It will be easy to do this in the same way that i am creating the ships... it will require more editing... but once i am successful in properly getting the textures working, ill start creating parts for the ship creator rather than full ships...

@ Citizen Vorlone:
Sorry but your advice didn's work for me. I don't know what I am doing wrong. Or maybe it is beause I use the Version 8.0 of 3ds max. And yes, I have installes the panda-plugin for version 8.0
So here is what I am doing:

1. I Import my 3ds-model (Import, because with load youcan't chose a 3ds-file)
2. Then I select "export" and chose the panda.x-file I chose a name for it
3. A new windows appears where I have differen "options", so I select "Textures &*fxfiles" becausei t is the only one that has to do with textures. Then I change teh format to PNG and klick "OK"

well, I have a *.xfile in the "mesh"-directory but no png-file

what am I doing wrong?

Please help!

Count me in

Email is ... away

@Galactic Ambassador
I make it as you it described, by me go it.
Sorry,I have not the knowledge over 3ds max, I have it only over to try found out.
Have you a 3d viewer,to example 3d explorer ?Load the model which you convert in the viewer.View whether the texture are indicated.

[quote=Citizen Vorlone] @Galactic Ambassador
I make it as you it described, by me go it.
Sorry,I have not the knowledge over 3ds max, I have it only over to try found out.
Have you a 3d viewer,to example 3d explorer ?Load the model which you convert in the viewer.View whether the texture are indicated.



First of all you succsess is really great!
But I don't come along with you Instructions.

First I am a bit confused because you wrote you are using 3ds max (version 7)
And know it seems like everything happened by incident and you can't reproduce it?
So I don't know what the program "3d Explorer" has to du with your instruction?

Well, what need is like a "Instruction for dummies". With every stupid step.
Also what the model you use must be. So maybe some 3dmodels are unusable?
So on this Webpage: Link


Is a Fighter/Ship called hornet, you could help me much if you try your instruction with that ship and tell me if it worked or not. And PLEASE with a detailed instruction

What I miss sometimes in this Moddingforum is more support from users for/to users.
Someone has discovered something and posts: "Here I have done it!"
But he doesn't explain how he/she did it or gives only a very poor description.
And replies if somone posts: "I have problem with reproducing your solution" Is alos very poor and almost like "I don't care!" Not only in my case, also by other users. As you can read I am not the only one who has problems following your instructions and putting textures on a 3dmodel
So when I posted my modd (Wing Commander https://forums.galciv2.com/?ForumID=348&AID=106733)I also included a small "beginner tutorial" for it.
So it doesn't matter and shouldn't matter if someone creates a Star Trek modd, a Star Wars modd or a Wing Commander modd, we should support ech other.

The Problem is,my English is too badly for a tutorial . It falls me heavily thereby the Modding more near to describe.
I to test whether the Hornet works.

Ok i was able to extract the textures from my 3ds using the "render to texture" function in 3ds max... but i have 300 files now... how can this work? the models i used before hand one png file for the textures...

---

Is a Fighter/Ship called hornet, you could help me much if you try your instruction with that ship and tell me if it worked or not. And PLEASE with a detailed instruction

---

Yes the Model works with texture .Another attempt : Open 3ds max ->import hornet3.ds.It opens a window,now chooses "Merge objekts with current scene" and hook by convert units. Now export the Model as panda x.file,give it a another name It opens a window ,chooses Texture as png save.. Now a x.file and png.texture must exist.

ok, thats all well and good... Im sorry your english isnt that good... But you seem to be missing the point... that hornet file you converted INCLDUES THE SEPARATE TEXTURE FILE.... if you have that file it is an easy conversion. Its the problem when the textures are part of a SINGLE 3DS file with NO EXTERNAL TEXTURE FILE.


There must be some way to extract the texture map... most meshes out there have no accompanying texture file.

Hey joe, did you get my blender? i tried sending it to you
this is an earlier status of my try to modell the NX-01 ship


this is an earlier status of my try to modell the NX-01 ship
it isn't finished I know, but I want to show you something

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Yes the Model works with texture .Another attempt : Open 3ds max ->import hornet3.ds.It opens a window,now chooses "Merge objekts with current scene" and hook by convert units. Now export the Model as panda x.file,give it a another name It opens a window ,chooses Texture as png save.. Now a x.file and png.texture must exist.

1.I use 3dmax Version 8.0 30 Days Trial-Verison. With the according Panda-plugin
So I don't know if there is any difference already in this point.

2. I can follow your Instructions till "Exprot to Panda.x-file" then we have some difference.
At the menue for select "PNG"file I have lot of other Options I can chose, like:
1.TextureConversion:
- None
- ConvertTexture Map
- Copy Texture map
(I can only select one of them!)

2. Scale Texture to nearest power of 2
3. White diffuse override (texture)
(I can select both, one, or none of them!)

4. Format:
- Bitmap
- JPEG
- PNG
- Targa
(Can select one of them! Its a drop down menue!)

5. Overwrite:
- Do not overwrite
-Always Overwrite
(Can chose one of them! It's a dropdown-menue)

6. .fx Effect files
- Include .fx files - Include .fx Parameters
(I can chose both of them or only "Include .fx files)

And by Klicking "o.k." the whole thing is done. so there is NO Save (also a differene to your Instruction)

So from my "hornet" there are 2 "Versions"
1. A max file with includes a bitmaptexture, that you see in 3ds max
2. A 3ds Filewith a separte bitmap texture that yout don't see in 3ds max (not "attached" to the model)

So if I am following Vrolones Instruction with the 3ds-file I don't get any PNGfile

If I do it with the max-file It converts the Bitmap texture to a png.
But WAIT that is still NOT the Solution!

Here how I insert the files into the game, MAYBE here we have the error.
I rename my 3dmoel to S0_Tiny_1 and the PNG to s0_tiny_1
and insert them into the model-folder of the game.
If I start the game the model is there (as a Scout) but the textures are looking weird!

Here what I mean with "weird textures":

I have concentrated now on finding ships with included texture files... I am converting about 20 - 30 or more ships depengin on how many i can find...

IRT Zak: I'm thinking about more than one survey ship starting with the NX-01 -> Voyager how do you think about this?

sure, i just have a bias for voyager (have seen every episode at least 4 times)

Count me in.

Though I have absolutely no 3d modeling skills, I was an English major for awhile in college and would be more then happy to help with all the writing aspects: race descriptions, random events, etc

Also got a lot of experience with 4x games and did some minor modding on the Space Empires series (been a fan since SE 2), mainly rewriting their weapons tech tree to look like that of Star Trek and then balancing it thereafter between the different races. So I'm all for helping with playtesting / balancing.

Oh, and I got a passion for the Trek. Own all of it (literally, every season), aside from the newest Enterprise series, which I refused to watch. But that's a whole other story!

Let me know what you guys think we'll need. I guess in the meantime I'll start drafting up some descriptions for the various races. Think I should go about assigning traits and finding pictures for them all too?

Count me in. Though I have absolutely no 3d modeling skills, I was an English major for awhile in college and would be more then happy to help with all the writing aspects: race descriptions, random events, etc Also got a lot of experience with 4x games and did some minor modding on the Space Empires series (been a fan since SE 2), mainly rewriting their weapons tech tree to look like that of Star Trek and then balancing it thereafter between the different races. So I'm all for helping with playtesting / balancing. Oh, and I got a passion for the Trek. Own all of it (literally, every season), aside from the newest Enterprise series, which I refused to watch. But that's a whole other story! Let me know what you guys think we'll need. I guess in the meantime I'll start drafting up some descriptions for the various races. Think I should go about assigning traits and finding pictures for them all too?

Definately! That stuff is key! Any questions?? I am a trek encyclopedia (including enterprise
) Do you have DesktopX? It makes it very easy to edit the interface at all levels in the game..