Celestia Forums

Steps:

1.) find the object's model and download it (if it's legally possible). It can be virtually any type of 3d mesh

2.) if Blender can import it, then import it into Blender

3.) use MeshLab to open the 3D mesh if Blender can't import it and save it as an .obj mesh

4.) import it into Blender and use the "decimate" effect, if it has more than 64k vertices (.3ds meshes cannot deal with too many vertices). Save the decimated mesh as an .obj mesh

5.) use MeshLab to convert the .obj format into .3ds format

6.) use the 3ds to cmod convert and fix utility with the "Output as Ascii" option to create the cmod file

7.) open the Ascii cmod file in Notepad++ and edit it like this:

material
diffuse 0.878431 0.878431 0.878431
specular 1 1 1
specpower 128
texture0 "****name of the texture****.dds"
end_material

8.) make a dds texture with Gimp (max 8192x8192 pixels)

9.) put the cmod file in the models folder, the dds file in the textures/medres folder.

I hope I didn't left out anything...

Method number 2:

1.) Convert the mesh into .obj format

2.) Open the .obj format with cmodview

3.) Save the opened mesh using the cmod format

4.) Open the cmod mesh with the 3ds to cmod convert and fix utility and use the "Fix" function with the "Output as Ascii" option to create a new, Ascii cmod file

5.) Open the Ascii cmod file in Notepad++ and edit it like this:

material
diffuse 0.878431 0.878431 0.878431
specular 1 1 1
specpower 128
texture0 "****name of the texture****.dds"
end_material

6.) Make a dds texture with Gimp (max 8192x8192 pixels)

7.) Put the cmod file in the models folder, the dds file in the textures/medres folder.

it doesn't need to be a DDS texture
you can also use png and jpg textures too

.DDS textures are how he gets really hi res textures.

Every video card likes DDS textures. It loads way faster.

Not every. Some mobile and embedded don't like them that's why we have software decoding for DDS textures as a fallback.

Png and jpg textures caused constant crashes on Celestia 1.6.1, so I had to convert them into dds. The crashes disappeared. Now I mostly use 8192x8192 pixels dds tiles and it is flawless. But then again I have a PC and I use Win64 + Celestia 1.6.2 with 40GBs of add-ons.

Method number 3:

1.) convert the mesh into obj. format using Blender or MeshLab or 3D Builder

2.) install the cmod plugin in Anim8tor 1.x https://www.classe.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/modelling.html#4.1

3.) import the obj. mesh into Anim8tor and convert it (export it) using the cmod plugin format.