Homeworld Resource
Editing a .Hod
CFHodEd Manual
-By 4E534B
[Last updated: 25th March 2007, for v2.8.0]
0. Index
i. Introduction
b. Menus
ii. Creating HODs
b. Textures
c. Materials
d. Geometry
e. Hierarchy
g. BSRM (Battle Scar Reference Mesh)
i. Engines
j. NavLights
k. Markers
l. Dockpaths
p. Star fields
q. SIMP\WIRE (Simple Meshes\Wireframe Meshes)
r. Misc. (Miscellaneous Information in the HOD)
iii. Error Messages
a. General
b. Textures
c. Geometry
d. Hierarchy
e. CM
f. BGMS
g. SIMP\WIRE
iv. Theory (What’s what and why)
a. Preferred format for textures
b. Naming conventions for textures
c. Working of Textures with a “ship.st” shader
1. Introduction:
This document is intended to be a guide to creating and editing ‘.hod’ data, which is needed to modify Backgrounds\Missiles\Ships\Subsystems\Resources\UI Meshes in Homeworld2. It is presumed that the reader is familiar using Adobe Photoshop (or Paint Shop Pro), Modeling program(s) which can export data in '.obj' format (Wavefront Object), etc. It is also presumed that the reader has already read "HW2_ArtPipeline.pdf", which comes in the RDN toolkit, since it has basic information about various other things not explained here.
And a word of warning: Make sure that in regional settings (in your OS), you use dot (.) as a decimal symbol. It has been reported that there are errors, when the decimal symbol is not dot, which causes errors.
File->New: Creates a new HOD.
File->Open: Opens an existing HOD.
File->Save: Saves the HOD under the original filename.
File->Save As: Saves the HOD under a new filename.
File->Import->Texture(s) [Batch]: Imports all type of given textures under a given directory.
File->Import->HOD Script: Imports the given HOD script.
File->Export->Textures->All: Exports all textures to the location of the HOD.
File->Export->Textures->Selected: Exports selected texture to the location of the HOD.
File->Export->Geometry->All: Exports all meshes to the location of the HOD.
File->Export->Geometry->Selected: Exports selected mesh to the location of the HOD.
File->Export->Battle Scar Reference Meshes->All: Exports all BSRM meshes to the location of the HOD.
File->Export->Battle Scar Reference Meshes->Selected: Exports selected BSRM mesh to the location of the HOD.
File->Export->Collision Meshes->All: Exports all CM meshes to the location of the HOD.
File->Export->Collision Meshes->Selected: Exports selected CM mesh to the location of the HOD.
File->Export->HOD Script: Creates a HOD script for the given HOD.
File->HOD Attributes: Opens up a window to change the attributes of the HOD.
File->(Recent Files): Self-Explanatory.
File->Clear list: Self-Explanatory.
File->Exit: Self-Explanatory.
Tools->Options: Opens up the “Options” dialog of CFHodEd to change options.
Tools->Rescale HOD: Rescales the HOD completely by the given factors (2 means twice the original size)
Tools->Rotate HOD: Rotates the HOD completely by the given factors (it also asks, whether you want to rotate the joints or not; if you are having problems with joints [which are 3 or more levels deep] not properly rotated, then you may disable rotation for joints.)
Window->HOD Editor: Whether the main HOD editor window is visible.
Window->Debug Window: Whether the debug window is visible.
Window->Tile Vertically: Self-Explanatory.
Window->Tile Horizontally: Self-Explanatory.
Window->Cascade: Self-Explanatory.
Window->Arrange Icons: Self-Explanatory.
Window->(Active Windows): Brings the selected window to the top.
Help->About: Shows the “about “ dialog of CFHodEd.
The very first thing in making a HOD is its attributes. It the HOD attributes which tells HW2 that this HOD contains this and that. Accordingly, HW2 ignores all other unrelated things that may be irrelevant for that type of HOD. Whenever CFHodEd starts, or whenever you click File->New or whenever you click File->HOD Attributes, this window shows up:
