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Forge Tools for Sins v1.05 Now Available

By on May 21, 2008 2:03:06 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums External Link

Yarlen

Stardock
Join Date 01/2005
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Greetings Modders,

Ironclad Games and Stardock Entertainment are pleased to announce the release of the Forge Tools for Sins of a Solar Empire v1.05. To download the updated package, just head over to the Downloads section.

New for v1.05 is the release of the Particle Forge tool.  Ironclad used Particle Forge to create all of the various weapon fx and other shiny fx for the game.

Happy Modding!

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May 22, 2008 8:43:15 AM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums
Ok,
I googled the "d3dx9_32.dll, found the site, and downloaded the file. I put it into the main SINS folder where the main exe file is, along with the DEV exe. I also put the particle forge, including all the files, and tried it.
IT WORKED! I can now access both programs.
Thank you to ToJKa, for suggesting the Google option, and to Aractain for the help.

Let the mods pour forth!

DANMAN
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May 22, 2008 8:45:01 AM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums
hmm particle forge does not work for me either, unspecified failure on startup.

I get the same dll failure as danman.

garsh durnit...

XP sp2

AMD Athlon 64, 3300+ 2.41 GHz

2 GB ram

yes .net 2.0 installed

ds
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May 22, 2008 8:49:40 AM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums
oh goodies it all works now thanks all, danmans solution worked.

ds
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May 22, 2008 8:52:49 AM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums
Perhaps someone can put that file or a link up here in this thread, and in the new tools for peeps? ;^)
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May 22, 2008 10:55:36 AM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums
Thanks Aractain, i tried some and they looked cool, but im still puzzled how to add those boxes and colors (im new with textures and particles stuff) I would appreciate a manual or something Stardock, like the galaxy forge one
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May 22, 2008 11:51:23 AM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums
Here is a link to the file to fix the particle forge and DEV exe.
I have it hosted in my filefront account:

WWW Link

This should fix things. Just put all the stuff, including the DEV exe and particle forge files, into your main SINS folder along with the new file.

Enjoy!

DANMAN
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May 22, 2008 12:11:04 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums
thanks!
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May 22, 2008 2:54:22 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums
Thanks Aractain, i tried some and they looked cool, but im still puzzled how to add those boxes and colors (im new with textures and particles stuff) I would appreciate a manual or something Stardock, like the galaxy forge one


Super quick overview:

Right clicking rotates view, mouse wheel zooms view.

The important things to set up are "Settings", "Global Properties", "Emiters" and "Affectors".
Settings/Global is the overall settings, self explanatory most of the time.
Emiters are things that create the actual graphics, right click on Emiters to add one of 3 types. Point, Sphere and Ring. From what I've seen Sphere is usualy used for glows like muzzel glows, point is used for spitting out lots of little particles and ring is like point but it does it in a ring... Yeah not great explanations but I didn't investigate that much.

The affector is a thing used to change an emiter's particles in some way, to create one right click on Affectors and choose the one you one (size change and fade are common for example). Then right click on the the thing that was created and choose "Attached Emiters...". This gives you a dialog to add/remove emiters to the affector, you can have multipule effectors with all the emiters in each if you want.

Right click remove simply deletes the item (duh lol) and copy makes a copy right next to it. There is no undo like Galaxy Forge either.

The numbers are pretty much self explanatory, to test just use any texture file and fiddle with the numbers to see what happens. (One cool one is colour which, strangely enough, sets the colour which gives huge changes in feel very simply).

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May 22, 2008 2:57:44 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums
Does the Particle Forge tool not have a setting to emulate velocity or am I just not seeing it in my sleep deprived state?

I was trying to optimize an exhaust effect but it's a little hard to see what it looks like w/o the missile moving. (

P.S. Thanks for the new tool to play with.
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May 22, 2008 3:02:11 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums
Does the Particle Forge tool not have a setting to emulate velocity or am I just not seeing it in my sleep deprived state? I was trying to optimize an exhaust effect but it's a little hard to see what it looks like w/o the missile moving. P.S. Thanks for the new tool to play with.


Speed.Linear - Min
Speed.Linear - Max

I think you mean? Its near the bottom of the emiter I think, in particle.
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May 22, 2008 5:44:25 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums
Sorry about that guys, I guess all the systems we've tested on have had that version of directX dll.  I'm glad you got it figured out.
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May 23, 2008 11:28:39 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums
Whoo-hoo! Finally got particle forge working. Took me a while, but IT WORKS! Now, I am happy. This program is rather... how should I put this... FREAKIN' AWESOME!!!
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May 24, 2008 1:24:59 AM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums
Any chance of a Stats Editor?

I.E. To make things easier to change like health, cost etc?


Cheers.
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May 24, 2008 2:30:06 AM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums
Any chance of a Stats Editor?I.E. To make things easier to change like health, cost etc?Cheers.


This is already easy enough. I'd rather have IC working on real issues like tool updates and patches than making it even easier for people to open up a file in notepad and change two values.
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May 24, 2008 6:12:40 AM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums
Any chance of a Stats Editor?I.E. To make things easier to change like health, cost etc?Cheers.This is already easy enough. I'd rather have IC working on real issues like tool updates and patches than making it even easier for people to open up a file in notepad and change two values.


Not just for the ease, just less make it less confusing to work with (have to search for the what you looking for before you can change the values).

It's been done with other games (although some not official).
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May 24, 2008 6:37:39 AM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums
You would imagine all thier text files are generated somehow (things like the usual 0.000000 number format give it away, lol).

I would imagine they HAVE a data source for all the .entitys but it might not be a 'Forge' tool (it could easily be just a database).

I only like those kind of programs to spot errors before they get in game, like stuff which can't have a value in some situations or enforcing types and what parameters they are allowed but thats a lot of work for little gain.
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May 24, 2008 11:04:21 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums
Can some1 help me i have tried everything to fix particle forge Help ME Plz...
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May 25, 2008 5:45:52 AM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums
read the first post on this page.

ds
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June 12, 2008 2:01:47 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums
Thanks Aractain, i tried some and they looked cool, but im still puzzled how to add those boxes and colors (im new with textures and particles stuff) I would appreciate a manual or something Stardock, like the galaxy forge one Super quick overview:Right clicking rotates view, mouse wheel zooms view.The important things to set up are "Settings", "Global Properties", "Emiters" and "Affectors".Settings/Global is the overall settings, self explanatory most of the time.Emiters are things that create the actual graphics, right click on Emiters to add one of 3 types. Point, Sphere and Ring. From what I've seen Sphere is usualy used for glows like muzzel glows, point is used for spitting out lots of little particles and ring is like point but it does it in a ring... Yeah not great explanations but I didn't investigate that much.The affector is a thing used to change an emiter's particles in some way, to create one right click on Affectors and choose the one you one (size change and fade are common for example). Then right click on the the thing that was created and choose "Attached Emiters...". This gives you a dialog to add/remove emiters to the affector, you can have multipule effectors with all the emiters in each if you want.Right click remove simply deletes the item (duh lol) and copy makes a copy right next to it. There is no undo like Galaxy Forge either.The numbers are pretty much self explanatory, to test just use any texture file and fiddle with the numbers to see what happens. (One cool one is colour which, strangely enough, sets the colour which gives huge changes in feel very simply).


Oh man I had no idea I could zoom out and rotate the camera. It was anoying for tryign to figure out why whenever i play and animation all I get is a big flashing light. Thank you so much!
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June 18, 2008 3:16:18 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums
hay i downloaded the Forge Tools and the Particle Forge and non of them work other then the Galaxy Forge i running on vista so can this be the problem what should i do, a little help.
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June 18, 2008 3:43:38 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums
hay i downloaded the Forge Tools and the Particle Forge and non of them work other then the Galaxy Forge i running on vista so can this be the problem what should i do, a little help.


Is there an error message??
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June 19, 2008 2:01:23 AM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums
no i just dos not work
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June 19, 2008 2:01:57 AM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums
can it be vista
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June 19, 2008 12:57:56 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums
All of the tools run fine on Vista. Make sure you have the latest .NET package installed from Microsoft.
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June 19, 2008 3:54:35 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums
and where do i get that if i may ask.
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