Help for getting ships in X3:TC

[Anubitus]

hi,

i totally love the Freelancer game ship designs and was looking for a mod or something to put these ships in our beloved x3 game.. didnt find a thing.. (only have this luxery liner in my game.. it was in a mod i dont remember the name of..)

[ external image ]

i realy love the liberty ships and the order battleship the osiris, and as the above ship is already converted to x3:TC, i take it its possible to do this..

[ external image ]

[ external image ]


so i was thinking, i am going to try and do it myself.. only problem is, i havent got the slightest idea how to start with this..

i downloaded gmax, DBOX, YAGG and a few other little tools to help me get started but i dont know how to use the YAGG and DBOX proggies with gmax or how to export the model from freelancer to get it into gmax.. can anyone pls help me get started..?

try explaining it the way u would to a two year old cos i am pretty new to modeling and importing/exporting stuff.. only have a little experience with a program called Bryce 5 and blender..
im not asking to do the work for me, only for some explenation as for how to get this done..

if i can get the osiris done, i will try to make a full shippack as a thank you to our community..

i rly hope somebody is willing to help me with this little project of mine..

thanks in advance

[mace24de]

hi,

i totally love the Freelancer game ship designs and was looking for a mod or something to put these ships in our beloved x3 game.. didnt find a thing.. (only have this luxery liner in my game.. it was in a mod i dont remember the name of..)

[ external image ]

i realy love the liberty ships and the order battleship the osiris, and as the above ship is already converted to x3:TC, i take it its possible to do this..

[ external image ]

[ external image ]


so i was thinking, i am going to try and do it myself.. only problem is, i havent got the slightest idea how to start with this..

i downloaded gmax, DBOX, YAGG and a few other little tools to help me get started but i dont know how to use the YAGG and DBOX proggies with gmax or how to export the model from freelancer to get it into gmax.. can anyone pls help me get started..?

try explaining it the way u would to a two year old cos i am pretty new to modeling and importing/exporting stuff.. only have a little experience with a program called Bryce 5 and blender..
im not asking to do the work for me, only for some explenation as for how to get this done..

if i can get the osiris done, i will try to make a full shippack as a thank you to our community..

i rly hope somebody is willing to help me with this little project of mine..

thanks in advance

Great -.-, you want a guide on "How to be Michelangelo from the scratch". Gmax especially 3dsmax are hardcore moddeling tools and you have to go through tons of tutorials, before you can even think about building something like this, not to mention the G.I.M.P or Photoshop tutorials for proper textures. There are a lot of custom ships in X and this might give the impression that you can build a starship with five clicks, this is obviously not the case.

No one in this forum will take your hand and show you how to build a starship, if you are truly interested in modeling you should start with something easy, maybe a train http://www.vmbollig.de/msts/tut_en/index.html, you should also look for other written or video tutorials on youtube etc. You also have to familiarize yourself with X modding http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=216693 otherwise you won't get the ship in the game

Once you've got an idea on how to build a model, you can take a look at other models or maybe start with Kitbashing(Kitbashing or model bashing is a practice whereby a new scale model is created by taking pieces out of commercial kits or starships of other authors. However, if you want to release it you need the permission of the author). You can take a look at Cadius mod http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=269847 to get an impression, what Kitbashing is.

DBOX2 and YAGG are pretty easy to use and self-explanary. The included help file in DBOX explains everything you need to know, if you don't understand something you can ask in the DBOX thread.

[The-Last-Communist]

the game was no way near as good as X (sins x2 came out) but the ships where nice i would love the bretish ships in game (britania or somthing)

[Anubitus]

thanks for the reply..

i was not going to make ships from scratch (yet), i just want to be able to convert the freelancer ships to x3:tc for use by the comunity.. thats all for now.. since the shipsmodels are already there, there is no need (i think) to make em from scratch.. just need to know how to import them to gmax, and how to export them to something x3:tc can use.. how to use gmax, i will learn in the process.. or thats the idea..

"No one in this forum will take your hand and show you how to build a starship"

i know that, i wasnt asking for that.. just some pointers in the right direction.. just some information how to convert the existing models.. i ve been looking for answers for some time now, if somebody has them, why not share them instead of letting me search all over the web.. thought we was here to help eachother..

[mace24de]

i know that, i wasnt asking for that.. just some pointers in the right direction.. just some information how to convert the existing models.. i ve been looking for answers for some time now, if somebody has them, why not share them instead of letting me search all over the web.. thought we was here to help eachother..

Sorry, if my post sounded rude, but there are a lot of people who are looking for an idiot who makes their stuff.

I haven't shared my stuff with you because, the tutorials i'm using are not suitable for you, besides i don't keep track of every tutorial i used and if i don't know something or it is unclear i google it, most of the time i find what i wanted to know.

You need to search all over the net, because some tutorials won't cover what you need to know at certain times and besides i already posted a tutorial i used to get started plus "help" isn't "let someone else do all the search work". When you are looking for a specific tutorial, you might want to take a look at forums that deal with modeling, like http://www.scifi-meshes.com/.

If you want to port a ship to X you should take a look at the X3 tutorial section. Captain-X eg. made a tutorial here on how to port XSP ships to X3TC using conventional modding methods without Cycrows Ship Creator. Once you've understand that tutorial, you have the basic modding methods.

The next thing will be learning more about scene files, importing and exporting ships with DBOX2, placing turrets, cameradummys etc., basic scripting or md scripting is also useful to make the ship buyable in game, most of this is covered in the tutorials section. When you got that you can import a Freelancer ship put the textures on it and make it ready for X3:TC. I don't have a clue how to export a freelancer ship but sites related to freelancer modding will help you out there, i guess.

[Cycrow]

u might be best of first asking in freelancer modding forums.

the first step would be to extract the models in a modeling program, gmax most likly.

there have been plenty of ship mods in the game, so there must be tools and information on how to do that.

once you have the ship extracted and can load it into gmax, then you can work out how to convert them and add them into X, and for that, there should be plenty of ppl who can give you some guideance.

but unless u happen to find a modder who has experience with freelancer as well, then i doubt u'll find an answer.

ur just goign to have to goto both modding communities to do it

[Anubitus]

thanks for the replies..

"Sorry, if my post sounded rude, but there are a lot of people who are looking for an idiot who makes their stuff."

no worries mate, im not like that..

"If you want to port a ship to X you should take a look at the X3 tutorial section. Captain-X eg. made a tutorial here on how to port XSP ships to X3TC using conventional modding methods without Cycrows Ship Creator. Once you've understand that tutorial, you have the basic modding methods."

oh, but i have.. lots of them.. unpacked the pack, combined the games TFiles with the ones from the pack mannually with notepad.. i have more than 1000 ships in my game atm.. combined from all kinds of TConflict/Reunion mods, xsp packages and others.. ofc i still have to put them all in shipyards, and some of them have bugs, but still, they are playable if u cheat em in..

"The next thing will be learning more about scene files, importing and exporting ships with DBOX2, placing turrets, cameradummys etc., basic scripting or md scripting is also useful to make the ship buyable in game, most of this is covered in the tutorials section. When you got that you can import a Freelancer ship put the textures on it and make it ready for X3:TC."

"u might be best of first asking in freelancer modding forums."

think ill do that then..

thanks again guys..

[killerog]

Once you get the ships out of freelancer and into gmax we can start helping you out.

[Anubitus]

after a night of digging, reading through a few forums (like 100 something.. *sigh*) i finally got what i wanted.. I GOT THE MODEL IN GMAX..

[ external image ]

now to get it playable in x3:tc.. thats another story..

so how do i start with this..?

thanks for the help u guys are giving me, rly apreciate this.. rly..

[Cycrow]

your gonna need to use the gmax tools from doubleshadow, dbox/yagg
these are max scripts that will allow you to export the model from gmax into the required format for TC.

you will need to export the body and scene files, once you have these. Then you need to use the X3 Editor to create a ship entry in TShips.

im not really a modeller, so i have little knowledge on how to do that with gmax

[Anubitus]

thanks cycrow..

here is a little update after some toying around with texturing.. ofc this is just a quick texture.. i thought it was rather naked whitout.. lol

[ external image ]

how exacly does yagg and dbox2 work pls..? i rly have no idea..
also.. erm.. perhaps a stupid question.. but what exacly is the body and scene file..?

sry for being noobish

[mace24de]

after a night of digging, reading through a few forums (like 100 something.. *sigh*) i finally got what i wanted.. I GOT THE MODEL IN GMAX..

[ external image ]

now to get it playable in x3:tc.. thats another story..

so how do i start with this..?

thanks for the help u guys are giving me, rly apreciate this.. rly..

CONGRATS , wasn't that hard, wasn't it ^^. Unfortunately this was the easy part.

The bod(body) file is the base mesh or an single object, in the scene file those bodys are put together(normally there is only one bod file for the ship, but some use several bods). It also contains position infos about the used turrets, engine effect, cameradummys etc. Thought you already ported a ship from an XSP file by using conventional modding?

[Anubitus]

hey again.. and thanks..

" Thought you already ported a ship from an XSP file by using conventional modding?"

well, i extracted the xsp file, placed everythint in false patch, added the TShips entry into the TShips file, combined the other TFiles with the ones i had in my game, and bang, i could use the ship.. nothing to it rly.. something tells me this isnt what u ment tho

am reading tons of tutorials atm.. some is not so easy to understand.. i need a "how to become a pro modder in two days" guide lol.. anyway, im not giving up.. ill get this ship (and hopefully others) ingame..

would you be interested in betatesting whatever i come up with..?

thanks again mate..

EDIT: whokay.. first stop, some proper textures..

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/wiki/index.p ... o_tutorial

at this tutorial is shown how to texture a model, but there is a problem.. in the tut he has a modifier called "editable poly" but i cant find it in the list of modifiers..

[ external image ]

[Killjaeden]

i don't know if you are allowed to distribute freelancer models... normally you are not, that's why you can only do this mod for your personal use.

[Anubitus]

oh.. ouch.. thx for the info jaeden.. but i did get one freelancer ship in my game by adding a mod..

bah.. too bad..

and what if i change them, just a little..?

EDIT: found out that if i rightclick with my mouse, i get a menu, at the bottom there is a option "convert to" when u select this, u can chose editeble poly.. another problem tho, when i create a box, and make it into a editeble poly, it works, but when i select the osiris, i dont get the options at the right hand side.. is it not possible with imported meshes or something..? could it be becouse the model is made out of multiple parts..? if it is, how can i make them into one body..?

[mace24de]

hey again.. and thanks..

" Thought you already ported a ship from an XSP file by using conventional modding?"

well, i extracted the xsp file, placed everythint in false patch, added the TShips entry into the TShips file, combined the other TFiles with the ones i had in my game, and bang, i could use the ship.. nothing to it rly.. something tells me this isnt what u ment tho

am reading tons of tutorials atm.. some is not so easy to understand.. i need a "how to become a pro modder in two days" guide lol.. anyway, im not giving up.. ill get this ship (and hopefully others) ingame..

would you be interested in betatesting whatever i come up with..?

thanks again mate..

EDIT: whokay.. first stop, some proper textures..

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/wiki/index.p ... o_tutorial

at this tutorial is shown how to texture a model, but there is a problem.. in the tut he has a modifier called "editable poly" but i cant find it in the list of modifiers..

[ external image ]

------
I thought microsoft made freelancer abandonware, but unlike most Mechwarrior games this is not the case, which means you need the permission of the Freelancer Devs or Microsoft, if you want to release the Model to the public.
-------

Try to right click "edit poly" should be somewhere on the menu in the lower right corner.

Anyway, did you extract the vanilla textures from the *.mat file? You should also delete all *objHPLxxxxxx* dummies from the mesh, because these are only placeholders and not needed for X3.

Besides that you don't need to texture the from the scratch because you already have the texture coordinates, the tricky thing is only to find out where to put which texture.

I've wiped the dust from my freelancer box, installed the game, extracted the ship and put the textures on the ship, otherwise i couldn't help you.

Here are some pics:
[ external image ][ external image ]

Ok, back to the texturing. As i mentioned above you are in the lucky position to have all the texture coordinates, that saves you the hassel to deal with "UVW Map" and "Unwrap UVW".

First of all we make a soild mesh, which means we attach every part of the ship.

[ external image ]

(There is nothing in my list because i already did that)

Once we have a solid mesh. You import a standard egoship ship, like the titan. You can delete it once it is loaded we only need the material entries.

[ external image ]

Should be around 49 entries.

Now we check the texture positions in my case 12 entries

[ external image ]

if you click a position the polygons that belong to that group are highlighted. Ok ^^, next back to the material editor, delete every entry till it matches the number of entries you have for the texture coordinates.

Now the tricky part we have to find out where the texture needs to be placed .

click on the first material entry and remove the checkmarks except for diffuse color(because we don't have any others, yet) . Now click on the texture and search for the vanilla Osiris textures(you should have around 11 textures) called liberty1.dds etc.. Select the texture liberty1.dds(could also be called liberty1_256.dds, milkshape likes to restrict the texture names to 8 characters, on export) to place it in the diffuse color slot. Proceed with the rest of the entries in the same manner.

entry02 l_r_wnds.dds
entry03 liberty3.dds
entry04 drd_inte.dds
entry05 hangardo.dds
entry06 liberty2.dds
entry07 liberty3.dds
entry08 equip_ms.dds
entry09 equip_ms.dds
entry10 debris-1.dds
entry11 liberty_.dds
entry12 exhaust.dds
(there might be some mistakes here, but you will see that once you have placed the texture on the mesh)

The texture names and number of entries should be the same.

Ok once you did that, place the texture on the ship and you are one step closer to a ready model. If this was helpful i will continue this, but for now it is enough to keep you busy

[Anubitus]

amg.. thank u so much for the info.. to be very honest, i barely understand what u just said.. thats how new i am to this.. btw, extracting the ship, putting the textures on it.. u did what i wanted to do for quite a while in what, an hour..? lol..

anyway, ill see if i can make heads or tails from ur post and ill get back to you.. (probably with "what do u mean with..." questions )

let me work my.. ahum.. magic..

thanks again for the effort u putting into this..

EDIT: some questions..

"Anyway, did you extract the vanilla textures from the *.mat file?"

nope, aint got a clue how to..

"You should also delete all *objHPLxxxxxx* dummies from the mesh, because these are only placeholders and not needed for X3."

are those the little dots around the ship when u import it..? should i delete them all..?

"Besides that you don't need to texture the from the scratch because you already have the texture coordinates, the tricky thing is only to find out where to put which texture."

texture coordinates.. uhu.. what..?

"First of all we make a soild mesh, which means we attach every part of the ship."

still dont have the editable poly in the menu.. should it be in the modifiers dropdown menu..? cos it isnt..
how exacly should i make a solid mesh..? should i select all parts of the ship first and then try to add the editable poly modifier with the modifier dropdown menu..? cos thats what im trying.. there is only edit mesh in the list..

"If this was helpful i will continue this."

oh yes, very.. pls continue..

"but for now it is enough to keep you busy "

you got that right.. lol..

EDIT2:

is there a way to select the polygroups..? like the *objHPLxxxxxx* ones..? or do i have to try to select them by clicking on them..

so sorry for all the questions here guys..

[mace24de]

EDIT: some questions..

"Anyway, did you extract the vanilla textures from the *.mat file?"

nope, aint got a clue how to..

If you used Milkshape to export the model you should already have them, but if not you need this http://rapidshare.com/files/408891611/U ... v0-0-2.zip

[ external image ]

The UTF directory path should point at the *.mat file. Image Directory Path at the place where to extract the textures. Once you have it, click start and you have the textures .

"You should also delete all *objHPLxxxxxx* dummies from the mesh, because these are only placeholders and not needed for X3."

are those the little dots around the ship when u import it..? should i delete them all..?

Yes, the little dots.

"Besides that you don't need to texture the from the scratch because you already have the texture coordinates, the tricky thing is only to find out where to put which texture."

texture coordinates.. uhu.. what..?

texture coordinates tell the 3d program, how the texture is wraped around an object. Mostly they are sorted in groups, like i showed in the picture in my other post.

"First of all we make a soild mesh, which means we attach every part of the ship."

still dont have the editable poly in the menu.. should it be in the modifiers dropdown menu..? cos it isnt..
how exacly should i make a solid mesh..? should i select all parts of the ship first and then try to add the editable poly modifier with the modifier dropdown menu..? cos thats what im trying.. there is only edit mesh in the list..

http://media.photobucket.com/image/gmax ... orial1.jpg

EDIT2:

is there a way to select the polygroups..? like the *objHPLxxxxxx* ones..? or do i have to try to select them by clicking on them..

so sorry for all the questions here guys..

Don't mess around with the polygons you don't even have to touch them to put the textures on it . Instead choose the texture group, like i posted before.

[Anubitus]

found out about the rightclick-dropdown menu and the convert option at the bottom, but dont i need the modifier too..? i mean, i select to convert to edit poly but in the modifiers section nothing happens.. only if i select one part of the ship..

whole ship is selected here:

[ external image ]

only a part of the ship selected:

[ external image ]

u can also in the pic above that im missing a little box icon next to the attach button..

i used milkshape to convert the model, yes, so i should have them then..

in a tutorial i read i found out how to select single or multiple groups together, so i selected them, and pressed my delete button..

im gonna get me some coffee and buiscuits and go back to my "osiristryout" and the tutorials..

thanks again..

EDIT: ah, now i see why some things can be different.. u using 3dsmax..

EDIT2: hmm, i select one part, select "attach list" there i have all the parts listed, i select all of em and select "attach" will that do the trick..? thats basacly what u said, wasnt it..

EDIT3: the learning process is as hard as it is exciting.. another step into the right direction, added a DBOX2 button to my main button bar and learned how to use DBOX2.. more or less..

EDIT4: i cant seem to import the titan.. getting this error in the maxscript listener:

Code: Select all

DBOX2> Loading body file "C:\Users\Gebruiker\Desktop\X3TCunpacked\objects\ships\argon\argon_M2_scene.bod"
DBOX2> Error - line: 6, col: 1: Unexpected here: 'VER'
DBOX2> file loaded with errors

i am only getting this error if i try to import it as "body", if i import it as "scene", the ship gets loaded.. untextured tho, its still greyish.. i unpacked the x3:tc catalogs into a folder on my desktop and converted all .dds files in folder x3tcunpacked\dds to .jpg format, am i doing something wrong..?

EDIT5: where can i find the textures..? (what button in the interface i mean)
will .jpg do..? or do i have to convert to .jpeg for this..? thought this was the same format..? which tool would be good to convert the .dds into .jpeg..?
have tried a few now and they all have some "issues"..

image converter plus: tends to make 11 pics for every pic converted.. 7000+ pics in my dds folder, i stopped it otherwise it woulda been more.. lol.. it also crashes if i try to do em all at once..

advanced batch converter: cant convert from .dds

so i tried to convert to .jpg with image converter plus first and then convert the .jpg's to .jpeg's with advanced batch converter, but like i said, image converter plus makes one pic into 11 pics, and with that much pics its a pain to select the 2400 something pics i have to convert..

any ideas..?

EDIT6: finally managed to get them to .jpeg format.. used a tool called "Right Click Image Converter" to get them to .jpg, then used "Advanced Batch Converter 5.0" to convert the .jpg's to .jpeg's..
opened a new gmax file, imported the freelancer model and then i tried to import the titan, wich worked, but still untextured.. what am i doing wrong here..

a screenshot with some info..

[ external image ]

ps: the DBOX2 settings are correct, the "the path to the dds folder" comment in the lower right hand corner is wrong.. sry, me = tired.. gonna get a good night sleep now..

[mace24de]

EDIT: ah, now i see why some things can be different.. u using 3dsmax..

Yes, but gmax is the light version of 3dsmax

EDIT2: hmm, i select one part, select "attach list" there i have all the parts listed, i select all of em and select "attach" will that do the trick..? thats basacly what u said, wasnt it..

That's how it works

EDIT3: the learning process is as hard as it is exciting.. another step into the right direction, added a DBOX2 button to my main button bar and learned how to use DBOX2.. more or less..

Read the included help file in DBOX2 it explains all you need to know. Hope you already did that, DBOX2 is pretty easy to use.

EDIT4: i cant seem to import the titan.. getting this error in the maxscript listener:

Code: Select all

DBOX2> Loading body file "C:\Users\Gebruiker\Desktop\X3TCunpacked\objects\ships\argon\argon_M2_scene.bod"
DBOX2> Error - line: 6, col: 1: Unexpected here: 'VER'
DBOX2> file loaded with errors

You are trying to import a "SCENE FILE" as body thats why it don't work.
http://www.xwiki.chaos.net.nz/How_to_im ... with_DBOX2

You need to convert the bob files to bod format, before you can import a ship. Doubleshadow's X2BC compiler is necessary to do this
http://x2bc.doubleshadow.wz.cz/download ... nstall.exe
This is the tutorial on how to convert a bob to bod
http://www.xwiki.chaos.net.nz/How_to_co ... _with_X2BC
There is also a gui version of the compiler, but i don't have link right now.

i am only getting this error if i try to import it as "body", if i import it as "scene", the ship gets loaded.. untextured tho, its still greyish.. i unpacked the x3:tc catalogs into a folder on my desktop and converted all .dds files in folder x3tcunpacked\dds to .jpg format, am i doing something wrong..?

Ok, you've setup a "work folder" great . The worst thing is to use jpg textures on a mesh. However, you don't have to convert anything, when you extract the DDS files from the cat, they are extracted as *.txt files all you have to do is to rename them with the DDS extension, like "metal_split_lattice_01_diff.txt to metal_split_lattice_01_diff.dds". Use DOS Prompt to convert the files, switch to your dds folder and type "ren *.txt *.dds". You can also make a *.bat file with that command.

Furthermore, you need the DDS Plugin for gmax http://sourceforge.net/projects/niftool ... e/download