Skin the Arrow Freighter.
  Create new roof screen mosaïcs.
  Translate Arrow's docs for your language's community.
  Zipping your addon - IMPORTANT !



Skin the Arrow Freighter.

Arrow skins example
Arrow skins example



This doc is only for confirmed painter, I assume that you are familiar with texture unwrap, how to use paint program, handle layered PSD and save in various format.

The skins folder tree
The skins folder tree
Skins folders are located in Textures2/UcgoArrow/Skins/. Each skin folder may contain all the 4 external textures or only some. Missing skin textures will be taken from the skin folder "Default" so you don't need to provide unmodified textures with your skin.



Texture name and painted zone

"MainHullFront.dds" front hull
"MainHullFront.dds" front hull



"MainHullRear.dds" rear hull
"MainHullRear.dds" rear hull



"BayWingsDetails.dds" middle hull, engines, bay, airlocks, wings
"BayWingsDetails.dds" middle hull, engines, bay, airlocks, wings



"EmissiveLightDetails.dds" external VC, crew, windows, inner bay
"EmissiveLightDetails.dds" external VC, crew, windows, inner bay




Tips: Usually you'd need only to paint MainHullFront, MainHullRear and BayWingsDetails (for the tail wing logo).


Creating a new skin

First you need to create a new folder in the skins directory. The folder's name is important as it will be used as skin name. You might not exceed 15 characters (As the Arrow VC display only 15 chars) avoid space and choose a unique and explicit name.

Correct: NewNasaDark, MetroidTimeUsed
Wrong: Blue, My cool skin, skin

Second you must download the PSD source below:
ArrowFreighter25SkinSDK.zip (I used photoshop CS5)

Normal layer vs transparency layer
Normal layer vs transparency layer
Tips: Use layer transparency and/or layer in overlay mode so your paint look realistic.


Once your paint done save all the modified textures in your skin folder in DXT1 dds format with mipmaps and test in Orbiter.

Last please read the Zipping your addon - IMPORTANT !

Back to index

Create new roof screen mosaïcs.

The three roof screens, a nice in context ambiance add
The three roof screens, a nice in context ambiance add




<em>Scr_Saturn_Default.jpg</em>
Scr_Saturn_Default.jpg
How it work:

Roof screen images are taken from 1024x1024 mosaics that contain 24 images each as the one you see on the left. All thoses mosaics are located in the Textures2/UcgoArrow/RoofScreen folder.

The RoofScreen system allow at least 4000 images per planet (body) for a total of >100'000 images for the whole Orbiter's solar system. By default the Arrow Freighter is provided only with 24 or 48 images per major body for a total of 880 images.

The system is made so only one mosaic is loaded in memory, so 24 or 100'000 images is exactly the same in term of performances.

Needless to say that you can add much more and for any body, default or custom solar system.



At run time the mosaics are selected by their filename.

Example of filename:
Scr_Jupiter_RobertShark1.dds
Scr_Moon_Kevin322.dds
Scr_Deimos_PeterBlack1.dds
Scr_Deimos_PeterBlack2.dds

And this what each part mean:

Scr_Jupiter_RobertShark1.dds

Yellow=mandatory keyword or character
Green=Nearest Body name
Blue=Unique name, author etc. etc. (So mosaics addons for the same body don't overwrite)


For some body you might want to provide different roof screen images when aproaching the planet (far view) and when landed (topographic, ground etc. etc.). In this case you can use the keyword "ScrOrbit_" and "ScrLanded_" instead of "Scr_". Those two keywords have a higher priority over "Scr_" mosaics.

Example:
ScrOrbit_Titan_RobertShark.dds
ScrLanded_Titan_RobertShark.dds

There is also somes more keyword for special areas:

Scr_Asteroid_= Ship in asteroid zone, beetween Mars and Jupiter.
Scr_DeepSpace_= Ship far from any body or zone.
Scr_Sun_= Ship close to Sun.

Example:
Scr_Asteroid_RobertShark.dds
Scr_DeepSpace_RobertShark.dds
Scr_Sun_RobertShark.dds


How mosaic are loaded

All the mosaics that match your current location are logically and randomly queued for display. So they will display randomly but will not repeat until all images have been displayed. So for example if five mosaic have been found for Titan you'll have 120 images queued.

To know wich mosaic is currently loaded as source you can click on the "?" button next to Roof Screen controls:





To test your mosaic you can temporary remove the other for one body or click on roof screen in manual control to accelerate the mosaic change.


Create one mosaic

Each image on one mosaic is exactly 254x168 pixel and are placed accordingly to the red grid that you can find on this Psd template. Once done, disable the red grid layer and save in DXT1 dds without mipmaps and with the correct name.

Tips: I personaly used photoshop scripts to grab, cut, resize and place automatically all the 24 images of one folder, so after some google image search my mosaics where almost done. If you plan to make several one consider automatising your work.


Release of your new mosaics

After carrefull test in Orbiter of all your mosaics follow the "zip with correct path" tutorial.

Back to index

Translate Arrow's docs for your language's community.

The Arrow Freighter's html and in-game docs are both made from the same txt files. A special utility programs convert them in ready-to-use html doc.

Edit txt files, click - done !

Example: source txt of the page 3. This is the only file you need to edit...
Example: source txt of the page 3. This is the only file you need to edit...



...and the result in Orbiter and in browser once the converter launched.
...and the result in Orbiter and in browser once the converter launched.




Translating the Arrow Freighter's doc

All the Arrow's help text files are located in config/UCgoArrow/. You'll need to translate first the ArrowHelpMenu.txt and ArrowHelpHtmlPage.txt then you can translate all the ArrowHelp[number].txt. At any time you can launch the convert utility and check the html result.

Bad work, all is messed
Bad work, all is messed
Warning: For the ArrowHelp[number].txt you must check if your texts fits in the Arrow's help screen. No need to re-launch Orbiter for each check,launch Orbiter in windowed mode, edit your txt file, save it and click "help" button in arrow, the new txt file will be fresh loaded and displayed.

Also don't mess the '<>' tags, they are used for txt color or image display in the html doc. (eg: <w> <b> <HtmlDocImage...> etc. etc.)


Same font, same lines lenght.
Same font, same lines lenght.
To help you get the right line lenght, you can set notepad to use Arial 12pts font which is the one that the Arrow use.



Once all look right in Orbiter simply launch the doc/UniversalCarsAndCargos/bin/ArrowHtmlDocCreator.exe that will re-create the Arrow Freighter's html documentation with your changes.


Translate this SDK documentation (Optional)

Optionnaly you can also translate this page, the principe is the same than the Arrow's doc: some sources txt and a converter. First translate all the *.txt from this folder and launch the HtmlDocCreator.exe.


Release of translated documentation

Following the "zip with correct path" tutorial include thoses files in your archive: translated files to includes

Back to index

Zipping your addon - IMPORTANT !



A quality addon is also well packed. The zip must be properly named, contain a ReadMe.txt and files must go at proper place when the archive is unziped in Orbiter's root directory. if you don't know how to, this chapter is for you.


Archive's read me

The ReadMe must contain what the addon is for, which version, your username and how to install it. The ReadMe.txt must be placed in your addon's folder, NOT in Orbiter's root directory.

Example of minimal read-me, user have all the informations he need:
Metroid skin for the UCGO Arrow Freighter 3.0
---------------------------------------------

Unzip in Orbiter 2010's directory, all files will go in proper place.

Happy Orbiting !

Rick211
All my addons: http://www.OrbiterHangar.com?User=Rick211

How to zip with correct path

Create on your desktop a folder named for example "OrbiterZip", into this folder recreate the complete Orbiter path where your files will be placed. In our case "Textures2/UCGOArrow/Skins/YourSkinFolder". Place all files included the ReadMe.txt.





Then right click on the root folder and select your favorite zip program's (winzip, 7zip) "add to archive" option.






Archive's name

To be user-friendly, the archive name must be explicit.

Correct: ArrowSkin_NewNasaDark.zip, ArrowSkin_MetroidTime.zip
Wrong: Blue.zip, MySkin.zip, NewNasa.zip


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