a hull i made is appearing as a white box

Gratuitous Forum Gratuitous Modding
1

i know this has been asked before but i can’t for the life of me find the thread it was asked in.

basically i was making a fighter for a race i’ve been making (this is the first ship i made for it), i copped a rebel ships text file and edited it to use this new ship, i made a picture of the ship, one of the ship with the damaged version beside it and one of a grid of hulks just like the fighter i was trying to copy had. but for some reason the ship is fine when it does its little entry animation at the bigging of the battle (going really fast up to its position) then turns into a white box until it is destroyed, once its destroyed it goes to being one of the hulks like it should again.
the Lastua kessel runner.dds file is the one with just the picture of the ship i also have ‘lastua kessel runner_sprite.dds’ with the ship and a damaged version beside it.
this is the code for the ship [code][config]
classname = fighter
name = Lastua kessel runner
guiname = Lastua Kessel Runner Hull
sprite = Lastua Kessel Runner.dds
damagetexture = Lastua Kessel Runner_damaged.dds
hulktexture = lastua hulk.dds
hulkUVstart = 0
hulkUVend = 3
width = 8
height = 15
powerproduced = 4.8
cost = 38
racename = lastua
unlockcost = 4500
lockable = 0

[bonuses]
0 = SPEEDBOOST,0.1
1 = INTEGRITYBOOST,0.07

[runninglights]

[contrails]
0 = 128,235,40,400,1.5,4

[targets]
0 = 45.00,140.25,0,1,14.00,62.00,76.00,218.50,
1 = 231.75,110.75,0,1,209.50,76.50,254.00,145.00,
2 = 126.00,81.00,0,0,
3 = 125.00,187.00,0,0,
4 = 134.25,43.75,0,1,70.00,4.00,198.50,83.50,

[slots]
0 = 127.00,98.13,TURRET,
1 = 219.50,131.24,STANDARD,
2 = 48.00,129.21,STANDARD,
3 = 126.00,120.60,STANDARD,

[explosions]
0 = 0.00,128.00,128.00,EXP_STARTBREAKUP
1 = 0.00,128.00,128.00,EXP_FIGHTER_DESTROYED_LOD
2 = 0.00,128.00,128.00,EXP_FIGHTER_DESTROYED
3 = 0.00,128.00,128.50,EXP_BLASTGLARE

[/code]

the race is called lastua by the way.

so, what do i need to change to make it not become a white box?

2

I had this problem as well with my mod . . If memory serves me the fix was due to these fields being case sensitive:
So make sure that your .dds files are exactly named:

  • Lastua Kessel Runner.dds
  • Lastua Kessel Runner_damaged.dds
  • lastua hulk.dds

If this does not work then you might have to post your .dds files so we can have a look and replicate the problem.

Later
Darkstar

3

i’m pretty sure i got the cases right… i’ll double check that though. also the really confusing thing is that it appears fine as the ship as it goes super fast for the first second of a battle, and then as soon as it trys to turn goes to a white box.

4

I know know what you mean, It took me ages to work out what the problem was. I could see the ships warp in perfectly, but when they stopped, a white square would replace them. It was rather fustrating >.<

If my solution doesn’t work, post up the files so I can have a look. Hopefully i will remember how to fix it.

5

i checked case sensitivity and its all right, and i cant upload .DDS files (the only image upload site not blocked by various stuff on this computer can’t handle them) so… any idea what i should try? or what was wrong when you did it?

6

can you send the files to my email address: darkstar076@hotmail.com
I am going back over my log files to see if i had typed out the solution

7

ok, i sent you the E-mail, thanks for the help by the way :slight_smile:

8

got it . . okies, lets have a lookie
Ok, i think i have a solution and i cant test it here at work at the moment.

I think the problem has to do with the image size of Lastua Kessel Runner Sprite.dds.
Can you resize Lastua Kessel Runner Sprite.dds so it is 256x128.

let me know how that goes

9

the odd thing about that was, i looked through all the text files for all the ships and none of them mentioned there ‘sprite’ files, and yet they all had them. i’ll try that now though.

10

i resized it, didn’t make a difference. also is there away to make my ship look narrow and long like its supposed to, on the battle field (for the first 2 seconds) its fine but for all the picture its gets stretched a lot.

11

Question: the original “Rebel Achilles Fighter.txt” which you copied to make this fighter. Are you replacing the original text file with this one or does the original text file still exist ?

also, resize the sprite it back to its original form . . in answer to your other question, the way to keep the original shape is put some black between the two ships like this:
image

To stop the stretching, in the .txt file change this values
[config]
classname = fighter
name = Lastua kessel runner
guiname = Lastua Kessel Runner Hull
sprite = Lastua Kessel Runner.dds
damagetexture = Lastua Kessel Runner.dds
hulktexture = lastua hulk.dds
hulkUVstart = 0
hulkUVend = 3
width = 8
height = 15 <-- change this to 8
powerproduced = 4.8
cost = 38
racename = lastua
unlockcost = 4500
lockable = 0

12

the original one still exists in the rebel folder.

13

Simply removing the hulk information from the file should fix this. For some reason the game is really picky about how all of that is set up, and to be honest I don’t notice any difference when it is removed.

Basically this:
hulktexture = lastua hulk.dds
hulkUVstart = 0
hulkUVend = 3

Needs to be turned into this:
hulktexture =

That’s what has always worked for me.

14

I think that GSB is getting confused which “Rebel Achilles Fighter.txt” to use.
rename your modded “Rebel Achilles Fighter.txt” to something like “Lastua Kessel Fighter.txt”

Before you start the game, you must delete any saved Lastua Kessel ships designs.

15

i’ve done everything you said and still nothing.

also i changed the hight to try to counteract the stretching since it gets stretched sideways a lot.

16

Well its my lunchbreak now so i might take the oppurtunity to quietly open GSB to test your files.

::Update::
Got it . . the answer was similar to the case sensitive suggestion for the file naming . .

change “Lastua Kessel Runner Sprite.dds”
to “Lastua Kessel Runner_sprite.dds”

That should work - well it worked here :slight_smile:
image

I will answer the rest of your questions when i get home where i have access to all my modding equipment

17

good to see that it can work, but were exactly do i need to change the name? i tried changing the actual files name to have the _ in its then i tried changing it in the text document, so um… which bit did i actually need to change

18

sorry that was a bit vague . . :stuck_out_tongue:
Change the actual .DDS file name Lastua Kessel Runner Sprite.dds to Lastua Kessel Runner_sprite.dds

Or use these files :slight_smile:

Lastua.zip (4.76 KB)

edit: oops - i forgot that your damage texture was missing the “_damaged”
so between renaming the _sprite and adding the _damaged you should be good to go.

19

thank you :smiley:
now using what i’ve learnt from making this ship i should be able to make the rest of the race fairly easily :smiley:

20

no worries. . :slight_smile:

I will send you an email in about 8 hours with some other changes for you to look at.
Its more to do with the stretching you are talking about in the ship design screen.