…How the hell do you get them to work!? I looked at the alpha channel and it looked alright (the hulks are supposed to be shown in black, right?), the name in the hull .txt file is correct, except… no hulk! I’ve only done it for one fighter, maybe that’s the problem? Do I need to do it for all the fighters for it to work? Any help would be appreciated.
Check any race’s ships folder under bitmaps. There you should see a hulk texture for the faction’s fighters (ie. federation_hulks.dds).
I haven’t tried making fighter hulks myself, but I suspect if you were to make a similar one for your race (yourrace_hulks.dds), they’d show up in-game.
It’s sort of like the fighter gfx won’t show up without a fighter_sprite.dds.
Edit: I used the Tribe expansion as a template (it seems easier to work with) and made some busted up TIEs.
that’s how mine are modeled. I check the .txt file again to see if I’ve screwed up…
EDIT: Nope, it should work. This perplexes me in a bad way D:
I’ll try re-making the file using the tribe template.
ARGH! NO F***ING HULKS! GAH! How does this NOT work?! Gah! Here’s a sample of the hulk alpha channel and the .txt file. It is a fighter hull that I made a long time ago and I am now trying to refine it. Here’s a pic of the alpha channel:
and the hull .txt file:
[config]
classname = fighter
name = United Fleet Advanced Fighter Hull
guiname = United Fleet Advanced Fighter Hull
sprite = United Fleet Advanced Fighter.dds
damagetexture = United Fleet Advanced Fighter_damaged.dds
hulktexture = United Fleet_hulks.dds
hulkUVstart = 0
hulkUVend = 3
width = 16
height = 16
powerproduced = 9999
cost = 135
racename = unitedfleet
[bonuses]
0 = SPEEDBOOST,1.0
1 = ARMOURBOOST,1.0
[runninglights]
[contrails]
0 = 128,254,40,500,1.5,4
[targets]
0 = 66.00,113.00,1,1,45.00,96.00,87.00,130.00,SHIP_EMMITER_SMALL,
1 = 132.50,120.00,1,1,119.00,101.00,146.00,139.00,SHIP_EMMITER_SMALL,
2 = 193.00,121.00,0,0,
[slots]
0 = 128.00,96.00,TURRET,
1 = 77.00,96.00,TURRET,
2 = 179.00,96.00,TURRET,
3 = 128.00,128.00,TURRET,
4 = 128.00,160.00,TURRET,
5 = 128.00,200.00,TURRET,
6 = 100.00,110.00,TURRET,
7 = 160.00,110.00,TURRET,
8 = 140.00,112.00,TURRET,
9 = 140.00,130.00,TURRET,
[explosions]
0 = 0,128,128,EXP_FIGHTER_DESTROYED
1 = 0,128,128,EXP_BLASTGLARE
Rename the hulk texture to unitedfleet_hulks.dds and change the entry in your hull file to match.
it matters? I’ll try.
EDIT: This is ridiculous. Still no damn hulks. I’ll try placing the files in a different order (this time I’ll do it in the way the Tribe is organized) and see if it works.
EDIT2: ARGH! Nope, no hulks. …screams F** IT a hundred times*
Don’t wish to hijack this thread, but Dantalion, where did you get the ST:TNG mods/hulls from? I would love to have them in my fleet/game. Was looking for a way to PM you but couldn’t find a way to contact you.
Hope you get your fighters fixed Hybridnoid.
Dayblade
My xx_hulk.dds file alpha channel has the black and white the other way around, with the white bits being the parts that arent visible on the hulk.
Maybe try swapping the colours around?
That’s the problem. You have it showing the background in game with the hulks being transparent. Just invert the Alpha Channel and that should fix it.
this makes no sense. after all, if you see the alpha channel for other fighters it’s the same: hulks are shown in black
I’ll try though, just as soon as I figure out how to do it with this application (I’m running a Mac)
if anyone else uses GraphicConverter for this on their Mac OS X, help would be appreciated.
My custom fighter hulks alpha channel is white hulks against black background, and mine works. The Empire Fighter hulk alpha channel is white hulks against black background, and they work. Maybe your program is different, I dunno, but white against black works for me.
the other races are how mine are though. Hmmm…
And actually, the Empire fighter hulks are black against white background.
I don’t know much about the different image editing programs that exist but maybe some of them handle in a different way how alpha channel works? (the colors I mean)
I’m using GIMP and I looked most of the ships from the vanilla GSB and the alpha channel shows me the ship in black…
I know, for me the hulks are shown in black. This is really starting to make me frustrated…
normally the bits you see are shown in white, but to check that, just set the whole alpha channel to be white, and then see if they show up (albeit with block borders around them).
all right, I’ll try.
EDIT: Damn this application of mine. When I swapped the alpha channel, and checked the file again, it reverted to how it was before. Damn it!