Also note that completely understanding a tutorial could take
days on end. MODding often takes a lot of patience.
I would suggest:
1. First go and change some tables and their ship specifications.
2. Then start with re-skinning ships without messing with the models themselves (IE: UV Coordinates). Just go into PSP or Photoshop and change the textures around. Thus, you can get a hang of what's what.
3. Next, model a bit in trueSpace, but not from scratch. Start with a nice pre-made model and change the locations of several vertices. This will help you to get a hang of trueSpace and modeling in general. [To check out my tutorial on good, solid geometry and other MODding documents, check my siggy. (Two links will take you to Christian websites!!!!)] This process may take from two weeks to two months.
4. Now its time to become familiarized with Freespace 2 model heirarchy. (Read my POST-MODDING Tutorial) This should take about a week or two to understand
EVERYTHING.
5. trueSpace isn't really a good program to make models from scratch with. At this time, you're ready to discover the usefulness of LightWave and 3DS MAX in modeling from scratch. These are fairly difficult programs to work with, so do expect the learning process to take up to a year, if you're lucky... [Exaggeration, Really... Depends on the person.]
6. You really can exchange this step with step five. You now should have some ships ready. You will learn to make interface art for them. These include, but are not restricted to, shield animations, SS animations, and loadout icons. (Also, check my siggy and explore around. :thepimp: )
I do want to wish you good luck on your path to MODding. It took me about two years to get half of this material, so don't feel bad if you can't punch out a good model by the end of the month. [Well maybe you can, and it would make
me feel bad.
]
Rampage
