Ship creation, TMI...Help!

Mon Oct 16, 2006 7:53 pm by ThePurplePunster

I am a total noob w/FL modding. I am assisting friends to mod by trying to make ships from scratch. I have been going through Dritz 4.0 tut, and have gotten to page 15/16, dealing with the hardpoints. After looking at the first pic in Imagine's Tut, it helped a little by showing me that my external HP needed the black side facing out.

I am seeing conflicting info between the two when it comes to the hardpoints. I did my original design in Gmax, making the ship from the one box. That is group one in Milkshape. Here is a listing of my Groups cuurently created:

Jet (total ship hull, not individually segmented)
(All HP below have the "Hp/Fixed/Hp*name*" as listed in Dritz's Tut. Short ver done for simplicity)
Thruster01 (A segmented face on the tail, as per tut)
Engine01-04 (Triangles slightly away from engine output faces,black side away from ship as above pic)
Scanner (A triangle inside of ship, not touching a face)
Tractor_Source (Same as Scanner)
Mount (The docking HP, same as Scanner and Tractor_Source)

The 4.0 tut says to segment faces for guns,torp, and other HP's. Yet the pic has what I assume to be the Sheild, CM, and M as triangles similar to the engine output.

All these tuts cover perty much the same thing, but in different aspect/perpectives. Who do I believe? Which one will give me the least confusion? I still have to skin this sucker, before I can do any CMP/INI/etc.

Any and all help in sorting this out greatlly appreciated. (Preferably in KISS format)

TPP

Interested in the Power Rangers?
Come visit G’dath @ Lightning Strikes Graphics
www.geocities.com/ls_graphics and "Let the Power protect you!"
Proud Friend of Team [NuB www.teamnub.com
Proud Member of Team [RIP www.ripteam.com

Edited by - ThePurplePunster on 10/16/2006 8:54:11 PM

Edited by - ThePurplePunster on 10/16/2006 8:55:18 PM

Mon Oct 16, 2006 10:42 pm by cheese on toast

If you wanna do the hardpoints u need to use hardCMP as it is the EASIEST way of getting hard points done nowadays

Cheese On Toast:
Like the name
Beware the player

Tue Oct 17, 2006 4:17 am by Bejaymac

*shakes head* How come you didn't take your own advice with that model you sent me.

lol

@ ThePurplePunster, as Cheese has already said use HardCmp to add hardpoints. Those Tut's are old and rather out of date, sub divide faces *Shudder** I don't know what Dritz was thinking when he wrote that.

**shuffles of with a new headache**

Tue Oct 17, 2006 7:20 am by cheese on toast

lol, i did use it but it was only AFTER i had done all the sub dividing and labelling and exporting i had found it LMFAO still flyable just invisible ^^

Cheese On Toast:
Like the name
Beware the player

Tue Oct 17, 2006 9:18 am by Cold_Void

don't use hardcmp to add hardpoints - every time you find a little nagging problem with the model you'll be tempted to go back and re-export it... then you'll realize you have to duplicate all the hardcmp work you've already done.

use hardcmp to _CORRECT_ hardpoints. the exporter won't always get the orientation right, but the position is exact to the sixth decimal point, and usually the orientation is just backwards, ie moving a negative sign from one axises to another usually fixes it perfectly.

Tue Oct 17, 2006 6:51 pm by ThePurplePunster

TY all for replying. But once again, I am getting conflicting info... I want to learn how to do this, but I need guidance. Where do I go from here? Do I go back to GMAX and subdivide/group sections on my ship, then reinport back into Milkshape? (A whole lot easier IMO, MS is a real PITB to work with.) How should I do the HPs then?
Instructions?

Texturing: There are several "Do it this way" tutorials here, plus the teaser in Dritz 4.0's. One even shows how to do it in Photoshop, but one of the pics in it has a reference to a Nvidia Plugin. My Mac, which has photoshop, uses an ATI Card. Is that going to be a prob?

I await your replies, and please, I need KISS type answers.

TPP

Interested in the Power Rangers?
Come visit G’dath @ Lightning Strikes Graphics
www.geocities.com/ls_graphics and "Let the Power protect you!"
Proud Friend of Team [NuB <www.teamnub.com>
Proud Member of Team [RIP <www.ripteam.com>

Tue Oct 17, 2006 7:11 pm by Cold_Void

*grabs your hand, walks you along, applies powder to your bum and applies a new diaper*

"interested in the Power Rangers?"
ugh. nvm

the reason advice may appear to conflict is because you have no idea what we're talking about, yes? so the only option is to actually try the recommendations we give you and see what happens. sorry to act rudely, but i don't see what your problem is other than asking questions about possible problems that you haven't encountered yet. the Nvidia .DDS plugin for photoshop/PSP afaik run fine on ATI cards.

re gmax.. i have no idea. i use milkshape and lithunwrap, and i keep gmax just in case. i don't know what this segmenting crap is about.

texture mapping and texture creation is difficult and requires some proficient skill with graphics editing and texture mapping tools. what i recommend(and bear in mind, i'm not claiming to be a great modeler- but i have built ships and textured them) is starting with a texture that's just a grid - map your model onto it in whatever texturing tool you choose and keep trying different approaches until there's no visible distortion in the grid. group the parts of your mapping in large chunks, eg side, top, side, bottom, all edges touching - this will make drawing your texture easier. in lithunwrap you can export the texture mapping as a bitmap - this is perfect for using as a template (just fill in the lines - of course layers are best)

Edited by - Cold_Void on 10/18/2006 12:07:44 AM

Tue Oct 17, 2006 7:44 pm by ThePurplePunster

CV, this is a request of Assitance, not a flaming of my Sig Message. Please treat it as such.

Thx,
TPP

Interested in the Power Rangers?
Come visit G’dath @ Lightning Strikes Graphics
www.geocities.com/ls_graphics and "Let the Power protect you!"
Proud Friend of Team [NuB <www.teamnub.com>
Proud Member of Team [RIP <www.ripteam.com>

Important Message

You are browsing the archived Lancers Reactor forums. You cannot register or login.
The content may be outdated and links may not be functional.

To get the latest in Freelancer news, mods, modding and downloads, go to
The-Starport