Creating .x objects

[Taera]

Seeing that SEV is coming, I'm looking at my lovely green ships and thinking "Man, that'd look good in there". Now I don't quite own any great 3D programs, and don't know much about .x files.

I know there are a couple articles, but I want a communal answer as to how to create the dreaded .x files?

Should I dish out the money to get some 3d-max-esque program?

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Make a ship in wings3d (Free). Save it as 3ds. Load the 3ds into milkshape ($40), texture. Save as .x.

[Atrocities]

If you do buy 3d max, John Beech has a great tutorial site.
You will have to ask him for permission to view the site though.

I plan to do it on the cheap... by using DOGA.

I create the model in DOGA, export it to Meta, then clean it up, create a UV Map, then save it as an X file. My only problem is texturing the model.

I have a nice UV map of the model, with all the parts, that does not really help me, but it does give me a BMP to work with.

Once I learn how to layer the BMP, I hope to make some nice Textured skins for models.

[Ed Kolis]

Or:
Make a ship (and texture it) in Art of Illusion (free, www.artofillusion.org).
Export directly to .X using my .X exporter plugin (http://kolis.dyndns.org/ed/prog/exportX/exportX-1.1.zip)
Note that if you use procedural 3D textures, the model won't look all that great (you will have lots of ugly seams)... I'll have to work on fixing that!

[Atrocities]

Downloading the AOI program is a real ***** though.... must go through several web pages to get.

[Hugh Manatee]

Try Blender, its free, powerful, has built in texturing tools(you can use lithunwrap too if you want), a large helpful community, its easy to download, easy(but different) to use and exports to .x . Once you realize that everything you need to do can be done with hotkeys it's pretty simple.

[zircher]

If you're on a budget and want a fairly easy learning curve, you might want to try DoGA CGA as a designer and Metasequoia LE as the model tweaking tool.

I recently wrote up a three part tutorial that walks you through nearly everything you need to do to create models for SEV/StarFury.

http://zircher.iwarp.com/doga
--
TAZ

[Taera]

Well, i'm coming from a background of using Moray, which is somewhat advanced. Doga... I've heard that its relative simplistic. I do want some good quality, but I'll look into that. Thanks.

[Fyron]

Make sure to check out that Art of Illusion that Ekolis mentioned.

[Ed Kolis]

Well, my .X plugin still has some bugs to fix, at least if you want to use 3D textures... I'll have to get around to finishing those off sometime - I've fixed a few but it seems there are still more to deal with