Gratz indeed. Getting CCP's permission was the biggest hurdle. Now that we see that they have a blanket permission policy (copyright notice, No profit, and make sure proper CCP credit is given). I also have used triexporter, and exported most of the eve ships. Here is how they look in NanoFX-GE. I use this because it is as close as they will come to how the will look in sins. Ready for import into XSI. Obviously the turret meshes need to be added. Especially to the gunboats

Everything sins needs is already in the vanilla eve models. While the team color, and normal map fix was very easy to do. I cant duplicate is the color shader used to represent the various faction ships (like how Navy ravens seem golden, and guristas seem to have a reddish hue on thier hulls)

Awesome news. Eve was the first type of mod I wanted to do for Sins way back before we had all the modding tools. I could never get into the EVE gameplay but always thought the ships and concept were really cool.

THANK GOD!  I didn't think this would ever happen.  Those ships are AWESOME Magor Stress. 

I take absolutely ZERO credit for the models in those screens. The models are straight out of eve so its CCP's models.

Exporting with Triexporter is simple. Extract the mesh from your eve directory (look in dx9\ships). Save it as an X file the UV-maps will still be intact. Use Deep Exploration to re-apply the textures, and resave it. I say save it as X because that is the format XSI has the least trouble importing. You will need to extract the entire ship folder to get the textures themselves, or you can make it simple and extract everything in your eve folder.

Eve textures are set up similar to sins, but you will need to change some things. Make a backup of course in case you screw it up. The eve normal maps are a little different than what we are used to, but easy to fix. 1st copy the Alpha channel of the eve normal texture and paste it to the red channel.

Make a new texture (shipname-da texture) Copy the Blue channel of your eve ship normal texture, and paste it into your new -da textures Red channel. This is your specular map. Why its in the eve normal map i have no clue. Like i said they did things a little different.

In photoshop use Image\Adjustments\Invert on the blue channel. Play with the brightness\contrast of the blue channel until it looks like a typical normal maps blue channel. Blammo you are done with the normal map. Save it as shipname-nm.

Now open your eve ship diffuse texture (named CB1_TEX_D for example) look in the alpha channel here you will find the ships self illumination map. Copy it and paste it into your new shipname-da's Green, and Alpha channels. The only thing left is any reflection you wish to add to your blue channel. For now i would just leave it black. Save your -da texture.

The "Tex-P" texture is where you will find your team color. Its in the alpha channel. However you will need to re-size the "p" texture to the same resolution as the rest of your textures before you copy it. Once done copy, and paste into your -cl textures alpha as with any sins -cl texture.

Import your exported eve ships .X file into XSI, add your -cl, -da, -nm textures, hardpoints, and tangents as with any sins mesh.

IMO you should start with the "basics" as far as eve ships. Dont add T2, or T3 until T1 is used up, and you have an idea how the gameplay will work first. In otherwords dont bite off more than you can chew. Eve has MANY ships. Not all of them will fit into a sins faction. Plus you must remember the current sins hardcode mesh limit of 300. I would do the 4 main factions (Amarr, Gallente, Caldari, and Minmatar), but give them the basics to start until you understand what makes sins tick.

Its there. You need to use triexporter to view the files like windows explorer. Just remember to export the mesh in "X" format first. Then extract the folder to get the textures. The rest is kind of a no brainer.

Then there is always Newboergs rezise tool

You can do like what SoA 2, and what Eviljedi did for SOGE. What we did with SoA 2 was put a size limit on supersized ships and structures. 1500 meters is more than big enough. Even if its true scale is at 5000 meters. The physical representation has nothing to do with its stats, and in EvE's case there is no way to duplicate that kind of scale in the sandbox of sins. So you improvise.

SOGE half scaled everything (except map objects). Plus they doubled the gravity well sizes (very effective method on both counts). I was considering half scale for everything in SoA 2 as well. I still am considering it.

I got one of the caldari battleships working in game but im having texture problems. When I imported, the mapping was slightly off. I readjusted in the mod tool but in game it is still off set. I have zero 3d modeling software experience so im sure I am just missing a step. 

note: I don't mean to side track the post. To the creators of the mod, I am more than willing to help with the model conversion if you need extra hands.

This is interesting. I've been working on the Amarr race for some time now. If you want to merge, I can provide the irritable mechanical detail. I prefer it over doing model work.

If you wish to merge, the requirement will be accepting races balanced with those of Sins races. Also the fact that only very few files would need to be modified to merge the mod with others. I've been working at it in such a way as to keep it as adaptable as possible.

I did have a modeler earlier, but eventually lost touch with them.

http://i48.tinypic.com/2pttm49.jpg

http://i47.tinypic.com/2mfkjv9.jpg

http://i50.tinypic.com/fv8x2x.jpg

http://i46.tinypic.com/53me50.jpg

http://i50.tinypic.com/1078lqx.jpg

http://i45.tinypic.com/2vwimup.jpg

http://i45.tinypic.com/95n4uv.jpg

http://i48.tinypic.com/5tudqr.jpg

I cannot stress enough that significant simplification as well as collision removal is necessary to make EVE Models work well in Sins.

Additionally, I've already put together music from EVE for myself, but it may be included as well. I've kept minimal Sins battle music, favoring EVE battle music and music from outside sources to take its place. I've taken some eve music and categorized them along with some existing music to make for interesting levels of music for all the races.

Regarding T2, it's a bad idea to add as a whole. Perhaps a special piece for the only four T3 ships, but T1 ships should essentially upgrade into the standard role of T2 ships through technology. For example, the Destroyers gain technology to produce interdiction fields. They will be nerfed, though. . . but most things will with durations cut significantly to match Sin's durations.

Contact Information:

Yahoo: Austinhs2002

AIM: Austinhs2002

MSN: Austinhs2002@yahoo.com

Email me at Austinhs2002@yahoo.com if you want other messenger information. Please visit me on irc.stardock.com IRC server on channels #sins and #stardock, as I am there almost daily and frequently just for quick questions regarding modding.

Stardock IRC alias: Tricit (usually)

I consolidate all my contact on pidgin, so you should be able to contact me from any of them.

purdyaw......  would you be willing to upload your moddification with the Amarr on say filefront....so that others might experience it?

Let your light shine down.....don't hide it.

Oooo.  Think you'll be able to pull off Titans in-game?

I would remind the reader to review the EVE lore and to carefully consider what place and perspective an EVE mod of Sins would take. Would a player be controlling an NPC empire, NPC corporation, or a pod-pilot-only corporation? What options should a player have open to them at that level of abstraction and with the chosen perspective? Is that possible in Sins? Is it APPROPRIATE for Sins? Would it be fun to play (after the first couple of games when the simple fact that you have EVE ships in an RTS wears off)?

I will personally argue that a player should be controlling an NPC empire. This would explain why there are leveling and non-leveling ships; near-immortal pod pilots gain experience, download skills over time, and customize their vessels whereas normal mortals man the navies' droves of cookie-cutter ships by the thousands. Control at an empire level would also fit the Sins lore. Control of a pod-pilot-only corporation would expect things like heavy customization, T3 access, and no need for planetary populations; this is unlikely to be achievable within Sins, or else it will require an amount of modding that will likely never see a day of completion. Control of an NPC corporation might work, but it would be awfully restrictive of the ships available (most corporations produce no ships, and those that do usually only produce 1-4 different models).

I would also suggest that, instead of being equippable modules (something that would be hard and complicated to achieve, and time-consuming to manage in-game), the different modules and their meta-named variants be used as the research tree. The skills necessary to equip them could be used to guide the tree-ness of the researches too.

EVE Online Tech-3 and subsystems do NOT fit into the Iron Engine and SoaSE. I think you could make a very fun mod eschewing T3 though.

As to custom-fitting different modules to different ships, that too does not fit into the Iron Engine or SoaSE. I also think that would destroy any attempts at balance. EVE Online proper is very poorly balanced as things stand already, but the random factor of each individual pilot's competentness is a balancing force in itself (and the fact that no one is forced to use a particular race's ships or equipment).

I think that both story-wise and gameplay-wise, an EVE mod of Sins would be much better off selecting pre-set loadouts for ships based on their EVE standard bonuses (so a ship with a bonus to medium energy turrets will fit medium energy turrets).

I think that another important aspect to consider is time and effort for the mod. I think it would be much better suited to doing a nice mod rather than an everything mod, because the nice mod has a chance of ever being finished before this game is long gone, dead, and forgotten about. AFTER a nice mod is complete and working bug-free, then additional niceties can be worked in. As such, despite whether or not they would be enjoyable to have in-game, I would first toss out supply trains, subsystems, aesthetics beyond ship models, pirate changes, major changes to gameplay mechanics, and UI changes.

- Supply is abstracted in Sins for a reason.
- Tons of customization choices are for turn-based games or tactical games with few units, not for epic real-time games with hundreds of units and nearly too much to micro-manage already.
- Additional aesthetics can come later.
- Alterations of pirates can be put in later. Also, it may be hard since the pirate faction texture coloring is hidden in some .blue and .red files that I have no clue how to read or extract.
- Major changes to the gameplay mechanics will either be hard-impossible because of hard-coded restrictions (look at the Star Trek mod and cloaking), or incredibly hard to balance properly because they will be new.
- Trying to mod in ammo, or ammo changes, seems like a bad idea. If you put it as researches, then there is no way to un-research something if it turns out it was a bad choice.
- Trying to mod in harvesting ships is probably not possible, at least not acting like they do in EVE.
- The Sins GUI works great and Sins players already know how to use it. IF this is ever done, it should be an optional additional component.

@ MajorStress: EVERY turret in EVE has a mesh, although a number of meshes share a common texture.