Finishing off your models

Firing points and engine glows:

This is pehaps for me the most annnoying, but at the same time fun part of making a ship set...setting the firing points.

Before we start you might need to know a few things...that I at first ignored as I didn't think it mattered!

1) In the Terran_Ships_XFileClasses file right at the begining to you should see a diagram of the firing arcs and the numbers that go with each angle...like the one below.

Firing Point Arcs
315 0 45
\|/
270 -+- 90
/|\
225 180 135

Later you'll see that each firing point is given a firing arc starting point and end point.

NOTE:
Firing Point 1 Arc Start 315
Firing Point 1 Arc End 45

This is correct for forward firing point 90º, however it is not the
same as the one below..set up the firing arcs wrongly and some of the points wont fire.

Firing Point 1 Arc Start 45
Firing Point 1 Arc End 315

This is wrongly set up as it gives the firing point an arc of about 270º

2. Second set the number of firing points to 1 ( this is just to start with) and the number of engine glows to 1 as well. We are going to use a cool trick to see where the first firing points is....set the first engine glow to have the same co-ordinates as the first firing point. Save, but leave open.

Number Of Firing Points := 1
Firing Point 1 X := 112.319191
Firing Point 1 Y := 413.506592
Firing Point 1 Z := 27.873138
Firing Point 1 Arc Start := 315
Firing Point 1 Arc End := 45
...
Number Of Engine Points := 1
Engine Point 1 X := 112.319191
Engine Point 1 Y := 413.506592
Engine Point 1 Z := 27.873138

3. Start SEV and go to your ship set mod...set up a game, make a design of your new ship. Put it in the space combat sim. You should now see one engine glow floating in space around your ship..If the glow is not where it should be, then you'll need to move it.
stop combat sim and min SEV....go back to the Terran_Ships_XFileClasses which we've left open and change the firing point co-ordinates...(I change one co-ordinate at a time and then check to see how the engine glow has moved) You don't need to change both the engine glow and the firing point...you can just change the engine glow for now.
Save but leave open.

4. Go back to SEV...exit combat sim... to load changes you've made re-enter...the engine glow has now moved...repeat steps 3 & 4 until the engine glow is where you want your firing point to be..

5. Now that you have your 1st firing point set up...copy paste the engine glow co-ordinates to the 1st firing arc...test in combat sim.

6. You can now set up the rest of the firing points...follow the same process...just don't forget to change the number of firing points each time you add one. And keep an eye on those firing arcs.

When testing in the space combat sim, make sure your ships are turing and firing as they should be...I love this part

Engine glows...if you've set up the firing points...then setting up the engine glows is the same...except you may also need to change the size of the glow & there aren't any arcs.

Using Slot modder:

1. So you have your shipslot.bmp file from before. The first thing we have to do is resize this to 500X704...this can be done using infranview.
Open the shipslot.bmp file and select around your model...leave more space at the top and bottom than at the sides...this may take a few practise tries...cut the section you've selected and paste it into infranview. save as shipslot704.bmp.
Resize it to 500x704 and then convert it to a JPEG image using the batch/convert option.

2. Open up slot modder and load in the image shipslot704.JPEG. Change the name of the slot layout to the ship you're slotting. In our case that would be terran frigate. Add in the slots that you want and positoin them as you like. All the slots will be outer hull but you can change this later.

3. Change the slot to armour or inner hull as you wish. Note you'll need to change both fields for each slot.

4. Finished...ok time to save. Save the file as shipslotsdone.notebook.

So you should now have two files for this shipslot704.JPEG & shipslotsdone.notepad

5. Open up the shipslotsdone.notebook in notepad...select and copy all the information to with your frigate. Now open the file Terran_InvConfiguration_Slots in the terran empire folder of our ship set mod. find the frigate slot inforamtion in this file select it all and backspace it. Now copy your slot information into its place. Save and exit.

6. Now select you shipslot704.JPEG and change its name to (in our case) Terran_InvPortrait_Frigate...move it into your terran empire fold...to replace the present image.

7. Start SEV and go to you ship set mod and start a game... go to create a ship and create a frigate...you should now see you slot lay out that you've made.

Portrates

There are two types of portrates in SEV small and large. The small one is a BMP image of 128X128. The large portrate image is a JPEG image of 512X512.

1. Cut/resize/change file type as you've done before...you should be an expert in doing this by now

2. change the names of the files to that of the images they'll replace in the terran empires folder...in our case that will be...

3. done..Start SEV and have a look at the portrates...

Almost finished...just have to insert the small image of the ship in ... this again can be done very easily by copying your shipslot.bmp and pasting it into the file...onto of the ship you are replacing...save and exit.

Start SEV and see how the small ship looks..if you dont like it or something has gone wrong...redo it till you are happy.

The same can be done with the flags you want to use for your empire.

Lastly when you have done all everything...all the ships all the images etc...then you just need to name you empire...this means going through all the files and renaming them to the name of your empire...eg terran_frigate now becomes Nilith_frigate. (You'll have to open some files like Terran_AI_General,Terran_AI_Main,Terran_Ships_XFileClasses etc..and change any reference to Terran to the name of your new empire...should take maybe 5-10 mins to change it all)

Yeah you've finished your shipset and new empire...Well Done!!!!