New ship for EM

[Daedalus]

Thanks marvin for the unwraper, I was able to make it ingame but here is my problem: Ive no texture and normal ingame AND my ship is not smoothed as in blender. For the textures, Where do I have to put these files? in/ships?

What do I have to do to smooth my model ingame?

[Edited on 12-20-2012 by Daedalus]

[Marvin]

I'm just passing along information ... hopefully, one of our "ship-cockpit-texture" modders will come along and answer your questions.

[Daedalus]

For info, this is what it look like in blender

[Viper]

The fact that your ship looks smoother in Blender than in game has to do with the rendering options within the modeling program. These are just display features, mostly for animation and publishing purposes. The game (any game) applies its own smoothening (is that a word?) techniques when using the model. Also, the texture used on the ship will drastically change the appearance of it. Often, a ship with a texture appears to be a whole lot smoother in game than it does without a texture, while in fact it isn't smoother at all.

So first thing you should do is apply the correct texture. If you are not using a custom texture, the game will apply the standard texture by default. If you are using a texture of your own design, you should have a look at the readme file in the customkit, as it has all the correct naming options for the textures listed, depening on which ship you want to apply it to. The options differ between military and civilian frames, and then there's also two options for the civilian frames alone. Reading through the instructions in the readme, and trial and error will get you there, and will make you understand how it all works. I wouldn't worry about the smoothening issue first, but have a look at assigning the proper textures to your ship and then evaluating how it comes out in game. If you are not satisfied with the level of smoothness of your ship, you could then decide to smoothening the mesh by for example tessalating the polys on it or assigning smoothening groups. But this will probably also mean you would also have to create a completely new UVW map, which would also create the necessity to redo your textures.
Probably won't be necessary though, I bet you will find your ship looking a whole lot better with its texture in place.

In general though, there are 3 main textures the game uses: the basic texture, which is named the 'diffuse' texture (this one has all the colors to it and the other graphic detailing), then there's the 'normal' texture (not to be confused with the diffuse texture because of the name), which simply said determines how intense light is reflected off of your ship in all areas of the surface, and finally there's the 'specular' texture, which determines how light is reflected off edges, extrusions, etc, creating the illusion of depth like paneling on your ship. Specular textures can be seen as simply geyscale versions of the diffuse texture, which are then bumpmapped to create the illusion of depth.

Finally, most games (and EM too) offers yet another texture option: the lightmap, sometimes also referred to as 'glowmap' or 'illumination map'. This map determines which parts of the textures are still visible when there is no ambient light at all, so when you are flying in complete darkness. A simple example of what could be used on a lightmap are navigation lights. They wouldn't stand out as much in the direct ambient light of a nearby star, but all the more when you'd be flying around in a dark corner of space. The purpose of the lightmap is to create the illusion that specified parts of the texture are self-illuminating.

In any case, all custom textures should always be saved in the 'ships' folder.


I hope that helped you out a bit. If you have any more questions please do ask, I'll do my best to help you out as far as my knowledge in the subject allows me to.

Good luck!


P.S.:
It also seems that your ship mesh is still a bit too large, judging by your screenshots. You should size it down a bit to make it approximately the same size as the other in-game ships. You can use the dummy mesh which you will find in the customkit 'ships' folder, or feel free to use my SX3 ship, keeping in mind that it is about 5-10% larger than the standard in-game ships (a compromise I had to make to let all the effects be placed correctly).

[Daedalus]

Thanks for your help viper, but I'm still bothered by my texture problem:

I named my diffuse and specular with hull2.dds and hull2normal.dds.

Ingame, all my ships come with my new texture (that fit very nicely), but not on my frame. I can still change the color on my ship but no texture.

[Viper]

I named my diffuse and specular with hull2.dds and hull2normal.dds.

Ingame, all my ships come with my new texture (that fit very nicely), but not on my frame. I can still change the color on my ship but no texture.

Hmmm... So all the ships use your texture, except your own ship model... This makes me think you are lacking a normal map on your ship model. A normal map dictates how the colors on your ship will get displayed in game. If you don't have a normal map, the game probably won't show your textures at all. But since you do have file in place called 'hull2normal.dds', I think the problem is a simple naming issue.

Even though you have a file called 'hull2normal.dds', judging from what stated above, you have used your specular map for this file. So this file, which should hold the normal map, uses the specular map, which holds no normal values. However the game is probably looking for the normal values using your 'hull2normal.dds', but can't find any since this file uses your specular map and not the normal map.
This will probably cause your problem, as the game needs normal values to determine how it should display the colors and effects of the other textures (the diffuse and specular).

I would guess that the reason why the game does shown your texture on the other ship, is because since you don't have any custom normalmap file assigned for these ships, the game probably uses the default one. If my theory checks out you will be able to confirm this if the AI that fly the same ships as the ones you replaced with your custom design don't have a texture either.


The naming system for the maps can seem a bit confusing, but I'll show you a few examples.


This is what a diffuse map looks like in png format. The diffuse map is the 'regular' texture (the maps below are the ones for the SX3 fighter):


This is what a normal map should look like. The normal map holds the normal values the game needs to display the textures:

Does the map in your 'hull2normal.dds' look like this, or the one below?

And this is what your specular map should look like. The specular map determines how reflections and extrusions etc are displayed:



So I think you have accidentally used your specular map for your normal map, which means there is no normal map right now. I don't know if you have already created a normal map (the blue-ish-purple-ish one), but if you have, you should name this one 'hull2normal.dds', and your specular map (the black and white one) 'hull2shader.dds'. Your diffuse map is named correctly.

If you don't have a normal map yet, have a look on the internet for a plugin for your graphics program. Look for something called 'normalmap plugin'. I'm not sure about Photoshop, but for Gimp you can get a great plugin that allows you to create a really good normal map from the diffuse texture.
If you are using Gimp but don't know where to look, I'll send you my normalmap plugin.

Good luck and let me know how it goes.

[Edited on 12-21-2012 by Viper]

[Daedalus]

Hi!

My normal map is correct, I used the nvidia plugin for photoshop on my texture to generate a normal map for the ship.

I thought my mesh was wrong since the sketshup export and I cleaned my mesh the best I could. But this time when I imported it ingame, my ship was half invisible. In blender it was fine, meshlab same thing, I used lithunwrap to debug the mesh but nothing worked.

I can send you my files if you want, its my first time playing with textures and import so you should see easily where the problem is. I bet its just a little thing to adjust in the mesh.

[Viper]

Yeah go ahead and send me your files. Please send the ship mesh(es) and your diffuse, normal and specular maps. I'll check them out and see what I can find out. Can't tell you when I'll be able to respond though since I have plans for tonight. Maybe you could run through all the steps you have taken in the process and doublecheck them in the mean time.
You can send the files to the following e-mail address:

[email protected]

[Viper]

Just a quick thing to make sure:

Have you made sure you used DXT-5 compression when you exported the textures to .dds format?
And have you ticked the 'use mipmaps' option?

[Vice]

In additin to the steps Viper lists above, also make sure you apply normals to your model. Without normals, the graphics engine can't properly apply the various texture layers and shader effects. When that happens, your model will appear gray or black when no texture/shader details can be applied to it.

[Marvin]

This has become a really informative thread. Viper, have you linked it to your Table of Contents?

[Busch]

Daedalus ? WOW! That's some ship! It's makin' me itchy, an' I cain't scratchit! Gimmee Gimmee Gimmee! :P:P:P:P:P:P:P WAY DUDE !

[Viper]

In additin to the steps Viper lists above, also make sure you apply normals to your model. Without normals, the graphics engine can't properly apply the various texture layers and shader effects. When that happens, your model will appear gray or black when no texture/shader details can be applied to it.

Yup, Vice makes a very good point, this is important to keep in mind when exporting your model as a DirectX mesh. I forgot about that one, thanks for pointing that out boss!
Which reminds me of two other things you need to make sure of when exporting your model as a DirectX mesh:
- make sure to export your mesh as ASCII/text (not binary);
- and also include UV mapping data.

Both options, as well as the one Vice pointed out, are options you can probably tick on or off in your DirectX exporter plugin.

This has become a really informative thread. Viper, have you linked it to your Table of Contents?

Not yet as I was reluctant to add my own thread to the list. But if it's perceived as an informative thread, I'll gladly add it.

Thinking of it, it might be worth the trouble of making a 'what-to-pay-attention-to-when-introducing-custom-ship-models-to-the-game'-tutorial some time to collect all the relevant info into one spot.
I think I still need to work on that name, though lol.

[Edited on 12-21-2012 by Viper]

[Marvin]

ASCII I understand. But you might want to expand on what UV mapping does ... and normals. What's the difference between "normals" and the normal map seen in the above example?

[Viper]

I'm having trouble explaining this in short sentences as especially the UV is a bit of a technical story, but I'll try.

UV mapping:
Technically speaking, the term 'UV mapping' is not entirely correct; the proper term is 'UVW mapping'. Ever wondered how a game knows how exactly it needs to 'wrap' the texture around a ship? Why it isn't orientated upside-down, or backwards? That's what a UVW map does.

A UVW map holds the coordinates of where each point of your textures/maps should be placed onto your model. And the letters 'UVW' mean and do exactly the same as the more familiar 'XYZ', someone at some point just decided to use the 3 next best letters in the alphabet to prevent confusion and probably conflicts in the programs, simply because all 3d modeling programs already use XYZ coordinates for their model orientation.

Imagine you have created a 3d model, and now you want to design and apply a texture to it to make it look good. But how do you place the texture around the model, and how do you know where to put all the detailing? Well, each 3d modeling program has an option that will allow you to 'unwrap' the 3d model into a flat surface. Most of the times this option is simply called 'UVW unwrap' or something similar. What it does is it takes each point (or more precisely, polygons / faces) on the surface of your model, and records it on the flat surface. We call this flat surface the UVW map. You can think of a UVW map as a paper plane that has been unfolded, ready to be colored in. Actually, that is more precise than it sounds lol.

A typical UVW map can look like the one below (I quickly made one for the SX3). Compare it to the SX3 diffuse map to understand how it works:



I went for a simple and fairly rough black and white version, but depending on the settings you apply to the UVW map, it can have all the colors you want, whichever makes it easier for the designer to work with. You can also choose to outline the model elements, etc etc.

You can then save this UVW map as an image file, like a .png. This allows you to open it in a graphic program so you can work on it and start designing your basic texture. In the UVW map sub-window of your 3d modeling program, you can see where each element of the UVW map will be placed on the model. If you click it, that section of the model will light up (at least that's how it works in 3dsMax, and I'm sure other programs have similar features). This is very handy as it can be hard to recognize the different elements of the model, which can sometimes be very small.

After you have created your texture, you save it as an image file (the format doesn't matter as much for the 3d program as it does for the game you're planning to introduce it to), you import it into your 3d program and assign the texture to (part of) the model, and the program will use the previously saved UVW coordinates to properly show the texture on the model.

Sorry for the long-winded explanation lol.



Normals:
Normals are values that determine how much light is reflected off any particular point (or again more precisely: polygon or face) on the surface of a model, depending on the orientation of that particular point. A normal map takes these values and simply translates them into color gradients from pink to blue, with pink being the most emissive value and blue the least. In-game, you can see the effects of a normalmap by the subtle differences in gloss / shinyness (again trouble finding the right word for it) on the different areas of your ship's surface.

I had a look on the internet to find someone who could explain this better than I just did, and came up with this really good explanation:

Normals are vectors that 3D software uses to describe the orientation of a polygon in space. Think of them as a little virtual arrow that forms right angles (is "normal") to both diagonals of a flat quadrilateral: there's only one way to do this. One of their major uses is in calculating how light will reflect off the face and thus what the camera will "see." We can play tricks with normals (by using bump maps for example) to create the illusion of surface texture; the geometry doesn't change, just the way we're telling the light to bounce off the surface.

Which basically says it better than I ever could.


Now I need a smoke lol.

[Edited on 12-21-2012 by Viper]

[Daedalus]

I'm in touch with a friend that use blender every day. He said that my mesh was a complete mess. And modeling on sketchup is a bad habit. So he works on it and will send me the result.

[Viper]

To paint a picture of how the process normally works of creating a ship and getting it ready for a game:

• You design the (still blank) 3d model of the ship (this includes for example scaling and orientation of the model)
• You create the UVW map for it
• You design the basic texture, which becomes the diffuse map
• Then you create the normal map and the specular map and if you want, the emmissive map (also called lightmap/illumination map etc)
• You then assign all the maps to the 3d model in your 3d modeling software
• Your model is basically done. What follows are the technical steps of creating the proper code for it if the game design requires that, and for example adding the hardpoints to the model. Hardpoints determine where things like the weapons, effects, animated lights, contrails, pilot mesh (if there is any), mount (the point the ship model rests on when sitting in a docking bay for example), etc etc. To be honest I'm not sure if all games require hardpoints, but I did quite some modding for Freelancer and we used a lot of hardpoints back then.
• Something we also did for Freelancer, was creating a surface file. This surface file determined the hitbox of the model ie where a gun blast would hit the surface of the ship. Without the surface file, you would be able to fly the ship right through walls for example. You could see the surface file as giving the model 'mass'.
  I have no idea whether this is still a commonly used technique. It could well be that modern games don't require this. Seeing the fact that EM certainly doesn't need a separate surface file, I am guessing that the game either creates them itself, or - which seems more logical - that it is inherent to the DirectX format of the model meshes the game uses.

[Edited on 12-21-2012 by Viper]

[Viper]

I'm in touch with a friend that use blender every day. He said that my mesh was a complete mess. And modeling on sketchup is a bad habit. So he works on it and will send me the result.

Aha, that will most probably result in a lot of floating limbs (disconnected or 'floating' polygons). Even though you tick the option 'export as single mesh' in your DirectX exporter, it still might not be able to connect all the points in your model because they are not orientated correctly in relation to one another.

This is quite common when you first start modeling. I had it too on my first models. It is a very tedious job to sort it, as you will have to manually 'clean up' your model and get rid of all the duplicate polygons, disconnected points, or weld them together.

A very good tip someone once gave me to partially prevent this: design exactly one half of your model. Then when it's done, simply copy and mirror it. This will greatly increase your overview of the model, and as a bonus will make it easy to check the inside of the model for floating points.
It has one downside though: when you mirrored it, you need to connect the two halfs together to make one single model with no floating polys.

You can combine this technique with what they call (if I recall correctly) 'box modeling'. It's simple really: you just create a box with a low number of polygons, and start selecting faces and extruding, moving, smoothening, etc them until you end up with your final model. This makes sure you keep a good eye on what you're doing as you're really carefully molding each shape step by step, and prevent the appearance of floating points for the most part.

Don't give up Daedalus, I don't know if that is your first model or not, but it looks pretty good man! And running into things like this is just part of the learning process. It pretty much sucks horses when you spent hours on end creating the model you envisioned some time ago, only to have someone tell you it's a mess. They should also tell you that you already did a really good job on it!
And remember, your next model will be better.

When you get the model back from your friend, I would compare it to your original model to see what he did with it and learn from it.

[Edited on 12-21-2012 by Viper]

[Daedalus]

Close to the end: 2200 polygon (with visible cockpit), he made the unwrap but Ill make the texture, spec and normal. A few effort and you all will be flying this.

[Viper]

Looking good!

[Viper]

So since the ship I showed in the 'would you fly this ship'-poll topic is not going to cut it, I decided to design a new one from scratch.

It's the holidays now so I have a bit more time on my hands than usual, but I'm not gonna rush this one. When it's done, I'd really like to have a solidly designed ship with a really nice texture on it.

I'll work with two main goals:
- Designing it around either the Perch or the Max cockpit.
- Designing it to make it fit the ingame effects. Probably only the engine and weapon effects though, making it also fit the maneuvering thruster effects is almost undoable.

I'll post regular updates of the design progress.

Edit:
And uhm, anyone know any good names for it? We could collect a few names and then vote on it or something.

Below are some concept art images of which I will use one (or possibly, several) as main inspiration. The final result will likely not come out exactly the same as any of them, but the general shape may be based on one.
If you have a particular taste for one of the ships, feel free to point them out below and I'll see if I can work with it.

All images below are concept art from http://conceptships.blogspot.nl/; all credits for the designs are for their designers.

Perch cockpit?...:


The ship on the bottom right:


Perch cockpit?...:


Super-sleek:


Perch cockpit?... Also, this one would be something completely different:




This one is supposed to be a cap ship I think, but something similar on a smaller scale would also make a great looking fighter:


Max cockpit:


Max cockpit:


[Edited on 12-26-2012 by Viper]

[Dagran]

Amazing drawn designs there Viper, the angular shapes have a true space combat feel to them. My picks go to the green fighter and the one first yellow fighter.

[Edited on 12-26-2012 by Dagran]

[Scavenger4711]

I think that one, retextured would make a great Vonari ship:



But as a human military fighter, I like this more:

[Viper]

Amazing drawn designs there Viper, the angular shapes have a true space combat feel to them. My picks go to the green fighter and the one first yellow fighter.

[Edited on 12-26-2012 by Dagran]

Yeah the skills of the designers there are really mind blowing.
Which ones did you mean exactly? Would you mind copying the images into a reply? You can do this by right-clicking on the image, selecting 'copy image url', then put it in your reply and add [img]in%20front%20and[/img] behind.
Or simply say 'number 2 and 6' of course lol.

[Scavenger4711]

Amazing drawn designs there Viper, the angular shapes have a true space combat feel to them. My picks go to the green fighter and the one first yellow fighter.

[Edited on 12-26-2012 by Dagran]

Yeah the skills of the designers there are really mind blowing.
Which ones did you mean exactly? Would you mind copying the images into a reply? You can do this by right-clicking on the image, selecting 'copy image url', then put it in your reply and add [img]in%20front%20and[/img] behind.
Or simply say 'number 2 and 6' of course lol.

I think he means #1 and #7 ^^

[Edited on 26-12-2012 by Scavenger4711]