[The E]

Which build of PCS2 are you using?

[MR_T3D]

now that looks like something the republic might have built

[starlord]

actually, I think the more "corvetty" tie fighter version of the dreadnaught is also quite interesting... might you have a use for that version in game?

[Pred the Penguin]

I likes the previous coloration. Felt less like wasted paint.
Maybe one or two red stripes... Just throwing ideas out here.
I really think you've captured how a Dreadnaught should look like though, just feels right.

[bobbtmann]

Which build of PCS2 are you using?

It's version 2.0.3. The collada one.

[The E]

Use this one instead. Simply overwrite the old PCS2 exe with that one. You may also have to replace the dlls for PCS2 with these.

[chief1983]

bobbtman, considering the amount of work you've done lately, have you been keeping backups?  If not the ftp listed in internal is a perfect place.  There's already a folder with your Carrack in it

[Black Wolf]

Yeah. For... backups.

Nothing to do with anyone wanting to put them ingame and make missions...

[chief1983]

What he said.

[bobbtmann]

Okay, well, it's on the ftp now. Includes debris and LOD's. I haven't exported it, and the psd's have to be saved as .dds. Other than that, I think it's ready to be in the game.

[chief1983]

Awesome.  Don't let us stop you from attempting any conversion on your end though, our main model converter is still detained with other tasks outside of FotG.

[bobbtmann]

Hah. My own abilities stop me from converting these. That carrack pof I sent you took as much time to rig an export as making the thing did. Months. And I don't even remember how I did it.

I think my time would be better spent making new ships or fixing ships that already exist. I'll make the assault frigate and a marauder corvette. After that I was thinking that I could make debris and lod's for the ships that already exist.

[chief1983]

Yes, debris and LODs are awesome.

[zookeeper]

Is it intentional that the debris doesn't use a different texture on the parts that usually have the "damage" texture on them? They look pretty funny using just the regular textures. Also the material setup in general is quite a mess AFAICT, although I can probably sort it out.

[newman]

Ideally, for debris, you could come up with a new set of uvws for a new debris map, then use uvw channels to bake from old uv's (channel1) to the new ones (channel2). What this does is that it allows you to have a new map with efficient uvw usage for debris, while matching the hull perfectly. All that would be left would be to dirty the new baked maps up in photoshop, so you could simulate burnt edges, etc. I wrote a tutorial on how to do this some time ago, it's not perfect and I'd need to revise it a bit before releasing it to the public, but if you're interested I could probably dig it up.

[Angelus]

Ideally, for debris, you could come up with a new set of uvws for a new debris map, then use uvw channels to bake from old uv's (channel1) to the new ones (channel2). What this does is that it allows you to have a new map with efficient uvw usage for debris, while matching the hull perfectly. All that would be left would be to dirty the new baked maps up in photoshop, so you could simulate burnt edges, etc. I wrote a tutorial on how to do this some time ago, it's not perfect and I'd need to revise it a bit before releasing it to the public, but if you're interested I could probably dig it up.

Yes, we are. Pretty please! 

[bobbtmann]

What mess are you talking about? I thought I knew how to make maps. Maybe not, though. In 3ds max I make multi map. Then I take parts of the model that use map #1 and give it material id #1, then map #2 gets id #2, and so on and so forth. In the case of the dreadnaught, there are two maps, and id#3 is reserved for the damage texture. Those are the actual blown up parts. The actual multi-material never had a map, just an empty slot for where the map would go, since I figure all the ships will just use that damage texture and I don't have it. I suppose I could make individual damage maps for all the ships. It would double the number of maps, though.

[swashmebuckle]

We should probably make a placeholder (or just use the FS default Terran debris map) until we go standalone, but yeah, having a few common debris maps would be much preferable for performance as far as I understand it.  I imagine it's pretty hard to make something that works well at a lot of different scales, but would a single map for all our fighters be doable?  Something like that could have specific components drawn from each fighter map and burned out along with basic melt/char stuff for the interiors.  Likewise, a texture that all the cap ships could use would be nice, though I don't know if things like showing blasted out bulkheads would work well, particularly between ships of widely varying sizes.

[zookeeper]

Ok, after another attempt at fixing some of the problems I'll just list them here:

1. Unclear material setup. All sorts of unnamed green materials but not a single multimat I'm supposed to apply to everything.
2. Odd material id's here and there, like half of the turbolaser polys having mat id 11.
3. Mat id 1 uses 'dread2' and mat id 2 uses 'dread'. Urgh.
4. Bad polys (image attached) here and there.
5. The top of the reactor has holes you can see through.
6. No word on where subsystems should go. Should there be a fighterbay? Should there be dockpoints?
7. The UV mapping for the destroyed texture in reactor-destroyed and engines-destroyed seems a bit lacking, when a separate damage texture is used (I'm using debris3.pcx).
8. Turrets aren't instanced so if any any changes to them are going to be needed, it's going to be painful.

I think I've fixed issues 1, 2 and 3, and uploaded my working file in my user dir on the ftp in case you want to look at it (saved using Max 2009). It also has all the turrets set up with fvecs/uvecs and helper dummies in place (I think; I haven't been able to test them in-game).

[attachment deleted by admin]

[bobbtmann]

Huh. I guess I missed that one. I try to fix them as I go, and usually I catch the missing ones during the UV map. And sorry about the the texture names. I went and placed all my turrets before realizing the numbers were all messed up. Found it easier to just switch the materials. Can't find the hole in the reactor. Images?

I won't hate you if you just make up the subsystems. Heaven knows that's what I've been doing. I tried naming the subobjects in a way that made sense, but you can change them if you want. The fighterbay will be the big gaping hole with all the lights, probably.

Is the texture on the damage model too pixelated? It should be fixed by scaling the uv's. I think that maybe things got changed between your version and mine. I've never used green.

edit: just checked the model. Try turning the polygone you mentioned. The triangles are just lying against the edge, so it should be okay.

edit2: Thanks for doing the conversion, zookeeper. I appreciate it.