Hard Light Productions Forums
Announcements => Getting Started => Topic started by: jphollanti on April 12, 2020, 12:53:10 pm
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Hello Community! I'm looking into using my own 3D models in FSO. This is just to get a feel of the workflow, most likely this won't lead to anything interesting. Apologies if this is already documented somewhere but after spending an hour googling I figured it's easier to just ask.
This is how I understood the process goes:
1. Make a 3D model and export it as .cob
2. Open the .cob file in PCS2.0
3. Rig the model (bounding boxes, center of mass, gun points, missile points, etc.)
4. Never got this far.
So already on first step I ran into issues. I'm on Blender and .cob hasn't existed in something like 10 years. There doesn't seem to be an abundance of tools that can make this happen. I found konvertor which can do .dae to .cob. Great! Importing this in PCS2.0 resulted in an empty view though. Bummer! I found another version of PCS2.0 that could import .dae directly but again, empty view.
Can someone point me in the right direction? Thanks.
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Skip COB and use DAE. PCS2 can import DAE natively.
Name your lod0 of your model detail0 to make it show up in PCS2 easier. If you make additional lods, name them in order of detail detail1, detail2, detail3.
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Thank you, mjn.mixael! Naming things properly helped :yes:
For those interested. Name a thing as detail0:
(https://i.ibb.co/mTpBJ6d/detail0.png)
Export settings, choose Selection only:
(https://i.ibb.co/D4ggMDf/export-settings.png)
Download PCS2.0. This page seems to have a working link to a working version: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=77292.0
(https://i.ibb.co/BTtR2n9/PCS2-Open.png)
That version of PCS2.0 doesn't need any added dll's or anything.
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mjn.mixael, if I can bother you a bit more. I added gun points, etc. and saved it as .pof and modifield some existing table file I found from https://wiki.hard-light.net/index.php/User-made_Ships.
Then I used Knossos to make a new mod and added that as a package there. Everything seems to work OK, I'm not getting errors anymore, but looking at the ship in tech database, it shows as empty. The description text is there but the model itself doesn't show. I tried also with SC Lamia, that one works without problems.
Attached the mod files and the blender model.
[attachment eaten by a Shivan]
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You didn't add any textures to the ship.
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Ah, right. Thanks for pointing that out. Any pointers when adding textures in Blender? I assume I need to take something into account?
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I'd just google "blender texturing" or something like that.
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But in terms of what PCS2 or FS2 in general expects?
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When you convert the model there shouldn't be any problems AFAIK if you textured the ship properly.
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OK, cool. Indeed, seems to work. Thank you for the help :cool:
Not sure if it matters, I randomly dropped the texture I used on the ship in maps directory? And I used just .PNG..
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And I packed all the external data into .blend. I think I will mess around with it a bit to see what works and what not :)
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Data/Maps yes; png, dds, pcx (8bit), tga are all valid.
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DDS is preferred for final textures. PNG is fine for testing. (DDS works better with video card memory.)
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Great, thank you Nightmare and mjn.mixael. I will take note of your comments. I think next I will try to make a test mission with my ship.