or you could use XVI32 to open the .3db, search for the CRC flmodelcloner gave you, and replace it with a newly generated one - just thought of that, should work fine with no middle steps like importing exporting. if you are willing to search for more details there is a very old tute or thread somewhere here, about manually cloning models (pre-flmodelcloner) using this approach.

yep also a good way to do that

I just had a memory popping up from somewhere deep in my subconscious: there is an excellent older tutorial about how to make new icons for commodities. If I remember right it was actually about ship icons but you could apply it to commodity 3db's too. It might very well be working fine too for the NavMap 3db's.

But I just came home from a late shift, and have a day**** tomorror, so I'll try it out later.

If you want to clone a 3DB then forget about FLModelcloner and milkshape, and stick to hex editing them, the cloner and CMP importer can't read the VMS format that's used in most of them, and the fact that a lot of the NAVMAP 3DBs you want to clone don't have VMESHDATA nodes (no model) means you won't be able to clone or import them in any case. They have a VMESHREF instead, this is nothing more than a "goto" that says use this setting with the VMESHDATA from model X, unfortunately finding model X will probably be a long task, unless your any good at reversing CRCs, what I can tell you is that they appear to use the same VMESHLIBRARY as here's the CRC for it "0x1351B6D4".
The "spritesheet5.tga" only holds a fraction of the textures as I've pulled the textures out quite a few of the NAVMAP 3DBs.

Does anybody know how to fix the wireframes that the cloner breaks, and if not do you want to know how it's done.

**shuffles off with a new headache**

well ive created a new 3db with the cloner and it works
if you dont like that way or dont think that it will work ok... ive done what i wanted to do

Bejay please enlighten us -> i'm sure lots of people including me could use such info

OP-R8R I can only go on personal experience bud, I've tryed to clone/import almost every 3DB & CMP at some stage and have learned (the hard way) what works and what doesn't for me. Take damage parts as an example, some will import as garbage or the importer throws up an error when it trys to read the 3DB. The cloners no different, there's either nothing visible in Freelancer/Hardcmp or it's so badly corrupted they crash Freelancer/Hardcmp when you use them.

Cold_Void it's pretty simple really, the VWIRE can't find the VMESHLIBRARY that it needs, so all that's needed is to change the reference. The reason nobodys found it yet is all down to locating the reference, you and I have an advantage as we're using the new version of UTF_Edit, and can dump the MESH, REF & WIRE data to a text file, it's in these that you'll find the CRC for the VMESHLIBRARY.

I'm writting a Tutorial on General Cloning and some special methods that I've discovered, but I suck at Tutorials (and English but being a Scot who cares) so it's taking forever to write.

Enough teasing here's how it's done.

For this you'll need UTF_Edit (any version), CRC Calc (check the d/l's) and a decent hex editor.

I'll be using the "Dagger" (bw_fighter.cmp) for this as that's what I was working on at the time I discovered this.

Open the original in UTF_Edit and expand the VMESHLIBRARY node, you'll see 3 nodes that end in "lod0-112.vms", "lod1-112.vms" & "lod2-112.vms", it's the "data.ships.border_world.bw_fighter.bw_fighter.lod2-112.vms" that we want, click on the name to select it then click again to edit it, right click the name and "copy" it. Open CRC Calc and paste the name into it, copy down the Hex CRC that you get for it (in this case that's F9 93 6C 82),now open the clone in UTF_Edit and copy your "lod2-112.vms" name, paste it in CRC and write down the CRC for this one to (mine is F5 19 7D 3E). Before you close UTF_Edit take note of how many 3db nodes there are in the CMP (Dagger has 7) as you'll need this in a minute.
Before you open the clone in your hex editor you need to know that CRC's are reversed in the CMPs, that means that F9 93 6c 82 is actually 82 6C 93 F9 and my F5 19 7D 3E becomes 3E 7D 19 F5, now you can open it and do a search for the original reversed CRC and you'll find one for each of the 3db nodes you counted earlier, replace them with the second reversed CRC and save your CMP.

Some of the ships have more than 3 nodes in the VMESHLIBRARY but I believe that "Lod2" is the one used in them all, but until I check them all I can't verify that.

That's it, nice and simple and here's the finished version.

**shuffles off with a new headache**

Edited by - Bejaymac on 7/29/2007 8:02:08 AM

maybe we just do something different
i mean in one of my development folders i even have a custom ship model in 3db (atm i cant even remember how i created it but it does work)

maybe different versions of tools handle stuff different and maybe there is the "problem"

OPER8R, Care to share how you did this? This would help a number of us out a lot.

Requiem: A Total FL Conversion Mod .

well i tried above
but it looks like it would be better if create some of those files and submit them to LR for download