[WIP][Tutorial] Building your own ship for dummies 2

[BrummBear02]

oh boi. it will use x4 material "generic_p1_hulltexture" and not the one you included because of how custom materials work and the node naming. the drone is tilted by 90° along the x axis which will show ingame.

i dont have enough time to explain to you how to fix that, at least not today since i need to prepare for my birthday party and then do the party. and tomorrow ill have a hangover. so ill explain it monday

[asd12301203]

oh boi. it will use x4 material "generic_p1_hulltexture" and not the one you included because of how custom materials work and the node naming. the drone is tilted by 90° along the x axis which will show ingame.

i dont have enough time to explain to you how to fix that, at least not today since i need to prepare for my birthday party and then do the party. and tomorrow ill have a hangover. so ill explain it monday

Thank you, happy birthday

[BrummBear02]

oh boi. it will use x4 material "generic_p1_hulltexture" and not the one you included because of how custom materials work and the node naming. the drone is tilted by 90° along the x axis which will show ingame.

i dont have enough time to explain to you how to fix that, at least not today since i need to prepare for my birthday party and then do the party. and tomorrow ill have a hangover. so ill explain it monday

Thank you, happy birthday

thanks. was a nice party^^ and sorry for my late reply.

while im writing this the video is still processing. so u might have to wait a few minutes if u read this right away
the 90° turn along the X axis ive shown is just so blender displays its like its ingame. you dont have to do that.
to make the ship show your texture ingame you need to add the material in the lib and change the node name accordingly. i should have covered that in the video. to test it id need the whole mod.
tell me if it works.

ive uploaded the materials_libary file shown in the video here

https://mega.nz/#!paw1gaQL!AWAn7DLjk5bC ... kC3cTs088A

https://youtu.be/Cn-B9D1fOPs

[BrummBear02]

Added an example videos to give newcomers a rough idea what this is about. I still hope i can motivate one or two persons to actually release ships for this game :3

Also im willing to help anyone who asks for me help. dont be shy.

To get a rough idea of what you will be doing most of the time i put a video on youtube of me modeling for 1,5h on a X2 Titan remake.
If you watch from about 2:30min to 50min how im doing that detail you will get a rough idea of how long this all takes.
So patience is thing you need to bring most of. But dont get discouraged, its actually fun. On top of that its really calming work, at least for me.
Keep in mind im doing that purely as a hobby and the way i do things takes probably a lot more time since i barely know my way around blender.

https://youtu.be/wy7AbYdWYeI

[asd12301203]

Added an example videos to give newcomers a rough idea what this is about. I still hope i can motivate one or two persons to actually release ships for this game :3

Also im willing to help anyone who asks for me help. dont be shy.

To get a rough idea of what you will be doing most of the time i put a video on youtube of me modeling for 1,5h on a X2 Titan remake.
If you watch from about 2:30min to 50min how im doing that detail you will get a rough idea of how long this all takes.
So patience is thing you need to bring most of. But dont get discouraged, its actually fun. On top of that its really calming work, at least for me.
Keep in mind im doing that purely as a hobby and the way i do things takes probably a lot more time since i barely know my way around blender.

https://youtu.be/wy7AbYdWYeI

succeeded

[Axeface]

Thank you for this tutorial, trying to get my head around it over the last couple of days. Ive got ships imported into blender and im figuring out the hierarchy so its a start.
A couple of questions - does all this also apply to blender 2.8? And do you have any idea how engine models are given the blue/pink/green of argon/paranid/teladi options? I have checked the textures, xml's and models and i'm having problems figuring it out. I think it might have something to do with vertex colours but I'm very new to blender (last couple of days) so i'm lost. (Im looking at models such as "assets\props\Engines\engine_arg_l_allround_01_mk1")

[BrummBear02]

Thank you for this tutorial, trying to get my head around it over the last couple of days. Ive got ships imported into blender and im figuring out the hierarchy so its a start.
A couple of questions - does all this also apply to blender 2.8? And do you have any idea how engine models are given the blue/pink/green of argon/paranid/teladi options? I have checked the textures, xml's and models and i'm having problems figuring it out. I think it might have something to do with vertex colours but I'm very new to blender (last couple of days) so i'm lost. (Im looking at models such as "assets\props\Engines\engine_arg_l_allround_01_mk1")

the paint mods ingame are indeed defined by vertex colour. but its not that simple somehow. i havent gotten it to work yet.

blender 2.8 cant export the .dae like we need it. or at least i dont know how. i still use 2.7x

[Axeface]

the paint mods ingame are indeed defined by vertex colour. but its not that simple somehow. i havent gotten it to work yet.

blender 2.8 cant export the .dae like we need it. or at least i dont know how. i still use 2.7x

Thanks for the reply. I see about Blender, It seems to import things ok. As for the paint mods I think the colour is controlled by the paintmods.XML file and where they are applied to the model is set with vertex painting? I didnt think that the engine colors were controlled by paint mods but im just fumbling around in the dark tbh, you might be right.

[Skeeter]

No idea if helpful or compatible with x4 dae stuff but in homeworld remastered i remember tools for things like these being made and wondered if they would be maybe semi compatible for x4 modding. If not maybe the devs of those if contactable could maybe do a fork of their tool for x4.

https://forums.gearboxsoftware.com/t/to ... /540034/46

Its a long read with screenshots of updates as u scroll down i think at the top is released downloads to try.

Again dunno if any help but thought id mention it incase maybe..

[BrummBear02]

the paint mods ingame are indeed defined by vertex colour. but its not that simple somehow. i havent gotten it to work yet.

blender 2.8 cant export the .dae like we need it. or at least i dont know how. i still use 2.7x

Thanks for the reply. I see about Blender, It seems to import things ok. As for the paint mods I think the colour is controlled by the paintmods.XML file and where they are applied to the model is set with vertex painting? I didnt think that the engine colors were controlled by paint mods but im just fumbling around in the dark tbh, you might be right.

regarding the paint mods: viewtopic.php?p=4849134#p4849134

[BrummBear02]

No idea if helpful or compatible with x4 dae stuff but in homeworld remastered i remember tools for things like these being made and wondered if they would be maybe semi compatible for x4 modding. If not maybe the devs of those if contactable could maybe do a fork of their tool for x4.

https://forums.gearboxsoftware.com/t/to ... /540034/46

Its a long read with screenshots of updates as u scroll down i think at the top is released downloads to try.

Again dunno if any help but thought id mention it incase maybe..

the .dae import is no issue ^^ the export in a .dae version our converter can handle is the issue^^ and that tool cant do that. sadly.

[Axeface]

Hope the tool gets updated to blender 2.8 soon because the only reason im starting with blender now is because of 2.8. I could never get into the previous versions over the years, made my brain melt trying to navigate it. I have a few ships on the go at the minute but i'm just waiting for an easier workflow and hopefully some official applications. I have the upmost respect for you guys that have managed to pull this off already without official tools or guides.

[BrummBear02]

Hope the tool gets updated to blender 2.8 soon because the only reason im starting with blender now is because of 2.8. I could never get into the previous versions over the years, made my brain melt trying to navigate it. I have a few ships on the go at the minute but i'm just waiting for an easier workflow and hopefully some official applications. I have the upmost respect for you guys that have managed to pull this off already without official tools or guides.

you could try to work in 2.8, save it and then use 2.7x to export it? idk but i think a workaround is possible. the only one updating the converter was cg and he hasnt been very active lately.

[Axeface]

Hope the tool gets updated to blender 2.8 soon because the only reason im starting with blender now is because of 2.8. I could never get into the previous versions over the years, made my brain melt trying to navigate it. I have a few ships on the go at the minute but i'm just waiting for an easier workflow and hopefully some official applications. I have the upmost respect for you guys that have managed to pull this off already without official tools or guides.

you could try to work in 2.8, save it and then use 2.7x to export it? idk but i think a workaround is possible. the only one updating the converter was cg and he hasnt been very active lately.

It might be what I have to do, but I doubt that I'll be able to open up a .blend file from 2.8 in 2.7. Just so you know, I have tried exporting .dae from 2.8 and the drop down box to select UV Textures rather than Material doesnt exist, so i'm getting "expected attribute "texcoord" at element "texture" in the converter.

[BrummBear02]

Hope the tool gets updated to blender 2.8 soon because the only reason im starting with blender now is because of 2.8. I could never get into the previous versions over the years, made my brain melt trying to navigate it. I have a few ships on the go at the minute but i'm just waiting for an easier workflow and hopefully some official applications. I have the upmost respect for you guys that have managed to pull this off already without official tools or guides.

you could try to work in 2.8, save it and then use 2.7x to export it? idk but i think a workaround is possible. the only one updating the converter was cg and he hasnt been very active lately.

It might be what I have to do, but I doubt that I'll be able to open up a .blend file from 2.8 in 2.7. Just so you know, I have tried exporting .dae from 2.8 and the drop down box to select UV Textures rather than Material doesnt exist, so i'm getting "expected attribute "texcoord" at element "texture" in the converter.

yes, thats exactly the issue. but ive never looked into it. i just heared about that issue. u might wanna check the blender discord. there are the pros.

[Axeface]

Thanks loads for this tutorial. Its been a big help but im having lots of problems. Rambling wall of text incoming...

Im having major problems getting to grips with exporting my ship. Feels like ive been smashing my face against a brick wall for the last few days... my model is reaching somewhere i'de accept as complete, so I started to try to figure out how to add cockpits, landing gear etc to it.

Firstly, constant scale and rotation issues. I think its a combination of my complete lack of knowledge about xmls and x4 modding in general, an export/import issue with blender vs 3dsmax and also issues im having with blender and its parenting features (im new to blender). The rotation of parts of my ship are being changed in a way I dont understand - everything can look fine in blender but when I export and get something in game the axis are often changed for the whole thing or more importantly, only SOME parts of my ship. It seems that there might be an issue with axis in blender. Blender dae export has options for global orientation and an 'apply global orientation' checkbox - why there is a checkbox AND options for global orientation I dont know. Ive had some success getting this to apply a bandage fix to my rotation problems, but only sometimes.
The process of troubleshooting this is torturous, maybe im just blind or stupid and the solution is very simple but im not finding it.

Secondly. I moved away from replacing another modded ship and tried to export my ship properly and generate its xml from 'scratch' as an experiment. Ship not working in-game, its mesh is invisible and it wont build in the wharf. I assume this is because my xml is broken because I simply dont know what im doing. I have to manually add engines thrusters and shields to the xml, but it still refuses to build in game.

Lastly, FYI I have been experimenting with export from blender 2.8 only and I got it to work... sometimes. As explained in previous posts Blender 2.8 collada/dae export doesnt have the 'UV Textures' drop down box option. It does have a checkbox however with 'Only selected UV map' - clicking this allowed me to successfully export and then convert some of my experiments, but only some of them - a few still got the "expected attribute "texcoord" at element "texture" error message in the converter.

Anyways, Im not sure what the point of this post was - a general cry for help I guess. This technical stuff is a nightmare and its causing me considerable stress, I really enjoy modeling but everything related to actually getting something in-game is excruciating. I can only hope and pray for official support to make the process easier (an exporter that can just generate an entire working xml including shields, engines, thrusters would be a godsend). A hand-holding tutorial about ripping things like cockpits and landing gear off other ships, moving and scaling them to fit our ships and then exporting them properly would also be a godsend.
The AI revolution cant come fast enough.... to free us from this technical garbage and let people who just want to create things just create things and not get bogged down in xmls and other torturous ****

If anyones interested heres my ship model as it currently stands 12 (sound volume warning, i was listening to music at the time of recording).

[BrummBear02]

the rotation and scale thing happens when u pull one node into another. the global rotation ans cale doesnt get updated correctly in the .dae or something. idk. i also had issues with that. i worked around that by making copys of nodes and merging meshes.

I never tried the generated xml. reusing existing xml files works fine for me so there is no reason to. McBain uses the generated ones as far as i know. u might wanna talk to him?

i dont know shit about blender 2.8, never tried it and honestly i dont really care much about it. im happy with 2.7x

U cant add landing gear from other ships. at least not their animations. i talked about that in the tutorial. replacing the mesh of the landing gear is no problem. just do as usual and deactivate its collision.

i didnt finish this tutorial since there are very few people interested in actually making ships and the few who are usually ask me on discord where i happily help them. u might wanna visit there. its a lot easier to explain things because i can share my screen and send screenshots way more conviniently

[ALEX Bemelmans]

hi when i want to export my dae with xrconvertermain i have the error expected attribute "texcoord" at element "texture"

[BrummBear02]

hi when i want to export my dae with xrconvertermain i have the error expected attribute "texcoord" at element "texture"

u didnt select "UV Textures" in the export options in blender and left it at "Materials"

[BrummBear02]

If anyones interested heres my ship model as it currently stands 12 (sound volume warning, i was listening to music at the time of recording).

How is your ship coming along?