Cry for help, help making The Front.

Tangle · January 30, 2012, 10:10am

Please add the things to this text file and give me the results. (Just edit contrails, Targets, and Explosions. Refer to the attached image for hull.) The hull editor works, but I cannot figure it out, plus it is almost impossible to use without creating a massive engine sprite or blinding massive light.

[config]
classname = fighter
name = Front Eayaha Minifighter
guiname = Front Eayaha Minifighter Hull
sprite = Front Eayaha Minifighter.dds
damagetexture = Front Eayaha Minifighter_damaged.dds
hulktexture = front_hulks.dds
hulkUVstart = 0
hulkUVend = 3
width = 4
height = 4
powerproduced = 3.2
cost = 16
racename = front

[bonuses]
0 = POWERBOOST,1.12

[contrails]
0 = 
1 = 

[targets]
0 = 
1 = 
2 = 

[slots]
0 = 128.00,160.00,STANDARD,
1 = 128.00,128.00,STANDARD,
2 = 128.00,88.00,TURRET,

[explosions]
0 = 
1 = 
2 = 
3 =

magnus392 · January 30, 2012, 1:33pm

Link to this page found in the Modding 101 sticky:) Targets are easy…hulks, are still a little beyond me. Now what I did was save a 256x256 copy of my base ship for module mapping, then applied damage (not really applicable on a fighter) and also made a 256x256 copy of the damage for target mapping. Hulks are based on a 512x512 map of your hull which is probably part of my having trouble with them.

Honestly I would probably just plug in your module coordinates for your targets on a fighter.

viewtopic.php?f=23&t=4783&p=29938#p29938

Now the Targets:
Here you determine the place where your ship will be hit and the changes in the sprite when the ship is damaged (the changes are picked from the ship_damaged.dds sprite). Also you can add spark and smoke effects when certain parts are hit.

[targets]
0 = x,y,ee,ed,ds,
1 = x,y,ee,1,ds,(damage_sprite_effect-x-y),
2 = x,y,1,ed,ds,SHIP_EMMITER_EFFECT,

Those are 3 examples of diferent types of targets where:
x -> x coordinate
y -> y coordinate (x,y coordinates are relative to a 256x256 sprite)
ee -> Enables ship Emmiter effect (0 disabled, 1 enabled) CAUTION!!! if its disabled and there’s a SHIP_EMMITER_EFFECT the game will crash
ed -> Enable Damage effect (0 means there won’t be any change in the hull sprite and 1 means that there will be a change in the hull sprite determined by the ds valor you enter)
ds -> Damage Square (aka damage box) (It determines the part of the ship that will be changed with its corresponding damaged img. Its represented as xi,yi,xf,yf [Top-Left x,y coordinates of the box and Bottom-Right x,y coordinates of the box])
SHIP_EMMITER_EFFECT -> Okay I haven’t tested with this enough to know surely what it does

Can be one of the following:
· SHIP_EMMITER_LARGE
· SHIP_EMMITER_THIN
damage_sprite_effect -> Effect that appears alongside with the damage effect in the determined position. It doesn’t work if Damage effect is disabled

Can be one of the following:
· damage_sprite_sparks
· damage_sprite_smoke

Examples:
0 = 187.50,164.50,0,1,170.00,150.50,194.50,227.00,
1 = 99.00,88.00,0,0,
2 = 133.00,114.00,0,1,125.00,102.00,141.00,126.00,(damage_sprite_sparks-133.00-114.00),(damage_sprite_smoke-133.00-116.00),
3 = 99.50,186.00,1,1,88.00,172.00,111.00,200.00,SHIP_EMMITER_THIN,

All the examples are from the vanilla gsb ships.

I don’t know if this helps, if there’s something you don’t understand post it here. Also if any other gsb modder sees this would be nice if he can check if this is correctly explained.

On a fighter should end up looking like line 1 = 128.00,128.00,0,0, (in your case)

Explosions covered in the Modding 101 thread, second post. Don’t be afraid to just steal from the original code. If nothing else if gives you a base to work from, to manipulate into what you want.

darkstar076 · January 30, 2012, 1:39pm

When you follow the guides in the Modding 101 thread - you might end up something like this:

[config]
classname = fighter
name = Front Eayaha Minifighter
guiname = Front Eayaha Minifighter Hull
sprite = Front Eayaha Minifighter.dds
damagetexture = Front Eayaha Minifighter_damaged.dds
hulktexture = front_hulks.dds
hulkUVstart = 0
hulkUVend = 3
width = 4
height = 4
powerproduced = 3.2
cost = 16
racename = front

[bonuses]
0 = POWERBOOST,1.12

[runninglights]
0 = 7.50,176.50,110.00,2.00,1
1 = 247.50,176.00,110.00,2.00,0

[engineglows]
0 = 128.00,295.00,3.00,10.00,engineglow.dds,engine_debris,0,1.00

[contrails]
0 = 128,254,40,500,1.5,4

[targets]
0 = 44.75,148.50,0,1,15.00,119.50,74.50,177.50,(damage_sprite_sparks-40.00-149.00),
1 = 156.50,70.00,0,1,143.00,54.50,170.00,85.50,(damage_sprite_sparks-157.00-70.00),
2 = 212.00,143.00,0,1,189.50,123.00,234.50,163.00,(damage_sprite_sparks-208.00-143.00),
3 = 99.50,70.75,0,1,86.50,55.50,112.50,86.00,(damage_sprite_sparks-99.00-72.00),

[slots]
0 = 128.00,160.00,STANDARD,
1 = 128.00,128.00,STANDARD,
2 = 128.00,88.00,TURRET,

[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 = 0.00,128.00,128.00,EXP_BLASTGLARE

Front Eayaha Minifighter_sprite.zip (94.7 KB)

Praetors · January 30, 2012, 3:34pm

I have a tip for you when having to add the trails to any hull:

[size=120]How to add the trails to fighters[/size]

As everyone noticed, there is no way to add the engine trails to the fighters using the in-game editor, and taking in count the high number of fighter based ships in Praetorian Industries i was needing a solution, fast.

Then noticed something, the [runninglights] are easy to put and remove, and its even easier to read its code. Below, an example of it:

0 = 189.00,44.00,200.00,2.09,0

All what you need are the first two values, in this case 189.00 and 44.00, those are the x;y coordinates of the [runninglights].

To the point… you can use them as coordinate markers, how? Easy:

1> First open a fighter hull with the in-game editor.
2> Then select the running lights tab and create as many running lights as trails you want to add to the fighter. [size=85](Optional: Make the light pulse speed very high, enough to make it “always shown”, you will need it for step 10)[/size]
3> Then move each running light to each engine, be cautious with 2 things: First, if the ship is symetric, you need to be accurate. Second, DO NOT put the running light right behind the engine, put it INSIDE of it, the reason for this is that sometimes the game takes his time to show the trails, meaning that it may “appear” some pixels away from the fighter if you dont do that.
An example of a “contrail” without positioning fix: http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/9470/thunderboltrush.jpg
4> Save and close the game
5> Go to the fighter hull code and copy the whole [runninglights] section and rename it as [contrails]
6> Delete the unused values of every line, in our case “,200.00,2.09,0”
7> Then paste this code ( ,40,500,1.5,4 ) like right in the same place of the values that you deleted in step 6, it is the standard trail code.
8> With that you get the engine trails, the next steps are optional. If you dont want to follow the next steps, just delete the whole [runninglights] section.

Optional Procedures:

9> When you look at Praetorian Industries Fighters and Corvettes you can see that their engine trails have a nice starting effect, that is because i didn’t deleted the [runninglights]
10> Move the running lights to the end of each engine.
11> Resize them to your taste.

This may sound long, but after doing it the first time and figure it out you may find this VERY easy, doing this the fighter coding just took me a few days.

If Darkstar agrees and thinks that this is going to be useful, i may add this miniguide to the GSB Modding 101 topic

Tangle · January 30, 2012, 8:47pm

I also need help with making sprites have no black coloured box around them.

Praetors · January 30, 2012, 9:32pm

That is the result of using a wrong file format, you have to save every ship you make in “.dds” format, if you dont you get white background (JPG) or a black one (BMP/PNG). You need to have a clean/empty space around the hull, experimented people call that empty space alpha channel.

Tangle · January 30, 2012, 11:30pm

That’s the thing, I can’t save it as a .dds. I have to save it as, say, a BMP then rename it to a dds.

Archduke_Astro · January 30, 2012, 11:33pm

It’s still a Bitmap file regardless of what you’re calling it; this only creates the chance of further problems later.

What operating system does your computer have - Windows or Mac?
What kind of graphics program are you presently using?

These have a major bearing on what tools are available to you for working on .dds graphics – as well as what tools can run in your computing environment. We can’t help you without knowing the full situation first.

magnus392 · January 30, 2012, 11:53pm

Try downloading Gimp if you have a pc or Seashore if you have a Mac…Gimp is available for mac also, but it is a complete pain to me.

Tangle · February 4, 2012, 2:18pm

Archduke Astro:

Tangle:

Praetors:

That is the result of using a wrong file format, you have to save every ship you make in “.dds” format, if you dont you get white background (JPG) or a black one (BMP/PNG). You need to have a clean/empty space around the hull, experimented people call that empty space alpha channel.

That’s the thing, I can’t save it as a .dds. I have to save it as, say, a BMP then rename it to a dds.

It’s still a Bitmap file regardless of what you’re calling it; this only creates the chance of further problems later.

What operating system does your computer have - Windows or Mac?
What kind of graphics program are you presently using?

These have a major bearing on what tools are available to you for working on .dds graphics – as well as what tools can run in your computing environment. We can’t help you without knowing the full situation first.

Well, I changed the file so it was a true dds and had the black background removed. It still appears as a black square with a fighter inside.

magnus392 · February 4, 2012, 5:39pm

So the background was left as Transparent, or was something else there? The easiest way to do it is to use the Magic Wand tool, click the background, Edit, Select Inverse, Copy, Add new layer, Paste, tada.