Help with exporting custom ships

[Tyber Bei]

I'm attempting to create a FreeSpace ship mod by bringing in the ships used by the FSOpen project. The ship imports into Maya fine and textures can be applied to it. The exporter tool generates 3 files (.asset, .gfx, and .mesh) where asset and gfx are 1kb in size and mesh is significantly larger. ive moved them into the appropriate folder in my mod folder and launched the game.

I try the spawnentity command as it says in the exporter wiki and i get the successful spawn message in the console. however nothing shows up at my cursor.
I can think of 2 things that may be the cause;
1. the entity has actually spawned but is too small to see (there is no fleet details to confirm this). for reference the ship i slightly bigger than the Maya perspective grid. i am not sure if this is too big or too small.
2. The entity has spawned an invisible skeleton as ive seen mentioned in other threads.

Would someone have an idea as to what i am doing wrong? or point me to other guides?

If you need anything, let me know and ill post it ASAP.

EDIT: added more detail for clarity

 

[K-vald]

Hey, can you post the contents of your .asset and .gfx files?

 

[Tyber Bei]

heres the asset file

entity = {
    name = "gta_01_perseus_mid_s1_entity"
    pdxmesh = "gta_01_perseus_mid_s1_mesh"
}

and the gfx file

objectTypes = {
    pdxmesh = {
        name = "gta_01_perseus_mid_s1_mesh"
        file = "output/gta_01_perseus_mid_s1.mesh"
        scale = 1.0

        meshsettings = {
            name = "gta_01_perseus_mid_s1"
            index = 0
            texture_diffuse = "perseus_diffuse.dds"
            texture_normal = "perseus_normal.dds"
            texture_specular = "perseus_specular.dds"
            shader = "PdxMeshRunemaster"
        }
    }
}

looking at the file parameter in gfx, i feel l like that should be my mod directory?

 

[K-vald]

looking at the file parameter in gfx, i feel l like that should be my mod directory?

Yeah, that is wrong. Also your shader should be "PdxMeshShip".

 

[Tyber Bei]

still no go, but ive managed to get an engine glow to show thanks to this tutorial
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...o-material-to-add.931668/page-4#post-21292576

i completely redid the set up as per the tutorial and theres still no model showing (except the glow).

here is the asset and gfx contents

entity = {
    name = "gta_01_perseus_frame_entity"
    pdxmesh = "gta_01_perseus_frame_mesh"
   
    default_state = "idle"
    state = { name = "idle"     animation = "idle" animation_blend_time = 0.25
        start_event = { trigger_once = yes sound = { soundeffect = "amb_corvette_hum" } }
    }
    state = { name = "moving"    animation = "idle" animation_blend_time = 0.25
    event = { trigger_once = yes sound = { soundeffect = moving_out_corvette } }
    }
   
   
    scale = 1

}
entity = {
    name = "gta_01_perseus_entity"
    pdxmesh = "gta_01_perseus_mesh"
   
    default_state = "idle"
    state = { name = "idle" state_time = 5
        event = { time = 0 node = "engine1" particle = "avian_01_1_6_exhaust_idle_particle" trigger_once = yes keep_particle = yes }
    }
    state = { name = "moving" state_time = 5
        event = { time = 0 node = "engine1" particle = "avian_01_1_7_ship_exhaust_moving_particle" trigger_once = yes keep_particle = yes }
    }
}

objectTypes = {
    pdxmesh = {
        name = "gta_01_perseus_frame_mesh"
        file = "gfx/models/ships/gta_01/gta_01_perseus_frame.mesh"
           
        scale = 1
        meshsettings = {
            shader = "PdxMeshShip"
        }
    }
    pdxmesh = {
        name = "gta_01_perseus"
        file = "gfx/models/ships/gta_01/gta_01_perseus.mesh"
        scale = 1

        meshsettings = {
            name = "gta_01_perseus"
            index = 0
            texture_diffuse = "perseus_diffuse.dds"
            texture_normal = "perseus_normal.dds"
            texture_specular = "perseus_specular.dds"
            shader = "PdxMeshShip"
        }
    }
}

 

[K-vald]

Ok, would you mind uploading your textures, .mesh file and the Maya file and I can have a look at it?

 

[Tyber Bei]

heres the entire gfx sub folder, thats K-vald

EDIT: And all the maya files

 

[K-vald]

Ok I got it to work, you had different mesh names in the .gfx and the .asset file. It was gta_01_perseus in the .gfx file and gta_01_perseus_mesh in the .asset file. It got fixed by just changing one of the names to be as the other.

 

[Tyber Bei]

awesome! thanks heaps for your help