I love the x games, tbh only x2 and x3. X1 was before my gaming age, rebirth was just not the thing for me and I don't have the time and energy to get to know x4.
A while ago I looked for a paper model of the argon centaur from x2. I liked that ship a lot when I first played that game. There seems to be no existing paper model for the centaur. I already started to work on one by myself but that for later.
A ship design I also really like is the Teladi Kea from X3 Albion Prelude. I want that as a model!
When I tried to make the centaur model I got to know all the difficulties and the necessary tools to extract the ship models from the game file and how to put them into file formats to load them up into 3d modeling software etc. It requires some old modding tools from the x community. Fortunately these tools are still available online. But you have to search for them quite a lot^^
I managed to convert the ship files into .obj format.
My 3d modeling program to use is blender. I don't know blender. It took days over days to get to know it a little. But I did not want to spend 70 bucks for pepakura and there is a paper model export script for blender. Perhabs some day I will pay for pepakura.
Thanks to the modding community tools the uv maps for the model textures came along the converting way and I can load the model up in blender with textures:
One thing I don't like are the arkwardly high engines, the two big ones at the aft. Look like exhaust pipes of a truck. I lowered them and - with the two lower ones - tried to align them with an imagined center-of-mass:
Then I tried to export the ship piece by piece with the paper model script for blender. But it spew out 50+ parts and impossible folds and faces, just for the long hull part without wings and all. That is really sad because I know the paper model script can work great. I made a model of the "Alte Nationalgalerie" here in Berlin as a present for my wife (I want to share that template with you, but I have to ask for permission from the creator of the 3d object of the gallery).
I took a look at the mesh from the ship and it has some complicated recessed part and some faces fold into each other. Looks really complicated.
I spend hours, almost days to get to know the sculpt tools but it just destroyed the mesh completely.
Then I discovered the measuring tool in blender. you can measure a line AND you can measure angles!
Driven mad by the idea of having a Teladi Kea paper model I began to measure at least every line and angle necessary to achieve the shape of the hull roughly:
And that's why I call this model the low poly edition. With this method I loose a bit of the round shapes but I'm fine with that.
The lines and angles gave me the faces which I draw "by hand" in a vector graphics software. I prefer vector over raster graphics because of scaleability. Though I could have used the original textures somehow to achieve more detail.
first test build to check the overall shape
and then to the serious business.
The shapes for the engine parts I got from the paper model export script for blender. The rest I measured and draw.
A while ago I looked for a paper model of the argon centaur from x2. I liked that ship a lot when I first played that game. There seems to be no existing paper model for the centaur. I already started to work on one by myself but that for later.
A ship design I also really like is the Teladi Kea from X3 Albion Prelude. I want that as a model!
When I tried to make the centaur model I got to know all the difficulties and the necessary tools to extract the ship models from the game file and how to put them into file formats to load them up into 3d modeling software etc. It requires some old modding tools from the x community. Fortunately these tools are still available online. But you have to search for them quite a lot^^
I managed to convert the ship files into .obj format.
My 3d modeling program to use is blender. I don't know blender. It took days over days to get to know it a little. But I did not want to spend 70 bucks for pepakura and there is a paper model export script for blender. Perhabs some day I will pay for pepakura.
Thanks to the modding community tools the uv maps for the model textures came along the converting way and I can load the model up in blender with textures:
One thing I don't like are the arkwardly high engines, the two big ones at the aft. Look like exhaust pipes of a truck. I lowered them and - with the two lower ones - tried to align them with an imagined center-of-mass:
Then I tried to export the ship piece by piece with the paper model script for blender. But it spew out 50+ parts and impossible folds and faces, just for the long hull part without wings and all. That is really sad because I know the paper model script can work great. I made a model of the "Alte Nationalgalerie" here in Berlin as a present for my wife (I want to share that template with you, but I have to ask for permission from the creator of the 3d object of the gallery).
I took a look at the mesh from the ship and it has some complicated recessed part and some faces fold into each other. Looks really complicated.
I spend hours, almost days to get to know the sculpt tools but it just destroyed the mesh completely.
Then I discovered the measuring tool in blender. you can measure a line AND you can measure angles!
Driven mad by the idea of having a Teladi Kea paper model I began to measure at least every line and angle necessary to achieve the shape of the hull roughly:
And that's why I call this model the low poly edition. With this method I loose a bit of the round shapes but I'm fine with that.
The lines and angles gave me the faces which I draw "by hand" in a vector graphics software. I prefer vector over raster graphics because of scaleability. Though I could have used the original textures somehow to achieve more detail.
first test build to check the overall shape
and then to the serious business.
The shapes for the engine parts I got from the paper model export script for blender. The rest I measured and draw.
