X-man and Thazell, I know i'm not the one to be giving much advice an modeling but I believe you should be able to do it easily. Import your model into milkshape. Then select the face you want to add your hardpoint to. Then use the face tool to devide that face by 3 or 4 (make sure you rotate the faces so they all are facing ooutward like they are supposed to). Repeat til you have as small a face as you need. Duplicate the face and rename and texure it as you want. Repeat the proccess til you're done. Then export the model or save the new model, update the script and you're on your way. The details on how to do each step is covered in both this thread as well as in a couple of other forums in TLR. I believe one is called Noob questions done by Chips, also a thread for modifying existing FL ships already in game. Just check the main forum list or do a search of the various forums for adding hardpoints. Hope that helps.

"we wish for one last landing in the land that gave us birth, to rest our eyes on the fleecey skies, and the cool green hills of earth" - 'Noisy' Rhysling

hardpoints eh,

There is avery simple method of making hardpoints.

Editing/adding existing hardpoints in a freelancer model is another ball of wax entirely and as mentioned there are several threads that contain info on doing this. Both the methods mention above work but I may have an easier method for imported or new models.

Go to the model window in MilkShape and select "vertex" then the top view - normally bottom left window. Make 3 vertex's in approximately an equilateral triangle, Then go to "face" and connect the faces.. one triangle - one hardpoint made. Scale to suit, rename, move into position, copy and either mirror or move to suit. Hardpoints MUST be listed after the ship groups.. failure to do this will result in a .cmp that does not work

The centre of the triangle is the actual hardpoint and it doesnt really matter what plane it is in but I like to start in the "y" plane.

Since so many people have trouble with these I will upload a complete or nearly so ms3d file to TLR.. Simply use this file, merge with your model file save as the model file and move the hardpoints into position..

once I have done this I will be back to provide a link.

junior1210.. Happy to help out dont worry that your textures are not so good they cannot be as bad as some of the shockers I made myself when I first started.. modelling is comparitively easy, texturing is hard..

Edit: the hardpoint file can be downloaded: Here


Harrier.



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

Edited by - harrier on 8/18/2004 6:41:30 PM

Actually Harrier I think I found one of the problems. One of the mods I'm having trouble with I think I may have had the groups in the wrong order. Gotta check to be sure. I hate debugging, that's why I never learned any languages after BASIC. lol

"we wish for one last landing in the land that gave us birth, to rest our eyes on the fleecey skies, and the cool green hills of earth" - 'Noisy' Rhysling

After parsing the forums again, figured I should say that some of the questions coming up lately can be answered by going to the general editing forum and go to the thread that says "please read! posting info and moding information thread. it's got it all!!!" by Chips. That's where I go to find misc. info. Not trying to chase anybody off, just figure that it's easier to look there than wait for somebody to answer a question mabey 2 or 3 days later.

"we wish for one last landing in the land that gave us birth, to rest our eyes on the fleecey skies, and the cool green hills of earth" - 'Noisy' Rhysling

Junior,

I try to be here as often as I can, unfortunately life interferes.... as you know

Harrier


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

Oh no,no,no Harrier. I'm no trying to flame anybody or give a hard time. I just meant to say why wait for an answer when it's already available a couple mouse clicks away. I apologize if it sounded like a dig at you or any of the other folks who have been so kind as to help noob's like me.

On a different tact, I have a new question; I finally got one of my models working but there's some minor problems. 1)the ship is upside down, 2) ship is sideways and flies that way as well, 3) the engine flare is 90 degrees to the left of the ship but since the ship is upside down and sideways the flare is right and the ship is wrong. But the tex's are right the ship is flyable and the weapons fire.4) the second thruster isn't appearing and is unbuyable but the slot is there. Any help is appreciated as this ship will get posted to the reactor when the bugs get worked out. The ship is an armored transport 0/14 guns, class 10 shield, 400cargo space, twin thrusters(hopefully), 2 T/CD, fighterlike handling for those would be pirates.

"we wish for one last landing in the land that gave us birth, to rest our eyes on the fleecey skies, and the cool green hills of earth" - 'Noisy' Rhysling

junior1210,

My first ship flew backwards... .....

One question: in milkshape, when you right click in the 3d window and "reset view" is the model upside down with the pointy end facing you..?

To me it sounds like you don't have it on the right plane....

Harrier.





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

Thx Harrier I'll try it and see what happens. Not sure why It would move like that but I'll work with it.

"we wish for one last landing in the land that gave us birth, to rest our eyes on the fleecey skies, and the cool green hills of earth" - 'Noisy' Rhysling

Yeah that was it. now the problem is I have to redo all the hardpoints cause they show when I imported the model back into MS. Is there any way to accurately tell scale in FL? Fighter size is fine but I have a couple of freighter class ships I either make super huge or silly small.

"we wish for one last landing in the land that gave us birth, to rest our eyes on the fleecey skies, and the cool green hills of earth" - 'Noisy' Rhysling

Ok here's another question I don't remember seeing anywhere else; got a ship that's buyable, visible, close to the right size, and flyable but the wepons don't fire. Any advice on this one?

"we wish for one last landing in the land that gave us birth, to rest our eyes on the fleecey skies, and the cool green hills of earth" - 'Noisy' Rhysling

junior1210,

Is there anyway to tell scale accurately in fl? Yes...

I keep on about this but will say it again. Import the pilot figure from fl..DO NOT rescale it... then scale your SHIP irrespective of SIZE to the pilot figure. A freighter, fighter or battleship.. it makes no difference, build the ship around the pilot figure.. once happy scale in x,y,z by a factor of 100 ... it should be spot on for Freelancer.

If the weapons dont fire at all, then it may be hardpoint orientataion. do the weapons fire at all? in any direction? try turret view and see if they will fire.. if they do but wont fire forward.. it is more than likely the hardpoint orientation... if not.. are your hardpoints listed last in the ms3d file?

For hardpoint orientation I use some templates provided by Glock 36 that has helped me many times.. I include those templates here..Although you need to edit the .cmp and edit the orientation values in utf

this is a gun right side up facing forward:

1.000000
0.000000
0.000000
0.000000
1.000000
0.000000
0.000000
0.000000
1.000000

This is a gun right side up facing backwards

-1.000000
0.000000
0.000000
0.000000
1.000000
0.000000
0.000000
0.000000
-1.000000

This is a gun facing upside down and backwards

1.000000
0.000000
0.000000
0.000000
-1.000000
0.000000
0.000000
0.000000
-1.000000

This is a gun facing upside down and forwards

-1.000000
0.000000
0.000000
0.000000
-1.000000
0.000000
0.000000
0.000000
1.000000


These are the main ones only.. there are other methods of controlling the direction of fire forward/backwards , 360 degrees etc...mines and cms face forward but fire backwards and I dont include those.

Does this help?

Harrier





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

Sorry Harrier, I must have mised your post on scaling. I have the hardpoint d/l and i'll try it. As for Hp orentation, do you mean placement? that is to say is the problem that they may be placed in a bad spot so they would fire through the ship or something similar?

"we wish for one last landing in the land that gave us birth, to rest our eyes on the fleecey skies, and the cool green hills of earth" - 'Noisy' Rhysling

HI YALL!!! GUESS WHOS BACK!!!!!!!!

Man its been tooo long.....

i wont be replying to fast:
1. cause im a little rusty
2. cause im married and being a husband is a full time job.

but im going to try my best to reply ASAP and help harrier out again... Thank you man for steppin in.

I dont have my copy of studio MX anymore so until i can find my copy again ill be using gmax converting to quake 3 mods and converting again to ms3d. I miss that program so much and while some would say its crazy to invest in such a POWERFUL program i would recomend it 10 times out of 9 lol.

also... i need to find my copy of acrobat and until i do i wont be able to update my tutorial... so bare with me.

on a side note i missed modeling so much after my accident that im goin to be modeling like crazy and posting pics anytime i come up with somethin cool...

peace be with you.
drizzt4.0
*jerry*

oh yeah... just noticed that my tut has grossed 3000 DOWNLOADS WOOHOO!!!

granted half of those downloads happened the FIRST NIGHT IT WAS AVAILABLE!!!
WOOHOO again...
sorry im just excited to be back!

Edited by - Drizzt4.0 on 8/30/2004 1:28:31 PM

drizzt4.0,

Glad to see you back, hope all is well in your life and that you find your lost stuff.

Happy to help out if you still need it.

Harrier


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