Applying New Textures - Things I've tried for my ship (to spare others the pain)

[Vash_the_Stampede]

http://savefile.com/files/1907199 those are the main tex's more i dont have now becouse i have them lost whit the burn out of my psu and hd's

[aXeL_UK]

Ok these three dds files appear to be corrupted. I can't load them with anything: In Max I get the same error as you:

saphira_body.dds
witchblade_logo.dds
Witchblade_name.dds

The rest go into PShop and Max just fine although three of them are just blank colours. Think you'll need to start again with the broken ones. Even explorer wouldn't see them in thumbnail mode...

[aXeL_UK]

Still lots to do, not least find out why the self illumination isn't working for non-mapped areas and why I can see through some maps despite telling 3DS to map both sides. And of course, edit the scene files... notice the Skiron gun turrets floating free! But hey this is my first ship into an X Game

[ external image ]

Any mission director gurus who would like to design an expedition where this can be recovered as a prize? Of course the mission would have to be a B***h ....and bug free

[Vash_the_Stampede]

Oke so i have still much to learn about to make the .dds file right.....

As for you scene file i can help you..... Its not that hard as it looks. As you open your scene file in note and see a line like this:

P 21; B ships\props\Hugeturret_dummy; C 3; N Bships\props\Hugeturret_dummy_3-01; b
{ 0x2002; 327307; -35125; -419137; 0.250000; 0.000000; 1.000000; 0.000000; 3333; 1; } // 1
{ 0x2002; 327307; -35125; -419137; 0.250000; 0.000000; 1.000000; 0.000000; -1; -1; } // -1

(name's are different then you will see)
Change the first 3 set's of numbers:

327307; -35125; -419137;

The first set is in easy way to say "up" if you add a "-" in front it will be "down".
As for the second: right and whit a "-" is left
For the third: front and whit "-" is back.

I have done this alot on many ships and the fastest way to get it right (for me that is so i have learnt to get a weapon position change or even a weapon model change. In the beginning its a little frustrating, but after a while you know what to do....... Ohw and btw the last four sets you can set the facing of the turret (even make a little larger, but that i dont do much)

I hope it will help you whit this strange turret position:

[aXeL_UK]

Thanks Vash. The main issue with my scene file is that I've not bothered with it yet. I may forgo the turrets since the Whitestar doesn't have any, however it does have 14 forward facing guns and can turn on a penny!

Have you got any object parts that you've coloured but without using maps? I have a few faces I just want to colour so I deleted the map (not the shader) and just applied a colour to the polygon but it doesn't render in the game.

How are your dds files coming?

[enenra]

Any chance you could post the tutorials you wrote about in your first post? I'm currently trying to get as much informations on textures as possible to write a general tutorial about modding and that includes textures as well.

[Vash_the_Stampede]

Well i have send the orginal .tga file's to a mate of my. Maybe he get them good for use in max and in the game and otherwise i really need some help to get good .dds file's i have lookt for a good tutorial but cant find them yet

[aXeL_UK]

Any chance you could post the tutorials you wrote about in your first post? I'm currently trying to get as much informations on textures as possible to write a general tutorial about modding and that includes textures as well.

enenra,

I could give you some notes now but they're a mess and might only make sense to me. I will tidy them up properly when I've fixed some glitches with the Whitestar textures but that will be a few weeks. If I pass them over I have no problem with you including them for the benefit of others. I'll post some 'top texture tips' today, including a list of tools and where I got them.

[aXeL_UK]

Well i have send the orginal .tga file's to a mate of my. Maybe he get them good for use in max and in the game and otherwise i really need some help to get good .dds file's i have lookt for a good tutorial but cant find them yet

Vash, are you using Observe's DDS 2.1 converter?

[Vash_the_Stampede]

Yes i do use the DDS 2.1 convertor

[aXeL_UK]

OK, are you leaving all the settings on defaults? That worked for me. Don't get tempted to go into 'Options' and start tweaking. Put a big piece of masking tape on the screen over that button and write on it 'NO' or 'NR' in your case!

DDR works very well as a 'sausage factory' if you put ordinary jpgs, bmps, etc. through them. If your textures don't go through them, as I had with one of mine, it turned out that the texture was a 'grey scale' tga file which is no good. Needs to be RGB. I put the tga into photoshop, turned it into 32bit RGB, saved it as jpg and voila - DDR was fine with it then and it's now in the game.

[Vash_the_Stampede]

Oke thanks for the info will try first then (when i have cleant my house )

*UPDATE*

Still no use i can see the details as from befor but still no colour whats so ever....... I beginning to think that re-tex isnt my thing at all.......

[aXeL_UK]

Some general texture tips, in no particular order

NB. All the tools I use for TC graphics modding and my messy notes for 3DS Max are lumped together here:

[/url]http://www.savefile.com/files/1910148[url] If any of the files complain about X3 ... here at: [/url]www.x3mod.com There are some excellent tips at x3dm ... , I will.

[aXeL_UK]

Oke thanks for the info will try first then (when i have cleant my house )

*UPDATE*

Still no use i can see the details as from befor but still no colour whats so ever....... I beginning to think that re-tex isnt my thing at all.......

Is this using the texures (the working ones) you already sent me?

Can you give me the bod file your applying them to?

[Vash_the_Stampede]

I will pm you the stuff.... And there are still the older .dds file's in it.

[enenra]

Great, thanks axel.

[jlehtone]

I hope you don't mind that the "Tutorials and Resources" sticky now includes:
[2008-12-01] Applying textures by smbh
[2008-12-01] Texture tips by aXeL_UK

[aXeL_UK]

I hope you don't mind that the "Tutorials and Resources" sticky now includes:
[2008-12-01] Applying textures by smbh
[2008-12-01] Texture tips by aXeL_UK

Not at all, be nice if someone felt the urge to tidy it up so us creative types can move on...

[Vash_the_Stampede]

Ineed i dont mind at all evry help is always welcom if i have a problem

[Ravenholme]

Any luck Vash?