Hey all,

Got a copy of milkshape, made a ship, and then textured it. I have been all over the ship. I have checked it for holes and found none...so far. Made sure I had at least one hardpoint and labled it correctly. Here's where the fun comes in.

*No matter what I seem to do it refuses to export using the milkshape .cmp exporter.*

In fact it usually just crashes me out of milkshape entirely with a message stating that milkshape has caused an error with the exporter of all things!

I was wondering... Is there a required system memory/polygons amount ratio that might be causing it to fail? Or could my copy of milkshape just be corrupted.

Anyway, been working the better part of a month in my spare time on this ship and I don't wanna back out now. Any help or advice you could give would be appreciated.

Hi and welcome to TLR!
Make sure you don't have cmp import installed, as it sometimes causes problems. Also, instead of only 1 hp, you may need all of the basic ones like
-mount
-engine
-tractor_source
-shield

Great tutorial imagine. However i seem to have a problem!
I have built a ship (no holes) in milkshape and added hardpoints and texture etc.. Made a 512x512 texture using PSP and mapped it to the model. Created the .MAT and edited the shiparch.ini as per your tutorial.
The problem is: When i buy the ship and fly it - all weaps and stuff are in correct position - but the ship is invisible! I guess this is a texture problem but i can't figure it. The texture shows in MS okay and the MAT file is fine so where is the problem? Also sometimes i get probs with FL crashing when i use the shop and windows returns an error box suggesting that the module name "shading.dll" is at fault. Is the problem with me being stoopid or could it be my Geforce 4 card?
Any Definitive answers would be most helpful coz if i bang my head on the wall any more i will end up in the ward next to poor frank bruno!

were you the one who emailed me?
Here's an idea to try. Make sure your texture file is tga 24bit and you have set your LODs correctly.

Help!
So I created a large (battleships/cruiser size large) ship, and textured it and all, and it looks really nice (modestly) in Milkshape. I export it and create the .mat file and add the appropriate entries to have it sell as a seperate ship.
I buy it, and on the launch pad the texture is 'dissolved', and is 'dissolved texture' in space also.
Its like the texture has been shrunk down by to about a 32x32 texture and then re-stretched over the ship. I've tried the texture to be 256x256, 512x512, and 1024x1024, all the results are the same. Any suggestions? I've saved and imported the texture as a .tga, no alpha channel. shiparch.ini file LOD range is 0,99999.
I've searched and read all over Lancers for the past 14 hours, and can't find anything similar.

dissolved? Please clarify

The level of detail that I had in my original .tga file is not represented on the ship in FL. In FL it looks like the .tga was 'sized' down to about 32x32 or 64x64, and then this much smaller, and less detailed image put onto the ship as the skin.
Perhaps a good picture might help:
IMAGE: Left is FreeLancer, Right is MilkShape

Here's the interesting details from the shiparch.ini file for this ship:
LODranges = 0,99999
mission_property = can_use_berths
type = FREIGHTER
DA_archetype = ships\twex\tx_uridium\tx_uridium.cmp
material_library = ships\twex\tx_uridium.mat
cockpit = cockpits\twex\tx_uridium.ini
camera_offset = 40, 120

And for its Cockpit:
tether = 0.000000, 50, 100

Thanks for your help!

interesting. Have you tried dds format?

edit: also check your in-game graphics settings to make sure detail is cranked all the way up.

Edited by - Imagine on 05-10-2003 06:25:05

Yup, detail is cranked as high as it goes.
On the dds thing, I tried that but I don't think I was doing it correctly. Is there a step by step guide as to how to create a dds file for FL? I used dxtex to create the dds file, but the model didn't come up with any identifyable texture when it was imported into the .mat, there was a mat there as the ship was visible.
I'll perhaps have another stab at it tomorrow.
Thanks!

remember to use MIPS instead of MIP0 with dds. Also, I think you don't have to turn dds upside down, but I may be wrong.

Ahhh!

I build the basic ship in Doga (L1), no problem. Exported it to the Autocad dxf file type no problem...

Imported that dxf into milkshape, little trouble getting it (to what I think is) to proper scale. Saved it to the milkshape filetype. No problem..... went to make the 2d triangles.... wont work...
I've done it just using milkshape itself and playing around with it, but no go with the model.
If I could find an easy way to just simply remake it in milkshape (which is asking alot from me) I don't think I would have this much of a problem.

Also, what do you mean on the texture to the power of 2? How do I texture it to begin with?
(Yes I am a newbie, and yes I can send you the Doga or the milkshape version of the ship)

Please elaborate on the 2d triangles problem. Also: it is easier to place the triangles when your ship is not sized to FL size yet.

Textures are basically image files streched over a model to give it some detail and color. FL uses .mat files for each ships texture. Each .mat has a image file embedded in it, in the format .dds or .tga. The physical dimensions of these embedded image files must follow the pattern:
2^2=4 4x4 pixels
2^3=8 8x8 pixels
2^4=16 16x16 pixels
I recommend something like 512x512, though, to get enough detail.

What I mean by the 2-d triangles not working, is that when I use the command, it dosent click into the picture.

Would anyfile word for a texture or just use somthin plain, like a black square?

for the triangles, go to this site and down to the adding details section
http://www.planetfortress.com/tf2models ... d_sc2c.htm

It doesn't really matter what the contents of your tex image is, so long as its in the right format, size, and color depth.