MS3D Help

posted on February 1st, 2014, 5:51 pm

I'm trying to work through using ms3d and have read through Major Payne's ms3d tut and am working on Aad Moerman's kresear2 station. He provided the ms3d file which I open in ms3d. in the group tab there is this:
kres2gr <Mat: kres2map_!phong>

In the materials tab is : kres2map_!phong

Now in the joints tab the only m_XXXXXX entry is m_KRESEARCH. From what I've been learning that m_name has to be the exact same name as the group name correct? In the instance above it should then read m_kres2gr right? So in the joints tab I double click m_KRESEARCH and rename to m_kres2gr and save to new sod. If I put that new sod in game I can place the station in the map editor then cntl-A to go to real game and click the research button however, as soon as I click a button to research something specific the editor crashes to desktop. I'm not understanding what would cause this? Any ideas from what I described above? How does changing the name of the node to match the group name cause a crash?

Another question is that for another research station I changed the entry in the materials tab from kresmap_!phong to !phong_kresmap and saved to new sod. When I complete a research the actual pod comes off the hardpoint sideways instead of straight out? How come in this instance changing the name of the material would screw up the build direction of the pod?

posted on February 2nd, 2014, 3:51 am

you need to fully research how to create nodes properly, you need a lot more on the station from the root to hp (hardpoints) and if creating a research station and it won't be having visible pods you can cheat a little and in the .odf set them to root but it is crashing as your station has nothing set correctly in the hierarchy.

guide.fleetops.net should hopefully have some help on this

posted on February 2nd, 2014, 6:19 am

I am slowly trying to learn this which is what prompted my question. I may have misled a bit. This klingon research station works fine in game and researches without problem. The issue is that it doesn't reflect light in game as is and I'm trying to redo the phong lighting on the model and simply changing the material name from kres2map_!phong to !phong_kres2map is what's causing the issue of crashing upon research.

Moving the !phong_ from the end of the material name to the beginning has so far worked on about 99% of all his other ships/stations. I only listed all the other stuff to verify that information was correct as I've learned it.

posted on February 3rd, 2014, 11:31 am

Regarding your pod directions, unfortunately this depends on the direction of the node, which can't be easily manipulated in MS3d. This means when you edit a model, all the hardpoints automatically rotate to face "straight up" (i.e 0 degrees rotation).

I can't see how editing your texture names would do this, but the sheer act of importing will. So, if you imported a model, changed nothing, and exported, it would still do it.

As for your crashing, I encountered this when the hardpoints that the ODF specified for the research pods did not exist. So, it seems like your hardpoints are wandering off when you import the model. I will try importing the model myself from your most recently release of the Classic Mod, and I'll see what occurs.

EDIT: Does not present any problems for me, and in fact as long as I don't touch the nodes at all, they even stay rotated correctly. One other texture thing to remember; Always set everything BUT Diffuse to pure black (set Diffuse to pure white). When you import things for some reason the emissive comes out white and makes everything look overly lit)

posted on February 3rd, 2014, 10:38 pm

Thanks for the info Squire James. This station seems to be the only one presenting this problem out of all the other 100 or so I redid. Also, I'm using ms3d v1.8.4 and just registered it this week after buying the key code.

So simply importing the sod borks it? Maybe this sod is just hyper-sensitive or something as none of the others did this? Now I admit that on several of the other research stations I was able to redo the phong lighting and in game they can research, but the pods build off the side of the hardpoint instead of facing straight out like normal. As of right now I'm not concerned with this, but I guess I need to learn (which I've been googling how to) rotate joints in ms3d. This is what I'd need to do right? My learning is slow going, as I'm trying little things one step at a time. So a person really needs 3dsmax or something to manipulate the joints easier?

As for material settings from everything I've read you set ambient and specular to all pure black and diffuse and emissive to pure white. I know this is down to personal taste, but I just went with it. I'll play around with your suggestion and see if I like that. Thanks for all your help and suggestions as well.

posted on February 4th, 2014, 8:52 am

I'll try altering the SOD myself and sending you the result.

And yes, unfortunately its either the importer or milkshape itself that rather oversimplfies the joints and leaves you with them all at 0 rotation. However, I find it far simpler than 3dmax, so, you take your choice. It is often the case that the more flexible editors are those that are harder to learn.

posted on February 4th, 2014, 5:33 pm

Thank you. I would appreciate you doing that, but I still want to try and wrap my head around this all. I guess in this instance if simply importing the sod rotates the hardpoints that in itself can't be the problem because it's rotated the hardpoints on other research stations and they are fine.

So you think it's actually moving them like off the model or something like that? So ms3d thinks they don't exist or something? I learned last nite how to rotate a joint though and will experiment with that on another working station to see if it makes the pods build properly.

posted on February 4th, 2014, 10:04 pm

Kresear2Mod.zip

(9.5 KiB) Downloaded 301 times

All I did to this SOD was import, change the texture settings (removed no_alpha! from the end, changed !lambert to !phong, and changed all emissives to black). I noticed all the borg nodes use the same texture, so really there only needs to be one texture used over all 4 or 5 groups but, I left it alone. I don't know much about borg nodes and their usage since my mod doesn't feature the Borg (well, only as an easter egg)

I reimported it to see if it "broke" the file in any way, and it seems to be exactly the same as the original except for the altered texture settings. So, give it a go.

posted on February 5th, 2014, 3:55 am

Thanks SJ, but no go. Last nite when I was changing the names of the materials I saved to a new sod and loaded the map editor. When I go to place this station on the map nothing appears. The game doesn't crash, but no station appears. I can't figure out why?

I just tried your edited sod and same thing the station doesn't appear on the map if I try to place it, but it doesn't crash either. What with this sod is preventing it from appearing on the map?

I got to digging and when I look at the joints tab he has h_crew and then s_crew1 thru s_crew whatever on most all his other works. I noticed on this station though he has h_crew and then s_crewfre01 thru s_crewfre04 which I thought the wording strange. So I renamed them all from s_crewfreXX to s_crew1 etc... Then in the map editor it actually let me place the station however, the only thing is most of the texture is blank except the blinking lights and windows and glowing bits. Just to experiment I tried researching and it let me.

So, that seems promising, but I just don't know what it means? I don't notice any other odd spelling on any of the other joints, hardpoints, nodes or whatever so not sure where to go next?

EDIT: Ok, got it working now. You still had the _!noalpha at the end of the material name so I deleted it and tada. Working research station with textures that react to ambient and omni lighting. Thank you for all the help on this one. Was driving me crazy.