Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: EAD_Agamemnon on March 20, 2006, 06:29:09 pm
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Okay. My attempt to pilot cruisers into battle has gone okay so far. There is the occasional FS2 crash, but otherwise things are okay, sort of.
It was my intention of replacing the fighters, the major ones, if not all, with cruiser-equivalent vessels, along with their own ships.tbl stats. I did find however this tends to MURDER your FPS....however....I had a 4 FPS at one point, but that was with me, the rest of Alpha wing, and Beta Wing, and about 2-3 wings of enemy fighters (now cruisers). In this same instance, I found that the turrets in this event seem to refuse to fire, even for the enemy. I had to do the cheat-kill to eliminate several enemy fighter-cruisers before the turrets would kick in. I would assume this is due to the fact that there are TOO many big ships in game.......
I think I have a solution however. I just re-downloaded and installed TRUSPACE3.2. The models used by FS2 are .pof format. TS3.2 should load them, but I might be missing something here. Any hints on how to get this to work will be appreciated.
Also, with the above said, is it possible to shrink the size of a cruiser size vessel, to lets say, a transport? (ie, a Fenris-sized vessel down to a Satis-freighter). Once I know how to work TS better, I'll eventually be able to make my own gunboats (Satis-sized gunships that can pose a threat to a cruiser). But until then, I'll have to live with something else.
I do have screenshots of several battles I was in (in the main FS2 campaign), while using these cruisers. I would like to find a way to continue with this approach....eyecandy.
Screen1
http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/7862/screen00001iu.jpg
Screen2
http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/8659/screen00019lo.jpg
Screen3
http://img482.imageshack.us/img482/9905/screen00027pu.jpg
Screen4
http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/612/screen00039td.jpg
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So THAT's where those silly POF subsystem names get used. Good to know. Also glad to see that the clipping issues with "show ship" seem to be less broken than they were the last time I tried something like that.
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Huh?
I checked with MODVIEW, and the difference in polys between a fighter and cruiser like you see in the screenshots is maybe 100. If I can find out how to load the ships I want, and adjust their size, it would go a long way to helping. Indeed if I knew how, I'd make a BoE like mission with nothing but fighters-made-made small cruisers or very nasty freighter-size vessels. But I'm just going to have to settle for the former.
Any and all assistance would be appreciated.
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The problem really isn't the number of ships as much as it is the number of subsystems. There's just more to track about a cruiser than there is a fighter, since it's got a dozen or more additional subsystems, each with their own AI and hitpoint count.
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So that is why a ship in retail FS2 that has a turret with 2 firing points....only has 1 fring point set up in the tables. However, how can I open up pof files in my models folder in truspace and is it possible to 'shrink' the ship. Flying a cruiser-size ship is fun, but itd be kinda nice to have a vessel thats more like a gunboat rather than an ungainly cruiser. It'd be nice to have it fixed where the 'cruiser' im flying is smaller than the 'cruiser' its escorting. I have some ideas but I need help.
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There should really be some sort of check in the hud code so that it simply refuses to display subsystems past the screen limit, rather than trying to and crashing.
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There should really be some sort of check in the hud code so that it simply refuses to display subsystems past the screen limit, rather than trying to and crashing.
This is not my issue.
UPDATE! For some reason the game refuses to let me load the cruisers again. I made the Loki, Hercules, Myrmidon, fighters into modified SATIS freighter gunboats, but the moment I replace 1 of these with a cruiser and its stats (they didnt give trouble before), FS2 crashes immediately after I hit continue (the door on the main screen that has the marine next to it). I'm still working on this problem though and have some possible solutions.
However, back to my original question: How do I open existing POF files from the models folder in TRUSPACE 3.2. At the very least I'd like to tweak a few things. Also, is it possible to reduce ship size in there.
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However, back to my original question: How do I open existing POF files from the models folder in TRUSPACE 3.2. At the very least I'd like to tweak a few things. Also, is it possible to reduce ship size in there.
You need to use PCS (POF Constructor Suite), you load the POF File and the go to "conversion" and select "POF to COB", then select the output name/dir/etc.
Once you edit the Model as you wanted (in this case you need to scale the model), you use again PCS and go to "conversion" and select "COB to POF", once it loads (if there are no errors), select "Save POF file as...", and that's all...
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Okay.
Regarding my game crashing. I resaved my SHIPS tbl from an earlier version that I tried, that provided no real trouble. Now when I loaded just it to see if my crash problem continued. Now it crashes to desktop when it hit COMMIT or before the 2nd light in the load screen comes up.
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I converted the ship to COB...it LOAD OBJECT...nothing happens....
Or I'm just not seeing it.
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It's probably really big. Truespace has a tendency to make users work in a 10^3 box.
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How can it 'big'. The models(s) in question are a little bigger in dimensions than a Fenris/Leviathan. A little wider, some are a little thicker, and thinner....
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I mean that if you look at the extents of the Truespace window by default, the dimensions of objects that you can see are really small. That's why PCS has the scaling function; converting at 1:1 would mean that the models would be prohibitively hard to work with.
It's probably not loading though, if you can't see anything. If it were loading, you'd at least be able to see a line or something.
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Found the problem. Somehow I guess the model file in the models folder got corrupt I guess. NOW it loads. That would also explain why FS2 wouldnt run. Okay, now that I'm in TRUSPACE, how do I scale down a ship in size.
EDIT: I found the SCALE MODEL feature, but am unsure if this is the correct way. If it is, how do I scale down to...well...scale, with LxWxH in a 1 to 1 to 1 scale.
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Yeah, that's pretty much it. There is a way to make the scale manipulator operate in a uniform way, too, but I usually found it better to type it in by hand.
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And where do I type in the desired dimensions? Searched through the menus and cant find where I directly change object scale. I did find the scaling tutorial, but I forgot where I found it. :(
Mind you I'm new to model altering, so pointers would be good. Table alterations however I'm doing okay with.
Once I know how to alter model size, I'll be one step closer to what I'm looking for.
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I mean that if you look at the extents of the Truespace window by default, the dimensions of objects that you can see are really small. That's why PCS has the scaling function; converting at 1:1 would mean that the models would be prohibitively hard to work with.
Is that why the models I've downloaded in .3ds are so small? I have a Sobek (Raa's high-poly, IIRC) that Cinema4D calls less then ten meters long. I didn't realize it at first because it was zoomed in enough that it looked normal, then I noticed the size of the grid lines. The Orion I have is really small too.
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If the meshes are reverse-converted POFs then they are always exactly 1/20th of their proper scale. There may also be issues converting between C4D and Max units (since a Max unit isn't equal to a meter but has some equivalency) that are compounding the problem.
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I dont mean to sound like a broken record...
WHERE do I change the ship scale at other than having to use the OBJECT SCALE thingamajig which requires moving the mouse around and around....I want to keep everything as is...just make things smaller. Do I do into POF-CS ---> OPTIONS ---> Conversion Scale Factor (says 20.0 ..... is this what I change?) Or what is it must do?
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I think I found it. Right clicked on the OBJECT INFFO (the moust pointer shape icon in TruSpace.) Will let you know if it works.
EDIT: GAH! POF-CS CRASHES WHEN I TRY TO CONVERT COB to POF!
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Exporting a POF does not set up the heirarchy correctly for re-import. You'll have to learn how to use PCS properly for conversions in order to make this work.
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Okay. Now how will I go about this. I'm no programmer.
I have the model resized to desired dimensions. Now all I need to make it into POF again.
EDIT: AGAIN! I figure out how it works after the fact. I have the model back as POF now. However the textures dont load. Did I miss a step? I didnt alter the textures, merely the model size.
EDIT2: I'm in MODVIEW now....great....appears I need to reinstall ALL texturse and ALL subsystems. HELP!
EDIT3: All I wanted was rescale. NOW I need to reload EVERYTHING....something tells me I'm in WAY over my head. Assistance?
EDIT4: I'm getting the turret firing points back in. I'm simply using the original model as a reference and reducint all numbers by 1/3. Putting textures and rotating points back in I may need assistance with. Maybe after this I'll not have to ask for help again...though that liklihood is small