Sinperium Sinperium

Modder's "Get-an-Answer" Thread

Modder's "Get-an-Answer" Thread

Answers from Modders, for Modders who "Ask a Question"

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 when requested.





The Soase Idiot's Guide

Confused?  No idea where to even start?

Determined to work at it?

This is the place!

 


 

 
   

Sins Modding Wiki

ZombieRus's Eclipse Wizardry

 

     


Tutorials

MyFist0's full modding site.

Emphasis on modeling  and

texturing.                            

 

 

 




                    

REBELLION MODDING TOPICS

Rebellion Modding Q & A

Mesh Editing

Changing Diplomacy Files to Rebellion

IT REALLY HURTS MY BRAIN--HOW TO START

An Idiot's Guide To Getting Started

MyFist0's Modding Megasite!

MOD DOWNLOADS

ZombieRus5's Mod Yard

Directory of Planet Mods

STEAM

STEAM Sins Forums

DEVELOPERS

Sins Developer Journals Forum 2007 to Present

REFERENCE FILES

Research Modifier List

MyFist0's Exported Models & Files

Modifier List

Harpo's Converted Sins Reference Files 2011

THIRD PARTY TOOLS

3dS Texturing Toool & Tips

Ship Fleet Calculator

SoaSE Eclipse Plugin Project

Mesh Resizing Tool--courtesy of the Reqiuem team.

Harpo's Sins Utility Package -- Dropbox

The Sins Optimization Project (TSOP)

Artificial Unintelligence (Mod and AI info)

Sins Data Converter by BCXtreme

EXPLANATIONS & DISCUSSIONS

Rebellion Updates by Blair Frazier

How to Add a Fourth Race

User-updatable Ship Reference Chart

Sins Modding Dictionary

Adding phase Effects to other weapon types

Culture, Explanation/Discussion

Weapons, Explanation/Discusion

Shield Mitigation & Armor, Explanation/Discussion-1

Shield Mitigation & Armor, Explanation/Discussion -2

Graphic Chart of Sin's Counters

Annotated Guide to the Developer.exe

In-Game Map Creator

Weapons Banks & DPS

Combat Mechanics

Rebellion Shield Mitigation & Focus Fire testing

PARTICLE FORGE

Particle Forge Help Thread

GALAXY FORGE

Adding Artifacts

Working Template Examples

SemazRalan's Template Guide

Pirates Base Start Template

SOUND RESOURCES

[SFX] Black Sun SFX/Music Resource for Modders

MODELING & TEXTURING--SOFTIMAGE XSI, 3DS MAX

XSI Texturing, Tutorial

3dS Model Exporter

3DS Max Rigging, Texturing & Exporting, Guide

Modding/Modelling/Texturing/Converting, Tutorials

WIKI'S

Sins of a Solar Empire Official Wiki

 

7,618,463 views 2,761 replies
Reply #2126 Top

Quoting GoaFan77, reply 2123
I feel like I knew the answer to this at one point, but does anyone know what you have to do to remove the cosmetic titans from the front end map (while keeping a randomly generated map there)? Appearently removing them from the GSD and entity manifest are not enough.
End of GoaFan77's quote

Goa, if you ever figure that out, you should post it so you can be elevated to God status...

Reply #2127 Top

Quoting Seleuceia, reply 2126
Goa, if you ever figure that out, you should post it so you can be elevated to God status...
End of Seleuceia's quote

Has anyone tried swapping out the cosmetic Titans' meshes with planet meshes? That probably would do the trick.

Reply #2128 Top

Quoting Lavo_2, reply 2127
Has anyone tried swapping out the cosmetic Titans' meshes with planet meshes? That probably would do the trick.
End of Lavo_2's quote

I just use the "rock" mesh. It's small and behind the main menu you can't see it.

Reply #2129 Top

Is there any way to stop ships from pushing each other around? The Xy`Kranasha keep taking their Worldeater for a trip across the abyss because it's well beyond the reform fleet range in size. The ship has 80k mass and ships with less than 1/10 of that will happily push it along without a care in the... *shades* world.

Reply #2130 Top

on a sidenote, what is the usefulness of those "cosmetic" entities of Titans?

Reply #2131 Top

Quoting Seleuceia, reply 2126


Quoting GoaFan77, reply 2123I feel like I knew the answer to this at one point, but does anyone know what you have to do to remove the cosmetic titans from the front end map (while keeping a randomly generated map there)? Appearently removing them from the GSD and entity manifest are not enough.

Goa, if you ever figure that out, you should post it so you can be elevated to God status...
End of Seleuceia's quote

I'm told only half jokingly I already have that status is some modding circles.  ;) O:)

 

Quoting Lavo_2, reply 2127


Quoting Seleuceia, reply 2126Goa, if you ever figure that out, you should post it so you can be elevated to God status...

Has anyone tried swapping out the cosmetic Titans' meshes with planet meshes? That probably would do the trick.
End of Lavo_2's quote

Problem is I think they have to spawn in planet gravity wells. Every planet being a binary system or more might look a bit weird.

Quoting rjhughes67, reply 2128


Quoting Lavo_2, reply 2127Has anyone tried swapping out the cosmetic Titans' meshes with planet meshes? That probably would do the trick.

I just use the "rock" mesh. It's small and behind the main menu you can't see it.
End of rjhughes67's quote

Might be a good alternative. I'll try removing all but one cosmetic titan and see if that works.

Quoting Dark_Ansem, reply 2130

on a sidenote, what is the usefulness of those "cosmetic" entities of Titans?
End of Dark_Ansem's quote

Only for showing off meshes in the main menu. In fact they're more annoying than useful IMO.

Reply #2132 Top

can we not simply delete them altogether?

Reply #2133 Top

Quoting Dark_Ansem, reply 2132

can we not simply delete them altogether?
End of Dark_Ansem's quote

Apparently the game crashes if you do. Unless you change the FrontEnd map to not have planets perhaps.

Reply #2134 Top

Quoting GoaFan77, reply 2133
Unless you change the FrontEnd map to not have planets perhaps.
End of GoaFan77's quote

This works, can confirm from personal experience. Though imo it's better to put in a fake star entry, so you don't have anything in the background, as the FrontEnd will never zoom in on a star, just shows off the star's icon for whatever reason.

Reply #2135 Top

Nah man, that's what the Pulsar is for...

Reply #2136 Top

Does anyone have any insight whatsoever into why XSI tangents will only take my original UV map, not the new one I made for them? No matter how many times I delete the tangents and projection and try again, I get "Invalid procedure call or argument "Get Value"". I used to get this to work if I was stubborn enough but I must have made 10 tries now on several different models.

Reply #2137 Top

Quoting GoaFan77, reply 2136

Does anyone have any insight whatsoever into why XSI tangents will only take my original UV map, not the new one I made for them? No matter how many times I delete the tangents and projection and try again, I get "Invalid procedure call or argument "Get Value"". I used to get this to work if I was stubborn enough but I must have made 10 tries now on several different models.
End of GoaFan77's quote

 

I've had that happen to me before, it was infuriating. The only way I could fix it was to delete all the tangent info, save the model as xsi and then close softimage and reopen the model.

Reply #2138 Top

Quoting GoaFan77, reply 2136

Does anyone have any insight whatsoever into why XSI tangents will only take my original UV map, not the new one I made for them? No matter how many times I delete the tangents and projection and try again, I get "Invalid procedure call or argument "Get Value"". I used to get this to work if I was stubborn enough but I must have made 10 tries now on several different models.
End of GoaFan77's quote

 

Did you try pointing the tangents to the UV's?


Render > Property > Tangent

 

Pick

 

Selection (selecting the mesh with the UV) > Clusters > Tex coordinates > ...

 

I never have to make UV's for my tangents, they use my standard UV's and work out of the box with extremely rare oddities. So I don't know if that will work for you.

Reply #2139 Top

Quoting IskatuMesk, reply 2138


Quoting GoaFan77, reply 2136
Does anyone have any insight whatsoever into why XSI tangents will only take my original UV map, not the new one I made for them? No matter how many times I delete the tangents and projection and try again, I get "Invalid procedure call or argument "Get Value"". I used to get this to work if I was stubborn enough but I must have made 10 tries now on several different models.

 

Did you try pointing the tangents to the UV's?


Render > Property > Tangent

 

Pick

 

Selection (selecting the mesh with the UV) > Clusters > Tex coordinates > ...

 

I never have to make UV's for my tangents, they use my standard UV's and work out of the box with extremely rare oddities. So I don't know if that will work for you.
End of IskatuMesk's quote

Yes, that is the problems. A lot of time XSI refuses to work with any tangent map I make besides the one the textures use.

Yes sometimes you get lucky and the standard texture UV map doesn't produce oddities. With the models I use that's maybe 1/3 of the time. The rest usually need a different tangent map.

Quoting Wintercross, reply 2137


Quoting GoaFan77, reply 2136
Does anyone have any insight whatsoever into why XSI tangents will only take my original UV map, not the new one I made for them? No matter how many times I delete the tangents and projection and try again, I get "Invalid procedure call or argument "Get Value"". I used to get this to work if I was stubborn enough but I must have made 10 tries now on several different models.

 

I've had that happen to me before, it was infuriating. The only way I could fix it was to delete all the tangent info, save the model as xsi and then close softimage and reopen the model.
End of Wintercross's quote

Hmm, maybe it has something to do with the fact I usually import .obj. I guess I'll try saving in XSI and reloading next time.

Reply #2140 Top

Well, currently I haven't been able to click in XSI's viewports without causing it to crash. That's a problem I've had for the better half of last year. Before that, I had a problem where if I didn't restart after a while, entering the texture menu in XSI would give a strange nondescript error that locked out the entire program's UI. Neither issue yielded any search results. XSI is second only to Particle Forge in strange behavior, the latter of which regularly corrupts its own memory and settings. That's why you get memory errors trying to open particles randomly. It's not the particles at all.

Reply #2141 Top

Quoting GoaFan77, reply 2139
Hmm, maybe it has something to do with the fact I usually import .obj. I guess I'll try saving in XSI and reloading next time.
End of GoaFan77's quote

This is a problem with some *.obj files. Exporting the model to XSI or LWO and re-importing will work around this issue.

 

Reply #2142 Top

Need some help with an ability I'm creating.  Is there any way for an ability to play a dialogue sound (vs an effect sound)?.  I can get it to play the sound when set as effect/is3D TRUE but the volume is very low and the/a ship must be selected to hear it at all.  If I change it to a dialogue sound in soundeffects and/or sounddialogue it doesn't play at all.  

Reply #2143 Top

Ok I have posted this in a different post else where but I think I can get answers here. I am working on making the militias more diverese and not all TEC so here is what I have using WOEaintME's mod. I run it on dev and the game crashes. here is a link https://www.dropbox.com/sh/9fg6ptqphtv69nl/iq2SByagK6

Reply #2144 Top

Hello Guys!

Can you guys tell me, that is there a way to convert the ship models used in the Sword Of The Stars 2 in order to be usable in Sins Rebellion?

Thanks guys for any answer i will get! 

Reply #2145 Top

Quoting lordcronos, reply 2144

Hello Guys!

Can you guys tell me, that is there a way to convert the ship models used in the Sword Of The Stars 2 in order to be usable in Sins Rebellion?

Thanks guys for any answer i will get! 
End of lordcronos's quote

You'd be better of asking the SotS2 community. But like any game you first need to convert their models into a more useable format used by major modeling software, such as .obj, .3ds, or .xsi. We can't really help you until you get that far.

+1 Loading…
Reply #2146 Top

SotS 2 models are stored by the game in a special format that's processed by dev tools at Kerberos, and there's currently no way to extract them, modify them, or re-pack them without Kerberos' dev tools, so he's plain out of luck.

+1 Loading…
Reply #2147 Top

Thanks for confirming my suspicion SpardaSon21, i had a feeling that this is the case with SotS 2 assets but i was hoping that i am wrong about it.

Thanks for your answers guys!

It would have been so great to use those assets so many great models, like the stations are just amazing not to mention the dozens of beautiful ships. Grrrr.....

Reply #2148 Top

Quoting AceXMachine, reply 2142

Need some help with an ability I'm creating.  Is there any way for an ability to play a dialogue sound (vs an effect sound)?.  I can get it to play the sound when set as effect/is3D TRUE but the volume is very low and the/a ship must be selected to hear it at all.  If I change it to a dialogue sound in soundeffects and/or sounddialogue it doesn't play at all.  
End of AceXMachine's quote

 

Any ideas?

Reply #2149 Top

You could make the other 2 values (threshold and minAttuenuationDist) really big...that might work...

Reply #2150 Top

Quoting Seleuceia, reply 2149

You could make the other 2 values (threshold and minAttuenuationDist) really big...that might work...
End of Seleuceia's quote

I tried that but while i could notice it go down further if those numbers were low i didn't notice a huge impact with a big number.  How big can that number go?  I went up to 100000, reloaded the dev exe and still had trouble hearing it but its not too bad.  I was just wondering if there was a better way