Not really sure what's the question, but you want invisible engine?
If that's the case, then in the file: data\equipment\engine_equip.ini
make new nomad engine, but then delete the 3 lines:
<pre><font size=1 face=Courier>flame_effect =
trail_effect =
trail_effect_player =
</font></pre>

For invisible ship, just delete .mat file; no mat file, no texture, nothing shows up. Well, only guns, thrusters, and shields show up

For invisible thrusters and shields, in the file data\equipment\st_equip.ini
make new nomad thrusters & shields, but then delete the line
material_library = equipment\models\ku_equip.mat

The idea is to delete all the .mat files, no texture, nothing shows up

Edited by - buckaroobanzai on 7/28/2004 11:53:18 AM

can it be a LOD problem?

It's not an LOD problem, Supersnipa...It has the same LOD that Shipscripter puts for all the ships and none have done this before, but thanks for the thought

@Buckaroobanzai - No, i do NOT want an invisible ship, i want my CURRENTLY invisible ship to be VISIBLE

I have now redone everything except the mesh on this ship, and it still is invisible, and i'm stumped. So let me know if you want details, and i'll get them to you, because this one is a crazy weird problem. Also, i should mention that in the ship dealer 3d window (the little window where you can rotate the ship) you can SEE the ship, but the textures are all wacky looking. Everywhere else the ship is invisible except for the engines (the guns are invisible because i used the nomad laser..which i wanted invisible).

Thanks for any help, it's much appreciated.

baene,

How did you make your .mat file? by hand or using the .mat file exporter?

I was in a hurry to get a ship out so I used the .mat file exporter.. and got a similar result to what you describe. textures all over the place. I redid the .mat file by hand and presto!, ship displayed correctly, where previously the textures did not exist (grey ship). I have since seen another instance of the exact same problem.. redid the .mat file by hand and again the problem dissappeared. Now I am not saying the .mat file exporter is faulty.. but I did notice that in both cases that the ms3d directory contained both .tga and .dds files., and that the exporter seems to prefer the .tga files.

I am happy to help out if I can, if you wish - zip the files and email them to me and I will take a look.

Harrier


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

Thanks for the reply, Harrier, and yes, i do them using the .mat exporter...If i were to do them all by hand i'd be at it forever hehe, with more chances for mistakes...And as i said, this is the first time out of over 100 ships that i've had this problem, but i am thinking that it HAS to be the .mat file, since i've changed everything else, and only re-exported the .mat file, but the same exact thing happens. I'll zip up the textures (only 3 on this one) along with the model and the .mat file, just to be safe...THANK YOU!

one question, for your ship, are you trying to have a transparent texture for the entire outside exterior of your ship? And by transparent I mean setting the opacity levels for the layers in photoshop and not by editing of the mat?

This is just a thaught... is there in anyway all your model faces are black or reversed. if not, also not the LOD, it could be your MAT... can i peak too.

one question... is that the npc ship and you are not using the ship...

OR it could be a typo error in your shiparch entry

---

a message from firebase...

---

BTW... is your texture in TGA or in DDS <---check it the mat exporter might have been confused for the first time... or just forgotten to FLIP your texture.

Edited by - Sun Striker on 7/28/2004 9:00:46 PM

Baene,

It is fixed... lol.

Email on way..

Harrier


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

Thanks for all the replies, guys.

@BL - I tried it the only two ways i know, and since i don't know much about editing the .mat by hand, i used a dodgy way first, and i thought that was my problem - I changed group names on the mesh to have glass_hull etc...So the mat exporter would make them transparent for me on its own (i know, dodgy heh) So i honestly thought that was the problem at first, i figured it just didn't work for some reason. So, i went and remade textures in PS and set the opacity there that i wanted, but still and inviso ship, so i went to a totally different set of textures, unrelated to what i was doing that i KNEW worked, and still no luck, during this time, i would delete and just re-export both the .cmp and .mat file, just to be safe...then i went and made triple sure the shiparch and goods were right, and that i hadn't misspelled something. I tried all MANNER of things, then Harrier offered his help, and i sent off the model to him, and he has fixed it...i am just waiting for it now

@ Firebase - No, it wasn't the game model, it was one i made...just a honestly simple model for the mod, nothing like my other newest creations I knew it wasn't inverted faces, because i've been doing this long enough now to spot when that happens (i keep the model in flat shaded view while creating, which, in Milkshape, gives away inverted faces immediately). So i seriously tried everything i knew, then sent it off to Harrier the MAN He said my .mat file was all hosed up for some reason...He probably told me exactly why, but i'm tired hehe. It's odd too, i've been using the mat exporter for MS on over 100 models i've made, and this is the honest first time this has happened. Just FUBAR on the mat file. Over and over lol, i must have made 20 new mat files for it, all messed up for some reason. I've since used the exporter on 4 more new models and not one problem has occured, since that one ship lol.

Anyway, thanks for the help and offers guys, i KNEW if i came here with the problem it would get solved

Baene

well keep in mind if you use the mat exporter and you have the word glass anywhere in your texture name, it rather then using your texture will have a completely made up ingame freelancer one. Aka, it doesn't set the opacity for your models texture, it doesn't even load that texture into the mat, rather it uses a kinda default freelancer glass... so in other words never do this to your entire ship, only for cockpit glass, and only if your cockpit glass is a stand alone texture without anything else in it (differing opacities).

Another thing which occasionally happens when dealing with transparencies used in .dds or targa format which I've seen a number of times, is it causes a kinda peep hole where you can look through your entire ship when looking through that glass texture. An odd thing, not entirely sure why it happens but I do know how to fix it when it happens, I always just select the cockpit's group in milkshape and just press regroup, then reweld, re export, and no longer have the effect caused by looking through a transparent texture to look through the rest of the ships mesh (maybe something to do with the order it reads in the meshs). I've only seen this happen occasionally with cockpits, which are a small part of the ship, so has never induced the entire ship to be invisible, but it could still be possible in regards to your model if your entire ship is trying to be transparent.

Make sure all your textures are random names which you have never used before, make sure none contain the word glass in them, and regroup the parts of your ship which are to be transparent, re export everything and see what happens.

Transparency seems to work weird in FL. Harrier got the hull for my nomad ship transparent, BUT you can't see any of the inner-workings i put inside the hull for some reason Just - odd.

Thanks for the tips, BL, it's much appreciated

dude this is from a guy using your ships in a mod and a fellow modler.
make sure that the modle is centered on the gride. trust me that pissed me off the first ship i made if the center of the ship is not in the camara it wont show it. the other stuff might show but no ship. lol.
and make sure that the ship has some textures. yea i did that once. that was funny.

later


p.s dont look behind u

Could you post a pic of .mat file structure in UTF editor showing the flags for the problem material (or send it via e-mail.)?

I have found that if you try to add transparency to a material that contains a texture the faces that reference that material will not appear in-game. Nothing I have tried will work so it seems that FL will not allow it.

Edited by - PantherX on 9/8/2004 5:03:45 PM

Tehre is a program, FLAddRadius for download on this site. It actually fixed the problem that custom made ships disappear when their center is out of view. Just download the program and let it run over you cmp. Works great for me.