A little help/confirmation please.

Board Index » X3: Albion Prelude » A little help/confirmation please.

Rookiguey (4)

Posted 4 years ago.

Hi there, I'm new on here.

Seems like a great community here.

I have a couple of questions regarding making mods etc.

I've put a few custom ships with custom textures into X3AP no problem and got them working, so I know what I doing with the whole (tedious) process.

Anyway my workflow typically is:
model the ship in whatever 3d app.
Export to .FBX then do my UV mapping in 3d coat. Re-export into Substance painter to create my textures.
*This bit is what I'm unsure about*
I'll export my new textures into Photoshop. Change the channels around (ARGB) to match vanilla textures and save as DDS (DXT5 with mipmaps, sometimes DXT1 or 3 if there is no alph channel).

Load up a vanilla model in 3ds (DBox2 compatible version/year), delete the model, import my custom model, then change the X3 material(s) to point to my custom textures.

Export to bod. Change the filepathes in a text editor so they point to dds
ew_diff.dds rather than C:\user...

Then compile to bob. Export the scene then add both files to the .cat. sort out the Language file & Tships file. Job done. All works.

So the clarification is needed on wether I actually need to alter the textures channels etc.

Substance painter doesn't seem to export a bump map, rather a normal map which is what more modern games use.

I can I use a normal map or does it have to a grey scale bump?

With my occulsion map, I can add it to mat6 text entry but I'm not sure which box in 3ds's material editor it should go, reflection maybe?

Then for something I'd like to do but am I ain't so sure how I'd go about it. In Star Wars, the hangers have sheilds while they're open.

Example - https://images.app.goo.gl/mwPz7jiuAkpYRqrq5

The glowing edges is fine, as I can just texture that into my diff & light maps. The trouble I'm having is the shield/door itself.

I could add plane and texture it with opacity but again, I'm not sure how that would work in the mat6 entry and wether or not the docking fighters would crash into the plane. Other than that, I would really appreciate any ideas.

Thanks ahead for any help.

Tormox

Rookiguey (4)

Posted 4 years ago.

Ok, I've found that some models contain a bump map (can use a height map with altered channels) and low_bump which is a normal map. Just need to find a way to implement the low_bump.

Regarding the hangar shield effect. I've managed to do achieve it using the Boron Shipyard shield and manipulating the shape into a plane in 3ds. The only thing left to do is alter the texture. It however is located in the Animations.txt which is difficult to decipher without any guidance in there.

I've found some sort of guide on Egosoft's forums regarding animated textures where the person achieved a rippling like water texture on his ship. However the shield entry is very different.

Roguey

Trueguey (22)

Posted 4 years ago.

hi there, sorry for not replying sooner.

Are you still working on the mod?

Tormox

Rookiguey (4)

Posted 4 years ago.

Hi,

No problems and yes I am. I still haven't found a way to animate the hanger shield or implement the low_bump.

The mod I'm working on is SWLU, a port and improvement of Star Wars Reborn to Litcube's Universe.

https://www.moddb.com/mods/star-wars-lu-swlu

Quite a large project and will be ongoing for a while.

Thanks ahead for the help.

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