Repainting Ships??

[Stratos_MatrixForum]

Hello, Can anyone tell me how I can repaint the default ships in the game and then reinsert the new textures into the game please??
Thank's a lot!!

[Dragonlead]

To be perfectly honest, that's not possible at this point. Milo hasn't released Magic 2.0 yet so some things like new skins aren't possible to do yet. However, the skins function is active (load up a quick mission as a Zodiac LCA and you have the option to choose a different look...waay cool [:D]) However, a full-scale repaint isn't an option yet.

V/R

[p10ppy]

Actually not only is magic 2 still not availible (whats it been? 18 months since we first heard of its existance)[:(]
You could not repaint/mod stock ships anyway iirc
they are in a encrpyted dat file to protect IP

[Stratos_MatrixForum]

And where I can download Homeoworld mod?? I tried in the groupie, but for some reason is not working, maybe someone can upload it for download

[John DiCamillo]

To be perfectly honest, that's not possible at this point. Milo hasn't released Magic 2.0 yet...

 
That's not quite true for two reasons.
 
1) You don't strictly need Magic 2.0 to re-skin ships in Starshatter:TGS.  You can create skins using a text representation of the various materials in each model, plus custom JPG (or BMP or PCX) texture files.  You can create new skins in the mods directory, and they will show up in the mission briefing screen and in the mission element design screens.  I will post a detailed example tonight.
 
2) I've pushed two new items to the downloads page on the starshatter.com site.  One is a pre-release of Magic 2.0.  It is still just a texturing program.  You can't modify the mesh in Magic 2.0, just the materials.  The other item is a new GUI version of the mod archive program.  It looks kind of like WinZIP, but for .dat files.  You can use this program to open up the .dat files in the game if you want to create mods for the built in ships. 
 
I would strongly recommend that you do not use this program to modify the built-in dat files.  If you want to tweak the performance of a built-in ship, put it in a mod archive and deploy it using the mod archive screens in the game.

[Master_QG]

THANK YOU MILO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is all I wanted. Now I can get some real work done on The SS Star Wars mod.[:D][:D][:D]

[Dragonlead]

I humbly stand corrected. [&o] Slightly off topic question, but related...will this also work for modding the existing galaxy files?

V/R

[John DiCamillo]

So, skinning:

Anyone can create custom skins for any ship either in the game or in any deployed mod.  Skins may be defined in their own files, or placed in ship design files with the rest of the ship configuration information.  Of course, if you are adding a custom skin to an existing ship design, you must use the skin file method, since you may not have access to the original ship design file.

Skin files are placed within the mod directory system.&nbsp; Create a subdirectory under mods called "skins".&nbsp; If your game install directory is C:\Starshatter, the skins folder should be C:\Starshatter\Mods\Skins.&nbsp; Inside the skins folder, you can create a skin file for each ship you want to skin.&nbsp; The skin file should have the same name as the ship you are skinning, with a .def extension.&nbsp; To create a skin for the built-in Spectre-class destroyer, you would create a file named <b>C:\Starshatter\Mods\Skins\Spectre.def</b>

Skin files look like this:

Code: Select all

SKIN
 
 name: Spectre // this is the name of the ship getting skinned
 
 skin: {
    name: Blue // this is the name of the skin
    mtl:  { name: MAIN_D     Ka: (0,0,1)  Kd: (0,0,0.7) }
    mtl:  { name: Spectre_D  Ka: (0,0,1)  Kd: (0,0,0.7) }
 }
 

Each skin has a name that is displayed in the game interface so that the player can select it.&nbsp; Skins are collections of material definitions that override the materials built in to the Magic model.&nbsp; Each material must have a name that refers to one of the materials already in the model.&nbsp; The Spectre uses two materials named MAIN_D and Spectre_D.

The material definition includes the following elements by name:

Ka (ambient RGB color)
Kd (diffuse RGB color)
Ks (specular RGB color)
Ke (emissive RGB color)
Ns (specular power)
bump (bump height in pixels, may be negative)
luminous (true/false)
blend (alpha | additive | solid)
tex_d (diffuse texture image file)
tex_s (specular texture image file)
tex_b (bump map image file)
tex_e (emissive texture image file)

RGB colors are defined with floating point triplets, where each color component must be between 0 and 1.
(1,0,0) = Red
(1,1,0) = Yellow
(0,0,0.5) = Dark Blue


One final note - the example quoted above will not work if you have bump-mapping enabled.&nbsp; You must provide at least a diffuse texture bitmap or the material will be rendered as solid black.&nbsp; If you really feel the need to have a plain non-textured material, just use Windows Paint to create a 1x1 BMP file and fill the pixel with pure white.

[John DiCamillo]

...will this also work for modding the existing galaxy files?

What, skinning? No. Skinning is only for ships / stations / buildings / etc. Not for planets, nebulae, or weapons.

I haven't forgotten about your issue with modding the galaxy, I'm just a bit backed up. If I don't get to it tonight, I will find a way to make time tomorrow.

[Dragonlead]

Thanks Milo,

I did get your email.

For everyone else...since Milo let the cat out of the bag[;)]...I am currently working on creating a dynamic campaign using stock ships and weapons. However, the current long pole in the tent is changing up the galaxy so that more areas are available for combat (around all moons and planets, as well as having terrain on all inhabited worlds). I'm also adding more star systems to allow for more complex scenarios.

V/R

[Adonnay]

That sounds very promising!
If you've achieved that I'll rip your work and adapt my ships *grins evily*.
&nbsp;
Kidding of course but I'm indeed interested in editing or creating a dynamic campaign

[Dragonlead]

If you want to get with me offline (via email) please do. I have one other party who is helping as well. And it will be hard to rip, as I plan to make it available to everyone. [:D]

V/R

[Master_QG]

Ok I get the skin to work but I have a question. The skin only seems to work for the first mag file in the detail level. Is this correct? Also does it work in the cockpit?

[John DiCamillo]

Yes, that's correct - skins affect the first model only.&nbsp; I hadn't really thought about it before, but I guess that's a minor bug, huh?&nbsp; I'll have to look into enabling skinning on all of the models in each detail level.&nbsp; It's actually a pretty minor code change, I'm just worried about unforseen and undesirable side-effects.

The cockpits are not affected by skins either, for a number of technical reasons.&nbsp; Also, the main purpose of skinning was to provide for visible variation between similar ships when seen from the outside.

[Master_QG]

Ok, thanks. I guess it is no big deal about the cockpit skin. I just figured you could use the same cockpits but change up the displays.

For example there are lots of TIE fighter variants but they all use the same cockpit pod. Instead of making the same mag file over and over, one could skin the controls so they could be different.

Also in another example with my A-wing fighter. When in external mode my skins look great but when I switch to cockpit mode the parts of the hull that are visable still have the default markings.

I'm sure you probably were'nt exactly thinking about these things as they rather minute details.