Nighthawk's BB-rific complete guide to ship building for Freelancer

[tansytansey]

4.0 Texturing

So you've finally finished modelling and are ready to texture. Texturing is a very time consuming process, but don't worry, because it's not difficult once you know how to use the program. It just takes a very long time, and this is why I say it is essential to ensure your model is complete and bug-free before you start texturing.

Now, I'm not going to write a guide on how to texture because Frozen has already made an excellent guide here. While texturing is possbile in Metasquoia and Milkshape, I have never textured in Metasequoia so I couldn't tell you how, and I do not recommend using Milkshape for anything if you have an alternative available.

But since not everyone has a copy of 3DS Max, legal or otherwise, some people might be forced to use alternative texturing means. Texturing in Milkshape is actually rather similar to texturing in 3DS Max, but from my experience 3DS Max tends to produce better results. I'll write a quick guide on how to prepare yourself for texturing in Milkshape.

4.1 Texturing - Importing your model

Even if you textured in another program you will probably need the next two steps!

First, you're going to need Milkshape. If you don't have it, you can get it from this .rar file provided by Frozen.

http://www.mediafire.com/?wd2dicmnnzy

Once you have this working, it's time to import. This is typically done through importing .3ds files, but Milkshape has a large library of included formats for file importing. Find the one you need and import your model to Milkshape.
http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/7299/29874632.png

You'll see that your model is not currently oriented correctly.

First you'll want to right click on the top left view port and check the "textured" box. This views the model with textures in that view port only, we need to see which way our model is facing so we can orient it correctly. Next select your model using ctrl+a and choose the "Rotate" tool on the right hand toolbar.

Do NOT manually rotate your model. Rotate your model ONLY by entering values into the provided fields. This will engure your model stays exactly symmetrical and exactly face on. Rotate your model in incraments of 90 only.
You will typically only need to rotate the X any Y axis. Rotate your model until the front of your ship is displayed in the top left window.

This is important, because your model will not be oriented correctly in-game if you do not orient it correctly before exporting.

http://img532.imageshack.us/img532/3034/75795138.png

Final step in preparing your model to texture is to centre it. It's likely that your model is not centred correctly after rotating. Select the "Move" tool from the toolbar and from the drop down list select "Absolute"
Leave all of the fields at 0 and hit the move button. This will centre your model to the middle of the scene. Unless it is Asymmetrical, in which case you will likely be required to manually ensure the model is centred, but unless you build an asymmetrical model on purpose this should not be the case.

http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/5787/64085568.png

4.2 Texturing - Loading your Material files

Before you load your textures into materials, you'll need them first, right? If you are using custom textures, skip the next paragraph and move on.

For most ships, you'll most likely need the Vanilla Texture files. Frozen again has prepared this for you in an easy .rar file.
http://www.mediafire.com/?mmytfzcmoec
You young ones have it easy. Modellers back in the day had to extract the texture files themselves from the .mat files xD

Alright, now you've got all the texture files you need it's time to load them into Milkshape. Go to the Materials Tab on the right hand toolbar.


If you are importing an already textured model, you will see something like this
http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/8900/18609690.png

Click the button that has the name of your texture in it, and navigate to the correct texture. It is important that you load the correct texture or it will not display correctly on your model, these Materials have already been pre-assigned to your model. Repeat until all steps for your material files, and you're done.


If you are working with an untextured model, this window will be blank, so lets make some materials. First thing, click the "New" button, this will create a material, but there is currently no texture assigned to it. So you'll want to click the top <none> button and navigate to your texture file.
http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/3133/41769350.png

Now type a name into the provided box for your material. I recommend using the same name as given in your texture file. Then hit the "rename button" and you're done. Repeat until you have all your materials loaded.
http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/9238/10017991.png

Finally, you'll need your cockpit glass. Create a new material file, and give it a name. This part is very important for your ship, if you are creating a new ship for an existing ship line, you will need to name this cockpit glass the same as the cockpit glass of the ship you are mimicing.

For unique ships not belonging to any ship line, you will either give your glass a unique name, or you will give the glass the name of another ship's cockpit glass if you want the same colour. If you are using a unique cockpit glass with a non-unique name it will cause swapping issues!

Examples of the existing names are:
c_glass - (Rogue/Molly)
l_glass - (Liberty)
b_glass - (Bretonia)
k_glass - (Kusari)
r_glass - (Rhienland)
etc

Next you'll want to set the colour of your cockpit glass. If you're mimicing an existing cockpit glass, simply having this texture named the same will be enough and you are not required to preform this step, but you may wish to do so any way.
Click the "diffuse" button just beneath the material display and pick your cockpit glass colour. You can also enter RGB values which can be useful in mimicing other cockpit glass colours.

When you've got your colour, you need to make your glass transparent. Move the slider bar under the "Emissive" button to choose your transparency. Freelancer cockpit glasses typically use about 70% opacity.
http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/155/46212476.png

All your materials should now be set. If you have already textured your model in 3DS Max you can skip to straight to the Exporting step.

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