Using SFC ships in the game

They can be used, but you have to go through a process to get the Direct X and everything working correctly.

Engine Glows and Weapon Flares

Getting the engine glows and weapon flares placed on your model can be extremely frustrating. Hopefully this will make it a little bit easier for you.

Assuming that you are using a test mod to check out your new ships (highly recomended) add a Pictures folder and then an Effects subfolder in it. In the Effects folder add copies of "EngineGlow.bmp" and "weapon_flare.bmp." In your test empire folder add a copy of "BitmapEffects_Combat.txt" and the shipset viewer. Edit the "BitmapEffects_Combat" file so that only the entries for Engine Glow and Firing Flare remain.

Once you've done all that go into the "_Ships_XFileClasses.txt" and find your ship. Change the number of Engine Points to 1, set all the coordinates to 0 (including the offsets,) and make the glow radius 0.9. Save and open the viewer. Go to your ship, zoom in a bit, and press "G" to make the engine glow brighter. To get a really good idea of where the glow is at you may want to zoom in very close and spin the ship.

Now you should have a good idea of which direction you need to move the engine point. In the "_Ships_XFileClasses" file the coordinates are laid out like this;

x = left and right, positive is right and negative is left
y = front to back, positive is front (away from the camera) and negative is back (towards the camera)
z = up and down, positive is down and negative is up (yeah, that's backwards from any 3d I've ever worked with too)

The offsets are just to move the glow off of the model, you can choose to use them or just make the engine points equal the glow points. Once you've got the first one set where you want it you can add the second one and so on. The weapon flares can be done the same way.

It takes some (a lot) of trial and error so you'll find yourself bouncing in and out of the veiwer often but at least it loads quick.

Hopefully this'll help someone out. Any questions please feel free to post them here or pm me. Now, back to working on my set!

[Edit] If you have a hard time finding your engine glow you can always use a weapon flare slot to help you pin down the location. Set one to a 90 degree arc and the arc lines will form an arrow for you. Once you have it nailed down you just put those coordinates back into the engine glow slot. Hope that makes sense!

Basically this is another way to look at the info already posted by Shinigami...This was posted over at spaceempires.net forum...

If you wanted to know how to create a shipset using the current number of ships, I have that below. If you wanted to add new ship models / types to the existing shipsets, someone else will have to fill you in.

There are actually 2 items to do (possibly); copy/rename an existing empire and replace a ship or unit into the empire. I wrote a step-by-step for each; I know it may be a bit tedious, but I figured it was better than skipping something.

Fyron may have already put something together, but I never checked . Personally, I try to test between steps to ensure I didn't screw things up.

Copying an empire:
1. open the empire folder (for stock it is directly in the "spaceempires\SE5" folder), copy and rename a folder
2. rename all files in the folder to start with the new empire name (a mass-file changer like CKRename is useful here)
3. Open each .txt file and "find/replace all" for the old empire name into the new empire name
4. Replace 3 race pictures and flags as wanted.

Replacing a ship in an empire (not a unit, currently)
1. Create a ship that can be exported to .x
2. Export to .x
3. Delete the file you will replace, and (optional) the texture for that ship
4. Copy the new ship .x file and (optional) its texture to the empire folder
5. Rename the .x file to the name of the file you deleted
6. Open the .x file and "find" for the extension of your texture file (if need be - it may be in the top lines)
7. Make sure the texture file name in the .x file is only the file name, without any file path
8. Create an overhead view of the ship - 500x704 pixels is the maximum size. This is the inventory picture, so you may want to make it greyscale to match the stock ships.
9. Edit the picture [Empire_InvPortrait_Ship.jpg] (respective to the replaced ship and empire) to match your picture.
10. Create an overhead view of the ship - about 38x38 pixels max. This will replace the small picture seen in ship creation or construction, and is usually in color.
11. Edit the picture [Empire_Shipset.bmp] (respective to your empire) to match your respective ship. The ships are in a rough order of type and size; the sure-fire way to make the correct changes is to check in the game for the proper picture. The pictures from left to right are:
Row 1: Frigate, destroyer, light cruiser, cruiser, battleship, dreadnought, carrier, transport , colony
Row 2: Space Station, Star Base / Base ship, Drone, Fighter, Mine, Satellite, Troop, Weapon Platform
12. Make 2 3/4 views of the ship - 128x128 and 512x512; The standard is for the ship to be heading towards the lower-left corner of the picture. Edit the [Empire_portrait_ship.bmp](128x128) and [Empire_portrait_ship.jpg](512x512) as you did for the previous pictures.
13. Edit the inventory slots to match the inventory picture. I use SE5Slotmodder, which is usable but crashes when I quit.

Replacing a unit in an empire (mine, satellite, drone, weapon platform):
1. Create an overhead view of the unit - 128x128 pixels.
2. Replace the unit picture in [Empire]_Unit_Combat_Texture.bmp (respective to your empire) (the order of the pictures is below)
Troop----Fighter
Drone----Weapon Platform
3. Continue with the "ship" steps 8 through 13.

You're done! (Next ship or unit!)

dang! I forgot about those - I'm adding them last and will basically guess and check (open [empire]_Ships_XFileClasses.txt, move engine lights forward/back, check in-game... same for weapon points)

The abbidon have 3 engine lights, if you want multi-engine examples.

I've found that for engines/weapons it's just a matter of determining what coordinates they would be located at if you placed them as part of the mesh (IE if an engine would be at 0,-10.75, 2 on your model you would enter those coordinates into XFileClasses for the engines location) Should work regardless of what 3d editor your using as they all save relative to thier own coordinate system (which would be why the XFileClasses has the scale option in it)

Hi folks!

Since there wasn't a thread just for this subject I decided to make one.
I'd like to see this thread be someplace where a shipset designer can go for info or to share their experiences when making shipsets. Hopefully we can pack it with some good info and discussion.

There are 103 individual files in each major empire's folder, that includes AI stuff and all the stock vehicles.

That number can be a bit daunting at first but if you approach it one ship at a time it's not so bad. I'm only going to cover the ships themselves and let someone more knowledgeable take a stab at the other stuff.

What you need:

A 3d modeler.
A model converter that can import and export a file format that your modeler can use, and can import and export directx models. If your modeler can do .x files (import and export) natively great, you can eliminate one entire step in the process.
An image editor that can handle .bmp's and .jpg's.
A way to skin your model. Some 3d apps can unwrap a model and export the map to an image editor, if your's doesn't you'll need a separate program to do this.

I'm not going to tell you which programs you should use as it can be a matter of preference or taste. Google is your friend!

You'll note that I want you to be able to get an .x file into your modeler. The reason for this is two-fold; one, I've seen two different converters lay the same model out along two different axis, if you import a stock model you can see right away how your software will do it and it will save you from having to go back and rotate your model.
Two, by importing a stock model you can get a feel for how detailed you can get with your model, use some stock models to see how many polies (or tri's if you can, directx uses them exclusively) they use. I can already tell you, not many. If your model is too detailed (high poly) then it will slow the game down.

Skipping ahead...
Now that you have your model done and skinned (quick note on textures- the stock game uses 256x256 pixel bitmaps for textures, you don't have to, you can use a 512x512 jpeg if you wish which has a smaller filesize and no noticeable quality loss, you may be able to go even larger but I haven't checked) what's next? Save it in your modeler's native format so you can go back to it if you have to (you've probably been doing this all along) and convert a copy of it over to an .x file for testing. Make a test mod with this structure "Test Mod\Empires\Abbidon" (you can use any empire you want from the stock game) and put your .x file and texture file into the folder. Rename the .x file to abbidon_frigate. Run a quickstart game, design a frigate and use the simulator to see how it looks!

When you know your .x file is good then you can go back to your modeler to render some pics.
You need the following for each ship you make:

a 500x704 jpg top-down (with the front of the ship at the top of the pic) for the inventory screen - should be grayscale

a 42x42 bmp top-down (front at top) for the Empire_Shipset.bmp file

a 512x512 jpg (3/4 front view) this is your Empire_LargePortrait_Ship.jpg

a 128x128 bmp (3/4 front view) this is your Empire_Portrait_Ship.bmp

a 64x64 bmp (3/4 front view) for the Empire_Vehicle_Main_Texture.bmp file

Once you've got all those you can move on to the next ship. (There is another file, Empire_Unit_Combat_Texture.bmp, but I've not had occasion to use it yet. So if anyone else can fill in the blank..... )

Whole set done? Wow! You're quick!
In order to make the _Shipset.bmp and _Vehicle_Main_Texture.bmp files it may be easiest to just make copies of an existing empire and paste your 42x42's and 64x64's into the correct places.

Now for an issue I've run into.
I decided that I wanted to add escorts back into the game. I made my ship and all my pics but ran into a snag when I came to the _Vehicle_Main_Texture and _Shipset files, how could I add an entirely new ship to these files?
The Main_Texture file seemed to put all the vehicles into alpha-order but there wasn't room for a new ship. What I had to do was extend the picture an additional 64 pixels downward, then cut and paste the small pics until I had opened the right spot for my escort. Cool, that one was easy.
I took a similar approach to the _Shipset file, except that I didn't have to add another row and this file appeared to put the ships in order by their size. So I did the cut and paste thing to make a hole at the beginning of the pic and inserted my escort in. From there I just had to change some text files, _Ships_XFileClasses.txt (in the empire's folder) and the VehicleSizes.txt (in the Data folder.) For both files I just copied the stats for the frigate, pasted the copy above it, and edited the copy to turn it into an escort.

That's when I ran into this line in VehicleSizes.txt: "Vehicle TopDown Picture Index "
Since I had inserted my 42x42 pic into the beginning of the _Shipset.bmp I had to change this line for every single vehicle entry in the file.

And that is the real problem.
By having "Vehicle TopDown Picture Index" in the VehicleSizes.txt file shipsets that add more ships and units are going to be locked to the mod they were written for (well, if you want the pictures to match, that is.) What I would like to see is remove that line from the VehicleSizes file and put it into each individual empire's _Ships_XFilesClasses file. Unfortunately, this would require patching the game.

Can anybody else come up with a better solution?

You may or may not find these two links useful... if you are making ship sets

http://www.spaceempires5.com/en-US/node/3274

http://www.spaceempires5.com/en-US/node/3302

All of the stuff just posted was from the shrapnel forum.

There are a few modeling programs that can import and export .MOD files.

3dMax versions 3, 4, and 5. With the proper .MOD plugin
Milkshape has a .MOD plugin

There are a couple of Tools on some of the SFC fansites. Either search around or you can find a few here.

http://www.sfc3.net/padb/index.php?act=category&id=98

Tutorials which may have info on how best to convert or make models from SFC

http://www.sfc3.net/padb/index.php?act=category&id=83

But basically there is no easy way to convert directly from .MOD to .X for SEV.

SFC3 supposedly uses .MOD and .X both at the same time as apposed to SFC2, which only used .MOD files.

I'm looking for material by Atrocities who did convert some SFC files to SEV. And see if he wrote down any good information.

Ah so I didn't write it myself... funny that, I remember writing...scratches head.

Seems like you dont want any help then...I'll leave this thread all for yourself then...

Some more info here.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=483482

Basically programs of choice are:

Milkshape
3dsMax 4, 5, 6
Ultimate Unrwap 3d/Lithunwrap
Poly Trans & Nugraf

I meant the stuff I posted, and the most of that stuff is word for word from the shrapnel post. Sorry. Post any and all info that is relevant.

ok slight misunderstanding...np!

Just got this reply from Atrocities:

Perhaps some Wiki articles should be written to cover this stuff?

SpaceEmpires.net | Space Empires Wiki

For what it's worth, I intend to use any SFC conversions I can get my hands on. I miss the K-D5. It was so ugly, but so powerful!

I played Gorn a lot, so ugly doesn't bother me.

This page might have some useful tools

http://www.staryards.com/tools.htm

3dsMAX version 3 Plugin
Here is the plugin, straight from taldren, that will allow you to import and export your own MOD files if you own 3dsMAX 3! Includes documentation.

3dsMAX version 4 Plugin
Same as above, but for 3d studio MAX version 4