Zyxpsilon

Join Date 02/2006

+80

About Ships, ShipYard, Fleets & others...

such as 3d Remodeling, X, HardPoints, etc.

Kryo, Boogie, anyone else at Art dept...

As i'm now deep into creating the entire X-Worlds (for DA only) fleet(s) of ships, there are a few 'questions' i might have about such things if you don't mind.

Note that i will make extensive use of some jewels (btw, many thanks to GenPants for his wonderful mods about these, and you for KHSM), and i will certainly need to maintain an optimal set of "addons" to create anything near what i intend to have. Sooooo...

1-- GC2Types.xml file has a Quad-Antennae model (SDSBonus1Structure1) which isn't available unless i could find it in a Gpants mod. There are five more too! Where are these other X models? (Graviton Pulley - sounds like fun)

2-- Is is true that the Survey-Colony-Miner-Freighter-Constructor (etc) default general ships **must** be listed as is in a custom style xml file? Or would it make more sense to simply revert whatever new values through proper editing of a special GC2Ships.xml? Mod wise, that is.

3-- I know you will probably swear by the Adobe StudioMax 3d programs for external design stuff, but that's for in-house SD developping staff. JoeSchmoes like me, simply can't afford such professional graphic tools. Comes, Blender & other solutions. Trick is, Compatibility issues with HarPoints, Texturing & UV Mapping elements. Any recommendations?

4-- I'm planning to have (or build everything from scratch, if anything!) a rather simplistic set of primary small models (with Hull & Trim coloring schemas, individually) to fill in some creativity gaps in the current pool of structures. Think of it as the "Block-Cube-Hull_6" extensions of more complex elements to work with. Lotsa design time right there. For shipyarders' freedom purpose, only. Refer to (3) above.

5- Is there a natural breakout memory limit on structural amounts that a ship can have without becoming too laggy in gameplay?

6- Can a Huge class be somehow retrofitted to show up as Medium size in the UI? The scaling factors between Tiny-..-Huge are too 'sharp' to my taste. I wished there would be a way to control these gaps as relative custom calibrations by choice... please.

7- The ShipYard could use a precision overall for Tilt/Yaw "balls" and structure resizing bars - so that we could, at least, get some editable Numeric fields for each. Try to symmetrically adapt two fat wings on an otherwise slim hull and you'll have a_heck_of_a_time trying to stick a tiny white arrow on any given cusp.

8- The ONE-Sticky hardpoint selection from the element in focus -- to the shown_built model is a wreck-neck-pain. Example; the Cylinder Ball has a SINGLE harpoint to drop it on the intended hull location. We can't place that structure using a middle section reference tag only. What could be missing is a multiple set of default attachment points that we would be able to focus on individually -- on many or all available structures.

9-- Red... plus, Green, Blue, Yellow HardPoints???

That's it for now.

You should see the currently developping X-Com FlagShip, it's gonna get really wild - once i'm through this whole project!!

modding

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5- Is there a natural breakout memory limit on structural amounts that a ship can have without becoming too laggy in gameplay?

Yes. I've crashed my game with a single ship-granted, I had something like >1500 structures on it.

I don't know exactly where the limit is, though.

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8) I like that idea, but not having much experience in modeling, I don't know if it's even possible..

6) Judging by my experiments, there is nothing about the "category" classifications that scales the hull. It seems like the smaller hulls just have naturally smaller models, although since I just switched to a new compuiter & havent had time to download Blender yet, I could be wrong... In any event, KHSM lets you resize the hulls, so it sould be possible to work around this.

7) I would say something like "give me numerical values or give me death", but I don't really want to die...

1) Although I don't remember a "graviton pulley" specifically, I have seen these "secret" models in both DA and the original GC2, as well as TA. I think that they have someting to do with Gold Edition (maybe you get them in the regular game by forking over the cash to buy Gold?).

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Sole...

5-- It's rather an issue of having multiple (say, hundreds of them in late game, immense map, etc!) ships flying on the interface at once; by limiting somehow the number of structures on their ships, one could prevent gameplay lag at the expense of losing creative power over cool but "too" complex fleet designs. I'm more after a reasonable figure that could indicate me if a constant sort_of maximum would help or not. I remember someone mentioning that too many jewels can be tough to handle in some cases.

Scout...

9-- The default Red arrows (HP, attachment dots) are simply **almost impossible** to work with when i design the Apocalypsion ships for X-Worlds since their hulls are also sharp RED! Thus why i would wish for extra colors for such stuff.

8-- Making my design life a lot easier by letting me select more than one default HP while i have the component in focus until dropped on the 'connectable HP' of the model, and could also provide me with hugely important structural freedom. I guess it's a code correction or how the X models are defined.

7-- Or at least, make the size bar a LOT wider so that i can rule in a 5.75% instead of a small cue triangle hovering almost onto the half-tiny-point-mark close enough to an approximate 5.5%. In my world, 90*/360* is a quarter clock to the right... in yaw terms, again, it's currently more like a miniaturized angle that even a pixel wide arrow point won't show me if it is AT 45* instead of a slightly more precise 40*. I know about the option of 30*,10*, free, gaps for the shipyard... but the UI doesn't indicate these values for me to either edit or being certain about. Call me a perfectionist, but my ships WILL be exactly what i want them to be, by being very patient & tolerant as it is now.

1-- Having bought all three DL, DA & TA... i think i deserve getting these 6 hidden bonus structures too. I thought any of these updates were automatically given to us for everything we paid, Gold edition stuff included.

Anybody else? Happy new Year, everyone, btw.

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Who knows... The communist system looks a lot better every time I have to pay for something that by all rights should be free! But when you look at the games you get, Gold is actually a BETTER value than just buying them all at once. Well, there goes my theory... I really don't have any idea why those parts are "blocked".

HP Colors: I wonder if it would be possible to make HPs be "negative", so if you put them over a red ship they would look blue (or whatever the photographic opposite of red actually is), and if you put them on a black ship they would be white, et. cetra.

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Hey, that's a real smart idea! If the Game itself could do it *automatically* for us, that would mean i'd simply stop switching my own personal (already recolored) HP files between game sessions... i intend to provide such stuff with X-Worlds version 06-A later on - or once i have a reasonable amount of ships & fleets to call this all worth a zipped addon to the whole mod project.

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I know that there is code to invert colors from my use of Photoshop: it would just be a matter of putting it into the game and having it run constantly in place of a hardpt color... would certainly require major tinkering with the source code and may not even be possible, but...

I wish I'd come up with this kind of thing while another expansion pack was still in the works!

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Sooooo... How was your Holidays, StardDock gang?

I'm happy to report that i DO have a whole new HardPoint configuration with a splendid Icosahedron file but the game still shows it Red - i'd prefer it green, yellow or gloriously different azurish Blue. Took at look at Material, Diffuse & other stuff without any luck - so far.

SDSBonus1Structure..1&4 here & working as they should. I'd really **want** 2,3,5 and 6 before i seal off design sessions & default (but highly customized) XW_Resources for the entire task of shipyard & fleet creation.

Please?

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Supplemental tiny question while i think about it...

Has anyone ever been able to fix the Turret crash (some old DL structures which never got truly implemented, i believe) or even correctly matched the Soldier UV mapping files? Each polygon on these get the whole normal png.

Cuz, i really could use these items as alternate components with a S99 prefix & some tricky values added to cost, size & features. Anyhow, to me... Advanced trooping modules were always a bit less obvious as default & since i DO have a Retaliation tactics, Repair Crews, Sabotage, Infiltration... technology pathways in the current XW-Tree, the above gimmicks (or even some personal models) could fit nicely on a few ships.

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For questions #3 & #4 above, don't consider these important anymore since i actually found an indirect way to use a combination of freewares such as gMax & multiple transition converters.

There is a lot to be said about the x modeling process (as it is natively driven or adapted by either the SD_GC engine or whatever external programs at design time) and most free solutions are terribly confusing (to the casual gamer, that is) if not generally unstable in a number of areas; namely - materials, UV texturing & dummies calibration.

So... it'll be better for me to work VERY hard at finding out what exact parameters need to be selected (or guessed around, btw) to at least create valid custom directX small primary models (but sooooo essential to enhance the creativity edge) for X-Worlds' ships & alternate components.

Well, at least now i DO have a new HardPoint (technically speaking, i think it is easier to detect in the UI since the highly modified Icosahedron structure gives focus to the connection arrow angle with a longer conic device and altering the orientation big default pointer to a simple 7 sided flat polygon)... but, it is still f**en RED only!

***

The all new HarPoint -- red!

***

Well... by using a cube hull, a few KHSM caps & a tilted offset of four, it's really amazing how easy it is to connect elements on any ships and know the exact orientation of subsequent components looking straight at the UI!

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10-- What's with the location where we must edit our ships from... *MyDocuments...* rather than the actual mod folders (Shipdefs & Shipcfg) already under the main data dir?

It could be **MUCH** more efficient to pull the finished ships from there and distribute the whole styles & fleets straight off our Mod folders, in fact.

I had moved three "test" ships (xml+cgf) in the X-Worlds appropriate (given by SD, btw) mod folders and tried to modify a few things and re-saving the new files with a new ship name tag; everything came out "scrambled" (looks like all additional components were dropped on a blank hull and old structures resizing didn't register or somethin'!)

I suppose that final designs CAN be moved to the mod (to have playable assets, that is) but would somehow remain "uneditable", right?

So... what am i missing?

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Oh well, an entire week has gone by without any answers to the above from anyone at SD willing to help me out with most of these issues (Boogiebac, Morgemil, etc - btw)

11-- I am trying to alter the ShipDesignWnd.dxpack Pitch/Yaw/Roll spinner balls to be 80 pixels (doubling the default, in fact) and placed on the side above the Camera_3dCotrol, while widening the re-sizing bar too. While i'm into this panel i'd also certainly use an extra SDesin_Parts_Entry underneath the selection row of components being edited so that i can at least know (example) which LifeSupport is currently in focus. Since i don't have access to the necessary widgets either, none of the wanted modifications are applied by the hardcoded call routines for the framework.

With that in mind, could someone code a new or better ShipYard with such (or more, contact me right here - i'll extrapolate further IF you are serious) "enhancements"?

12-- Can any FreeWares edit, load, move, add Dummies to your dX model(s)?

- PolyTrans does it, but at $400 i doubt i can justify that much cash just to create a set of primary structures with Hull/Trim materials for even just myself...

- gMaX does it too, but it won't load or save a dX nor will it import/export anything other than a Quake MD3 and that not without a very old possibly unstable Plugin...

- MilkShape3d does it, but while it can convert a MD3 to dx, it still corrupts the UV_Material_Texturing schemas of your specific Dx models making every results unusable within game... if i could be fast enough to work on all my stuff within 30 days!...

- Ultimate Unwrap3D does it, but won't convert its very own UV-mapping to relative figures USED by a special SD-GC2 dX model...

- RH' 3dExploration does it (for 30 days only too), but won't pick up a triple set of Materials such as what must be done to assign a given number of Polygons to all these individual layers and then, resave the proper textures mapping schemas to comply with the validated dx GC models...

- Blender does it, but the Panda importer won't even load your models - why bother trying to create anything in it, but it's free...

- I don't have $1000+ for 3dStudioMax or Maya or, or and yet again another -- or.

See? I'm caught in loop(s).

Help me out.

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I do not think that the software you are talking about even exists. I have looked for something that works for months now, and have found absolutely nothing! The bottom line is, any progam that can do anything worth downloading it for is going to have a price tag attached. Interstingly, Blender DOES load the ascension crystal model for me, but minus the texture, and it rejects anything else. Will have to do some more experiments with it...

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The closest thingy so far is PolyTrans which does a relatively good job at making any sort of manipulations to any dX models;

- Quite heavy on the learning curve for Texturing and materials proper handling, but does it.

- Trick is, my 30 days trial run ends next Wednesday and i doubt i will be able to finish what must be done.

Besides, 400$ is waaaayyyy too much money for what i'd have to use it for. Sadly there's absolutely no equivalent & solid alternatives to do the same kind of swift, small work such as simply re-scaling some models and having an ascii file for later 'manual' edits.

As it happens, the most important re-modeling tasks would need to be done for all & any of the Apocalypse vehicles; guess, i'm gonna have to find a way to suffer through some acrobatics within gMax & a possibly unstable converter (crossing fingers!) plugin once my Polytrans dreamdays are over.

Maybe i'll just have to stick with stock GC2 structures and perform extremely tough assembling of tilted, squeezed, crooked parts to even obtain a sort_of_approximation of the originals. But, none of these can do them justice. Even if i tried - there's a limit in the available creativity material provided. Thus why i'd hope for primary versatile H/T materials & personalized items.

Oh, well -- maybe someone at SD can hear me screaming while i'm stuck in their ShipYard without the necessary stuff.

The tricky Interceptor for X-Com:UFOD looks kinda cool though, as it happens. Cuz, the shapes & texturing were somehow close enough to satisfy me. Manta submarine from TFTD is giving me troubles, but it's nothing i can't handle with lots of patience.

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Hey, great news...

I could reach Tim White & Drew NorthCott and it's actually Greg Shill who designed the Alias PowerAnimator Apocalypse reddishly futuristic vehicles!

When Microprose (UK, in 1999) collapsed, some DAT tapes were made of these precious models and if i'm very very lucky, Greg may have kept some copies!

Now, Atari/Infogrammes may still have some "reasonable rights" over that stuff, but i really don't care - if i can get my hands on those meshes, the GC2 pool of ships just got even better with genuine & original Hulls. Trick will be -- converting, dummying, materializing, texturing, harpointing the darn cool stuff into a working set of properly modded X-Worlds' APOC fleets.

Here - hoping for that much more.

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I would have to ask again for some sort of an answer about this if you don't mind Kryo, since it seems that you are the only active person roaming the forums to help...

I'm really deep into trying to fleet up 36 different races' styles... much of basic design work has been done through extensive use of some key KHSM features and a number of tricks by GenPants & others.

As of now, there are *many* S?_UD_???.. shipcfg with corresponding xml files right into the C:\Docs.. folder -- but i'd rather find a way (if there is, just say so!) to maintain all these from the MOD folder itself.

I've followed through your 'Create Custom Style' thread suggestions to the letter and i have yet to determine exactly what i've done wrong in the process (blame my troubles with English comprehension probably) but i' pretty sure i will eventually with someone's help.

Maybe i shouldn't delete the UD sections, put some _t suffixes (or capitalized _T_ prefix) where they belong, load up a new RC file that declares another style for any or all these races in the *proper* setting order, keep everything as is in the User account GC2 folders, etc, etc - i dunno.

I'd have some specific details to iron out before i call it all quit for good - cuz it simply doesn't make any sense that a modded Race can't use their ships FROM the already provided mod folders.

Maybe it's the prefix values, the conflicting default GC2Ships.xml file with defaults, bad templates reference, and what else?

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Ooooppss... after yet another 'testing process' out of a mood swing frustration yesterday evening, i think i may have figured out a few things -- and, it seems like most is working as it should. If someone (like me and my silly perfection trips!) can identify some mistakes and missteps, that is. Read on.

Two symptoms were that the three initial ships kept being invisible and that the list of available templates to create the ship style(s) was incomplete as the X-Com Flagship or even a Fighter plus a few more didn't register into it somehow.

I soon realized i was going at it the wrong way even if i had re_re_re_read the entire forum thread(s) about making a race style;

-- Nowhere is it mentioned that the resulting xml files (of templates) MUST remain in the Templates folder along with their corresponding shpcfg. I had actually moved those into the shfdefs folder since it IS the instinctive choice - silly me.

-- UD_ does or doesn't have to be there(-?-); once the style prefix is added to the necessary places, UD sits in between ship names and that brand new ID tag. Editing those out might screw up this mess a bit further -- yet, something to look into if i want optimal file settings.

-- RC *must* be edited afterwards to activate the style along with our new names for any.

-- Any further manual edits of the style file could allow me to add the missing templates anyway; that's how i got the game to detect the XC-Flagship instead of the default SurveyShip.

-- The three invisibles were caused by a "typo" (but, that was followed from clear instructions too); the UD must be stripped off while the style tag adheres to the actual naming convention and the ship names kept (or changed from what they were!) as default ColonyShip, SurveyShip & SpaceMiner while my true templates are in fact named Colony, XC-Flagship & Miner only.

A few small details about the current state of style implementation though;

-- The starting ColonyShip (default and without the added components since i guess it's built from a pre-defined template, too) stays into the design list which isn't my intention at all. That one uses the proper hull configuration but it isn't a named H-Colony with its two IonDrives aboard. Something to look into, If you can give a hint, pleaaaaase?

-- Shouldn't it be possible to have ship templates that keep their components as pre-defined and be present as such in the eventual styles. Cuz, it looks like the _t suffixes is the trigger that rips them apart for AI use. Again, to maintain gameplay conditions as intended, my AI should or MUST have access to a entire set of pre-configured ships as templates but buildable starting with the already designed elements.

Finally, i'm quite happy that the transfer of all these files to a MOD folder worked. The pre-defined ships DO show up when techs are obtained by the Human player (i hope all AIs get to have theirs the same way!).

I'm also willing to bet that manual and a simple but looooong round of Style file edits (36 of 'hem!) with timely transfers of their shpcfg, xml, templates should be easier knowing the test style for X-Com is validated and recognized as such with just a few glitches here & there. I will have to insert a few 'Tech_Preqs' for some but that's the icing on the cake, since the Avenger XCU & gang must be done when & then!

Oh, can a AIFighter4 be added in? And even a single slot for, say, Frigate? Heck, i could certainly use an extra class for SpyShips1,2 & 3? And, if so, couldn't we simply use some designs *without* the _t trailers?

So far, so good.

Lotsa work yet to do... and thanks for any reply if you should have anything to add.

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Arrrrrggggh...

All and every AI ships (used by the X-Com ship style as defined by any help i could get so far, btw) are simply showing up **Invisible** when i play against it! Sooooo, do you think i'll bother making an extra 35 more sets knowing the templates & designs aren't taken up by the game engine? Well, maybe... but not until i receive some straight answers.

I do think it may have to do with the missing GC2Ships.xml list of valid defs since all individual files are already present in that specific folder. Does it?

Nobody said it was easy modding ships & fleets but still - you can add that much of another bad experience to the current pile of junk questions i have yet to receive any answers for.

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Back in action, they are!

Again this was some tricky files handling process which i had forgotten to keep track of... there is still the issue of providing already pre-defined ships (with components) to AIs by means of the usual 'templates' (if that's any possible, go figure!) as listed through their corresponding Style files. Instead of a Style feature, we should also have a sort_of_indirect but useful straight Fleet style gimmick.

IIRC, even Carielf had written about such stuff in the ModGuide... but, i doubt that if she didn't get to these coding tasks since --for what, about three years by now-- she most probably never will.

Too bad, creating the whole X-Worlds' ships coulda taken me less than three weeks instead of puzzling my mind around for the last two months or more.

I guess it went from quite messy to something i'm nearly capable of fixing with patience and determination.

It's like a rollercoaster, that's a given.

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Zyx, Boogie, any of the 3D modelling people: Do you have any idea how to make wireframes that don't show the back side of the object (like in tech videos)?

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Hi there, I'd like to know if there's a mod for more 'Extras' in the Shipyard. I've been looking through all the forums and this seemed like as good a place as any to ask. I really enjoy designing my own ships and I'm sure there has to be a mod package I can download, but I can't find anything specific in the forums. I'm currently playing 'Twilight of the Arnor'. Something else that has me aggrevated is that I'm a mac as my primary computer and my PC's on a KVM switch. Because I'm using my mac keyboard, I have no 'Printscreen' button so I can't even take a damn screencap of the ships I design. Can you feel my frustration? Can anyone offer me any suggestions or refer to a specific forum?

Thanks a mill.

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Hi there, I'd like to know if there's a mod for more 'Extras' in the Shipyard.

Here are a few:

http://library.galciv2.com/index.aspx?m=821

http://library.galciv2.com/index.aspx?m=649

http://library.galciv2.com/index.aspx?m=682

http://library.galciv2.com/index.aspx?m=648

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Because I'm using my mac keyboard, I have no 'Printscreen' button so I can't even take a damn screencap of the ships I design. Can you feel my frustration?

Google "freeware screen capture" and you get, among others, MWSnap. Autosave, autoprint, different screen capture sizes, renaming schemes, file type, and you can change the hotkeys.

Did I mention it's free?

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Thanks for the quick responses, Scoutdog and Sole Soul. With regards to http://library.galciv2.com/index.aspx?m=649 , it states Dark Avatar only, I'm running Twilight of Arnor, will it run ok?

I had previously downloaded 'Hoversnap' and it seems like good software only could not set my own hotkeys.

Really, thanks for the help! I may ask for more help if you don't mind.

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Hello again. I am having problems getting Twilight of Arnor to read the 'General Components Mod' by happy.cake132.

I'm not sure if this problem has to do with HOW I installed Twilight of the Arnor.

This is where I have the mod saved:

c:\Program Files\Stardock\Totalgaming\GalCiv2\Twilight\Mods\Default

Now I'm really confused and frustrated because I have no idea what to do now. I hope I don't have to reinstall 'Twilight of Arnor' to correct this problem.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

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It should, but I won't make that guarantee, since I didn't make it.

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