[krevett62]

Hello just asking has someone managed to convert these ships inside the FS2 engine?

I'd like to have the alliance and coalitions fighters but I've got no skill in 3D modeling. I've got the models extracted from the game with dds textures if someone is willing to take a look and convert them to pof format with gunpoints, lod, etc... I'm also missing the textures for those fighters with external guns (coyote for example).

I don't know if something can be done with these files if someone wants to take a look, I link them here.

Thanks in advance.

Edit: attachement for dae files in this post blender in the next post, cleared other attachements.

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[Nyctaeus]

It's a lot of work, but it's not impossible. Find a way to convert ms3d format to something more friendly [3ds? obj?] and the rest is pretty easy in Blender for example.

[krevett62]

I've tried to convert them to .obj, but when opening them in blender I got nothing! As I said I really suck at modeling (I'm good at table/mission editing lol) and was just asking there if someone already thought of converting them. I've seen there was some project that are now dead so I'll probably never see these ships 

I packed them in ms3d because that was the only one that allowed me to convert them from the original game. Thanks for your words!



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[Nyctaeus]

Job like this actually do not require anykind of modelling abilities . If these models have UV, lods, debris and textures, all that U need is setting up hierarchy and assign proper textures to materials. Collada Exporter [.dae format] will do the rest. At first You have to find a way to convert ms3d format.

[krevett62]

OK, but these files are only crude models extracted from the game and textures converted to dds format. They don't have any UV, LOD, etc... So much work is still needed and I really don't knoww how to do all of these things 
I don't want super detailed models, I'd just want these models to have one LOD and gun/missiles banks, engine comm nav and sensors but really I'm lost ^^

So perhaps someone will care about this one day (in this case let me know I'm really interested in having these ships ) from now on I'll just abandon the idea of porting them myself to FSO 

[Aesaar]

Don't count on anyone else doing it for you.  Starlancer is an old game, and if someone here wanted them ported, it would have been done by now.  If you really want to have them in FSO, you're going to have to learn how to do it yourself.

[krevett62]

Hehe I try I try, I managed to import them to blender but I'm lost using the program! I'll need to learn using it first...

[Droid803]

If you get them to show up in blender, then can you export them as DAE?
Then someone else might at least have a chance of poking at it and telling you what needs to be done.

[krevett62]

I get the models but I don't see the textures on the ships.

Edit: nevermind I see them (just learning how blender works ^^) I'll take a look at various tutos here to see how to add LOD and UV.

If someone could tell me what do I need to do before exporting the model to dae to make it useable by POFCS2?

[Droid803]

http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Collada_Importer

[krevett62]

Thanks for the link!

For now I just managed to convert all the models in blender rescale, relocate and reorient them (they were 100x too large).

Now for the hard part I'll see that tomorrow

[Nyctaeus]

I'm not sure but they seems to lost their material data. If models use multiple textures, they need one material for one texture. They still have uvmapping, but all materials are probably gone. You will have to redo all materials manually. It's not fast job.

To more experianced modellers: Correct me if I am wrong.

[Scooby_Doo]

Losing their material ID's would be relatively easy to repair, losing their UV's would be a pain in the butt...

BTW if you would like to post just the basic obj/dae files for the ship, I would love to use some of them for inspiration since they do kinda resemble WC ships.

[krevett62]

Here are the file converted in blender into dae. BTW something must be wrong as they show nothing in POFCS2, but I've scaled et relocated the models one more time as the orientation was wrong.

Edit: attachements are in the first and second posts, cleared unused attachements.

Edit2: managed to finally import a model in POFCS2, needed to redo the hierarchy and add some groups in blender (I took a look at an existing model to see how it was done )

[krevett62]

The only downside for now is that models in POFCS2 don't have textures so the models UV map is probably inexistant...
The mosel appears grey in POFCS2 and don't appear at all in-game (it was just a quick test of course)

[Nyctaeus]

Export -> DAE -> Texture Options -> Include UV Textures

Left side of the window.

[krevett62]

Haha the option was checked but I forgot to also check "include material textures". Now it seems to work I'm going to test it in FRED to see if the model appears!

Edit: Great, it works the model appears in FRED and in-game!!! I never thought it was so simple now I have a lot of work to set each ships gunpoint/missilepoint. I'm missing debris but don't understand how to do it so it'll do for now!

Edit2: For gunpoints and missiles points I put the rotation for X-axis at 90 is this right for forward pointing guns/missiles? What should I put for thrusters pointing backwards?? Thanks in advance!

[Droid803]

For gunpoints/thrusters you can just set them up in PCS2 if you want (just look at how an existing model is set up).
That's how I've always done it.

[krevett62]

Yes I know that but as I become more familiar with blender I'd like to do the maximum of operations in the blender model then export it to dae to convert in-game.

I've made some progress since I managed to import pod models (for missiles like screamer pods, hawk pods etc...) and additionnal canons design that I can now add to the ships model. I now also have proper textures for the models with external canons as I had a hard time finding how to read the compressed starlancer format of .tga! The ships were already textured just because I have used them in freelancer before and had the dds textures just there (thanks to a great modder )

When I'll be done with all of this (putting guns, missiles and thrusters at the right place), I'll have to add the shields   

Pfeww still a lot of work but I'm enjoying this for now it's the first time I'm using programs like blender and the like...

[krevett62]

Ok good, for now three are converted and working in-game (coyote, crusader, grendel).
They are basic but at least they have 2 LOD (one without additional guns/missiles pods drawing), a shield, a dockingpoint and very basic subsystems (set as "untargetable" for now).

They're lacking debris and additional texture work but for me it will be enough if I manage to convert the 21 ships like these!

Thanks for your help, 18 more to go