Creating a station tutorial - Starpoint Gemini Warlords

Post tutorial Report RSS Creating a station

A continuation on the "Creating a ship of your own" tutorial shows the final steps for adding a new station model into Starpoint Gemini Warlords.

Posted by DanijelMihokovic on Nov 7th, 2016 - Basic Props Modelling

This tutorial part will cover the differences between creating ships and stations and should follow after you’ve read through the Ship creation tutorial as steps are basically the same through almost the whole process. To recap, models (except for Engines polys of course), LOD levels, collisions, textures, assembly setup and particle systems creation follow the same workflow for creating a ship.

Rotating parts of a station

When creating a station (or a ship for that matter), designers usually want parts of the station to rotate. If you need a part of the station to have a rotation loop, make sure you detach the rotating station’s part and center its pivot to the point you want the object to rotate around, and positioning the object to global 0,0,0 prior the exporting.

Later on you simply attach the rotating model into your .asb file and configure the loop rotation by editing AngularVelocity parameter in the model’s StaticMesh chunk. Here’s the example from Triton Academy station:

StaticMesh:
{
  Instanced: 0
  MeshName: Data\Models\Stations\TritonAcademy\RotorHull1.mdl
  Position: -535.00 0.00 0.00
  Rotation: 0.00 62.44 0.00
  AngularVelocity: 0.00 0.03 0.00
  StreamDistance: 7000.00
  DrawDistance: 5000.00
  AditionalSort: DEFAULT
  Scale: 1.00 1.00 1.00
}

We’ve set the model in question to rotate on Y axis and set the Velocity to 0.03 which suits the entire assembly quite well. This same approach can be used on any form of .asb, not just stations. We frequently use it on structures for example.

Difference between creating a ship and a station asset

Different workflow begins after you have your Station’s assembly file all set. Navigate to Data\Models\Stations\Baeldor_Military_Station\ and look for station.sta file. Every station you create needs this file, it will be linked in station’s database. Copy the file to a folder you have your assembly in, open it in your Notepad/Notepad++ and change the path to lead to your station’s assembly file (.asb).

Here you should also edit Load and UnloadDistance parameters. Unlike ships, stations are global objects and need these parameters to work properly. These parameters handle a range when stations streams in and out still leaving the possibility to select it over a Starchart in game and managing options like GoTo etc. When your path and Un/LoadDistance set, save the file.

Now you should link .sta file in your stations database. Navigate to Data\Base\ and open EditorStations.wdt with Notepad/Notepad++. Simply copy/paste the last line and change the unique Id and Keyname and Path to your .sta file. When done, save the database. The assembly, .sta file and database is configured making the asset prepared for use in the game world (Data\World\World.ics) where it is referenced by the aforementioned Keyname.