[Stardust]

Wow!

Been some time since I was here last. This has probably been posted somewhere else, but after a couple hours of searching I'm not much closer to being done.

Anyways, I'm trying to get a single ship from a .VP file from one of the many mods out there. I've downloaded VPViewer as well as VPBuilder. I've extracted the ship's .pof file, the textures, as well as created/extracted the table entry for the ship itself. Ditto on the ship's weapons. FYI - it's a corvette I'm trying to mess with. Now, I've organized everything into a folder called 'data', and in that folder there are folders called 'maps' (for the textures), 'models' (for the ship model) and 'tables' for the table file entries. Once I extracted what I needed with VPViewer, I fired up VPPBuilder and threw everything together, yet not in their folders I had created. Anyways, it saved it as a .vpp format, which I then threw into my freespace 2 directory, and now, the ship doesn't show up.

I'd like to make it work as if it were a .vp format, but VPBuilder only saves it as .vpp. What I'm wanting to have is something like the Sirona-class destroyer, or the dreadnought Archangel, both of which are on Hades Combine. You simply download the zip or rar file, and extract the compressed .vp into your root FS2 directory and bam, there they are. Simple. Easy. You don't have to sort everything into its appropriate folders in \data.

In case it matters, I'm running the latest build of SCP.

Help!

[Snail]

You don't need to put it in a .vp at all.

[Water]

Or use this - Maja Express: VP Editor - full read/write - and a preview feature.
http://wmc.freespacemods.net/repository/index.html

[Stardust]

Thanks Water, was very useful.

Now I've got me my ship set in .vp format, and it's not showing up in my FRED. There were some error messages which I think I've fixed from comparing them to the VPs for the Sirona and the Archangel, yet it doesn't show up. Confused! Any thoughts?

[Getter Robo G]

Did you try the basic method yet???

Added ship entry to table file
POF in model folder
8 bit PCX textures in maps Folder

Step backwards for some I understand BUT better to learn how to walk before you run...(With scissors!) 

[Stardust]

Yeah, I tried that and it didn't work either. It wouldn't show up in my FRED at all. Which is why I'd ideally like to try having it as a .vp file.

I'll try it again, but I don't expect any real measure of success.

[Wanderer]

Skip the vp files until you can make the model work. Its just container file.. not compressed archive or anything.

So... You have added the ship to a extracted ships.tbl - or PREFERABLY, used xxx-shp.tbm files - which is placed into table directory in a mod dir? And placed the model file and the textures in models and maps directories? Have you then directed the FRED to use the mod directory?

[Stardust]

Well, surprisingly (to me anyway) it works. I've got me my corvette working beautifully. I've backed up my data folder just to be safe. But I'd still like to put it in .vp format.