Making new ships... for TIE Fighter...

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Making new ships... for TIE Fighter...

nedius
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Post by nedius » Thu May 28, 2015 9:22 pm

Hi there,

I'd like to learn how to make new ship models - ideally for TIE fighter, but XWA would be a start. Specifically, I'd like to make a TIE Hunter model: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/TIE/HU_H ... tarfighter

Any advice on where to start would be much appreciated!

Thanks!

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Vince T
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Post by Vince T » Tue Jun 02, 2015 9:57 am

You might want to take a look at the tutorials on Darksaber's Website Darksaber's X-Wing Station.
There also used to be a very comprehensive collection of knowledge on JM's website, but the site's gone offline a few years ago :(

Still, DS' tutorials should get you going.
Some essentials you'll need:
- A modelling program that can save/export DXF, OBJ or 3DS
- A Painting program such as GIMP, Corel Photo Paint, Adobe PhotoShop etc. to make textures
- OPTech or Ace DXF to put everything together, Add hitzones, Hardpoints, etc. and create the ingame OPT format (Available at DS' site)
---> There's also a new OPT editor by JeremyaFR but I'm not too familiar with it yet.
- BinHexEd or MXvTEd to install the ship into the game. (Available at DS' site)
- Oh, and don't use other peoples work as a basis for your own work without the author's prior permission.
Your ship, Captain. I need a drink. - Vince Trageton
Vince T's X-Wing HQ - where the bad guys get their gear

nedius
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Post by nedius » Wed Jun 03, 2015 8:50 pm

thanks, can any editor you know save as TIE Fighter friendly OPTs?

I have texture editors ok..

Basically, I want to take a TIE Interceptor, invert the wings, and save it as a ship that I can add to TIE Fighter for a mission for the TIE Corps. Am trying to learn how to do it, since our science guy, Ender mBind, has long since vanished.

We fly all the X wing series, but my favourite is TIE fighter, and am keen on making new content.

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JaggedFel
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Post by JaggedFel » Sun Jun 07, 2015 11:30 am

The modelers don't save as OPT directly, as that's a game format and not a 3D standard. That's why you need OptTech or Ace DF. Using one of those, import your model, then add the necessary info that takes it from being just a solid model to being a ship with components and weapons, as General Trageton said.
Ye Olde Galactic Empire Mission Editor v1.15.6
Current software WIPs: TIE Layout and Cutscene Editor, TIE/XvT Cockpit Editor
Libraries / Format specs: *.tie, *.plt, *.tfr, *.lfd , *.act, *.dat image files, *.fnt

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Atx
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Post by Atx » Sun Jun 07, 2015 4:27 pm

Ohhh man - the Tie Corps....LOL...that takes me back.

So MBind's gone huh :( sorry to hear that...he was a work horse.

Now, like they said you need to get into 3D modelling and then save your model mostly in 3DS format(?) and then use one of the custom converters (3DS 2 Opz Converter) to put it into OPT/OptTech format.

Then you can use OptTech (popular) or JeremyFr's new one which I suspect would be better because Optech has a nasty habit of not fixing the models vectors which affects its shading. You would need to use yet another tool to fix that like XWOpter. I haven't tried JeremyFr's new one but I wouldn't be surprised if it was robust enough to have everything covered...in short, his tool might be the easy way as opposed to using a variety of apps.

As for ultimately putting them into Tie Fighter, oh man you need to put on your Indiana Jones fedora and do your best digging up the tools and the guides on that. That is a lost art! I haven't messed with those tools in over 15 years! Unless of course, it's Tie Fighter using the XWA engine...then you're OK.

All the best and have a good one ;)

Formerly CPT ATX of TC Phoenix and Odin squads
The Navbuoy is closed...long live the XWAU!!!

nedius
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Post by nedius » Fri Jun 12, 2015 10:52 am

Hi CPT ATX, CPT Hawkins, of Kappa here!

thanks for the advice. Will have to do a lot of hunting and playing around.

JaggedFel - had a look at your site - very interesting stuff! Would love to chat sometime about how you manage all you have on there!

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JaggedFel
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Post by JaggedFel » Sun Jun 21, 2015 1:07 pm

I do have the information required to get new ships into TIE, though I normally used BinHexEdit since MXvTEd doesn't cooperate with TIE95. Of course, with the move to Win7 there were some difficulties with getting that to run that I don't know were ever sorted out.

The ER site is mainly an archive now, we keep it online but we shut down the GE a few years ago. I know all of the groups hit a slump around that time frame, but we never had the membership count that the EH had so we got to a point where those of us in High Command decided it was better to close the group than starve it to death.

As for the data that's there, I'm slowly moving things over to GitHub, especially the details like file formats. I have an item on my to-do list to bundle most of my research (including things never posted to ER.net to prevent cheating, like pilot file formats) into a single project and upload (or at least that which doesn't already belong to one of my DLL projects). The copy on ER.net will stay, but GitHub will be maintained.
Ye Olde Galactic Empire Mission Editor v1.15.6
Current software WIPs: TIE Layout and Cutscene Editor, TIE/XvT Cockpit Editor
Libraries / Format specs: *.tie, *.plt, *.tfr, *.lfd , *.act, *.dat image files, *.fnt

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XDragon
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Post by XDragon » Tue Jan 12, 2016 6:31 pm

Any luck with the TIE Hunter?
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https://xdragon2688.wixsite.com/z3ro/

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