Recent Posts

11

Game Assets / Re: Problems with Luminescence maps/lamp maps

« Last post by USSCrazybat on March 03, 2017, 16:03:45 »

Thanks for your reply. It turns out that whilst the textures I was editing were of a Prometheus Class ship, they were not the textures of the Prometheus Class currently in use in the game - which were under a far more innocuous name. Once I inverted the alpha map of the .tga and reconverted it, it works and looks perfectly.

By the way, do you know of any reason for the lettering on the ships to be reversed? In the original texture file the text reads the proper way, but in game it's mirrored. I had to mirror the text in the texture itself to get it facing the right way.

12

Game Assets / Re: Problems with Luminescence maps/lamp maps

« Last post by The Old Dragon on March 03, 2017, 09:50:58 »

Hi USSCrazybat,

Good to see some new interest here, can't say too much right now as I've got to go to work (will try to help more later). Nexus does accept various texture maps but they need to be applied during the converting process.

The texture files start off as .tga files (your main colour map and any additional ones such as bump, lum, alpha,etc), these are then fed into Nexus's converting tool and turned into .tex files. So unless you have access to the original art files, it'll mean re-working them completely.

13

Game Assets / Problems with Luminescence maps/lamp maps

« Last post by USSCrazybat on March 01, 2017, 16:14:05 »

I've been tinkering with the textures in the Star Trek EAC mod in order to get a feel for how Nexus accepts textures, and have been working on two ships - the Prometheus and the Saber. When the mod was first installed, both ships seemed be covered in one singular white glow as opposed to only the engines, spotlights and impulse engines. I have managed to fix the Saber class by inverting the alpha channels on its main textures, however the method does not seem to work for the Prometheus. Furthermore, in my experimentation with the Galaxy class, I attempted to add glows to another part of the ship by modifying the alpha channel, but there was limited change.

Are the lamps/lum maps tied to the mesh in any way, or can I still fix this using a texture editor? I'm having some trouble working out meshes atm, so focusing on texture editing would be preferable. 

14

Game Assets / Working with NIF Models (UPDATE)

« Last post by USSCrazybat on March 01, 2017, 01:17:59 »

Hello,

I'm looking to create a more up-to-date Star Trek mod than the two currently in circulation, and I intend to use several ships that have been modded into Bridge Commander as .nif meshes. As I don't know where else to find these meshes, I'll need to make do with a lengthy conversion process. However, the recommended conversion process of importing into Milkshape, exporting into .lwo, then putting it through the game's converter returns an error. It doesn't help that I have very little experience working with meshes in general - scripting is no issue for me, at least.

If anyone has experience with .NIF files and Nexus, I'd appreciate any help you could offer.

15

Mod Development / Released Mods / Nexus pulsar and EMP Weapon

« Last post by Lord_Valarian on October 05, 2016, 23:08:21 »

Hello all.  I've been busy with personal matters for a while now.

 I'm looking to update my mod and possibly sell it on GOG to give me the motivation to work on it. It was designed to ad emp weapon that damages all systems at once, but be just as dangerous as the enemy and you. The EMP can't go through shields and it does very light damage to them.

Also, the pulsar (compressed plasma charge) makes armor useless. Also, it can be used for shields and hull at the same time. It corrects an annoying design flaw in the game.

Sometimes, I've fried myself because the shields went down just before it hit the target.   


LV

16

Game Assets / Re: Model Lights

« Last post by The Old Dragon on July 09, 2016, 11:15:32 »

Thank you Arparso  A simple luminosity map was behind it all. Got the effect I was after with a lot less work than I thought it'd be.

17

Game Assets / Re: Model Lights

« Last post by Arparso on July 09, 2016, 01:12:06 »

I think it's just the luminance map that gets disabled (or rather fades out). Anything painted white on that texture map normally glows on its own, even when that part of the model is in the shade. When the ship gets damaged, that effect fades out and the luminance map is essentially disabled - thus none of the painted lights glow anymore.

18

Game Assets / Model Lights

« Last post by The Old Dragon on July 07, 2016, 15:21:21 »

Hi Folks,

Have a question about the lights on the human ships, not the blinking lights though, it's the deck lighting that I'm interested in.

When a human ship reaches critical damage and is abandoned, all the 'window' lights get turned off (to simulate power outage, I suppose). Does anyone know how that effect is achieved?

19

Mod Development / Released Mods / Re: Possibilities and limits to Nexus modding ?

« Last post by The Old Dragon on May 15, 2016, 20:24:00 »

Hi Mutos,

That's kind of a hard one to answer. Unfortunately, you won't know if Nexus suits 'your needs' until you get stuck into it.

The original modding idea of the devs was to allow us to create stand alone missions (campaigns can be done but they're a very different and cranky beast!) that players can simply select from the mods menu.

As you've already mentioned the wiki, I'll just say that you'll find some step by step guides on there for both mission and star system creation. They should help dip your toes in Nexus modding, which can get fairly complex.

20

Mod Development / Released Mods / Possibilities and limits to Nexus modding ?

« Last post by Mutos on May 15, 2016, 10:14:07 »

Hi all,


I got Nexus for a long time, but after swith to Linux it ddn't work any more, now I discovered PlayOnLinux and it's back

I would like to try some modding and I would like to know the limits of Nexus modding, to see if it can fit my needs... Particularly, I would like to know about missions and how they can be chosen by the player, and about stellar system and the degree of complexity that can be achieved...

Anyone has hints on that ? Of course, I'll read the wiki and all, but it'll take some time. Thanks in advance for any hint !