X3 TC and AP also X Rebirth ship models into X4

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Would you like a converter or way to get other x game ships into X4

Yes
147
77%
No
28
15%
Maybe
17
9%
 
Total votes: 192

wellmadman
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X3 TC and AP also X Rebirth ship models into X4

Post by wellmadman » Mon, 9. Jul 18, 03:13

There are lots and lots of ships that I love in X3 that are custom made by members of the community, I would love to see some sort of converter or way to turn these files into new x4 format. Unless I am wrong and x4 uses the same format. In which case I withdraw this. =]

Skeeter
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Post by Skeeter » Mon, 9. Jul 18, 05:06

Converting a model from say lightwave to 3d max can usually be done and lots of other formats and usually with textured intact. The thing that usually holds converts back is other things such a containers holding the info or structure of certain info like joints which usually forms where guns engines and boundaries of hotbox etc.


Some Devs build modding tools to help or documentation etc but majority don't. I don't think egosoft go out of their way to make easy to use tools they often try to build the game with a semi consideration in modding which mainly for X games has been tailored to scripting modding and that's about it.

X rebirth was different to x3 in how ships were added to the game and a dev told me when asked that the pipeline is the same as rebirth so it will still be hard to put ships in x4.

A converter could be done, doesn't even need more than 1 guy usually from what other people tell me when making tools, so u never know 1 guy from es could maybe make one in his own time out of office hours but that's a long shot tho not unheard of in the development world. For example in homeworld remastered the dev bitvenom went out of his way to make some converters and advised and looked over many modders work to get it working in-game, he went above and beyond.
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Alan Phipps
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Post by Alan Phipps » Mon, 9. Jul 18, 10:35

Given the completely different way that pilots, cockpits, ship weapons and turrets will apply to models in X4 compared to earlier games, I can see that the external ship model transfer tool might only be a fraction of the total development effort required. That's just my uninformed opinion though.
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CBJ
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Post by CBJ » Mon, 9. Jul 18, 11:11

Importing a 3D model of a ship's hull is, as Alan suggested, the easy part; it's all the stuff that goes around that to make it a functional ship that is harder.

As we've said before, we would love to provide modders with tools for creating ships and stations, but unfortunately it's not proven practical for us to do it so far. The biggest issue is that the toolchain we use in-house has a number of different elements that are closely inter-linked. These include things like a 3DSMax add-in, an in-house database and converter applications that run on particular folders on our network. Disentangling these to provide even part of the toolchain in a form usable by people not on our network would be quite a significant chunk of work (certainly a lot more than a one-person job, sorry Skeeter ;)). And to make things worse, the rate at which the tools evolve, especially during initial development but also when working on patches and updates, mean that it would be far from a one-off activity.

When the dust has settled from the X4 release, I will bring up the subject again and see whether we can find some time to work on this, but that won't happen soon and I can't make any promises whatsoever regarding whether anything will come of it.

Skeeter
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Post by Skeeter » Mon, 9. Jul 18, 11:23

Ah ok. Cbj I can only say what my experience was of modding games was and what I know some Devs of others did so I of course might not have been 100% on the nose for X games modding info. :wink:

And Alan does make a good point of if converting a ship from older series then it will need to be modified to have a cockpit and corridor interior and a exit door modelled on to fit x4s standard.
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radcapricorn
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Post by radcapricorn » Mon, 9. Jul 18, 11:46

CBJ wrote:Disentangling these to provide even part of the toolchain in a form usable by people not on our network would be quite a significant chunk of work...
Well, it's not like the modding community didn't come up with their own software before. Perhaps there could be a middle ground in terms of releasing a somewhat detailed spec on how the process is supposed to work?

CBJ
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Post by CBJ » Mon, 9. Jul 18, 14:46

That is indeed another option, but it also requires quite a bit of work to set up, and ongoing work to maintain. As I said, I will make sure we have the discussion again when there is an appropriate time to do so, but I can't make any promises.

Honved
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Post by Honved » Tue, 10. Jul 18, 16:11

I see this as something that can be addressed AFTER the game releases, but it might be a good idea to bring it up a little before, so at least some of the necessary commands and variables are in place for mods to utilize.

Some of the development team will be needed after game release to patch various bugs and deal with problems, but a few may find themselves without anything critical to work on until the next project needs their particular talents. That might be the time to look into releasing some modding tools or at least specifications for what those tools need to do. At this stage, every hand is probably needed just to build X4, not to worry about enhancing it after release.

koyuka
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Post by koyuka » Tue, 10. Jul 18, 22:12

CBJ wrote:Importing a 3D model of a ship's hull is, as Alan suggested, the easy part; it's all the stuff that goes around that to make it a functional ship that is harder.

As we've said before, we would love to provide modders with tools for creating ships and stations, but unfortunately it's not proven practical for us to do it so far. The biggest issue is that the toolchain we use in-house has a number of different elements that are closely inter-linked. These include things like a 3DSMax add-in, an in-house database and converter applications that run on particular folders on our network. Disentangling these to provide even part of the toolchain in a form usable by people not on our network would be quite a significant chunk of work (certainly a lot more than a one-person job, sorry Skeeter ;)). And to make things worse, the rate at which the tools evolve, especially during initial development but also when working on patches and updates, mean that it would be far from a one-off activity.

When the dust has settled from the X4 release, I will bring up the subject again and see whether we can find some time to work on this, but that won't happen soon and I can't make any promises whatsoever regarding whether anything will come of it.

I have no knowledge around this so could be way off the mark, but would you not be able to provide a tool kit which connects with your server in order to use the required files only? Like a shared drive which contains the info needed to create the models, which the toolkit you provide to customers accesses? Then this would be easy to periodically update also.

Just a thought.

Riccardoman
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Post by Riccardoman » Tue, 10. Jul 18, 23:50

There are so many ships I would like to see from previous games but I understand that it would need some extra work not only for the cockpit modeling but also the landing animations, engine parts etc

So seeing a converter tool for the modders or a DLC ship pack after release would already be great

CBJ
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Post by CBJ » Wed, 11. Jul 18, 00:34

koyuka wrote:Just a thought.
No, I'm afraid that wouldn't work, for various different reasons. Believe me, we've thought about this pretty carefully, and there are no quick and easy solutions.

koyuka
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Post by koyuka » Wed, 11. Jul 18, 14:30

Fair enough, as I said, I don't have any experience in this area, was just a thought.

Now any news on X4? :lol:

I'm actually just gonna start a new X3 albion prelude game to get me in the swing of things ready for the new game!

PS. It's coming home! :D (England fan)

Kittens David
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Post by Kittens David » Wed, 11. Jul 18, 15:27

yes I would like to see many ship from X rebirth into X4. And this time i would be able to pilot them !

Oh and the Albion POO can stay in the scrapyard for good.

Mavor
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Post by Mavor » Mon, 16. Jul 18, 05:42

@CBJ, to understand correctly, does that mean that you folks are not planning on exposing the necessary information regarding your model format/etc.. for us to import models on X4 launch, similar to what we already have for X3?

As you said, we can create our own tools/plugins for 3dsmax/etc.. to import .obj and other models - however, without a schema going over how to set things up properly, it's quite difficult. Would rather not have to reverse engineer the format when you folks should be able to just share the information with us instead?

Hope you can clarify.

CBJ
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Post by CBJ » Mon, 16. Jul 18, 09:08

The only issue with the exposing the formats would be the time required to document them. Because of the more detailed functionality they are a lot more complex in X4 than the formats for X3, so this would still be quite a significant exercise, but probably more manageable than adapting our internal toolchain so that other people could use it. Again, no promises, but I will raise that as a possible alternative.

Mavor
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Post by Mavor » Mon, 16. Jul 18, 09:16

That would be great.

It's understandable that the big changes with including ship interiors now, along with the mechanics you are building there, will make it harder, though as a first step, even a process that allows us to get the ship models/turrets/subsystems themselves in, perhaps with a very simple/skipped interior step, would be very useful.

Just speaking from the perspective of a modder interested in the game's early success, allowing you to put the needed resources into post-launch support, tools and content. :)

wellmadman
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Post by wellmadman » Fri, 20. Jul 18, 07:54

CBJ wrote:Importing a 3D model of a ship's hull is, as Alan suggested, the easy part; it's all the stuff that goes around that to make it a functional ship that is harder.

As we've said before, we would love to provide modders with tools for creating ships and stations, but unfortunately it's not proven practical for us to do it so far. The biggest issue is that the toolchain we use in-house has a number of different elements that are closely inter-linked. These include things like a 3DSMax add-in, an in-house database and converter applications that run on particular folders on our network. Disentangling these to provide even part of the toolchain in a form usable by people not on our network would be quite a significant chunk of work (certainly a lot more than a one-person job, sorry Skeeter ). And to make things worse, the rate at which the tools evolve, especially during initial development but also when working on patches and updates, mean that it would be far from a one-off activity.

When the dust has settled from the X4 release, I will bring up the subject again and see whether we can find some time to work on this, but that won't happen soon and I can't make any promises whatsoever regarding whether anything will come of it.
Another middle ground could me maybe some way to make the Ship Overlay change, but the inside of the ship you would choose from the default ships, I know to start with the ships would maybe look a little werid!! but over time the great collection of modders we have would be able to fix these I think? is that possiable?

Honved
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Post by Honved » Fri, 20. Jul 18, 16:00

That could be a decent work-around: having a small number of "standard" interiors for each ship class, and re-using one of them for any new ships that are created by the community. That's even better if there's some flexibility in the details (color schemes, clutter items, placement of a few elements).

Link a chosen interior to the ship, select a color scheme, pick one of a couple of alternate "furniture" variations, and then add one of two "clutter" sets. It looks like over a dozen different ship interiors, but it's only two or three full "sets", just in different combinations.

X3 re-used the same assets over and over, pretty much unchanged from one station to the next. That was "acceptable", but a few overlaid minor variations in the details or different combinations of modular "sections" could have made it a lot better, without a lot of extra work to create entirely new scenes for each instance.

As the old saying goes: "Work smarter, not harder".

wellmadman
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Post by wellmadman » Mon, 23. Jul 18, 09:14

@CBJ
Would that be easier for you guys to do? modders can change the outside but inside is one of a set of preused ones?

CBJ
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Post by CBJ » Mon, 23. Jul 18, 15:56

You might be surprised just how closely the interiors are modelled to fit the exteriors. Just dropping in a generic interior simply wouldn't work in many cases, with the possible exception of very large ships where there is plenty of space to work with. It also wouldn't help much with the technicalities as the files are not necessarily neatly separated into two sections.

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