Floating Point Crash

[Sundansyr]

I have been running into this annoying 'Floating Point' after creating a starting ship.

I get through the startup screen just fine, my mesh shows up okay. But after it gets finished generating the maps it gags on the ship at 98%, flips to the Game Start screen, then drops to desktop with a floating point error.

I have adjusted the XFile for the ship mesh (using notepad, it seems to be working), made the component map, and put it into playerstartships... I'm not doing something correctly.

On the installed components I cut/pasted the loadout from the basic human destroyer... do I need to make a completely new starting loadout from scratch? I get the feeling that's where the problem is coming from... ??

<edit>
Now it's progressed onto a game access violation error once I put the ship in the purchase que.

[DeadZone]

Ok, ships must have engines put on them (the usual reason a "Floating Point Error" occurs

XFiles are 3d meshes, so I cant say what side effects using notepad would produce (I would be surprised if there was none)

I suggest reading this (will need acrobat reader)

[Sundansyr]

Since the engines are the very first thing put on the ship in the components equipped list... I've put them in every time.

Conversely, if I set 'equipped components' to 0 (zero), there are no problems. There are also no component slots on the ships! Regardless of the components file. I've noticed on the playerpurchaseships that the 'equipped components' line is parsed: 0 // 0 rather than with the number of equipped components for that ship record.

As for the acrobat file...
It says *nothing* about how to open, edit, save, or manipulate Xfiles. It just says what they are and basically what they do for the game... nothing more informative than that.
To whit: I took an existing Xfile and merely pointed it to a new mesh using an existing model (recolored), renamed it, adjusted the spaceobjects file, component layout file, and all that, and it shows up just fine in the game start. Just crashes whenever I try to use it or open the spacedock (when it's made buyable).
My layout is within the required parameters.

May it be weapons? I've noticed that regardless of firing arcs I have seen that very seldom will a ship fire more than two weapons at a time even if they're all in the same firing chain. (button '1', for instance)

This new model has 7 weapons, 5 of which have forward arcs.

[Phoenix-D]

You cannot edit .x files manually; you need a program like Wings 3d for that. You -can- edit, say, spaceobjects_xfiles.txt though.

"Conversely, if I set 'equipped components' to 0 (zero), there are no problems. There are also no component slots on the ships! Regardless of the components file. I've noticed on the playerpurchaseships that the 'equipped components' line is parsed: 0 // 0 rather than with the number of equipped components for that ship record."

This is the problem. If you try to specify a component to equip it MUST go into a valid slot. If you try to put it into a slot that doesn't exist- error. And since your ship *has* no slots..

You need to find out why your ship's slots aren't showing up.

This also explains your Access Violation, FYI. Ships with no components have no hull points, which creates a Divide By Zero error when that ship is created in-game.

[Exan]

I suggest using a program called LithUnwrap. You can open x files with it and then convert them to 3ds format for example. Then you can simply import the 3ds object to almost any 3D program and edit the models with it. Then when you're done you save the model in 3ds format again and open it in lithunwrap to convert it back to x format. Set the convert mode to text and turn of compressed when converting to x format. Works nicely.

As for slots, open the slot configuration in the SlotModder. You can easily see if somethings wrong from there. Then check your ship data in the StartingPlayerShip or PurchaseShipPlayer and check that the slot layout is set right. Besides that I don't know why doesn't it work. I've made over 20 models for starfury and they've all worked with no big problems.

[Sundansyr]

Exan said:
I suggest using a program called LithUnwrap. You can open x files with it and then convert them to 3ds format for example. Then you can simply import the 3ds object to almost any 3D program and edit the models with it. Then when you're done you save the model in 3ds format again and open it in lithunwrap to convert it back to x format. Set the convert mode to text and turn of compressed when converting to x format. Works nicely.

3D program such as what? They're huge and not particularly gentle on the learning curve, or so I've seen. I have not found any small, simple ones yet... but then, I have not looked. Generally I just use PS7.

For this single ship I made a single line adjustment to the abbidon_destroyer.X file, which when I opened it in notepad did not come up a hash. Instead of pointing it to the abbidon destroyer mesh, I put in another mesh name and saved as another x file. This shows up just fine in game, so I don't think the X-file was the problem.

To check that I'm going to adjust the abbidon destroyer to use the new x file and mesh, see what happens.

[Sundansyr]

Phoenix-D said:
You cannot edit .x files manually; you need a program like Wings 3d for that.

And what else? 3D modelling is not something I have done much if in the past... and even then it was with architectural CAD programs.

*components' line is parsed: 0 // 0 rather than with the number of equipped components for that ship record."

This is the problem. If you try to specify a component to equip it MUST go into a valid slot. If you try to put it into a slot that doesn't exist- error. And since your ship *has* no slots..

I cut those ships out as they were causing problems. I still get a black screen when I open the shipyard, but hitting alt-F4 clears whatever that error is and I can use the shipyard normally.

The '0 // 0' was there *before* I started making any changes to the playerpurchaseships.txt file. Those ships all had their components listed, but whenever I purchase one of them there's nothing on them.

<edit>
I just realized something. Slotmodder offers a 'hardpoint number', which I thought was for weapons. Maybe that also goes for engines? I did not give engines/shields/armor 'hardpoint slot numbers', beyond their facing arcs.

[Exan]

You could use a program called Anim8or. It's free, simple and small. I don't know where you can download it though. Someone here posted a link about half an year ago. That's how I found it.

If you can get 3d studio max then that's great. Just do the "Modelling a low polygon spacefighter" -tutorial and you know the basics of how to create ships. It isn't that hard to learn.

Sundansyr:
I just realized something. Slotmodder offers a 'hardpoint number', which I thought was for weapons. Maybe that also goes for engines? I did not give engines/shields/armor 'hardpoint slot numbers', beyond their facing arcs.

No engines do not need hardpoint numbers. Only weapons does. However you have to turn the component type from hull to armor to armor slots. Only shields and armor requires facing. Weapon slots need the hardpoint number and the firing arc. The firing arc in the slot file must be the same as in the SpaceObjectsXFiles.txt

[Sundansyr]

Exan said:
You could use a program called Anim8or. It's free, simple and small.

I've got it, installed it... What is it supposed to make use of? It can't read the Xfiles.

If you can get 3d studio max then that's great.

I might be able to. Will it be able to parse the xfiles for SF? I've noticed that the game uses just two files for all of its 3D objects: The Xfile and the skin .bmp that it addresses.

Only shields and armor requires facing. Weapon slots need the hardpoint number and the firing arc. The firing arc in the slot file must be the same as in the SpaceObjectsXFiles.txt

Ahh, I had not realized the shield facing issue... I thought when you defined the slot (shield 1 - 1) it automatically registered that as the forward shield slot #1. I'll go back in and check my work, definately.
The shield slots are configured as 1 (forward) 2 (port) 3 (aft) 4 (starboard), correct?

[DeadZone]

First thing to note

Photoshop and Paintshop are 2D graphic programs only (they can give a picture an apperance of it being 3D however, even though it isnt

Convert the XFile into a format that anim8tor can understand

End of the day, you have to create a 3d file in a program, save it and then convert it too a XFile