Star Trek Mod (Division of Labor?)

[Suicide Junkie]

http://www.i3dxtra.com/kb/read.asp?GID=7&AID=7

Looks like you can just "Save As..." a .X file
All you have to do then is make sure the textures work out.

[General Woundwort]

I am heartened by the interest expressed by all you guys in seeing ST ships in this mod. Just to give you guys an idea of what I'm looking for, this is my "ideal" as to how it would look...

PLAYER/NEUTRAL - the Terran DD from the base game would remain as the standard "Merchantman". It has about the right look to it IMO. Freighters would also remain the same. The Terran FG would be carried over as a neutral Gunboat/PT ship.

FEDERATION - approximating the Terran capital ships. The Terran CA ought to be the "Reliant"-class, the BC a ST:TMP era "Enterprise", and the BB the "Excelsior"s.

KLINGONS - FG's (Birds of Prey), and CA's (the ubiquitous and absolutely necessary D-7). Other models and ideas welcome.

ROMULANS - I actually think the Sithrak models would be pretty cool as Romulan ships, but if others have other ideas...

BTW, one intermediate step I have been thinking of is doing a "Beta" release just using stock Starfury models with new names and layouts. That way everyone can see how the game would work, and it would allow something to get out while any new ship models are being de-bugged.

[Drake113]

Here's what I did for the Galactica model (which was originally a SFC I MOD file). Before we start, I want to say that I am NOT a 3d modeler, and it's not only possible but very likely that there are much more efficient ways to do this. It's also possible that I'm leaving a step or two out, so anyone who does this on a regular basis, please check my math and correct me where I'm wrong:

Find the MOD file for the ship you want (try a google search for SFC mesh or SFC Mod if you're looking for stuff)
Download Milkshape 1.6.6 (NOT the 1.7 beta) from here.
To to http://www.starfleetuniverse.com and download the SFC plugin for Milkshape.
Get Lithunwrap from here: http://files.seriouszone.com/download.php?fileid=198

Import the MOD file of the ship you want into Milkshape. Edit>Select all. Rotate X -90. Face>Reverse Vertex Order. Scale (I've found that anywhere between 6 and 12 is good). Save as: Autodesk .3ds.

Now, open the .3ds model in Lithunwrap, select the individual Groups, and move them around and scale them until all the Groups fit in the large gray box on your screen. Under the Materials tab, delete all but one (Starfury wants one texture map only). Model>Save>Save as Direct X (Text, uncheck Compression) in the X files directory of Starfury. Click Copy UV Map to Clipboard and then open up a new document in your trusty image editor (I use Photoshop myself) and paste the UV map there. Now, open up all the .bmp files that are associated with the model (They're the .bmp files that come with the model). Select all>copy>paste each of them onto the UV map, scaling and moving them so that they line up with the lines on the UV Map (I find that altering a layer's opacity helps). Flatten layers, resize to 256 x 256, save as a .bmp to the images directory of Starfury.

Now, back at LithUnwrap, click on the materials bar you left alone, rename it to the .bmp file you just saved, click properties, under Diffuse Map, choose Map: bitmap, then Properties, Change, and load the .bmp. Click View>Material and select the material; it should show up within the gray box now. Click Preview>Show Model and make sure everything is Ok. Save as .x to the XFiles directory. That should do it.

Now, it's just a matter of editing the SpaceObjects_XFiles.txt file to get your model in there.

You should be able to use more or less the same proceedure to import Bridge Commander models, Homeworld models, etc, although I haven't tried this yet. Good luck!

Oh, also, for ship layout files and shield layout files, you can't go wrong with a visit to http://www.shipschematics.net

[Cleeve]

Originally posted by Drake113:
You should be able to use more or less the same proceedure to import Bridge Commander models, Homeworld models, etc, although I haven't tried this yet. Good luck!

Bridge commander models cannot be imported because there is no import plug in for them, unfortunately.

Not sure about homeworld models.

Starfleet Command models have a 3dsMAX importer available for download, so the easiest way to do the conVersion is:

1. Import SFC model into 3dsMAX using the SFC mod importer

2. use the "Deep Exploration" exporter to export into .X format

[Drake113]

Originally posted by Cleeve:
Bridge commander models cannot be imported because there is no import plug in for them, unfortunately.

Not sure about homeworld models.

Right, there's no importer for 3ds Max, but Milkshape will import Bridge Commander, Homeworld and even Armada models if you use the plugin from Assimilation Software ( http://www.assimsoft.com/) -- at least that's what the import menu says. So, you could import the model into Milkshape, then export it as a .3ds file, and then open it in 3dsMax.

[General Woundwort]

Many thanks for the tips. I'll be busy in RL issues until tomorrow afternoon, but I'll give these recommendations a try and see what I can come up with...

[Atrocities]

I have a ton of star trek models and meshes someplace. I can look for them, but I think they are on the HD of my dead p2 400. Any one want to donate $200.00 bucks to help me get it going again, I could then burn a disk and send it to you if the data is still intact.

[Suicide Junkie]

What kind of damage are you talking?
If the harddrive and files are intact, can you not just yank it out and plug it into another case?

[General Woundwort]

Good news - I got the programs Drake mentioned, and started to work on a ship - namely the Miranda class Fed cruiser (the good ship "Reliant" from Wrath of Khan).

Bad news - Drake, what did your BG model look like at this stage?

Originally posted by Drake113:
Now, open the .3ds model in Lithunwrap, select the individual Groups, and move them around and scale them until all the Groups fit in the large gray box on your screen.

I'll tell you, for the Miranda it looked like a plate of angular spaghetti, or maybe the wiring diagram for a HAL 9000. I couldn't make heads or tails of it, much less shrink *all* of the parts down and fit them onto that one screen.

If this is "normal", I may have to contract out the ship modeling portion of the mod, as I am still lightyears behind in just coding the campaign, and doing the ships would take forever.

[ November 02, 2003, 13:57: Message edited by: General Woundwort ]

[Drake113]

No, it's sorta supposed to look that way initially. You don't even want to know how scary the Andromeda Ascendant was when I started this endeavor; that's the reason I shelved the Andromeda mod right off the bat and went for Battlestar Galactica instead.
Ok, you should have a menu bar down the right side with the following stuff:
+ Groups
+ Materials
Bones

Click on the + next to Groups. Then, right click on the first group, click "Select", then Edit>Scale>Arbitrary>.5x>Close. This will scale down the selected group to half size. Now, move it somewhere out of the way, right click the group again, and click "Unselect". Repeat for the rest of the Groups.
Ok, now that you've scaled down your respective Groups, the next trick is to get them all to coexist in that gray box without overlapping. Ideally, you want to make them as big as possible so you'll get the most amount of detail out of your texture.
Now, delete all the stuff under materials and save it as an XFile. Now click File>UV Map>Save and name it something like miranda.bmp. This is BMP of a wireframe representation of your ship, and this is what you'll be applying your textures to in your trusty image editor. Open it along with the other BMP files in the that directory (for the Miranda, it's the FCL directory and you'll want to open FCL_1_1.bmp, FCL_1_2.bmp, FCL_1_3.bmp, and FCL_1_4.bmp. you can ignore the rest as they are all either damage maps, light maps, or lower resolution). Now scale those BMPs so they fit over the proper parts of your UV Map (miranda.bmp). Once you're convinced it looks OK, scale the UV Map to 256 x 256 and open up your Xfile in Lithunwrap again.
Now, click Materials, rename it Miranda.bmp, and right click, then properties. Under Diffuse Map, select BMP, then Properties>Change>miranda.bmp. Now at the top, click Preview>Show Model. You may have to go back and forth between Lithunwrap and your image editor; I find it's easiest to keep them both open and just click reload under the same properties menu that you initially loaded the material to in the first place.

With any luck, that should get you on your way. I know it seems like a lot, but once you know your way around, you can probably kick out a pretty good looking model in under an hour. And good choice with the Miranda-- that's one of my all time favorite Trek ships.

Take care,

Drake