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Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: bizzybody on February 06, 2007, 01:12:40 am

Title: Free spaceship modeling program.
Post by: bizzybody on February 06, 2007, 01:12:40 am

DoGA (http://www.doga.us/) The free download comes with a bunch of ready-made parts that can be exported as DXF, VRML or DirectX format models. DoGA's own format is SUF (whatever that stands for), which are ASCII text files so anyone with knowledge about 3D file format conversions should be able to write a program to convert them directly to COB etc.

Exporting to DirectX format works better, sometimes the DXF output opens in trueSpace a bit, uh, wadded up looking. If it does open with geometry OK, the normals are all backwards. trueSpace 7.x natively supports DirectX, tS 6.0 requires the Caligari Conversions Pack, tS 6.5 and 6.6 require Caligari Conversions Pack 2.

Here's a shot of bridge model 77 and turret model 93 in tS6.6, exported as DirectX then converted to COB with tS7. Models also attached. I haven't done anything other than convert their formats so they may need some fiddling with, starting with the Decompose into objects button. If you don't have tS higher than version 4.0, then any non-solid parts will be a problem. IIRC it wasn't until 4.2 that it was possible to select all the edges around a hole, click the Add Face button then click the selected edges to fill it.

If nothing else, DoGA should give you some ideas on stuff to model for spaceships! :)

[attachment deleted by admin]

Title: Re: Free spaceship modeling program.
Post by: bizzybody on February 06, 2007, 01:38:08 am

Here's that turret with geometry issues cured. There was some weirdness on the rear underside of the turret and the barrels had an internal edge between the barrel base and the attachment to the turret body, and I relocated the axes of the parts. (This is going to replace the crappy turrets I put on the Istrano. ;-)

[attachment deleted by admin]

Title: Re: Free spaceship modeling program.
Post by: Scooby_Doo on February 06, 2007, 02:41:43 am

I like your turret.  :)

Title: Re: Free spaceship modeling program.
Post by: bizzybody on February 06, 2007, 02:54:36 am

And here's the bridge with geometry bugaboos fixed, also a one piece version, with some parts cleaned up to reduce fiddly areas with too many vertexes and short edges after having to adjust parts positions small amounts to get them to boolean join.

[attachment deleted by admin]

Title: Re: Free spaceship modeling program.
Post by: bizzybody on February 06, 2007, 03:09:07 am

It's not my turret, it came with the DoGA program. :) http://www.doga.us Plenty of interesting bits with that software, but they do take a bit of fixing up. that's what I really like about trueSpace, it's easy to make a CLEAN mesh that doesn't have overlapping edges and vertexes occupying the same space but not connected.

Most DXF's or other formats import into trueSpace with a host of horrible geometry problems. Whether it's the tS import feature that does funky things or sloppiness on the part of the app (or operator of same) that creates the meshes, I dunno. At least it's usually possible to fix them in tS. ;)

Title: Re: Free spaceship modeling program.
Post by: Getter Robo G on February 11, 2007, 11:22:24 pm

Ah ok no wonder I kept running into problems with DOGA parts. Cause I'm stuck with 3.2 so on conversion it's making errors I did not understand/even know about.

Thanks for the info!

I tried this last year with DOGA but it crashes on death.

"Drake" fighter
(http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/8074/drake0yy.th.jpg) (http://img97.imageshack.us/my.php?image=drake0yy.jpg)

Title: Re: Free spaceship modeling program.
Post by: bizzybody on February 12, 2007, 12:47:44 am

I wonder how hard it'd be to make a program that converts directly from DoGA's SUF format to ASCII COB? The SUF files are plaintext so there's no problem of first having to "de-geek" a proprietary binary format.

Title: Re: Free spaceship modeling program.
Post by: Scooby_Doo on February 12, 2007, 02:05:13 am

Quote from: bizzybody on February 12, 2007, 12:47:44 am

I wonder how hard it'd be to make a program that converts directly from DoGA's SUF format to ASCII COB? The SUF files are plaintext so there's no problem of first having to "de-geek" a proprietary binary format.

Make it 3DS instead  :yes:

Title: Re: Free spaceship modeling program.
Post by: shiv on February 15, 2007, 06:39:41 am

I was working with DOGA-L1, but when I'm exporting it to pof Consturctor Suite it crashes.

here is screen of my ship:

(http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/2679/somethingyn0.jpg)

Title: Re: Free spaceship modeling program.
Post by: bizzybody on February 16, 2007, 04:31:03 am

I found a program that's supposed to grok DoGA's SUF format, called "Metasequoia". http://www.metaseq.net/english/index.html The freeware LE version exports to SUF, RDS, COB, SCE, X, POV. A post on some DirectX modeling/animation board led me there, the poster said it could read DoGA's SUF and export to DirectX format.

What remains to be seen is how cleanly Metasequoia LE can export to COB and the other formats.

Title: Re: Free spaceship modeling program.
Post by: Getter Robo G on February 16, 2007, 05:58:28 am

I think me and Axem used that...

My 3 ships still have problems (hidden geometry errors)... That crashes one fighter on death, the cap ship and other fighter crashin Fred. All three from converted DOGA parts.

We had a thread about DOGA 2-3 years ago on Game-Warden...

I did some digging and in one thread Fusion Storm mentions making it a Direct X model FIRST to solidify faces... and in THIS thread is some more useful info I think.

http://www.game-warden.com/forum/showthread.php?t=94&page=2

Personally I gave up after trying to make a Gundam looking turret.