Paint your wagon!

[GothStag]

This has probably been asked before but how would you go about customising the paintwork on your ship?

[Dr. Nil]

Make a ship in 10 steps

The easiest way would be to do it as a simple OXP:

1) Copy an existing OXP folder with something simple in it. I'll just use nuvipers.oxp for demo purposes here (it's only got ships in it).

2) Rename your copied folder to the name of your new ship or something else which doesn't clash with an existing oxp (remember to keep the .oxp suffix). Let's say it's called dubious_profit.oxp

3) Go to the folder dubious_profit.oxp\Textures and delete the textures already there. Put your own texture dubious_profit.png into this folder.

4) Go to the folder dubious_profit.oxp\Models and delete the files there. Make a copy of the model for the original ship that you're re-texturing into this folder (eg. python_redux2.dat make sure it's the one with the name corresponding to the texture you used) from ...\Oolite\oolite.app\Contents\Resources\Models and rename it to dubious_profit.dat

5) Get a text editor like Vim ( http://www.vim.org/ ) which makes it easy to see what's going on inside the files.

6) Open dubious_profit.dat with your text editor and use search and replace to change all instances of python_redux2.png (or the name of the texture your base model used) to dubious_profit.png

7) Go to ...\Oolite\oolite.app\Contents\Resources\Config and open shipdata.plist with your text editor. Search for the name of the model you used (eg. python_redux2.dat). Scroll up until you get to the previous instance of "<key>" (eg. "<key>python-blackdog</key>"). Mark everything from and including "<key>" down to and including the next instance of "</dict>" NOT "<dict>" (which would only be the next line;)) and do a 'copy'.

8 ) Go to the folder dubious_profit.oxp\Config and open shipdata.plist. Mark everything from and including the first instance of "<key>" (here "<key>viper2</key>") to the last-but-one instance of "</dict>" (leaving only a "</dict>" and a "</plist>" at the end of the file and paste the entry you copied from the shipdata.plist in 7.

9) Find the entry for the model in your new shipdata.plist by searching for it's name (here "python_redux2.dat") and replace it with the name of your own model (here "dubious_profit.dat"). Now search the file for "roles" if the line below "<key>roles</key>" says anything but "<string>pirate</string>" change so that it only says "<string>pirate</string>". Change the name of the ship both at the top (here "<key>python-blackdog</key>" to "<key>dubious_profit</key>") and in the line below "<key>name</key>" (here "<string>Python</string>" to "<string>Dubious Profit</string>"

10) Open demoships.plist with your editor. Remove the line "<string>viper-cruiser</string>" and change the line "<string>viper2</string>" to "<string>dubious_profit</string>"

[Arexack_Heretic]

There is the custom paints oxp, that lets you buy several pimped up ships.
Only contains small ships though.
I'll eventually revisit paints.oxp too and incorporate shaders.

Currently I'm pimping my own ride the Cobra mkIII the 'Grey Rose'.
Together with the 'Dubious Profit', I'll be customizing several ships as the fancy takes me. and release them as a small famous-ships.oxp.


If you like, describe your dream-boat and I MAY be inspired enough to add yours too. (Not promising anything)

If anything, you'll have a nice description to work off.

@above 10step tut:
what I do usually in shipdata is a 'like_ship' to the playership in question, then only add keys that need to be changed. (name, model etc)