Request: Tutorial on how to retexture ships

[mikoyan99]

Hi,

I've noticed there are loads of tutorials on how to retexture units, bit I couldn't find any on how to retexture ships.
What I need to do is change the colours on the hull of a few of the ships for various mods - I want to make the flying dutchman from potc, and make a more mdoern texture for the steam ship - but I havn't the foggiest of where to start. Do I just need to extract an image file and edit that, or do I have to arse around with loads of convertors? I only have the Gimp as editing software atm.
Cheers,
-Matt

[Bladerunner]

Actually there are no converters for the models. The textures can be found at data/rigidmodels/naval/textures (in the model.pack) and they are all in DDS-format. To alter them you need a Plug-in for opening and saving in that format (should also be availible for Gimb). For the main hull you need to alter 4deck_hullstrip_diffuse.dds, damage_panel_3_diffuse.dds and damage_panel_3_noguns_diffuse.dds (last one is used additionally for indiaman, rocket ship and brig). For futher changes, there are some more diffuse-files and if you do mare than colorchanges mayby also the gloss_map- and normal-files. But just changing a texture will effect all ships for all nations (only exception are the special units Victory and Constitution for diffuse-files, but you need to be careful as they use the standard gloss_map- and normal-files).

to make different textures for factions or mayby also to different ships of a faction, you need to clone models (ship.rigid_naval_model, ship_destruction.rigid_model_animation and sometimes ship_lod.rigid_naval_model found all in the model.pack at data/rigidmodel/naval/...) and alter them with a Hex-Editor to change the name of the textures used by this model. Each link to a texture is in those files between 2 and 200 times. You need to save the files with new names and place them in your mod.pack. Next to change will be the model_naval_tables and the warscape_naval_lod_tables. i tried it with simply add to the existing files with hex-editor (PFM don't yet support those tables), which cause CTD's. so i just extract the file from the pack and changed the entries to the new named modelfiles and give a new id-number and a new model-name. than save both with a new name. This you can also put in your mod.pack.

You still would not see the models in game, but you can already get CTD's if something went wrong with the editing. To have them in game you need to replace models of existing ships or make new units by cloning exiting ones, rename them and give them the new model. The combination of model and unit are in the Unit_stats_naval. For new units you will also make entries in the unit_tables and set permissions for the new units. For getting a name on the screen you need to make new entries to the localisation loc, found at the patch_xx.pack.

For the hex-editing you need to be careful with changing the files. before each text-string there is a number in hex-format, defining the string-length. If you use texture- or model-file-names of a different length you need to change it. even if you use names of the same length, keep this in mind, when going to the id-number. last integer is not the last before file-name. this is already string-length.

If you like to try it...Good Luck

I doubt, that you will many more tutorials for this problem, as i seem to be the only one taking care of ship-texture at the moment. all seem to wait for a running converter to ex- and most of all import model to etw-engine, as the hex-editing method is really time consuming and it's easy to make mistakes, that crash the game or break the mod.

[mikoyan99]

Cheers for the tutorial bladerunner, sadly I can't get the gimp to work with the .dds plug ins for the moment, although i'll keep trying. I was going to do two or three different textures for the steamships, based on early 19th century vessels, so I'll keep plugging away at that.
Cheers,
-Mat