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Released 20 gun privateer schooner

Thanks, unfortunately I havent figured out texturing yet, :modding but I did add the masts! they arent 100% complete because I still have to add the ropes, standing(including shrouds) and running rigging, and the fighting tops/ crosstrees on each mast. I made the masts directly off the sailplan, http://www.flickr.com/photos/64339105@N08/5982319485/in/photostream and before anyone asks, I will be saving each peice seperately and I already have them saved seperate from the ship. I did put them on a version of the ship to see how it looked tho, hope you like the pics!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64339105@N08/5982876442/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64339105@N08/5982315407/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64339105@N08/5982876608/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64339105@N08/5982315589/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64339105@N08/5982315711/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64339105@N08/5982315807/in/photostream/
 
She looks awesome mate!
If you make the appropriate model info that tells it what texture file to look for, I can help with the textures for her.
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Just throw some together real quick as place fillers and since this is my area of expertise, i'll take it from there if you want.
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Craiggo, Thanks a ton! :woot If you could help texture her that would be great! im not really sure what the appropriate model info is, but I stuck some textures from the uss enterprise on her to give a good idea of the color scheme im shooting for. see the problem isnt so much that I dont know how to texture her right for potc, its that I dont really know how to texture at all .I did figure out a way to get some textures on her, but I couldnt get all of the textures to work, and some of them are kind of crude, but hopefully you can work with it. for the ones that dont work, most should technichally be on there, they just dont show up. there are a few areas that I had to leave completely untextured, and ill explain those if you think this way will work. heres a few screens of what I got, just let me know if this will work or not, and if you think it will ill send it to you.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64339105@N08/5983558094/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64339105@N08/5982996345/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64339105@N08/5983558508/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64339105@N08/5982996525/in/photostream/
 
gmax, so converting to other formats is a royal pain in the ass, at least as far as I understand. I put up the .gmax one in my ftp folder at captain armstrong-> ship models-> PDN textured.gmax. What I can do tommorow when I am more awake is get it into .obj format and from there into blender and from there into other formats. let me know if the gmax one wont work for you, you need me get it into .dxf or 3ds format or something
there are a few areas that I left completely untextured
1)the black areas, except for the deck, which should have a planking texture, and the inner bulwark, which should have a yellow/ ochre texture like the outside of the bulwark. the yellow texture used on something like the surprise or victory or speedy would be great for the inside and outside of the bulwark, also I noticed the speedy has coppering textured below the waterline, which would go nicely here too.
2) the cap between the inside of the bulwark and the deck (currently light brown) this should be black, but I left it this color so you could see it btwn the black deck and the black inside of the bulwark (both of which should change colors)
3) all of the metalwork- carronades, chainplates, bell etc. just colored grey right now, b/c i dont have any good metal textures right now.
4) for some reason the inside of the transom shows half black and half yellow. it should be one or the other, whichever looks best in the final version.
5) the pinrails- should be a brown wood color similar to how they are colored now.
I had a very limited amount of textures I could work with, and also I applied them to each piece individually, so If you have any that would fit the bill better, then by all means use them. :onya
 
Ya, unfortunately I have no experience with gmax, only the exported .GM files for CoAS. There is a tutorial on how to export your model to a .gm format for the game on the modelling forum.
 
ok I should be able to do that with the tutorial, but unfortunately I doubt I will have the time for it until after the weekend
 
Ok, so i decided to finish her as far as I can before I convert the files, which means I tweaked the hull a little, added mast stumps for battle damage(you can't see them through the real masts, I checked), and put the chase guns back in after resizing and found I could use the aftmost gunports after all! I also finished the standing rigging( deadeyes, ratlines, shrouds, stays, fighting tops, and crosstrees) and put the masts on the hull for these pics:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/64339105@N08/6002918411/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64339105@N08/6003463772/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64339105@N08/6003463646/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64339105@N08/6002917959/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64339105@N08/6002917709/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64339105@N08/6002917859/in/photostream/

@Craiggo, when I send you the files, do you need them to be UVW mapped or textured in some form? or will just the model do? because I understand that textures and maps often dont survive export from gmax. And each mast needs to be in a seperate file right?
 
Yes Cpt Armstrong, do the UV and basic Texture and I will check it out when you upload it. Yes, the masts need to be separate from the hull. Lo0king forward to seeing her and finishing her up!
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Yep, sorry it is taking so long, i need to get her out of gmax with a .obj exporter script first which means copy pasting thousands of lines of text about a hundred at a time, and any error in spacing will corrupt the file. :modding I tried this yesterday with the hull but i got the spacing wrong :urgh Good to know she needs the UV & textures first though :onya I will be on vacation for about a week but ill do my best to get her to you when I get back
 
So Im not sure the .obj exporter script is going to work, :modding but I might have found another way, and I will try .obj again too. School just started so it may take awhile, but I will be working on it. If I have tried everything and still cannot get the files converted, I will at least post the files for this ship and the Revolutionnaire/HMS Forte on the FTP as *.gmax or maybe *.P3D files so that hopefully someone else can. :nk
 
I have finally had a breakthrough with this! :dance I managed to get the foremast into .obj and into both blender; http://www.flickr.com/photos/64339105@N08/6156540837/in/photostream and maya http://www.flickr.com/photos/64339105@N08/6156540945/in/photostream/ The problem is that maya won't let me save it right now :facepalm I will read up and see if anyone else has had this problem and how to convert to .gm when I get time, and also I will try to get the other parts into maya/blender. :yes
@Craiggo If you are still willing to finish her up I will put the files on the FTP for you as I get them into .gm format. Because of the various import/exports I have to scale the parts individually, so they are no longer the same scale, but it should just be a matter of matching the deadeyes with the chainplates, and the ropes to the masts. Can you work with scaling the parts? Or if you can't, can you or some other knowledgeable person tell me how I have to scale the parts/ whole ship to be the right size ingame? Again, sorry about the long delay!
 
Nice work on getting that mast to OBJ format! You're about half-way through the whole process (except for the locators, I guess). :dance
I don't think Maya allows you to save OBJ files, so you'll need to save it as an MB (Maya Binary) file. That's required for the export process, anyway.

For scaling your model, the best thing to do is import a similar size model from the game (using GM Viewer, click 'OBJ export for each model you want to view in Maya) for comparison.
Then, try to scale your model according to it's size relative to the imported model. That should be fairly straightforward.

Once that's done, you need to get working on assigning the materials and textures to the model (best to use the 'blinn' material, I'd say).
You will also need to check the normals of the ship, which is absolutely critical to avoiding the reverse lighting bug in-game.
This is usually the most annoying part, although it can be less of a hassle once you know what you're doing.
For a basic explanation of how to manipulate normals, see here, but I'll help you out once you get that far anyway. ;)

Then you have the locators to do... that is, IF you can figure out how to export the whole ship with the locators successfully.
I haven't managed that myself yet. I can export models without problems, but I can't get locators to export with them. You might need advice from an expert, here. :modding
If that fails, you'll have to hand the converted GM, without locators, over to Craiggo for him to add them for you, using a different program. I'm sure he'd be willing to help.

At some point you'll also need to make a path file, if you haven't already done so. This is what allows the first person camera to move around on deck while at sea.
It's essentially a simple version of the deck, but with gaps to represent solid objects you can't walk through.
Thinking further ahead, you'll need a walk file for the AI crew members who wander about the decks at sea. That involves using a separate program, and I'll explain how when you get to that stage.

Then there's the coding, which is usually a 'copy and paste' job, but changes are made for your ship. Again, I can help with that part.
So, I might have been wrong when I said you were half way through, but your first full export is always long-winded.
At least you don't have to struggle through it by yourself, of course. :cheers
 
I'll be happy to do whatever you can get into OBJ. format, scaled with textures assigned and just let me know when you gate there.
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Okay, so there is a little hold up with maya, Gmax has a smoothing feature that allows one to smooth the hull form, but this dosent carry over into maya. It seems maya has a smoothing feature too, but it adds alot of tris, and Im not sure that it would work in the game engine. I have also heard I could set the edges from hard to soft, but I dont know how. Is there anyone experienced in modeling for this game that knows of a way to effectively smooth the hull that would work in-game? here is a set of comparison pics to show what I mean

gmax (smooth) http://www.flickr.com/photos/64339105@N08/6204501166/in/photostream

Maya(unsmoothed) http://www.flickr.com/photos/64339105@N08/6203984251/in/photostream/
 
It's all to do with normals in Maya. There's a smoothing option which doesn't add more tris, but smooths the edges as you said.

Firstly, though, you need to set up the mesh correctly. Open the Attributes Editor, select 'Render stats', and tick everything except 'double sided' and 'opposite'. Do this for every component.
If the model now looks inside-out, you need to go to 'Edit Polygons > Normals > Reverse', and that should correct it.
Now, go to 'Edit Polygons > Normals', and click the icon to the right of 'Set Vertex Normal'. Tick 'Unlock Normals', select 'Normalize Normal', and then click 'Set Normal'.

Finally, go to 'Edit Polygons > Normals' and click next to 'Soften/Harden'. Then, click 'All Soft (180)', and select 'Soft/Hard'. The model should now be smooth. :onya
 
Perfect! the model is now smooth: http://www.flickr.com/photos/64339105@N08/6224648707/in/photostream Though they are less important than the hull, I would also like to smooth the cannons and carronades, but maya sees everything in the hull as the same object, so I cant select them seperately. Is there a way to specifically apply this feature to the guns? here is how they look now http://www.flickr.com/photos/64339105@N08/6225194968/in/photostream
 
Craiggo, the model is now on my ftp in *.mb format under ship models->Prince de neufchatel->pdn scaled There should be a file for the bowsprit, foremast, mainmast, hull, and then a file with everything combined just in case you need it. :dance
 
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