[The Dagger]

As far as I know, the poly reducer script works only with Blender 2.4 (the older version), but as I said in ShadowWolf's thread, there's a Decimate modifier in latests versions of Blender that should do the trick for you.

[Lepanto]

A belated thank you, The Dagger. That worked.

I've done LODs and the shield, and have ported the model over to PCS2. But for some reason, my pilot, damage, and cockpit textures that were on the model in Blender don't appear on the texture list in PCS2. I gave each object and subobject a material and texture, and all of the textures appear just fine in Blender, so I don't understand why exactly some of my textures are making the jump to PCS2 and some aren't. I don't want to be a pain/ask stupid questions, but some of this modeling stuff isn't exactly intuitive to me. Does anyone know what I might be doing wrong? Thanks!

[The Dagger]

I still get problems like that while exporting from time to time.
Play a bit with the export options (I think "Include Material Textures" and "Copy" should be checked, the rest of the texture options shouldn't, but I'm not 100% sure).

[fightermedic]

when exporting stuff in blender, this is the only reliable combination of settings that i have found so far:
each texture needs its own material, guess you know that but still
each object can only have one UV map (important!)
do check "include material textures" and not "include uv textures", "copy" and "only active uv layer" don't make a difference if you set up everything as it should be

[Lepanto]

Okay, this disappearing-export-texture problem has seriously stumped me. I think I'm setting up my objects, materials, and textures right. Every object has a material, and every texture has a material of its own. I've fiddled around with different combinations of export settings, to no avail. I've even had the disappearing-textures problem with somebody else's pilot Blender model which I've been using to troubleshoot.

I'm using five textures; Ammit (my UV map), AmmitGlass (for the cockpit glass), tercoc02 (for the cockpit itself), vaspilot (my pilot), and Damage from the MediaVPs. Only Ammit, AmmitGlass, and tercoc02 seem to make the transition to .dae, and tercoc02 isn't present when I load the model in PCS2, leaving me with just Ammit and AmmitGlass. Any idea what might be going on here?

I'm seriously stumped here, and I'd rather not do any more work on my textures until I've taken care of this problem and can get all my textures to carry over. Thanks!

[fightermedic]

update your blend file and i'll take a look

[Lepanto]

Thank you so much for offering to help, fightermedic and The Dagger. Here's my blend file, .dae file and associated textures.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0-LZC1urvqDYTlVNmxvZDA3MGc/edit?usp=sharing

[fightermedic]

that was easy, didn't take 3 minutes to find
in the material texture settings change your mapping from generated to UV mapping and actually select your UV

[Lepanto]

Okay, I tried that, fightermedic, but it didn't fix my problem. After a lot of trial and error, I think I've narrowed my problems down to the following:

-The meshes of my imported cockpit and Vasudan pilot models do not carry any textures over into PCS2, even if those textures carried over just fine on the rest of the model. I think there's some kind of setting/property that I imported with those meshes which isn't playing well with Blender's exporter.

-Damage.dds and vaspilot.dds (the texture that came with my Vasudan pilot model) do not carry over at all, no matter where they are placed on the model. I don't know what their problem is.

All of these textures display just fine in Blender, but vanish somewhere from Blender to PCS2.

Again, thanks for your help so far. If I'm being frustratingly dense, please forgive me; Blender isn't exactly intuitive in a lot of respects.

[The Dagger]

You have several problems in your blend file.

1) You have not made a material for Damage.dds. Each texture needs its material.

2) You have not applied the materials on the faces! Select the faces in edit mode and apply them.

3) You have to configure your materials like this:



4) You have packed your textures into the model (you shouldn't). Unpack them like this:



After doing so, PCS2 imported the dae fine with all five textures.

Again, thanks for your help so far. If I'm being frustratingly dense, please forgive me; Blender isn't exactly intuitive in a lot of respects.

It's OK, you're welcome. We are a small community and must help each other...   

EDIT: be sure to check what fightermedic said too. Also, unpacking will create a new folder called "textures" I guess that's your original layout and that's why exporting wouldn't work for me. If you mantain your file structure, you may not have to unpack the textures, but I prefer it that way (if not, your blend stores a copy of the file and you end up with the same data stored twice for nothing).

[fightermedic]

thank's dagger, you saved me a lot of work, now i don't have to write all that down, because i was just going to write exactly the same stuff
listen to the elder man fledgling, he's sharing wisdom

[Lepanto]

Thanks, fightermedic and The Dagger! Your advice helped me to fix my problem.

It's in PCS2, and I guess it's time to start texturing. This is my basic temporary color scheme, based in large part off the Serapis. Yeah, I know the UV lines have to go. Comments?

[fightermedic]

i actually like the uv lines
decrease their visibility and blur them quite a bit, and i think they could add to the model

[The Dagger]

Please do not use the UV lines... You can draw your own lines if you want to. 
As to the color palette, see if you can spice it up a little with more color. Yes, zod ships are generally green/brown/beige/sandy color, but they still have some color details (think green, blue, yellow glows, some dark grey or bluish metal).
And finally, have you considered using p3d? It's free and goes a long way to show your model (if your system can handle it, of course).

[Colonol Dekker]

It works on android phones.



My tip is to erase minor uv lines, add a new Photoshop/gimp layer, and trace the main ones, draw some Zod'esque panels, and emboss them.

[Rampage]

Layer. Layer. Layer.

I always put new stuff on a new layer, such as blur, grime/dirt, symbols, etc.  This allows for ease of manipulation later.

R

[The Dagger]

Layer. Layer. Layer.
I always put new stuff on a new layer, such as blur, grime/dirt, symbols, etc.  This allows for ease of manipulation later.

QFT. I have always repented when not following this rule.

[Lepanto]

Okay, some progress and some more snags.

Progress:



I skipped ahead and, editing the Artemis's table, got it working in-game. I find that, compared to modeling and texturing, tabling and balance should be a breeze.

Also, I've started work on a new missile which I'll release with the Ammit, the GVM Khepri:



The Khepri is a dumbfire torpedo, designed to be fired at point-blank range by an after-burnering Ammit.

===

But, as usual, I've been having some more problems.

First, I'm moving slowly on the texture. My texturing skills are unimpressive, as I've never actually textured anything before, and I think my finished product will be rather mediocre compared to other people's recent models. I'll post an update when I have something worth posting.

Also, I'm having trouble getting the textures on my models to appear in-game, even once I've finally gotten them to work on my POF. That's because the Ammit's .DAE which I exported, and then turned into a .POF, was reading its textures from the texture files which I had copied over into the models folder of my test mod when I exported it (not the textures folder). So, even though PCS can read the textures, FSO can't, and so my textures aren't appearing in-game. How do you make sure that the .POF uses textures from the textures folder?

[Dragon]

Put them into a folder named "maps". That should do it.

[Lepanto]

Put them into a folder named "maps". That should do it.

 

... Wow, I really should've remembered to do THAT. Thanks.