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By on April 13, 2011 12:05:46 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

Sinperium

Join Date 02/2010
+207

http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs43/i/2009/115/7/0/cosmonaut_by_himnotep.jpg

 

This is the place to ask and recieve specific modding (mod making) questions and answers. If you have a mod making question, post it here.

If your question involves long snippets of entity files and the like, please don't paste the entire file contents here but put them at the incredibly easy to use http://pastebin.com and then provide the link to your paste in your question posted here.

Please do limit  "just comments" here to brief posts please.  If you don't know the answer or can't point to help--don't post.  Please note that a random, uninformed guess isn't an actual answer.  

You can refer people to another source--IF it actually helps answer their question.  This could be in the form of links, outside sites, specific modding-useful programs, direction towards another post or poster, etc., etc.

Remember--specific questions, specific answers.  Only respond to the ones you can help solve.  Also, feel free to amplify, clarify, suggest alternatives to or correct answers seen here if such actions are merited and help provide a real solution. No flaming, insults or put downs here in the answers or other posts please.

Thanks in advance for your help and cooperation.  The reason for the rigid rules here is those this thread becomes a usable resource in the future to new people looking for answers.

NOTE: If an answer resolves your issue, please share it here.  These answers will help others coming along later too.  Karma is a great way to respond to people providing help without clogging the thread or bombing their forum mailbox here. Thanks!

 

OTHER SINS HELPFUL MODDING LINKS*

*Links are updated regularly.





The Soase Idiot's Guide

Confused?  No idea where to even start?

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This is the place!

 


 

 
   

Sins Modding Wiki

Vanilla Syntax

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ZombieRus's Eclipse Wizardry

 

     

Modding Home

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MyFist0's full modding site.

Emphasis on modeling  and

texturing.                            

 

 

 




                    

REBELLION MODDING TOPICS

Rebellion Modding Q & A

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Changing Diplomacy Files to Rebellion

IT REALLY HURTS MY BRAIN--HOW TO START

An Idiot's Guide To Getting Started

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THIRD PARTY TOOLS

Eclipse Definitions Wiki

3dS Texturing Toool & Tips

Ship Fleet Calculator

SoaSE Eclipse Plugin Project

Mesh Resizing Tool--courtesy of the Reqiuem team.

Harpo's Sins Utility Package -- Filefactory

Harpo's Sins Utility Package -- Dropbox

The Sins Optimization Project (TSOP)

Sins Data Converter by BCXtreme

EXPLANATIONS & DISCUSSIONS

How to Add a Fourth Race

User-updatable Ship Reference Chart

Sins Modding Dictionary

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Culture, Explanation/Discussion

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Shield Mitigation & Armor, Explanation/Discussion-1

Shield Mitigation & Armor, Explanation/Discussion -2

Graphic Chart of Sin's Counters

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December 24, 2011 4:25:07 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting GoaFan77,
Also just curious, can anyone tell me what the advantage is of having a mod on Mod DB and what you must do to host it?

 

The advantage is that its a well know site for mods, so in theory get more exposure. Anyone can put anything they make mod wise on it, I do know they have some guidelines about post, news, etc etc. Zman could tell you more since he has alot of stuff on it.

DS we havent updated our page b/c well Nacey has the access and we have our forum topic that serves all that we need.

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December 24, 2011 5:10:27 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting GoaFan77,
Quoting Lavo_2,
reply 495
Model/texture question. So I have this model, it looks fine in Softimage, but not ingame. Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this, and more importantly, how to fix it?


I think I have a similar problem. The first ship looks perfectly fine in XSI, but in game a section of it gets distorted, like if the UV map got screwed up some how, but only for two identical islands. Any thoughts will be greatly appreciated.

Have you tried conversion from xsi to mesh without optimizing? Makes a larger mesh file, but may help.

If that fixes it you may just need to add some geometry in the problem area then convert with optimize enabled.

Quoting GoaFan77,
Quoting ZombiesRus5,
reply 521
I recreated the normal map by only copying the red channel to alpha and leaving the blue as is from the filter (seems avoid some of the glitchy splotches on the uv-map).

So Sins can handle the blue normal map generated by the nvidia plugin? Don't the Sins textures use a greyscale normal map?

From what I have seen, many ways will work - grey scale bump, blue normal map (nividia) , green (AMD) and pinkish like gimp generates. 1 thing I have had problems with is if you change map dimensions, eg generate a normal map at 2048 x 2048 then change it to 2048 x 1024. I think it is much better to generate the map at the final dimensions required. It can be reduced but proportionately, if that makes any sense.

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December 24, 2011 6:16:11 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting SZ0,
Have you tried conversion from xsi to mesh without optimizing? Makes a larger mesh file, but may help.

If that fixes it you may just need to add some geometry in the problem area then convert with optimize enabled.

Turns out the problem was five-sided polys, as myfist suggested. Model's ingame now, thanks however.

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December 24, 2011 7:42:30 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

Oh OK!, yes that would do it, I didn't read further back. Only noticed GoaFan77 has Quads. Has he found a solution yet also?

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December 24, 2011 11:41:02 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting SZ0,
Oh OK!, yes that would do it, I didn't read further back. Only noticed GoaFan77 has Quads. Has he found a solution yet also?

Unfortunately no, not yet.

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December 25, 2011 1:28:43 AM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting SZ0,
Oh OK!, yes that would do it, I didn't read further back. Only noticed GoaFan77 has Quads. Has he found a solution yet also?

I haven't had a lot of time to mess with it due to the holidays. Hopefully tomorrow I can try all the advice I got, so keep posted. Thanks for the help everyone.

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December 25, 2011 11:17:17 AM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

how in the world do you set up homeworld to start off with it??

 

alright i have the aldar and i have the aldar homeworld its the extinct planet from the maelstrom mod

in the galaxy scenario def file i have it set up to be the aldars homeworld with it own template but when i go to play on any map including the ones i created as the aldar i spawn with a Terran planet instead

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December 25, 2011 12:19:28 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting Dante551,
but when i go to play on any map including the ones i created as the aldar i spawn with a Terran planet instead

In this case you have to edit the .galaxy file of the map you want to play. Swap each instance of "TerranHome" for your custom planet.

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December 26, 2011 12:01:47 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

Created a post and updated the links.

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December 27, 2011 12:40:10 AM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

thank you alot i was kind of figuring i would have to do that at least  i know now

 

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December 28, 2011 5:20:34 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting SZ0,
Oh OK!, yes that would do it, I didn't read further back. Only noticed GoaFan77 has Quads. Has he found a solution yet also?

Okay, now this issue is getting weirder. I decided to export my scene to xsi in order to get around the .obj not wanting me to add tangents to it. When I imported the xsi file into the mod tool, sure enough the flaps were distorted just like in game. Seems for some reason when I save to .xsi the UV map for those polygons gets corrupted. I tried copying the uv map in my original scene and pasting it, which fixed the problem in the mod tool again, but when I tried to export and reload the finished xsi scene it just screwed the UV map up again.

So, does anyone have any ideas of what might cause softimage to screw up a UV map. I tried every freezing option I could find but none of that seemed to help.

Here's the in game result again for anyone who didn't see the first post.

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December 28, 2011 5:32:28 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

Can I see the scene? Probably need the -cl as well

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December 28, 2011 8:11:52 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting Lavo_2,

Quoting SZ0, reply 527Have you tried conversion from xsi to mesh without optimizing? Makes a larger mesh file, but may help.

If that fixes it you may just need to add some geometry in the problem area then convert with optimize enabled.

Turns out the problem was five-sided polys, as myfist suggested. Model's ingame now, thanks however.

Interesting... I didn't see any five sided polygons in the scene you uploaded but still had the same issue when I tried to export it to *.xsi and then *.mesh. Either way, glad you got it sorted which is the most important thing in the end.

Edit- I also think convertXSI throws some errors if any of the polygon's are not 3 or 4 sided which I didn't see in the initial conversions. Still scratching my head on this one...

 

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December 28, 2011 10:40:20 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

 

 

Pics are temp. If you want to keep save em. Added the tangent map but no work done to it.

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December 29, 2011 1:30:33 AM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting ZombiesRus5,
Edit- I also think convertXSI throws some errors if any of the polygon's are not 3 or 4 sided which I didn't see in the initial conversions. Still scratching my head on this one...

It can also weld vertex's on the model that have the same UV co-ordinates eg symmetrically overlay-ed UV's, when optimized even if there only tri's & or quads. Some poly reduction is performed and sometimes it collapses the mesh where it shouldn't. However GoaFans77's looks like it has only lost a seam, like vertex's along some seams have welded. Its hard to say without looking at the scene.

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December 29, 2011 7:02:45 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

Okay now it a completely different direction, does anyone have or know where I can find a model suitable for a sort of spy satellite. Preferably a small and spherical one, Darth Maul's probes were the first thing that came to my mind but I'll take any sort of suggestions.

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December 29, 2011 7:36:32 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

Heck--I can make you one if you want.  Those are easy.

How many polys are you willing to go on it?

 

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December 29, 2011 8:10:47 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting Sinperium,
Heck--I can make you one if you want. Those are easy.

How many polys are you willing to go on it?

It will be no bigger than a TEC space mine, so it doesn't need to be super detailed. But lets see if anyone has something suitable already before I need to start cashing in my favors.

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December 29, 2011 8:35:11 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

I've already got several things like it and it's easy to make.  I can even get it in a mesh for you if you give me a day or so.  No problem--no need to do anything back.

Here it is if you want it. Textures someone will have to do though.

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December 30, 2011 3:32:17 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting Sinperium,
I've already got several things like it and it's easy to make. I can even get it in a mesh for you if you give me a day or so. No problem--no need to do anything back.

Here it is if you want it. Textures someone will have to do though.

Heck yeah I'll take it. If you can get that to me in .obj or something else xsi can work with I might be able to handle the textures. I'm actually going to implement it as a sort of spying mine so you may like the end result for your mod when its finished.

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December 30, 2011 5:02:06 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

Ironically, I can get you a file in almost any format--except XSI. Can you convert it to mesh?

Yep--I'll taker a copy of it if you share.  I think I like it better as my cargo box than what I have and getting experience for taking out "critical comm sats" sounds better anyway (not to mention I like the tiny size).

Here's the link. It's in OBJ format  and I even squeezed in a little more detail too.

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December 30, 2011 5:31:01 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting Sinperium,
Here's the link. It's in OBJ format.

That will do nicely. Karma for you sir.

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December 30, 2011 5:50:13 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

"Will model for karma"

 

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December 30, 2011 6:14:53 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting Sinperium,
"Will model for karma"

 Forgot your advertising?

 

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December 30, 2011 6:24:00 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

Hey!  That's my billboard!

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