Topic: Problem with textures when converting from BC to SFC

[The_Grand_Nagus]

Hi Folks! Ok, I'm trying to convert a model from the game Bridge Commander to Starfleet Command. I'm using a program called Milkshape 3D which seems to convert the model itself just fine, but I'm having a problem with the textures. I'll explain this in a few steps.

Step 1: When I import the BC model into Milkshape, most of the textures do not actually appear:



Step 2: However, when I click on each individual texture and tell it to "ignore alpha" the textures show up:



Step 3: My problem is, when I export the model in SFC format, this is how it appears:



So while I admittedly dont know much about all of this, I'm guessing that whatever issue is causing the textures not to show up in step 1 is also causing the problem I see in step 3.

I'm just speculating, but I have a feeling that what I'm doing in step 2 regarding the "ignore alpha" is somehow not actually saving in the conversion process. But again, I really dont know much about this.
So does anybody who does actually know about 3D modeling or texturing have any idea what might be the problem or how to fix it? Thanks!

[intermech]

You've happened upon the transparent texture phenomenon. The issue is that the tga files has two layers one is the texture, the other is a 256 gray scale map. Some games, like Star Trek Armada II use this extra layer for lighting. White spots on the grayscale map are lights, dark spots just reflect ambient. Milkshape and SFC3 read the gray scale map as a transparency map. Dark spots are transparent, light spots are opaque . . .  and then the shades of gray in between are translucent. The SFC model viewer is based on the SFCII engine which cannot handle the tga format.

The solution is to open the texture files in Irfanview (a free image viewer) and then save them as bmp with the same name. Note that SFC3 reads tga files first and ignores other file formats by the same name, so in the game folder, you will have to remove the tga images.

Now here is another aspect. It appears that these tga textures use the gray scale for lighting. If you have a more advanced program, you can separate the layers and then use the grayscale layer as a separate bmp as your light map.

*I think* the Assimsoft importer will do this for you with certain conversions, but I am trying to remember which (it's been like 10 years since I've messed with it).