SpaceSimCentral

Blender basicsif you ever wondered where the preferences are;:idea: one helpful thing is to set in "view & controls" the button for "zoom to mouse position", so you don't have allways to pan the views by key input."around selection" let's you in 3d view allways rotate around the axis of the selectet object."emulate 3 button mouse" (if) and "middle mouse button" "rotate" for shure. 8-)i don't have to tell you that you can allways split/join windows (areas) by clicking with rmb on the frame (gap).

landing gear animation for FFED3D with blenderdownload zipped htm file herefor those who checked out the guide already, the pistons can be replaced by a single one joined with the base and animation can be done as vertex anim (transform), this will save some polys and it will look mainly the same in the end.

Excellent work there Potsmoker66. Quick question(ive not looked at the guide yet)Do you still have to add an animation to the model.ie if I was to use an existing model would it have to have an animation added to it,before saving it with the scrip for FFE3D

unfortunatly yes, you do have to save a animation for all models that you export with blender for FFED3D. unlike the 3dsmax plugins it is not enough just to set the option in the export settings or just by entering a framerate, you have to set at least one key on one object on one frame.mark any object, enter "I" on the first frame in one of the views and select any kind of key, i.e. rot, thats all (i tested it with a building and a ship model). this also has to be done for unanimated models such as buildings.i think i have to take a closer look at the script, maybe i can fix it, but i can't promise.

Outstanding works Potsmoker66,if any thing can be done with the script,it would make it a lot easier to convert existing models into the game.

i uploadet a 3ds model, like it's shown in the guide. for the lazy ones landinggear_3ds.zippinback, do you mean importing could be improved? yes but, hmm.... to get animation back imported to blender it needs a little experience in scripting i think, there is also not one script (in any format) allowing importing animations from a single file (as i regardet), i don't know why, maybe it's not enough just to read out the frames and objects position to transfer animation data to blender, anyway even in 3dsmax it wasn't possible to load animation data of a directx file complete, all keys will be set to the first frame and you had to rearrange the timeline manually.importing/exporting of binary or compressed models is not supported, i think, but you can convert allways with Meshview.normals&smoothing; i don't know if normals been correctly tranferred to blender, have to check that first. but exporting of normals and smoothing works correctly, but first you have to find out how to setup normals in blender so that they are not only shown, as well as applied to the model.

smoothing in blender might be a mystery for some.... there are no smoothing groups in blender, you will have to set smoothing of a mesh in a different way, therefore you have full control over it. first set selected object smooth in "panels/editing/link and materials" press "set smooth", this has no effect on the smoothing of the object, but will show the mesh smoothened in 3d view (solid/shaded/textured). now you have to set the edges or faces which have not to be smoothened (if there are some, else jump to next step).mark object you wan't to smooth (maybe hide unselected with SHIFT/H), change to edit mode (3d view) and mark edges (in edges level) or faces (in faces level) which should not be smoothened with SHIFT/LMB. when finished enter CTRL/E and select "mark sharp" or select from menue "mesh/edges/mark sharp", should be shown as marked sharp in edit mode, if "panels/editing/meshtools more" "draw sharp" is activated (pressed). next step is to set the value for the smoothing of the selected mesh, this is done under "panels/editing/modifiers" (either object or edit mode), press add modifier and select "edge split" in the data field enter now if the smoothing should respect set threshold and/or marked sharp edges and the values for smoothing angle threshold (if desired). when you are satisfied with your result press "apply". export the model to .x with "blender normals" selected

you might have wondered why these blender files are so big (>40Mb), it's because blender saves not only model, actual scene, and screen setup, it saves all scenes and screen sets. you find them in the top menue bar (user preferences, SR:=screen, SCR:=scene), as we just wan't to make models for FFED3D it could be useful to erase all scenes and screens we don't need except the actual (by default named "+default", can be renamed i.e. FFED3D for screen set and scene). but keep a default.blend file with all data, for backup purpose at least. you will find under scenes different ready setup scenes (and models) to use with the blender tutorials as well as the fitting screen setup to them (and some standart screens).after you deleted all unwanted your .blend files should be "only" ~10Mb (it's still big for a simple model).

potsmoke66 wrote:
pinback, do you mean importing could be improved? yes but, hmm.... to get animation back imported to blender it needs a little experience in scripting i think, there is also not one script (in any format) allowing importing animations from a single file (as i regardet), i don't know why, maybe it's not enough just to read out the frames and objects position to transfer animation data to blender, anyway even in 3dsmax it wasn't possible to load animation data of a directx file complete, all keys will be set to the first frame and you had to rearrange the timeline manually.
I've just been trying to convert one Sol Commander models to the game.Using Blender but not getting very far,I'll have another go some time this week.

i found a cool utility at elite-games; a frontier mesh viewer [url]http://www.spacesimcentral.com/downloads.php?view=detail&df_id=252[/url] download: [url]http://www.jongware.com[/url] the program(s) are spread over all articles on the site so you have to read his articles to download them controls:mouse/arrow keys: rotate modelpgup/dwn: prev./nextnumbers (keyboard): model 1-465S: toggle viewmode wireframe/solidL: activate Landing GearR: toggle mesh variations (colors,extras)P: show/hide vertice #'sC: colour table?G: show Gun positionshe's a quite clever lad, this theonis de jong :mrgreen:and the whole let's me think.... hm ffed3d?

solution:hack ffed3d at address 0x104298 and adress 0x104324 (val. 02EE, EE02 for the braindead machine), enter 0000. now the calling for the submodel "eagle long range" (object #23) is erased and you can put the proper eagles into their folders (24 and 25 as well as 23). this can be expandet for shure to evade other problems of multiple model use in original frontier or to program new ones too. try to check the output of theonis frontier mesh viewer and compare with ffe, for shure you will find more "tune up's"pos. light can be moved by moving the corresponding vertice in the model same goes to the thruster positions which are simply bound to the polys pos. in the (original frontier) model. appearance can also be edited (turn a red light blue, make it bigger, make them event dependent etc.)

potsmoke66 wrote:
solution:hack ffed3d at address 0x104298 and adress 0x104324 (val. 02EE, EE02 for the braindead machine), enter 0000. now the calling for the submodel "eagle long range" (object #23) is erased and you can put the proper eagles into their folders (24 and 25 as well as 23).
Interesting. I'll have a go at this later

do it carefully, i was a little to enthusiastic (like allways), but it will work. readi can't offer a better eagle fix by now, because i can alter commands in the model easely but if i remove or add jjffe won't understand.but there is still the possibilyty to rework the eagles like i described here, doesn't needs much experience with cad progs, just remove some parts, change some skins and feel comfortable with the situation that the longrange looks afterwards like a mk2 and vice versa (due to the fact that you have to overlay the models for the "tanks" and the first model has to have the smallest tanks, which is mk2). maybe i upload my roughly altered eagles, even if i thought i don't want to post a rework of a model that is not mine (i killed them by near), i'm shure someone could do it better.issues of the described hack:loose of all commands and submodels related to the mesh, which means no posl., thrusters, cockpit, pilot and undercarriage (ok cockpit, pilot and UC we can forget, we don't need in ffed3d, this is something that can be fixed).loose of extra data (what's ever in it)keeps ships specs, so the ship is still flyable even if you see no thruster flamesissues of reworked eagles:not much, only you will have like original ffe, just one body for the eagle, only skins and the "tanks" changes.

further, if the position of one of the eagles don't fit to the thrusters, use tris.ini (copy one from another model) and edit it to fit.

That worked nicely, Thanks Potsmoke66