OK, I've got the textures in place and everything but one detail is working: the shield isn't active. It displays in the inventory but no blue bar appears and damage goes directly to the hull. I've searched the forums but can't find an understandable fix for this problem. Any help would be appreciated.

Xbrix,

Have you included a .sur file with it? Other than that can only think you may have left the shield link out of shiparch.ini...:S

Harrier



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

Does anybody have suggestions for the problems that I posted earlier on this page?

What's a .sur file?????

crawfu,

You may have given more details on your model, but I cant find it. It sounds to me as if you have more than one problem. Are your groups listed correctly, with the largest group listed first and your hardpoints listed last? The fact that loadouts change is very strange.. can you be more specific?

Xbrix,

A .sur files is one of the three files freelancer uses and allows a ship to take damage, it also provides the basis for a shield.. take a look at the structure of how Freelancer ships go together.. it consists of a .cmp, .mat and .sur files to complete the structure...

Harrier



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

So do I just copy one of the ship sur files? or is it the _shield.sur file that I need?

Its very unlikely that the sur file is why the shield isn't working. Make sure you have a HpShield01 on the ship and then check that you have both a shield hardpoint and a link declared in the shiparch.ini file (post an example of what you have added to shiparch.ini if you are not sure)

Well I know for certain that I have the hardpoint on the model. I checked it five times for spelling. Here's what I have for the shield link in the shiparch.ini file:

shield_link = l_elite_shield05, HpMount, HpShield01

Not sure what you mean by declaring the hardpoint in shiparch.ini. Also, what are these .3db files that I'm seeing in the ship folders with the other files?

I have a very basic ship design, I took a torus with a narrow diameter, copied it about 4 times, rotating the first 2 copies 60 degrees on one axis, and the second 2 on another axis, then made a geosphere centered on it that only let about half of the torus's show, creating a grid around the sphere. That gave me a square on two sides, the front and back, and a total of 8 triangular spaces on each side. My 2 guns are mounted above the cockpit on each side, my torps are mounted opposite them on the bottom, my turrets are mounted on the center ring, top, bottom, right, and left. My countermeasures and mines are on the back side, all other hardpoints except for my thruster are in the very center (inside) of the ship. The thruster is at the very back. The first model of the ship that I made showed all of the guns mounted, but no thruster or weapons showed up in the equip screen. There weren't even any boxes to mount weapons in.

I was just thinking though, I have the geosphere grouped as the hull and the torus's as "grid" with hull first. The grid is more complex, so I guess it needs to be first instead of the hull and after checking the design, I saw that I have the engine and thruster placed on top of each other, does that affect it?

As I said in one of my earlier posts, I can email the files if you want to take a look at them. I appreciate all teh help you have given on ship modeling, both to myself, and to all the other Freelancers out there.

How do I change which group is first in Milkshape? Also, I am only a couple of days from ending my 30 day trial with Milkshape, any suggestions?

Edited by - crawfu on 11/8/2004 2:05:51 AM

@Xbrix: I mean that you need a:

hp_type = fighter_shield_special_1, HpShield01

or something similar. If you post the contents of your shiparch.ini file entry for your ship then i'll take a look for you

@crawfu: It should work fine if you have the engine and thruster in the same place.

The order of the groups doesn't really matter.

If the trial is about to end, either pay for it, or I could email you...

pSYCHO, Crawfu,

Sorry pSYCHO, I mean you no offence but I disagree with you here

The order of groups is important - if for instance you have a hardpoint listed as the first group in the ms3d file prior to export the cmp file will most likely not work at all.. I have looked at many ship files and find this is a common error.

Secondly all groups must have the texture names the same as the texture that you use, i.e. listed in the material file in milkshape, for example lets say your main texture is plates.tga then the material is listed in the material list in milkshape as plates...

Then I collect all the groups that have the same texture and REGROUP these into one group, starting with the largest common texture group, I then rename this with the model name. Once I have collected the and renamed the groups, I then add my hardpoints listed with HpMount first then all the fixed hardpoints followed by the revolute - as this is the way they are listed in the .cmp by the exporter.

I'll list a typical example below:

1st group - largest - named after the ship name (ie my_ship) This gives the ship an unique name and provided it is done correctly will prevent .cmp confusion
2nd group - next largest (e.g. the wings group)
3rd group - next largest (e.g. the engine group)
4th group - next largest (e.g. the tail group)
5th group - next largest (e.g. cockpit group)
6th group - next largest (e.g. trims)
7th group - glass textures (I list these last as it is one material file that needs to be edited usually)
Hp/Fixed/HpMount
Hp/Fixed/HpEngine01
Hp/Fixed/HpEngine02
Hp/Fixed/HpThruster01
Hp/Fixed/HpThruster02
Hp/Fixed/HpShield01
Hp/Fixed/HpTractor_Source
Hp/Fixed/HpCM01
Hp/Fixed/HpMine01
Hp/Fixed/HpConTrail01
Hp/Fixed/HpConTrail02
Hp/Fixed/HpRunningLight01
Hp/Fixed/HpRunningLight02
Hp/Fixed/HpRunningLight03
Hp/Fixed/HpDockLight01
Hp/Fixed/HpDockLight02
Hp/Fixed/HpDockLight03
Hp/Fixed/HpHeadlight
Hp/Revolute/HpWeapon01
Hp/Revolute/HpWeapon02
Hp/Revolute/HpWeapon03
Hp/Revolute/HpWeapon04
Hp/Revolute/HpWeapon05
Hp/Revolute/HpWeapon06
Hp/Revolute/HpTurret01
Hp/Revolute/HpTorpedo01
Hp/Revolute/HpTorpedo02

Now the engine and thruster can share a common point ..BUT.. the engine hardpoint is the source of the flames you see when flying the ship so I normally place these outside the ship and a little behind with my thruster Hp inside the engine slightly lower and forward of the engine Hp. This way they are not seen although they can go on any surface towards the rear.

The next thing I do is take a sample ship that already exists and is similar to the ship just made and replace the .cmp and .mat files (after renaming the existing ones to .old) then test. Often the weapon/equipment mounts need to be edited as the guns/equipment are upside down or sideways etc.. I do this using templates. If you need these I can easily post them.

One problem that can occur here is the lods may be wrong so I usually either run the FLaddradius tool (by Anton) or set my lods at 0, 9999..

Once all of the above is done, tested, adjusted and edited I then take a shiparch entry that is similar to mine and edit it for the equipment required, also changing things like num_exhaust_nozzles = to suit my model. Followed by a goods.ini entry and a location to sell it.

Now this is the way I do it and it has been arrived at with many past failures, perhaps it is totally wrong, but I rarely have problems.

I will be interested to see the results of your efforts and if I can help further please feel free to email me.


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

I will double-check my textures to make sure they match the file names, what I am unsure of right now is how to rearrange my groups without recreating the whole thing all over again. I forgot about having the first group name match the name of my ship and I know I read it somewhere before, either one of the posts, or Drizzt's tutorial.

As I said before, the LOD works great, I can see my ship in every screen, I just can only see my 2 guns and I can't even try to mount a thruster... one is supposed to be on it but doesn't show and it won't let me buy one either; it says I don't have a free hardpoint for it. Once I find out how to rearrange my groups I will give it another shot and let you guys know the results.

What is an average file size for a ship a little smaller than the one Freelancer starts you out with? I'm wondering if the size of my mod is affecting it? 13+mb for my textures alone... that's what I get for using some of my backgrounds for textures... ;p

Edited by - crawfu on 11/10/2004 6:13:40 AM

Are your textures square? They have to be square or Freelancer won't take them. They also have to be either .tga or .dds format. 13 MB is huge for a .mat, you should try using smaller textures though it probably isnt the reason for the errors.

BANG! , BANG!
Oww my head
I followed your tutorial and i made my ship all code plotted, everything done but when i played my ship invisible it didnt even exist and when i tried to liftoff it crashed, all my work BANG!
What did i miss, what did i do wrong.
the only thing i missed was the infocards because the program you suggested didnt work with my computer.
I bet that was the problem

My squadron is down!, im taking flak!, prepare for landing ARRRGGHHHH!!!