IC support for 3dsMAX, perhaps a guide as to how to effect and export a compliant XSI to pass to the conversion tool (a little bit like the modding supplement does for XSImod, tangents, removing non-quad/tri polys etc)?
Changing particle files is really all about trial and error, make significant changes one at a time and note the effect is my advice. I believe changing the start colour will change the whole particle effect for that weapon on that ship, you can also effect the transparency too I noticed. Colour and effect duration are easy to work out, the other modifiers are quite a bit more challenging what I suggest you do there is simply remove them bar one to see what each one does. A goo
I would like a pipeline effect modifier that I can use to intelligently animate a mesh in the particle system to basically animate turrets.
I find the drag and drop method a bit unpredictable with complex meshes, so what I do is use the select by object name tool to grab everything minus the mesh then add the mesh as the parent with the link button enabled. Then what you see is all the dummy objects appear as sub-object or children to the mesh.
Ah nice, I'll use that for sure. It was my fault not knowing what I was doing basically, but I certainly learned alot today and that's part of the fun too.
Think I've found the problem, its the facing of the dummy object. It seems if the Weapon mesh points are not facing the right direction the game defaults to the center to emit the fire. Unless anyone knows otherwise I can't find a way in Max to show you the facing or direction of a dummy object. What you can do though (after reading the Max bible) is: 1) Align to View the dummy object in a given viewport to reset its position, if I use the left viewport it seems to do
Try flipping the normals just incase your model is inside out so to speak, that will cause it to appear black.
There was no 'rootpoint' helper/dummy on the Kol after I imported it, and that exported and worked ok. One thing I have noticed is that the mesh object name seems to always be called SOASE_MESH which the dummies will of course all link in to, or be a child object of. I am going to rename my mesh to SOASE_MESH and see what effect that has.
[quote]Hey man, how do you get your model in game? When ever I try its either black color or it crashes?[/quote] If the game crashes it probably means the format of your game file is wrong or has some kind of syntax error. I had a problem last night where I thought it was a new mesh crashing the game, but it actually turned out to be a typo in the ship entity file. If your model is black in game it pretty much points to a problem with the textures (either the naming or format), or possi
[quote]I am also having trouble with the hardpoints not exporting. again i am following the mod docs to the letter. but all weapons fire from center of ship.[/quote] roflmao I just wrote a new topic about the EXACT same problem (before reading this) I am having with my Babylon5 EA Omega Destroyer, all the bloody weapons fire from the center. Stress I feel your pain. Are you exporting straight from MAX like me? Maybe its a generic problem with the MAX exporter script if
I seem to be having a problem with Weapon Point emitters. I have added 3 dummy points to the front of my mesh called: Weapon-0 Weapon-1 Weapon-2 ..as described in the IC modding manual supplement. I have then added the 3 weapon effects from the TEC Kol Battleship entity as is just to get it working, and specified that num of weapons =3 in the new enity (which is basically a modified copy of the TEC Colony Frigate). The problem I ha
the alpha channels of the 3 dds files are ok?
TEC Marza Dreadnought & TEC Kodiak I can't decide which is worse. Generally speaking Vasari has my favourite designs of ships, though there are good examples in the other races.
Did you select only part of your model in XSI, instead of the whole object?
Yes that's exactly what it does and is in fact so useful can I recommend it is added to the Modding Instruction Manual/PDF. Otherwise you have to quit the game, make your changes, reload the mod and restart the game which is no fun at all when tinkering files particularly particle effects cos its not obvious what your changes are going to look like until you see it in game.
aww dude ur a star :CONGRAT:
Is there anyway to have SoaSE run in a development mode, where one can change things like enity and particle files and have them applied on the fly? There must be an easier way than reloading a mod and starting a new game to view the effect, surely the IC devs don't do that. Thanks in advance for any advice...
Controlling the motion of the ship mesh is as far as I am aware done by the game engine, so unless IC hint at how it can be done or someone stumbles across the method things like having the Battlecrab spin or stand on its arms are unlikely to happen. It will either fly arms forward or arms back. Cloaking ability might be possible, its quite hard working with the SoaSE particle system as very little detail has been released on what is quite a complex subject.
easily changed, the B5 footage I was looking at showed them flying in that direction was all.
Try a few Belguim beers to loosen ur throat a bit and build that vocal confidence. "...cunning..." x2 330ml bottles of Leffe Tripel, if you go for more than 2 make damn sure you eat a square meal in between otherwise we won't hear the words amoungst the slurred speach ;-)
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[quote]Unit movement seems to be hard-coded into their entity type...[/quote] This is also my view, and you have to be careful about your mesh sizes as a result i.e. having fighters or capships that are too large in game cos they will clip or collide, with other ships and even structures. SoaSE in general could do with some movement control enhancements for things like ship formations and UI movement orders IMHO. Something for the future hopefully...
Have you played around with the actual Stargate effects yet?
What you can't do (subject to someone finding a way or developer assistance), is have an animated turret pointing at your target, so the weapon effect would be ok but the turret could be pointing the other way! Platforms like the TEC Gauss Gun are handled like static ship models so they do move on the spot so to speak but sub-object meshes are a little different because they are handled by the particle system. Also I am not sure you can have a weapon emitter on an animated mesh, though
Thanks Uzii thats a very helpful guide.
now.. now.. no harm in asking is there?