Free Allegiance Forums

I recently downloaded a 3D Modeling program and I want to learn how to use it. To that end, I've decided to redesign the TF fighters. The thing that has always disturbed me about the models in Allegiance is that the models for a basic ship and all of it's advanced versions are the same. With some ships, you can see a difference, but I want to be able to tell the ship class I'm fighting just by the model. Thus, the models of the basic fig, enhanced fig, and the advanced fig should be different enough to tell that they are different ships, but close enough to show that they are still part of the same family. In addition, I want my new models to make sense. This means that things like gun placement and shape must fit in with the current shot pattern and hit box. Also, the ship should be semi-realistic in the sense that it could work in space. Of course, artistic license will be taken on some things, but those are the basic parameters for my project.

With that in mind, here is what I need:

1) How do I view the current models?
2) Can I change the hit box of a ship without changing code?
3) How do I use the models in my game?

I'll post more questions if I think of them.

1) MDLview

2) Yes, and No. Yes you can change the hitbox to whatever you want. However, you can't change the hitbox of a ship and use it in all your regular games. Hitbox editing allows room for exploitation, so any model with a hitbox different than what the "official" list is gets rejected by ASGS and crash Alleg. To use your new hitbox, you have to give your model an original name and create a new core that references your new model. Then you can play with it, but everyone else will have to download your models to join you.

3) That bit is trickier. First You'll need to convert your models into the Alleg format. If you have milkshape, you can do it with plugin. If not, there are some tools from the source for converting .x files into alleg model files. Ask Madpeople, YP, or Compellor, they have some experience with the process.

If you are wanting to change the appears of different level ships in a pre-existing core, you might be out of luck. Example, You can only give adv figs a different model than enh figs if they have different filenames associated with them in the core. This doesn't happen much in the main game cores, but if you work up something that looks pretty good, I bet the core devs would be willing to help make such a mod possible.