Model Texture Reference Fun

[Fyron]

So lets say you've got the Multimedia Pack installed, and you want your mod to have ringed planets reference textures from it. Can you simply make it reference:

"Lacota\\Planet_Gas_Hydrogen_0001.bmp";
"ring_02.bmp";

Of course not! SE5 refuses to fall back to the stock folder to find missing textures referenced by a model. You can use the texture override in XFileClasses_Stellar.txt to reference files missing from the mod, but that sets all textures in the model to the same texture. Won't work for ringed planets. So, I am left with two options, neither of which is pleasant:

1) Put the models in the stock pictures folder.

2) Make the model reference the textures as so:

"..\\..\\..\\..\\Pictures\\Models\\Lacota\\Planet_G as_Hydrogen_0001.bmp";
"..\\..\\..\\..\\Pictures\\Models\\ring_02.bmp";

(the ring_02 has to be referenced like that too, cause it doesn't exist in the mod folder either)

Furthermore, if I have the models named the same as the ones in the stock folder, SE5 ignores them. Unlike literally everything else, .x files seem to be preferred in the stock folder over the mod folder (at least, outside of the Empires folder, though I'm not even sure about that one). All efforts to change the textures were in vain until I renamed the models and altered the mod to look for non-stock names. "planet_ven_ringed_0001.x" had to become "fqm_ven_ringed_0001.x" for SE5 to even bother looking outside of SE5\Pictures\Models for it.

Isn't modding fun?

[/rant]

[Randallw]

I spent a year making a mod for another game. When I was almost finished the mod stopped working. After asking for advice from others, and getting the wrong advice, I found out I had misnamed a unit type. Now I dread making the time to fix bugs my playtesters have found. I tell ya if I'd known from the start how long it would take, or if I had heeded the warnings of how much I would need to do I might not have bothered. It is sort of satisfying though to get your vision working.