HowTos

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Game HowTos

Modeling

This series of How-to articles is intended to take you through the full process of creating a model and adding it to Vega Strike.

• Adding your ship to Vega Strike - An overview of how to create and add ships to the game
  • HowTo:Create Models - A summary on how to create a new model for Vega Strike
    • Brad Mick's video tutorial on ship modelling - using Lightwave, but the concept is general: Rapid Prototyping
    • Creating a 3D-model using Wings3D - includes general guidance for other modeling programs
    • A basic Blender3D tutorial - not specific to ships, though...
  • Understanding "Smooth Groups" - a Blender tutorial on splitting smooth groups...
  • Getting bevels to look good - a Blender tutorial on smooth shading and beveling...
  • Smoothly Welding complex shapes - a Blender tutorial on smooth welding...
  • Unwrapping your model - How to UV-map your ship so it can be textured
    • Using Blender to unwrap your model - A blender UV-mapping tutorial
    • Full ship unwrap tutorial (Blender) - Full ship UV unwrap, from A to Z
  • Creating your own textures - A summary on how to make texture maps
    • Texturing your model in Wings 3d
    • WIP VegaStrike texturing page by Major
    • Texturing tutorial by Duality
    • Tips for realistic-looking textures
    • Using animated textures on a model
  • Editing BFXM files (format spec)
    • Editing the xmesh file of a ship
    • Adding Levels of Detail
    • Adding an engine glow to your 3D model
    • Adding per-pixel lighting to your 3D model
  • Editing units.csv
    • Editing the xunit file of a ship - Deprecated, but can be converted easily to .csv format

Advanced Topics

• Editing HUDs, placing radars, ...
• Creating a 3D cockpit for your ship.

New Stuff (The Shaders Age begins...)

• Introduction to shaders, and what they mean for you --Bumpmaps, Normalmaps, Shininess maps ...

Artwork

Artwork related Howtos

• Generating star system backgrounds
• Creating Orbital Planet Surfaces
• Creating Cargo Graphics
• Making splash screens that display at startup
• Making backgrounds for planets, bases, and capital ships
• Making autopiloting leave behind star dust
• Radiosity baking in Blender

MODs

• You want to create your own mod for VS? Start here.

Miscellaneous

• Game related:
  • Adding new weapons to the game
  • Adding new upgrades to the game
  • Adding new cargo to the game
  • Creating or editing star systems
  • Creating or editing Ship AI's
  • Taking really awesome screenshots
• Information related:
  • Putting ship and goods descriptions into the game
    • Editing the Master_part_list.csv file
  • Adding more conversation lines to the game
  • Edit the relationships between the existing factions (the factions.xml file)
• Event related:
  • Creating or editing your own missions
  • Creating or editing news events
  • Creating or editing campaigns

Sourcecode HowTos

Obtain a copy of the development-version files

• Checkout Vega Strike's Subversion (SVN) modules.
• Checkout Vega Strike's Subversion (SVN) modules on Mac OSX.
• Checkout Vegastrike CVS modules with various programs. - Deprecated

NOTE: Vegastrike development has moved to SVN. CVS is still theoretically accessible, but the repository is months out of date and will never be updated again. There is no reason not to use Subversion instead.

Compile the Vega Strike sourcecode

• Compiling from SVN under Visual C++
• Compiling from SVN under Cygwin (may not work--enter at your own risk)
• Compiling from SVN under your favourite Unixlike OS
• Compiling from SVN on Mac OSX
• Debug a Vega Strike Compilation
  • Debugging on your Unixlike OS using GDB
  • Debugging on Windows using Dr Watson

Miscellaneous HowTos

• The Vega Strike Contributor's Guide
• Wings
  • Compiling CVS version of Wings 3d (Linux)
  • Installing Wings 3D and the Xmesh Plugin

See Also

• Installing
• Development
• For related tools see the Links section.