I was wondering if its possible to use gas giant testures as planet textures. it seems a lot easyer to use. Ive tried it on planets but it looks messed up.
Ok so i have some idea how to change the texturing thing but now i need some help with the program Softimage XSI. I have it up and running but i cant figure out how to open the planet(name).mesh files.
Dobberman are you a modeler?
Well im a beginner modder. Im trying to make my own solar system mod since the one cybdevil made seems to be dead.
You and I both, think we could combine our experience?
I think you and I are basically after the same thing, though I am not a complete noob to this stuff, I understand code and the such, and what I don't know I test until I figure it out.
However I am not great with models.
I am a fairly good artist when it comes to textures using photoshop, however models I cannot do.
Anyway for me to contact you outside the forum? Like across one of the chat mediums like Yahoo messenger/ ICQ/ AIM/ or something of the likes?
I sent in a PM to xxdiresaintxx and cybdevil with request for info on the status of their projects, but no reply yet.
It seems all the good planet modders haven't visited the site in a while, which is a shame because they both did good work on the sol mod.
Well i would like some help with the planet texturing but i dont give out my e-mail.
Ya i know.
Well if he wont make the solar system i will try. I have the gas giants done. they just need to be darkened.
Well, probly not since if im not mystaken there designed for 1 mesh.
Well nothing ventured, nothing gained.
why not just the mesh file in the "planet(name).entity" instead?
Where exactly would i find this mesh thing of what ever it is? Because if i could use all gas giant sise planets it doesnt bother me that mutch.
Where is the entity files? of are you talking about the mesh folder?
Edit: Nvm i found it.
No i copyed the gas giant entity file, mooved the planet one out of the folder renamed the gas giant one and it still makes the planets all messed up.
well in the Game Info folder theres a Planet(name).entity that references all meshes for that plane in the file. so essentially you upen up the gas giant, copy the section which list its mesh files then paste it into another planet.
It still looks horrible
Well i tried to put the immage on but its being difficult.
Well annyway, it looks like a messed up 3D puzzle.
lol. well you can try making gas giants colonizable by following the basic terran planet layout. its possible the the planet elevators (the cities on the planest with the little cars) are causing the choppy graphics.
That is because gas giants and normal planets have different UV mapping. Normal planets have the cylindrical map with polar caps, the so called "cross pattern" - gas giants seem to have a standard spherical map or somesuch.
In other words, using cross-pattern textures for gas giant models results in the "messed up 3D puzzle" look. Or vice versa. You have to know the UV layout in order to do appropriate textures. Frankly, if you want to be a good texturer, you have to at least know the basics of modelling and UV-mapping. It makes it a hell of a lot easier to make textures that actually fit something.
I suggest starting here. After that, you can also google for plentiful tutorials concerning your 3D package of choice.
If you, however, want to do it quick and dirty, the procedure for replacing normal planets with retextured gas giants is as follows:
1. Open normal planet .entity files and use their mesh entries to find out the .mesh file names which you will need to replace. Then replace those files with the .mesh file of the gas giants (renaming it appropriately, of course. You should not need to edit anything in the .entity files themselves)
2. Opening the new .mesh files, replace the texture entries with appropriate planet textures, taking care that they are properly formatted. As mentioned, the gas giants use (probably) a spherical UV-map, so you will need to have a texture which looks simmilar to that of the gas giants.
And that's it. Expect some heavy pinching and texture distortion on the polar caps though - that's why they used the cross pattern for normal planets.
I cant open a mesh file. i downloaded XSI mod tool but i cant find it to open the mesh file with.
annyone
You will need the XSI Convertert that is include in the Forge Tools
this little programm convert meshes to XSI and back.
then you can edit it with SoftImage.
Er... I didn't think convertxsi.exe could convert both ways. I was pretty sure it could only take a .xsi and turn it into a .mesh, not vice versa.
-dolynick
uhm yes your are right
i mixed it with convertdata.exe
sorry!
Thats why it wont work! They need to fix that.
I doubt that they will change it, its some way to make shure not everybody could "borrow" thier models for other games.
But after my fail post from above. looked around how it can be done, cause i also want to make some new planets based on existing models. I find this maxscript that can read and write .mesh files, but you will need 3dmax 6 or 7.
I tried it with gmax (which was the freeware version of 3dmax for modders) but the script won't work with it.
I just want the mesh. and im still not quite sure how to add a texture onto a model. i want to just paste it on or something.
For the gas giant texturing, would it work if you identifie the planet as a gas giant so the game will make it possible for spherical maps to work but remake the entity file so its abillitys are the same as a terran planet for Earth. I know that cybdevil already made one but it looks like it was burnt or something.
if you open a mesh file (after you converted it to text) you will see in the material section some reference lines:
DiffuseTextureFileName "C:\PlanetDesert01-cl.dds"SelfIlluminationTextureFileName "C:\PlanetDesert01-da.dds"
if you just replace them with you new texture it will work fine. But don't mixup gasgiant and planet textures cause the mesh and thier texturing is different.
If you use a planet mesh and resize it to gasgiant size you can use the same texturing method as for planets. cause the mapping coordinates are inside the mesh.
Thanks! now i can use my orange star in game!
NewBoerg's Resize Tool is Quite the Tool isn't it? I think we've all used it in several ways, and it works wonderfully!!
-Teal
Ive never heard of a resizing tool. If you were saying theres an easy way to resize planets can you post a link? I'd like to check that out.
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