Help for getting ships in X3:TC

[Anubitus]

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.

read it, and yes, its not that hard.. practice makes perfect..

You are trying to import a "SCENE FILE" as body thats why it don't work.

that explaines a lot then.. so i just pick the "argon_M2.bod" file instead of the "argon_M2_scene.bod" file then..?

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

did that, made a batch file, placed it in the main x3tcunpacked folder and ran it.. should have converted them all, or so it says in the readme..

The worst thing is to use jpg textures on a mesh.

ah, realy.. didnt know that, i just wanted to convert them to .jpeg format cos of the fact that gmax lacks the ability to read .dds files..

when you extract the DDS files from the cat, they are extracted as *.txt files

indeed.. is there no way that we can change that..? if we put .pck to .dds in the extraction opions, would that work..?

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.

cool, ill try that..

you need the DDS Plugin for gmax

didnt know that existed.. hence my messy solution for the dds folder..

thanks for the help mate..

[JESS 246]

Hi Anubitus

I don't know if anyone has said this yet there is a mod already out there.

I've been playing a Mod version of Freelancer with all the ships, guns and missiles it's very good.

Some where on the Scripts & Mod forum is this mod named Freespace X3TC v1.2 it has all you need.

hope this is of help and that you can find it to play.

I liked the Freelancer I & II games and was hoping for a third maybe someday oh yea.

Jess 246

[JESS 246]

Hi Anubitus

I don't know if anyone has said this yet there is a mod already out there.

I've been playing a Mod version of Freelancer with all the ships, guns and missiles it's very good.

Some where on the Scripts & Mod forum is this mod named Freespace X3TC v1.2 it has all you need.

hope this is of help and that you can find it to play.

I liked the Freelancer I & II games and was hoping for a third maybe someday oh yea.

Jess 246

[Anubitus]

hey jess, thanks for the reply..

the mod u refer to is a freespace mod "Freespace X3TC v1.2", it contains freespace ships, no freelancer ships unfortunatly..

freelancer 2 never got developed.. digital anvil went bankrubt i think..

[JESS 246]

Sorry i missed read the post good luck with your quest.

i liked Freelancer too what ever happened to updating that game its worth a second game.

[Cycrow]

hey jess, thanks for the reply..

the mod u refer to is a freespace mod "Freespace X3TC v1.2", it contains freespace ships, no freelancer ships unfortunatly..

freelancer 2 never got developed.. digital anvil went bankrubt i think..

not exactly, they were took over by microsoft during the development of Freelancer, then microsoft absorbed the company into its own game studios and didn't want to create freelancer 2

the original plans for freelancer was alot more ambitious, closer to the X Series i think, but was dumbed down when microsoft took over to appeal to the main stream market instead

[Zaixionito]

hey jess, thanks for the reply..

the mod u refer to is a freespace mod "Freespace X3TC v1.2", it contains freespace ships, no freelancer ships unfortunatly..

freelancer 2 never got developed.. digital anvil went bankrubt i think..

not exactly, they were took over by microsoft during the development of Freelancer, then microsoft absorbed the company into its own game studios and didn't want to create freelancer 2

the original plans for freelancer was alot more ambitious, closer to the X Series i think, but was dumbed down when microsoft took over to appeal to the main stream market instead

Yes, have you seen Digital Anvil's original Freelancer? Those Nebulas... Rotating wings... Wow. One thing I will never forgive Microsoft for... Buying Digital Anvil, then abandoning it.

Discovery Mod added a lot, but still couldn't get to the original.

[Anubitus]

sry for being abcent for a few days.. had some issues that needed attention..

i need some more help with the thexturing..

im sorry, but i realy cant find some of the things u described in ur posts mace..

on this pic u have a drop down menu called polygon properties, i cant see it anywhere..

[ external image ]

here is what i have on my screen..

[ external image ]

i did find the materials entry screen..

[ external image ]

delete every entry till it matches the number of entries you have for the texture coordinates.

where can i see how many texture coordinates i have..?

and why is ur titan mesh textured while mine isnt..?
i downloaded the file at this link

http://sourceforge.net/projects/niftool ... e/download

installed it and put everything from the gmax1.2 folder into the gmax folder.. (btw, these are "niftools"..? does it work with .dds files..?) also i extracted the .dds files again into the dds folder and put in a batch file to rename the extentions from .txt back to .dds

im so sorry mate, but im new to moddeling for x3 and to this moddeling program..

EDIT: one more thing, after i make a solid mesh, it looks like i only have one group of polygons.. at first i can press "H" and i get a list with groups of poly's but after there is only one left.. how can i select the different parts of the mesh to texture them..?

[mace24de]

sry for being abcent for a few days.. had some issues that needed attention..

i need some more help with the thexturing..

im sorry, but i realy cant find some of the things u described in ur posts mace..

on this pic u have a drop down menu called polygon properties, i cant see it anywhere..

[ external image ]

here is what i have on my screen..

[ external image ]

i did find the materials entry screen..

[ external image ]

delete every entry till it matches the number of entries you have for the texture coordinates.

where can i see how many texture coordinates i have..?

and why is ur titan mesh textured while mine isnt..?
i downloaded the file at this link

http://sourceforge.net/projects/niftool ... e/download

installed it and put everything from the gmax1.2 folder into the gmax folder.. (btw, these are "niftools"..? does it work with .dds files..?) also i extracted the .dds files again into the dds folder and put in a batch file to rename the extentions from .txt back to .dds

im so sorry mate, but im new to moddeling for x3 and to this moddeling program..

EDIT: one more thing, after i make a solid mesh, it looks like i only have one group of polygons.. at first i can press "H" and i get a list with groups of poly's but after there is only one left.. how can i select the different parts of the mesh to texture them..?

Ok, first of all, sorry for the late response. I've managed to get the ship in gmax and texture it, took around 10 minutes ^^, i'm writing a tutorial atm, which properly explains how i did that, this will be the hard part *sigh*.

[ external image ]

Gmax doesn't have a drop down menu, but it has a small box "select by ID" which is basically the same (see pic), don't mess around with "ID xxxx" next to "select by ID", this one sets the polygons to a group, if you don't know what you are doing you can mess up the whole texture coordiantes.

[Anubitus]

hey hey..

hmm, so i import the model, it is made out of different parts, if i select one part and press "select by ID" and choose "ID 1" and press select, i get the poly's from that part selected, when i select another part and use "select by ID", take number 1 again and press select, again i get the poly's selected..

now when i make it into one mesh (using atach) and i use "select by ID" and take 1 and press select, i get all poly's of this mesh selected.. wich is not what i need, i need the parts seperatly selectable..

what happens i think is this, they are all number 1.. so when u combine them, the all end up in the same group..? is this correct..?

EDIT: forget what i said, i took a wrong option when i attached the parts..
wich one should i take..? "match material ID's to material" or "match material to material ID's"..?

also when you select "match material ID's to material" u get the option to check a box for the option "condence material and ID's".. what does this mean..?

EDIT2: @mace: from your first post on this page i can follow everything until this part:

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

my screen looks like this:

[ external image ]

what exacly do i do there..?

getting there.. slowly but surely getting there..

[Triaxx2]

The SDK actually had all the models unpacked for alteration. Might be useful if anyone else is working, and should still be available at Lancer's Reactor.

While there was no Freelancer 2, they did boot-strap Freelancer into being a sequel to Starlancer. That might be why the confusion.

[Krewzur]

I got a load of the freelancer ships in my game last year.

Didn't look too good because i'm useless with texturing!

But i had the model and engine glow, weapons and everything working grand.

Can't really remember the details of how i did it because i haven't tried anything since and i learned how to do it from scratch so i don't think i'd be much use.

Also my hardrive failed since then and i lost all the models

The only thing that might be of use is that the Freelancer models are ten times smaller than the models in X2!! The Osiris is about the same size as a Nova from what i remember!

So make sure you scale up the model!!!!

Load up a Titan next to your Osiris and you'll see the difference!

[Anubitus]

hey guys..

been trying a lot with the texturing, but no luck so far..

while mace is working on the tutorial, is there anyone else that can give me some info about how to add the textures to the mesh..? or the standard textures from the game even, i just want to get it textured..

thanks for the advice amurph0, the models are pretty small indeed perhaps you know how to work with gmax and "guide" me through putting my first ship ingame..?

thanks for the replies guys

anubitus

[Anubitus]

yes..!!

finaly things are getting better..

as you can see in this image, the texturing is working out (more or less anyway) just gotta see wich texture is going where, it apears my groups are somewhat different from yours mace..

[ external image ]

thanks again those who helped me..

[mace24de]

yes..!!

finaly things are getting better..

as you can see in this image, the texturing is working out (more or less anyway) just gotta see wich texture is going where, it apears my groups are somewhat different from yours mace..

[ external image ]

thanks again those who helped me..

They aren't different, should be 12 entries for that model. Seems like you already made a soild mesh . However when you attach all the parts of the model to create a soild mesh you will have several grouped entries in your material edtior. All you have to do is to search the grouped materials and look for the one with 12 material entries the rest can be deleted.

[Anubitus]

i dont know if i did it the way you discribed it..

i imported the model, deleted the little dots, made a solid mesh and then i selected the texture coördinates one by one, pressed M, selected a material, selected "diffuse", selected "bitmap", navigated to the folder where i put the extracted textures (wich i extracted from the game with the tool you linked to a few posts befor) and started puzzling wich texture goes where.. most of your entries where correct tho a few wherent, i suppose ther where correct when you added them on your ship but when i do it the way you say my ship looks like this..

[ external image ]

anyway, after some puzzling i ended up with this (only the yellow/black "danger" stripes are out of place i think, but i cant seem to find the right textures for it.. )

[ external image ]


this is the materials screen when i first import the freshly extracted model from the game right into max.. where can i find the multi materials you where talking about..?

[ external image ]

thanks mate


btw: i bought 3ds max 2011.. so if you want you can go back to 3ds max for the things you want to explain..

EDIT: i have added some turrets for eyecandy and a buster for size comparisation.. think this should be about the right size for the ship..

[ external image ]

anyone who wanna guide me through the process for putting it ingame..?

EDIT2: found out how to add self lighting (u know what i mean ) windows..

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EDIT3: i have been trying to follow this tutorial (http://www.xwiki.chaos.net.nz/How_to_bu ... class_ship) to get my ship in the game, i have a problem tho, how can i tell what the front or the back side is from the cameradummy..? its just a circle.. same with the engine emitter, its a square/box thingy..

EDIT4:

i think i have the ship model finished but now im kinda stuck..

i read in this tutorial http://www.xwiki.chaos.net.nz/How_to_bu ... class_ship that you need to import the turrets, the cameradummies and the engine effects, so i did, but i dont know if i have to import the body files or the scene files of the turrets i wanna use, and how exacly to place the cameradummies (i dont know what is the front or the back.. they are just round objects with no obvious front nor back..) same with the engine effect.. its just a square looking thing..

anyhow, i tried to add all the things needed, exported using DBOX2, compiled using x2bc and used ship creator to put it into a xsp file (wich i then extracted and added to a mod i am making) but the ship wont show up ingame.. i cant even transport to it.. wich tells me i did everything wrong..

can anyone pls give me some advice how to put a ship ingame starting from a finished model whitout any cameradummies or turrets..?

in the mean while i have been playing around with the program and ended up with a wallpaper i thought i d share with you guys..

[ external image ]

[Anubitus]

after some failed attempts, im going to take a break on this ship..

instead i am going to start simple, or so i think.. im going to try to get a homeworld vagyr corvet ingame, smaler, lesser guns, static turretdummys..

so far i did:

import the model into max
imported a argon gladiator in max
copied the cameradummies, added them to the corvet mesh
copied the turretdummie a few times, added them to the corvet mesh
copied the invisible weapon dummies, added them to the corvet mesh
made all parts into one mesh
made all special parts children of the corvet mesh
gave all special parts appropriate names ex Bship\props\cameradummy_1

i will update this post soon as i try to make my way to a workable ship..

EDIT:

copied the engine emitter a few times, named them propperly, added them to the corvet and made them children..

[Topcross]

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

nope:p

[Topcross]

You can't add the camera's and turret dummies into one mesh, they each have to be a seperate object to export the scene into the game.

For the turrets, you have to import the turret dummy, nothing else, the dummies get replaced by the real thing ingame.

Getting a ship ingame without any cameras at all is in my oppinion pointless, I always add a camera to it when I export to see how it looks ingame so I can at least fly it decent to check it out.
In fact, not sure if it would even work properly without any camera's, not sure as I never tried this.

Anyway just export your body as a body first, then name it with the correct path and export it as a scene as well, make a new Tships entry and (or copy one) and edit the scene path.

[TrixX]

So you have to make the special parts children to the main model for the scene to work?

Maybe that's where I'm going wrong...