Questions

I’m sorry for my long absence but my computer was a complete mess and a format was necessary.
God thin I back up my files monthly. Nothing important was lost.

Also recent events at school have limited my free time to 0.

I need to ask a few things before I continue whit my work:
1. The 800 poly limit per ship part does it refer to editable poly or editable mesh (I get different counts at the number of faces).
2. Where can I get textures for my ship and if possible can someone please send me some textures (the Makwa Interceptor textures will do just nice).
3. I’d like to know what each color is for in the Setup files and witch are the light types. (I know there is something about this around here some were.)
4. How can I make a slug thrower to launch a single projectile in steed of 5?

Thanks!

Faith is eternal!

3. is covered in the lightwave setup file at the top of this forum topic.

I'll pop in here for a minute.

1. An editable poly is a single (1) polygon. A mesh is a collection of polygons, editable or not. The (very roughly) 800 poly limit refers to seperate single meshes (each in a seperate file) that are combined into a complete model in the setup scene.

2. Well, you can make them. You're really going to have to if you're making your own ship model from scratch. Because the textures will need to match the proportions of the Lightwave surface. Or did you mean generic textures, like metal, hull plates, etc.

3. GT, I think he means in the ship model setup files. Which makes me ask; what colors, specifically? You're being a little vague, Vali.

4. Open the scene file for the projectile and delete the unwanted projectile objects. (Use the weapon INI to track down the bolt INI, and then use the bolt INI to track down the bolt Lightwave file.) For a weapon that fires a group of five bolts in one shot, each bolt is simply a null object with a sprite applied (in game). Delete any of the other four bolt objects in the scene, center the remaining one, and then adjust the length and width to suit you. But don't forget to also adjust the bolt's length in it's INI file to match your new single bolt (the bolt length in the INI file will reflect the total length of all 5 bolts, not each one individually). I would also suggest saving the .lws as a differently named file and creating some new INIs to use it. This way it won't affect every gun that uses that bolt scene, as some weapons share.

Well, I'm off again. I'll try to drop in and keep tabs on this thread.

mailto:second_chance@cox.net
The Ultimate Guide To Modding: I-War 2 - Edge Of Chaos
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Hi Second,

2. Yes I mean generic textures. The Makwa interceptor has a black texture and I need that because my ship will be black.

3. I mean these colors

“LWSC
1
AmbientColor 255 255 255
AmbIntensity 0.250000

LightColor 0 20 113
LgtIntensity 2.000000
LightType 1
LightFalloff 1
LightRange 400.000000
ShadowType 1
MotionBlur 0
SolidBackdrop 1
BackdropColor 0 0 0
ZenithColor 0 40 80
SkyColor 120 180 240
GroundColor 50 40 30
NadirColor 100 80 60
FogType 0
DitherIntensity 1
AnimatedDither 0


This is for a projectile.
I need to know all of this.

All I understand is that the 3 numbers are the quantities of read, green and blue.

Faith is eternal!

Hi Vali,

For Number 2 you could look in the EoC resource file. Transform all the ftu files with the ftu to pcx program and you will find a lot of generic 'hull plating' type textures. You might be able to find that ftu to pcx program on this site....not sure though.

Hi Vali.

Ok, all those items from the Lightwave scene file you posted are unused in EoC. They are simply there for Lightwave's use. They would be used to affect the look of an image rendered in the Lightwave renderer, but for EoC, they have no value. Remember, Lightwave was just the program PS choose to use for EoC's development, it wasn't made specifically to develop EoC. So there will be a lot of unused info in the Lightwave files. The only time that kind of info is used in EoC is for the addition of visible lighting (such as nav lights, distant star flares, etc). You can read my tutorials for more info about this.

I assume that what you were hoping for was the control for the color values and such for the projectile. Simply put, there are none. The projectiles entire appearance is controlled by the sprite which is applied at the location of the Lightwave nulls. So all you have to do to alter the look of the projectile is to change the texture of the sprite that is applied. The projectile bolt null in the Lightwave scene will have the texture name as part of it's name, such as <node class=icBeamAvatar texture=pbc_gatling>. This tell you that the texture you're looking for is called pbc_gatling. Look in the directory \resource\images\sfx\ and you'll find the files pbc_gatling.ftu and pbc_gatling.ftc (most all texture files are stored somewhere in the resource\images\ folder). One of these file types is for compressed files and the other is for uncompressed, I don't remember which is which. You can then use the converter to convert to a .pcx file which can then be edited in a 2D paint program. You won't need to convert back. I think EoC can read pcx files, but if not, just save it as an iff from your paint program. EoC reads iff just fine. If you can't find the pcx converter, I'll send it to you. But I believe it's available at the Buda5 site (firstones.com, or something). And remember to make a mod for the new texture so you can turn it on and off.

Obviously, you will also find this useful for converting the ship hull textures you want. Hull textures however, are located in the same directory as the ship they're applied to, since many textures use the same names. That should make it at least slightly easier to find the texture you want. But be warned, the ship textures have a bizarre naming convention, so some searching will be in order.

mailto:second_chance@cox.net
The Ultimate Guide To Modding: I-War 2 - Edge Of Chaos
cartoons.sev.com.au/index.php?catid=4
.