Damage textures??

Posted: Thu Aug 26, 2010 4:01 am

Okay so I've spent months searching for damage textures. Now I'm asking. How the hell do you make them?? Textures are beyond my skills to create but what I'm after is either a good solid tutorial to show how they are made, or a resource that has them. These damage textures that I'm looking for would look something like, say, Voyager did during the two parter "Year of Hell", sort of black scaring and scortch marks. The reason I need these is to complete one of two final sections to my A1 mod.

Anyway. Any help is highly appreciated.

Cadet 3rd Year Joined: Apr 20, 2009 Posts: 80

ok, should be easy to do in photoshop by using some of those for example:

http://www.rnel.net/tutorial/Photoshop/14034

if you need help with it -> pm!

edit: found some other crack brushes that could also be applied:

http://designm.ag/resources/cracks-brushes-photoshop/

Posted: Thu Aug 26, 2010 3:11 pm

Many thanks Tommy. I'm sure I'll be able to make use of those in some capacity.

Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2010 2:27 am

I've done some work with damages in the past, but had a little difficulty and set it aside for later. But since you brought it up....I was working with adding scarring from torpedo strikes. I found a great scar pattern and altered it so it would include a little charring around the edges. I got it working in the game, but damage textures are lighted by default in armada. So, instead of a static damage scar of black and grey I got a scar that pulsed orange and red. I never figured out how to turn off the flame animation. But if you can figure that out Major...maybe we could work on perfecting it. Then we could have great scar textures in both our mods.

Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2010 2:28 am

PM me and we can talk

Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2010 6:30 pm

Cmndr_Parker1,

Did you replace the existing textures? Or did you add new sprite nodes / damage mesh?

The standard damage sprites used on stock ships are all sprite nodes. To remove their animation, just change the appropriate sprite animation to "const" (ie. no animation). Unfortunately, I am away from my modding machine atm so I can't give you the exact line to change. Will edit this post later today) I believe the sprite file to look into is damage.spr
Edit: yes, the file to look into is damage.spr. Just change "fire" and "fire2" in the sprite node entries to "const" to take out the pulsating orange animation:
@sprite_node crew1 crew1 const (5,5) (1,1,1)

If you add a mesh-type damage to a ship, you can specify a texture animation as per any other type of mesh texture animation (add an animation node to the mesh)

MajorPayne,

I could forward a damage tutorial that I've been working on. Its original intent was for FT members until release, but it now has limited usefullness as I'm the only one working on adding hull damage. The tutorial is for 3ds max 5, but you would be able to extract the info you'd need to apply it in milkshape too. Let me know.

Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2010 12:35 am

I would be interested in that damage tut as well Mr. Vulcan. I'll PM you my e-mail addy. On that note, I've been thinking and have come to the conclusion that what would probably work best is creating a damage text for each ship like armada does for borg assimilation textures. Maybe create the damage texture and name it D_fcruise1 like B_fcruise1 for borg texts. The question is how do you get the engine to recognize and load the damage textures.....would you have to add a special node and link it to the damage mother node?

Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2010 1:30 am

Quote:

would you have to add a special node and link it to the damage mother node?

You would add to the specific damage node (say, engines) a mesh containing the appropriate damage.

For each of the damage nodes, you'll have a combination of meshes, sprite nodes and emitters for whatever damage effect you want to produce. But unlike the geometry node, everything attached to the damage nodes appear only when the corresponding system is down (either disabled or damaged).

Hope this helps

Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2010 9:23 am

Thanks Mr. Vulcan it was a very informative and useful document. I have one additional question......where can I get that ship from? It would make a great troop transport.

Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2010 1:56 am

Sorry Cmndr_Parker, but that ship is strictly FT and is not for personal use or re-release. Thanks Smile