have you tried the diplomacy convertdata?, from what I remember about the instructions/converters from back in pre rebellion (when your instructions/exporter are from) there is a difference of ONE added line in text mode in the rebellion versions of a mesh, and I assume the convertdata for rebellion actually NEEDS the extra line during the convert, but I also remember during the beta that the diplomacy mesh versions can work in rebellion (but this might have changed since the beta)

hope this helps

harpo

http://xsi.soase.x90x.net/Reference_Files/Reference_Files_Dip_v1.37/Mesh/!ConvertMesh.7z

or see what is inluded in the 7z extracted folder

http://xsi.soase.x90x.net/Reference_Files/Reference_Files_Dip_v1.37/Mesh/ConvertMesh/

put the mesh/s in that folder and double click which .bat file you want. 

Have to wait for someone that does this with max, most max users import their model to XSI for finalizing.

Thanks for all your help guys; I'll look into getting XSI (I reckon I saw a free version on ModDb a while back) see if that makes things less complicated.

Haha, good video, just a couple issues.

From what I have found, Max is the royal pain in the ass, so I guess it is just what you're used to.

Glossiness in the mesh is for Sins Lighting, imagine holding a light bulb next to the model very close and then moving it away from the model. As I do all my work in XSI I set this in the material property. You can see it easiest maybe with planets, in DEV mode zoom in on a planet and set the glossiness in the mesh, it will change on the fly.

To make the ship glossy is Sins is done with the -da texture red chanel I think, more white more gloss, black is flat or no gloss, See advent for High gloss ships. See TEC for very little.

No five sided polys, those you fixed looked like 5 sides or more. They often will be 'bent'. I tend to keep all my polys tris to avoid bending polys.

In XSI script editor I can type in the coordinates of the bad vertex and zoom to its location.

Yes, XSI does have smoothing but values are not exported to mesh. I would have to see your model in XSI but in XSI the hardest edge you can get is an unwelded edge,tangents will simulate smoothing with lighting, you can also make edges look harder with tangents but not nearly as hard as a double edge.

I should have been pausing and writing, I already forget some other stuff I wanted to mention. Other than that, super video.

Can I see the scene of your ship in the video, I will keep private.

Should maybe upload that video here, let's get lots of modding tools and tutorials on there.

http://www.moddb.com/company/soase-m0dders/videos 

or you can create a NEWS post there and embed the video like this

I don't want to have anything to do with moddb and I definitely do not want any of my videos or other content on it.

What do you want the scene for? I could show you one one of my internal videos if you want to see my newer ships. I'd rather not hand out any meshes though.

I have no idea how XSI even handles smoothing, but the smoothing groups from max somehow translate over (likely as a result of the fbx plugin). As a result I have never needed to touch tangent maps, not even once. However, the tangent maps are sometimes not 100% perfect, so they could probably be improved with manual work if I cared to figure out how to do that. For this, though, it's not worth the effort to me when I have so much else to do. I don't even save my XSI scenes to begin with since the conversion process is so fast.

I can perhaps send you an FBX to import into XSI if you're interested.

As for moddb, I just don't really like those kinds of websites. I'd prefer to keep the content close to my audience, so to speak. That video, and others once I figure out subjects to talk about, are part of the Retribution developer series. They'll be hosted/posted at Campaign Creations, with the Retribution thread on this forum serving as a gateway to that. I don't want any further exposure or distribution of the material.

Even Retribution itself won't be publicized other than a post on this forum.

I can understand Iskatumesks point of view about ModDB. When SoA 2 was in its early days ModDB posted a scathing video review of it. With some pretty insulting comments. At the time, and it somewhat still is a Half Life 2 elitist website. And from their point of view your mods are total crap if you don't know how to program in all programming languages. Gee, If i could do that don't you think i would have just made my own game?

Just as you Myfist0 have grievances with Steam. Some have grievances with ModDB. I only tolerate it because it does host the mod for free.

The glossiness setting is kind of wierd. The lower the number the brighter the light is reflected off the model. For example looking at a mesh with the sun almost directly behind it. I stumbled on this when i tweaked the SoA 2 diplomacy meshes. I set most of the models with a glossiness of 10, and the effect worked very well. Especially on the ships with darker textures. This only works for the Trinity meshes, because the new shaders in Rebellion cancel this effect out.

In XSI smoothing is done while you are working with the tangents. You should weld your points, and fix any face issues first. There is a modifier in the Tangent Op where you can adjust the smoothing percentage. The default is 45%. I usually set it at 30%. It is similar to 3dsmax's smooth modifier, but its not a separate op., and it must be done before you freeze the op, or the mesh. Otherwise the setting is permanent.

The actual website or its user base? Seems an odd thing for a site that makes money by hosting mods to insult any of them.

It was the actual website in a mod of the year video review. This was back when the mod was first released for Original Sins back in 2008. They said it was just a "Star Trek skin over Sins", and it was "boring been there, done that". On top of wise cracks over me not being able to code (i was the only one working on the mod at the time in 2008). The first comment was true, because the mod was an early Work In Progress. However what pissed me off was the fools that did the review didn't seem to understand that concept. They wanted a "professional polished game". I said "If i could make a "professional polished game" don't you think i would have done so? Instead of skinning over another game???!" The whole point of ModDB is about MOD'S! Since most of the mods hosted there, and raved about are Half Life 2 mods. We see where the bias is. I voiced my opinion about the "elitist attitude problem", and damn near pulled SoA 2 from the site. I didn't want to punish fans over a disagreement over a review. So i just let it go, but i didn't do very much else related to ModDB afterwards.

Like i said they are free web hosting. Otherwise the mod would have been yanked long ago.

Exactly, I send you video script with some notes, you can either use my video clips in a tutorial or just to practice and then make your own.

Whoa............I'm gone for two days and look what happens to my thread! 

And thanks for that video you linked to IskatuMesk, that'll come in real handy now that XSI has FINALLY finished downloading.