Gmax and Ships Creation for X3TC

**Lionheart** · December 18th, 2009, 07:24

Last night, I got the exporter working.

One more step to getting ships into X3...

<-- jumps on the desk and dances a jig yelping 'yahoooo!'

**GT182** · December 18th, 2009, 14:45

Mike that is it, it looks awesome... an honest to goodness X3 Firefly.

Do you have a link to it?

**Lionheart** · December 18th, 2009, 16:31

Mike, I think the link is in the image address; here;

http://www.flatrock.org.nz/wolf

If you copy/paste the image address, you find where the image is hosted. Some of the guys that did the addons for X3 are in NZ, CZ, and the Fatherland. :d

Bill

EDIT: and hopefully soon, Phoenix... eeeks! lol

***gigabyte*** · December 18th, 2009, 21:52

Originally Posted by GT182

Mike that is it, it looks awesome... an honest to goodness X3 Firefly.

Do you have a link to it?

GT it is part of the DDTC Mod for Terran Conflict, I just installed that last night and it is amazing, these guys have done some real neat stuff.

Here is the link to the Post on Ergosoft, the dowmload is a good size but it is worth it.

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=250104

I am having a little trouble with the frame rates but I am not sure if it is the Mod or somethign else on my system, I am going to trouble that some tomorrow.

**Lionheart** · December 18th, 2009, 23:05

Man I miss that show Serenity... What a wild program. Totally new look on the future. Even their 'talk' was new and different.. like the word Atmo, and how they would phrase things in their sentences, like back in the early Western days of America..

Bill

***gigabyte*** · December 19th, 2009, 02:13

Bill I am going to cheat one up this morning and I will give you a quick rundown on it. The ship may be avaliable as a Standalone add on somewhere but I have only found it so far as part of the DDTC mod. This Mod was just released last week and is visually awsome, and they have done some very neat stuff with the gameplay, however the initial release does have a small problem with performance, even with a 64bit OS and 8 gigs of RAM I am in slide show mode around any action at all. The developers have commented on the Mod board that performance is one of teh top priorities for Jan so hopefully this is a short lived issue.

Stay Tuned.

***gigabyte*** · December 19th, 2009, 02:43

Bill check this link, there are a few pages on modding ships you miht find useful... http://www.xwiki.chaos.net.nz/Category:Modding

**Lionheart** · December 20th, 2009, 01:03

Thanks Mike. I'll pour through that tomorrow night.

Gmax still isnt exporting the model parts yet. When I export, things happen, but nothing shows up. What I should have are some BOD files, which will then be converted to BOB files and then placed into a CAT file package.

I have to learn to tune these things as well. They have basic airfiles, lol.. Similar to FS...

Bill

***gigabyte*** · December 20th, 2009, 03:43

Bill you are way over my head, but I did see the terms BOD and BOB in the comments on that page so I suspect you can find some helpful stuff there.

***aeronca1*** · December 20th, 2009, 12:25

If only, lol!

http://www.kitsune.addr.com/SF-Conve...an_Warbird.htm

**Lionheart** · December 22nd, 2009, 13:07

Originally Posted by aeronca1

If only, lol!

http://www.kitsune.addr.com/SF-Conve...an_Warbird.htm

I hear that! The Romulan WarBird would be awesome, especially if its huge and goes pretty dang fast in warp, (SETA).

Funny as I was thinking about this just yesterday.

Bill

**Lionheart** · December 22nd, 2009, 13:08

Well, I just tried a different method in trying to get a model to export from Gmax into BOD format, and UREEEEEEEEEEEKA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

woooooooooo hoooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!

<-- jumps up on the table and dances a jig

So tonight or tomorrow, I hope to see if I can export a complete model of the Terran Launch sport scout and see if I can get it into X3...

:d

Bill

**GT182** · December 22nd, 2009, 16:42

Yippee! Mike, I'm downloading DDTD as I type this.

It's going in asap... well maybe tomorrow, but it's getting installed. Also have the manual too. Gotta print it out and read up first. Vanilla TC is going going gonnnnnne.

Bill, I garuntee you'll be asked for that Romulan Warbird, and the Firefly if you decide to mess around with it. Maybe the Romulan Warbird could be that new Boron Warbird.

These would be good ones too....
http://www.kitsune.addr.com/SF-Conve...gon_Vorcha.htm

http://www.kitsune.addr.com/SF-Conve...KVort_Bird.htm

http://www.kitsune.addr.com/SF-Conve...uis_Raider.htm

**Lionheart** · December 22nd, 2009, 16:56

Originally Posted by GT182

Yippee! Mike, I'm downloading DDTD as I type this.

It's going in asap... well maybe tomorrow, but it's getting installed. Also have the manual too. Gotta print it out and read up first. Vanilla TC is going going gonnnnnne.

Bill, I garuntee you'll be asked for that Romulan Warbird, and the Firefly if you decide to mess around with it. Maybe the Romulan Warbird could be that new Boron Warbird.

This would be a good one too....
http://www.kitsune.addr.com/SF-Conve...gon_Vorcha.htm

You know, those bright 'star' like fire effects of the proton torpedos, and the reddish ones for the Klingon plasma torpedo things (I forget what they were called), would be good for those. Would have to develop its own weapons in that case. It would really add to the ships though, firing off those torpedos at the enemy Q ships and J ships.. :d

Bill

***gigabyte*** · December 22nd, 2009, 17:12

Originally Posted by GT182

Yippee! Mike, I'm downloading DDTD as I type this.

It's going in asap... well maybe tomorrow, but it's getting installed. Also have the manual too. Gotta print it out and read up first. Vanilla TC is going going gonnnnnne.

Bill, I garuntee you'll be asked for that Romulan Warbird, and the Firefly if you decide to mess around with it. Maybe the Romulan Warbird could be that new Boron Warbird.

These would be good ones too....
http://www.kitsune.addr.com/SF-Conve...gon_Vorcha.htm

http://www.kitsune.addr.com/SF-Conve...KVort_Bird.htm

http://www.kitsune.addr.com/SF-Conve...uis_Raider.htm

GT when you install the DDTC mod you will have the Fire Fly it is included that is where I got the screenshot. I would warn you though there are performance issues with DDTC it gets real slow when you are in a busy sector, the eye candy is awsome but there is a performance hit. I would recommend making a copy of the Vanilla before you install that way you can go back if need be. What I did was just Burn my whole X3 Terran Conflict folder to a DVD before I installed the mod, and then to test it I installed played it for a bit and then renamed the installed folder to soemthing else and copied the original back to the HDD (remeber to remove the Read Only attrib if you do this) and low and behold I had my vanilla back. BTW I was also able to go directly to the new modified folder even though it had a different name now and double click the exe file and it ran so I have both loaded and working, the only draw back is I have to copy my Saves folder each time I switch so I do not mix up the save games but that is easy.

**GT182** · December 24th, 2009, 10:29

Bill, the link below is from the DDTC forum and in the PDF there a Custom Ships & Stations section with ship for the different races. The ships they've done will give you spec on each ship. From that you'll get an idea of what you want to use for specs on the ships you create. I'd say get the mod and look in the PDF too. They too have done some amazing work.

http://www.xforum.chaos.net.nz/viewtopic.php?f=69&t=688

Mike. I'll burn a copy of my TC folder to a DVD like you suggested. Not sure if my computer can handle the DDTC mod or not, but I'm going to give it a try.

***gigabyte*** · December 24th, 2009, 11:27

Originally Posted by GT182

Mike. I'll burn a copy of my TC folder to a DVD like you suggested. Not sure if my computer can handle the DDTC mod or not, but I'm going to give it a try.

GT you will likely have problems with performace especially in busy sectors with your graphics settings turned up at all, if you cut out the higher end graphics it should smooth out somewhat.

I would say the performace issues will be short lived, I have been on the DDTC Forum and they acknoweledge there is work to be done on that and it is the top priority for Jan. I suspect we will see a version 1.5 soon with improved performance. The Team that did this mod also did one for Reunion and it is amazing, not quite as much eye candy but more than the vanilla so I am sure they will resolve this in short order.

**GT182** · December 24th, 2009, 18:14

Thanks for that Mike.... I might hold off a bit and wait for 1.5.

Bill, check here..... http://www.xforum.chaos.net.nz/viewtopic.php?f=69&t=688
They have ship specs for different fleet ships. This page is for the Argon Fleet, but going to the bottom of the page you can "Jump To" access the other Fleets. It might help you for figuring out what you want to use for specs on the ships you're doing.

I finally found the Firefly (TS) in the Boron Fleet. http://www.xforum.chaos.net.nz/viewtopic.php?f=70&t=689 And I'm glad it's in a allie fleet. :d

**Lionheart** · December 26th, 2009, 21:42

Mike,

I have created a CAT file for my new Terran Launch, but do not know how to get it into the game from there. In the ReadMe, which falls off at the end, leaving out a few major details, it leaves me hanging with 'either install this with DoubleShadows Ship Installer, or via Scripts.

The CAT file is not a script is it?

I tried running it through the Ship Creator program by DoubleShadow, but dang, its a bit sophisticated. I am going to see if there is a readme around for it.

Any advice or input on this?

Bill
LHC

***gigabyte*** · December 27th, 2009, 00:42

Originally Posted by Lionheart

Mike,

I have created a CAT file for my new Terran Launch, but do not know how to get it into the game from there. In the ReadMe, which falls off at the end, leaving out a few major details, it leaves me hanging with 'either install this with DoubleShadows Ship Installer, or via Scripts.

The CAT file is not a script is it?

I tried running it through the Ship Creator program by DoubleShadow, but dang, its a bit sophisticated. I am going to see if there is a readme around for it.

Any advice or input on this?
Bill
LHC

Bill you are way over my head on this topic I am no good with creating ships or scenery for any of the sims I have and I have never had the time to learn. However I did see something about that in one of the guides or readme's, which will likely mean something to you but was greek to me. Let me take a peak for the links I had saved...

**Lionheart** · December 27th, 2009, 07:24

Thanks Mike.

It appears I need to somehow convert the CAT files into an SPK script file. I have an X3 Packager and an X3 Ship Creator. I just need to figure out how these work and convert a ship to a script pack. These do not have instructions that carry you through step by step. For someone like me who cant figure out these darn programs, I am left a bit lost. arrghh..

I did try numbering the CAT files into sync with the others. That didnt do it. Well, I didnt find my ship in the order list in the ship yards.

Bill

**Lionheart** · January 21st, 2010, 00:36

WOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

I DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

One personal Terran Launch, installed into the X Universe!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

<--- jumps on desk and dances a jig shouting THANK YOU GOD!!!!

It needs some work. I see the scale is way off on it. As a drone, it was a very small craft, so it needs to be alot larger. The guns appear huge and are not locating in the right location. The Cockpit didnt locate the VC properly.

I might try to make my own VC from a decompiled version VC. I can move things around and make them to look a bit like the interior of the little ship.

DoubleShadow and Enenda at Egosoft have been working with me. The newest software tools were enhanced and operate totally diff from the previous versions. They are more powerful, but do different things from the tutorial.

Also, they showed me a way to do basic model entries into X3TC. You can create the basic file folder structures 'in' X3TC. Usually these are all compressed in the many CAT/DAT folder structures. (Sort of like ZIP files I believe, or CAB files).

This has been at least 2 months of trying to get a ship into X3. That was the main thing I wished to do is figure out the work flow from point A to point B, so that I could install new designs in it. That barrier was basically broken just now, Jan 20; 2:30AM...

whewww....

hooo rah!