Impact of 6.0 beta on mods

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Re: Impact of 6.0 beta on mods

Post by chew-ie » Thu, 2. Feb 23, 16:05

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Re: Impact of 6.0 beta on mods

Post by linolafett » Fri, 3. Feb 23, 16:24

Sorry for the pr speak :(
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Re: Impact of 6.0 beta on mods

Post by BrummBear02 » Fri, 3. Feb 23, 18:40

linolafett wrote:
Thu, 2. Feb 23, 15:56
I can not and will not speculate, because whatever i say will be incorrect and will annoy more than it helps.
Therefore i wont say anything aside of "we are close and are working on it".
expected something like that. :( but asking is free so it was wort a try :)
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Re: Impact of 6.0 beta on mods

Post by thomassanford » Wed, 15. Feb 23, 14:30

linolafett wrote:
Thu, 2. Feb 23, 10:05
aurumgallente wrote:
Thu, 2. Feb 23, 04:09
Can you specify what these tools can do in case we will see them in the future? Will it be only collision generator or modders will also be able to create ID-codes, ANI animations, source code of UV-animations and boxes of visibility, live preview of materials and light sources, decompile vanilla assets and work with multimat materials?
I can not specify any details, as i dont know what we will release.
I can assure you, that the Character pipeline is not part of the initial release - its still built on proprietary software and was not yet rebuild to use open software.
Can you speculate if these files will be part of the newly announced improved modding support? If so thank you so much in advance for any '3D Model' files :wink: . Many modders have much of this proprietary software if you are referring to 3DS Max and such itself. So, we could use them just fine. But, I do understand if you guys chose to use a bunch of 3rd party plug-ins to make things easier in 3DS and that it will break the model without them, particularly with the character animations. Many thanks again regardless.

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Re: Impact of 6.0 beta on mods

Post by linolafett » Wed, 15. Feb 23, 16:24

I will not speculate, no.
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Re: Impact of 6.0 beta on mods

Post by Flippi » Wed, 15. Feb 23, 21:29

Many modders have much of this proprietary software if you are referring to 3DS Max and such itself. So, we could use them just fine. But, I do understand if you guys chose to use a bunch of 3rd party plug-ins to make things easier in 3DS and that it will break the model without them, particularly with the character animations. Many thanks again regardless.
The .xac files, X4 uses, are only used by two tools as far as I know. Granny and EMotion FX (at least the 3D model version of xac. There's another xac file type to my knowledge for something else). Both are paid tools, with the latter one not being available any more to my knowledge. At least if my research was correct. It's possible that another program exists which uses .xac files for 3D Models, but then it would be an even lesser known tool. Egosoft probably won't tell us what they are using. So that is all we have right now.

Until Egosoft switches tools and the file format for the Characters, we are out of luck. And only the devs know, when that switch will happen. If it will happen at all for X4.
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Re: Impact of 6.0 beta on mods

Post by thomassanford » Thu, 16. Feb 23, 14:51

linolafett wrote:
Wed, 15. Feb 23, 16:24
I will not speculate, no.
Well, Like was said earlier. It's doesn't hurt ask :D especially given the mention of more mod support this month. Thanks for your efforts trying to make it happen.

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Re: Impact of 6.0 beta on mods

Post by thomassanford » Thu, 16. Feb 23, 15:54

Flippi wrote:
Wed, 15. Feb 23, 21:29
Many modders have much of this proprietary software if you are referring to 3DS Max and such itself. So, we could use them just fine. But, I do understand if you guys chose to use a bunch of 3rd party plug-ins to make things easier in 3DS and that it will break the model without them, particularly with the character animations. Many thanks again regardless.
The .xac files, X4 uses, are only used by two tools as far as I know. Granny and EMotion FX (at least the 3D model version of xac. There's another xac file type to my knowledge for something else). Both are paid tools, with the latter one not being available any more to my knowledge. At least if my research was correct. It's possible that another program exists which uses .xac files for 3D Models, but then it would be an even lesser known tool. Egosoft probably won't tell us what they are using. So that is all we have right now.

Until Egosoft switches tools and the file format for the Characters, we are out of luck. And only the devs know, when that switch will happen. If it will happen at all for X4.
linolafett wrote:
Fri, 27. Jan 23, 18:20


Just to point out, there are no "CAD" files.
The assets are in a 3dsMax file format, most of them. We are now switching to Blender, so all Boron DLC assets are exported from there.
Without the exporter the source file is not that useful, as it does not tell you much about how the final converted files work and look like.

We are still trying to get parts of the blender tools available for modders, but its not that straight forward.
But in case the tools are available, i would be happy to zip one ship up for modders to use as a starting point.

Same for the characters, there its even worse as its some old proprietary pipeline, which we simply can not supply.
They indicate 3DS Max and Blender clearly. The file extensions of the extracted files do not necessarily have anything to do with what created the files. We can currently work with existing model files in Blender and import them just fine. It is easy even at this point even with limited information on what the engine expects and accepts, and making something entirely new is much more difficult. What the game engine accepts and how it accepts it is the key. For example, I currently use 3DS, Maya, Revit, Inventor, AutoCad and Blender for work. All of these will export a .fbx model file which can be imported into many major engines such as Unity, Unreal, and Crysis. HOW the models are set up before export for each is very important for texturing, collisions, navs, and other hidden objects that are responsible for most of the functionality. This is why I have been asking for the model files BEFORE exporting, so we can see how thing are put together. These files would make very nice templates to start a new project with, that kind of thing. Be it 3DS, Blender, or whatever. However,I suspect they have used several proprietary 3rd party plugins in 3DS, because I would have and do so everyday to calculate loads in my own work. Removing them and substituting 'native' solutions can be a lot of work and time depending on how deeply integrated they are. Many attach tons of data that is hard to unwind.

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Re: Impact of 6.0 beta on mods

Post by Flippi » Thu, 16. Feb 23, 16:59

They indicate 3DS Max and Blender clearly.
No, they don't.

Your quote from lino:
Same for the characters, there its even worse as its some old proprietary pipeline, which we simply can not supply.
We know Egosoft uses 3DS Max and Blender for the ships. But we have no idea if that is true for Characters as well. And the above quote from linolafett does not indicate the use of 3DS Max or Blender. At the end of the day, only the Egosoft devs know what exactly they have used.
We can currently work with existing model files in Blender and import them just fine.
I'm aware of that, as I did that myself some time ago.
However,I suspect they have used several proprietary 3rd party plugins in 3DS,
If that were the case, then you or others could have acquired said 3rd party plugins for 3DS Max. Either because they would be publicly available (even if paid), or because Egosoft made those themselves and therefore had full control over their availability. There is even the possibilty of getting 3ds max plugins in a more dubious way, because it is such a widespread tool. One way or another, there would have been ways for modders to make their own characters and animations for X4, if Egosoft actually used 3ds Max or Blender for it. Simply because of the availability of these plugins and the rather widespread use of these 3d modelling programs.

However, since that is not the case, I assume Egosoft went with the more expensive route which would be EMotion FX. And it would also explain why lino calls it "old proprietary pipeline". EMotion FX is not available any more to my knowledge. It was bought up by Amazon if I remember correctly and integrated into the Amazon Game Engine (Lumberyard), so there are no more patches and updates to it. Egosoft might even use an outdated version of it, considering X Rebirth started development in 2007 and was first released in 2013.

Additionally, it wouldn't make sense for Egosoft to use this file format if they were using 3DS Max or blender for it. Simply because there are more common file formats for those programs and modding X games has always been a thing. And just like you already stated, big Engines like UE and Unity can use more common files like .fbx and others. I also should know that, since I have the Unreal Engine installed on my machine for a few years by now. Even if I am by no means professional or knowledgeable with it.

From all the statements that were made by the devs, and the research I did on the topic (even if it's very superficial and probably wrong) I have to assume that Egosoft went with EMotion FX as the tool of choice. It's the most problematic but also logical conclusion. Simply because blender and 3ds max are so widespread, modders would have gotten access to any plugins for these one way or another. The Egosoft devs could of course end this debate once and for all by stating what tools they have used. But I dont think they will (they do like to watch people speculate on stuff like this :roll: ).
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Re: Impact of 6.0 beta on mods

Post by thomassanford » Thu, 16. Feb 23, 17:44

Flippi wrote:
Thu, 16. Feb 23, 16:59
They indicate 3DS Max and Blender clearly.
No, they don't.

Your quote from lino:
Same for the characters, there its even worse as its some old proprietary pipeline, which we simply can not supply.
We know Egosoft uses 3DS Max and Blender for the ships. But we have no idea if that is true for Characters as well. And the above quote from linolafett does not indicate the use of 3DS Max or Blender. At the end of the day, only the Egosoft devs know what exactly they have used.
We can currently work with existing model files in Blender and import them just fine.
I'm aware of that, as I did that myself some time ago.
However,I suspect they have used several proprietary 3rd party plugins in 3DS,
If that were the case, then you or others could have acquired said 3rd party plugins for 3DS Max. Either because they would be publicly available (even if paid), or because Egosoft made those themselves and therefore had full control over their availability. There is even the possibilty of getting 3ds max plugins in a more dubious way, because it is such a widespread tool. One way or another, there would have been ways for modders to make their own characters and animations for X4, if Egosoft actually used 3ds Max or Blender for it. Simply because of the availability of these plugins and the rather widespread use of these 3d modelling programs.

However, since that is not the case, I assume Egosoft went with the more expensive route which would be EMotion FX. And it would also explain why lino calls it "old proprietary pipeline". EMotion FX is not available any more to my knowledge. It was bought up by Amazon if I remember correctly and integrated into the Amazon Game Engine (Lumberyard), so there are no more patches and updates to it. Egosoft might even use an outdated version of it, considering X Rebirth started development in 2007 and was first released in 2013.

Additionally, it wouldn't make sense for Egosoft to use this file format if they were using 3DS Max or blender for it. Simply because there are more common file formats for those programs and modding X games has always been a thing. And just like you already stated, big Engines like UE and Unity can use more common files like .fbx and others. I also should know that, since I have the Unreal Engine installed on my machine for a few years by now. Even if I am by no means professional or knowledgeable with it.

From all the statements that were made by the devs, and the research I did on the topic (even if it's very superficial and probably wrong) I have to assume that Egosoft went with EMotion FX as the tool of choice. It's the most problematic but also logical conclusion. Simply because blender and 3ds max are so widespread, modders would have gotten access to any plugins for these one way or another. The Egosoft devs could of course end this debate once and for all by stating what tools they have used. But I dont think they will (they do like to watch people speculate on stuff like this :roll: ).
Yep, You guess on with out me. I will wait for the files.

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Re: Impact of 6.0 beta on mods

Post by magitsu » Thu, 16. Feb 23, 17:49

Flippi wrote:
Thu, 16. Feb 23, 16:59
However, since that is not the case, I assume Egosoft went with the more expensive route which would be EMotion FX. And it would also explain why lino calls it "old proprietary pipeline". EMotion FX is not available any more to my knowledge. It was bought up by Amazon if I remember correctly and integrated into the Amazon Game Engine (Lumberyard), so there are no more patches and updates to it. Egosoft might even use an outdated version of it, considering X Rebirth started development in 2007 and was first released in 2013.
Very possible. For example Paradox used it around 2009 with Hearts of Iron 3 and similar modding agony was heard at that time. It supposedly used to cost 10k per license then.
That's why all the unit sprites around then were micro dlcs instead of mods.

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Re: Impact of 6.0 beta on mods

Post by Flippi » Thu, 16. Feb 23, 18:32

Very possible. For example Paradox used it around 2009 with Hearts of Iron 3 and similar modding agony was heard at that time. It supposedly used to cost 10k per license then.
That's why all the unit sprites around then were micro dlcs instead of mods.
Yeah, I also stumbled upon those threads when looking up what those files were. One thread was from 2009, another one from 2013. I honestly don't know of any other game besides XR, X4 and HOI3 who actually use .xac files. Most other games I played or checked out, were using more commonly available (and also moddable) file formats.
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Re: Impact of 6.0 beta on mods

Post by Sturmer » Mon, 27. Feb 23, 17:19

Just dropping this cause I suspect it's an issue of 6.0 (beta3 at the time): my destroyer's turrets would shoot at the enemy target only when it had surface elements, but not without them. Made it impossible to get hull down to get the enemy crew to bail.

Another boarding issue: even with "very strong" setting for marines they would not even complete phase 1 of boarding, no matter how long I waited. This issue got fixed however if I jumped OOS and followed the capping through the map.

Was boarding Arrakis from XR Shipmod with my Excalibur.

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Re: Impact of 6.0 beta on mods

Post by XOSPECTRE » Tue, 28. Feb 23, 13:47

Boarding pods sometimes get stucked so u have to jump oos its old bug

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Re: Impact of 6.0 beta on mods

Post by thomassanford » Sat, 4. Mar 23, 07:11

Flippi wrote:
Thu, 16. Feb 23, 16:59
They indicate 3DS Max and Blender clearly.
No, they don't.

Your quote from lino:
Same for the characters, there its even worse as its some old proprietary pipeline, which we simply can not supply.
We know Egosoft uses 3DS Max and Blender for the ships. But we have no idea if that is true for Characters as well. And the above quote from linolafett does not indicate the use of 3DS Max or Blender. At the end of the day, only the Egosoft devs know what exactly they have used.
We can currently work with existing model files in Blender and import them just fine.
I'm aware of that, as I did that myself some time ago.
However,I suspect they have used several proprietary 3rd party plugins in 3DS,
If that were the case, then you or others could have acquired said 3rd party plugins for 3DS Max. Either because they would be publicly available (even if paid), or because Egosoft made those themselves and therefore had full control over their availability. There is even the possibilty of getting 3ds max plugins in a more dubious way, because it is such a widespread tool. One way or another, there would have been ways for modders to make their own characters and animations for X4, if Egosoft actually used 3ds Max or Blender for it. Simply because of the availability of these plugins and the rather widespread use of these 3d modelling programs.

However, since that is not the case, I assume Egosoft went with the more expensive route which would be EMotion FX. And it would also explain why lino calls it "old proprietary pipeline". EMotion FX is not available any more to my knowledge. It was bought up by Amazon if I remember correctly and integrated into the Amazon Game Engine (Lumberyard), so there are no more patches and updates to it. Egosoft might even use an outdated version of it, considering X Rebirth started development in 2007 and was first released in 2013.

Additionally, it wouldn't make sense for Egosoft to use this file format if they were using 3DS Max or blender for it. Simply because there are more common file formats for those programs and modding X games has always been a thing. And just like you already stated, big Engines like UE and Unity can use more common files like .fbx and others. I also should know that, since I have the Unreal Engine installed on my machine for a few years by now. Even if I am by no means professional or knowledgeable with it.

From all the statements that were made by the devs, and the research I did on the topic (even if it's very superficial and probably wrong) I have to assume that Egosoft went with EMotion FX as the tool of choice. It's the most problematic but also logical conclusion. Simply because blender and 3ds max are so widespread, modders would have gotten access to any plugins for these one way or another. The Egosoft devs could of course end this debate once and for all by stating what tools they have used. But I dont think they will (they do like to watch people speculate on stuff like this :roll: ).
If you watched the interview with Bernd 2/24/2023 you now realize you are wrong in all cases, but the good news is you can quit guessing. A 3DS max to Blender conversion is in process now so hopefully those who can use the files will get them soon PLUS with some automation tools for collision and lighting generating and such all very exciting.
Last edited by thomassanford on Wed, 15. Mar 23, 22:26, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Impact of 6.0 beta on mods

Post by XOSPECTRE » Sat, 4. Mar 23, 13:29

Im not sure when i watched captain collins interview whith bern when captain adk about modding support egosoft ceo was silence for some time and than he give us geberic answer "yeah ...i mean " yeah we support community .... i dont know im pesimistic about better modding support i wish i will be wrong and one day they do something for modders but im scared im always right

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Re: Impact of 6.0 beta on mods

Post by thomassanford » Sat, 4. Mar 23, 14:38

XOSPECTRE wrote:
Sat, 4. Mar 23, 13:29
Im not sure when i watched captain collins interview whith bern when captain adk about modding support egosoft ceo was silence for some time and than he give us geberic answer "yeah ...i mean " yeah we support community .... i dont know im pesimistic about better modding support i wish i will be wrong and one day they do something for modders but im scared im always right
You should really go watch it. Bernd is awesome and has supported modding from the early days, also his english has improved a lot :) . The difference today compared to earlier games is the current game engine has just gotten to be so powerful and complicated that simple exterior models of ships, and stations and some guess work is no longer enough to make things work like in the past. Shuulo said it earlier in this post, and now Bernd the Manager said it on Captain Collins Podcast to the whole community. I would take it to the bank pretty much(it may take a while Egosoft isn't known for speed). They are converting to Blender with plugins to automate game specific tasks like collision and such, so people like myself who can draw don't have to figure out every single detail to make it work. I personally couldn't possible ask for more than a completely open source 3D modeling solution for this game(Although I use 3DS max nearly everyday and Blender infrequently, but I am sure I can work it out). The possibilities become almost limitless. I was initially just being impatient knowing they tend to take a a long while, and ALWAYS avoid dates like a plaque. But, I do have faith in them.

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Re: Impact of 6.0 beta on mods

Post by magitsu » Sat, 4. Mar 23, 14:39

XOSPECTRE wrote:
Sat, 4. Mar 23, 13:29
i dont know im pesimistic about better modding support i wish i will be wrong and one day they do something for modders but im scared im always right
Need to pay a little more attention: they just hired two of the most well known modders.
Ship model development pipeline is being opened to modders through migration from 3dsmax to Blender...

They are at the moment bending over backwards to support modders.

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Re: Impact of 6.0 beta on mods

Post by XOSPECTRE » Sat, 4. Mar 23, 16:12

I just want export obj as single dae file so i can finally import it to the game and there is no info whats propper dae format except no camera and light . Us its imposible to export dae whith texture files

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Re: Impact of 6.0 beta on mods

Post by thomassanford » Sat, 4. Mar 23, 18:06

XOSPECTRE wrote:
Sat, 4. Mar 23, 16:12
I just want export obj as single dae file so i can finally import it to the game and there is no info whats propper dae format except no camera and light . Us its imposible to export dae whith texture files
I see you have posted this in many places, and yes these are the problems that they are trying to address with the blender modeling tools that we have been talking about here and elsewhere. The best I can tell you is that if this is your first graphical mod attempt. To try making an entirely new object for this game right now. You should go ahead and give up on that idea right away. It is not user friendly even a little bit, even to people who have worked with it for years particularly on the 3D graphics front. Scripting is a whole other thing that is no problem to work with, in fact I really like their scripting solution it is probably the best I have ever seen. I will say their documentation for everything has always been sparse IMHO, but you can't have everything. If you want to pursue the graphics modding further right now I would suggest you go over to the port an existing ship tutorials and at least complete that first to see what is required with a ship they prepared. Once you are finished with that you will see what the problems can be/are with creating new content from scratch.

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