Most excellent.  Thank you GoaFan77 for the speedy reply.  I will attempt that now, and report back in the next little bit if it fails.  ( If you don't hear back from me, it means it worked and I'm killing stuff. )

Just another friendly crash FYI, apparently if a buff that uses "buffInstantActionType "GiveCreditsToPlayer" ends up on a neutral entity, it will cause an instant minidump. So make sure the neutral player (and possibly other special players) can never get any cash. 

Okay, I have a quick question for you expert modelers. I have a ship that I want to use as a Corvette and have rigged up and gotten into Sins just fine. However, for a ship of its importance the file size is a bit higher than I'd like, being more inline with a capitalship than a frigate. Is there anything fairly easy I could do to reduce the poly count?

How high are you at now? The Vasari corvette is almost 6k poly.

There is a tool in xsi that can reduce polygons while maintaining the UV-map, it works pretty well unless your model is more organic which can cause more distortions.

Okay, its not as bad as the Vasari Corvette. I don't know about the polycount but its 10k vertices while the Vasari one is about 17k. Still, unlike the Vasari model its not a very organic model, a few curves and 3 gun turrets but nothing that would seem to justify its current level of detail. I already reduced the dimensions of its textures by 1/4 because the extra detail wasn't worth it or noticeable.

Select the polygons you want to reduce (i.e. you can exclude finer detail parts like turrets) and choose Poly. Mesh->Polygon Reduction. Then you can play with the percents watching for any visual issues in the model. It's not a guarantee but it's an option I know that "can" work.

Export to xsi and see if the convertxsi complains about any issues next.

As always keep a backup of your original model

Looks handy, glad I know about that tool now, but is it supposed to be putting holes in my model? I don't mind it looking more angular/blocky, but outright gaps aren't going to cut it.

Your mesh probably isn't connected at those points then It shouldn't be putting holes unless the mesh is holy.

Ya, it will put holes if there is nowhere to reduce

I have reduced many models without quality loss. Want me to have a look at it?

Greetings.  Another question.

I'm taking a look at the different starbases ( Advent, Tech, and Vasari. ) and something I am interested in is causing starbases to automatically spread/repel culture.

Looking at the advent starbases, I see where the upgrades apply a new mesh to generate culture, but am not finding a place where I can automatically spread culture from.

I've tried inserting this :

cultureSpreadRate 1.000000

CultureProtectRate 1.000000

at various points in the GameInfo file, and it doesn't seem to work.  ( The game freezes up whenever I go to enable the mod. )

I am thinking I am just placing the information in the wrong area, but am not sure where to place it.  Not really finding a place that makes sense to me.  ( Looking at the culture buildings for each of the races hasn't helped, because of the differences between starbases and planet structures. )

Can anyone suggest where I might want to insert that particular bit of code to get them to start spreading/repelling culture?

You may be able to give starbases a 4th ability that passively spreads culture. Conversely you could add

upgradePropertyCount 2
    upgradeProperty
        propertyType "CultureSpreadRate"
        value 1.750000
    upgradeProperty
        propertyType "EnemyCultureRepelRate"
        value 0.500000

To the hull or weapon upgrades of each starbase. For example, StarBaseUpgradeTechToughness.entity would contain (changes highlighted):

upgradePropertyCount 8
    upgradeProperty
        propertyType "MaxHullPoints"
        value 3000.000000
    upgradeProperty
        propertyType "HullPointRestoreRate"
        value 1.500000
    upgradeProperty
        propertyType "MaxShieldPoints"
        value 2000.000000
    upgradeProperty
        propertyType "ShieldPointRestoreRate"
        value 3.000000
    upgradeProperty
        propertyType "MaxShieldMitigation"
        value 0.600000
    upgradeProperty
        propertyType "BaseArmorPoints"
        value 6.000000
    upgradeProperty
        propertyType "CultureSpreadRate"
        value 1.750000
    upgradeProperty
        propertyType "EnemyCultureRepelRate"
        value 0.500000

Just be warned that you may need to add that to every level so that a level 2 hull upgrade doesn't lose the culture benefit.

That seems to have worked.  Thanks WOEaintME.

Hello guys!

I am trying to replace stock planets and their textures with custom made ones and also doubling their relative size. All good but i seams to have problems with cloud in the atmosphere. I have no idea what does controls the radius (size) of the atmosphere around a planet. I noticed the cloudLayerTextureName "PlanetCloudLayer" which i presume creates the effect but i dont know why cant i see it. The planet is a simple sphere made in XSI and thexture applied on it. So do i need another sphere which what to the "PlanetCloudLayer" texture is applied to?

Any help would be great!

Thx guys!

Also if anyone could point me toward how to make custom shields and apply "new look", texture on them; would be much appreciated. 

Not sure why your clouds are messed up, I have somewhat different sized planets and they seem to work more or less.

I'm not an expert on this either, but shields do not use textures. I think you can adjust some basic things about them in the race.entity file for each faction, but much of their look is defined by the shield.fx shader.

Some things in regards to the clouds...

Make sure "renderAsVolcanic" (or something like that) is false...IIRC having that set to true makes the clouds not appear....

Make sure your cloud color is a valid hex color...ffffffff is the norm so if having that doesn't work then clearly your problem lies elsewhere...

Did you make custom cloud textures or are you just using the stock ones?  Did you rename them or change their file format?  If you made your own, what compression and mipmap settings did you use?

Make sure the bounding radius is equal to the extents.  I'm pretty sure clouds are placed in relation to the radius listing in the mesh.

My account is fixed!

Let me know if anything needs an add/change here.

How do I make Images for "Races_Unit_Infocard" and "Races_Unit_Main" I am familiar with using Photoshop and Gimp but I can't figure out how they made those Images

I know of Unit_Infocard and Unit_Main, but I don't see any files that have "Races" or one of the race code names anywhere. Are those what you are talking about?

Sounds like my old Races mod starter... If they are dds you'll need the DDS plugin for Gimp.

Yea sorry that's what I meant (Unit_Infocard and Unit_Main) I can open them just fine in Gimp, I just don't know how to make the icons like they do so that the team colors show.

You don't have to worry about that. Simply make your icons in grayscale like you see in those files. The game will convert the grayscale icons to the appropriate team color.

Thank you

I have a problem when I GrayScale it, sometimes the image is too dark and when I transfer it to the Unit_Main and look in game you can barely see it. Is their any other way to do it... I was looking at STA 3 files and their icon in the textures folder do not look grayscaled almost Brightened up, How do I do it that way?

Here is some of my Mods Icons done by previous members but unfortunately they are no longer active and I have no way to get in contact with them to ask them how they did it.

The Brightness/Contrast tool is your friend.