ive never used google sketchup, so i dont know how flexible it is. if you can, export the model as a .3ds format file. this will allow you to import the model into 3ds max for texturing, or into milkshape for texturing/hitboxing (i personally prefer 3ds for texturing, since it allows you to go into much greater detail, and prevents distorted faces while texturing)
to hitbox, ive written a tutorial which you can follow. for texturing, im going to write a tutorial on how to texture in 3ds max, so hopefully that will help people somewhat. i cant help you with texturing in milkshape, since ive never done it. hardpointing of ships is done in a program called HardCMP.
Right, so I am at the dreaded texturing part of the mod... I have it in Milkshape, it looks nice so far... except... Texturing... yikes!
it is a complicated model (based on the Betty from Alien:R) so needless to say it is not as simple as I would have liked it to be.
The questions I have are similar to what have been asked.
1. grouping, idiots guide please. Or maybe one of those Youtube demos might be an idea... sort of step by step thing showing as you go.
2. scale, importing a ship? How do I know what size is right? How do I avoid problems with the ship being toop big for certain berths (as in what size is the maximum to fit into the smallest berth in the game?)
3. What poly count should I be aiming for with this? I am worried I might be too high.
' Wrote:1. grouping, idiots guide please. Or maybe one of those Youtube demos might be an idea... sort of step by step thing showing as you go.
Select the faces on your model that you want to regroup, and in the 'groups section' hit "regroup." It's pretty much as simple as that, but it can take a while to get used to at first.
Quote:2. scale, importing a ship? How do I know what size is right? How do I avoid problems with the ship being toop big for certain berths (as in what size is the maximum to fit into the smallest berth in the game?)
Import an existing ship from the game of similar size and scale your model to fit the right size, then delete the imported model and centre your ship.
Quote:3. What poly count should I be aiming for with this? I am worried I might be too high.
What kind of ship is it? I think for a fighter/bomber you should aim for 2000~, and for a capital ship up to 5000 or more depending on the size of the ship.
Um the ship in the movie wasn't that large. It is a freighter, so I'd say larger than the vanilla Rhino, but smaller than a gunboat.
Set up is: cockpit gondola underneath a large linebacker booster array up top (whole thing looks like a dragon fly to me). Just google "The Betty" for reference pictures...
I am doing this more to learn, and having a clear reference helps me to keep everything moving along.
first thing is to try welding, and then after that the only thing you can really do is delete useless faces with in the model. Select your entire model and press ctrl+w to weld, this will connect any verticies sitting on top of each other together.
Well got my first test model to run in the game... true it was back to front and upside down... BUT IT FLEW!
still can't seem to manage that with the Betty model yet... I think it might have something to do with scale and LOD ranges...
That was how I fixed the test model to display in game. I was using the HardCMP to get an idea, and Model Resizer to fiddle with it.
Textures still seem a little overwhelming, but I think I have an idea on what to do there now.
Hardpointing was eay, I presume texturing is hardpointing but on a bigger scale? basically select the points fiddle with them... group them and then assign that a texture.
This modelling is a lot easier than I first thought... it is tricky but satisfying when you see something you built in game.
Is there anyway to slect a face based off of Vertex? I am getting frustrated by this select tool choosing faces in the middle of the ship when I am simply trying to get the nose...
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