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