Importing a model

Wing Blender can be used to import models from Wing Commander: Prophecy/Secret Ops.

The VISION engine has 4 types of IFF models:

  1. Thruster plume models (cones).
  2. Mesh-only models (debris pieces).
  3. Ship/component models.
  4. Model sequences (Shield models).

Wing Blender can import mesh-only models and ship models.

Obtaining a model to import

You need a model from Wing Commander: Prophecy/Secret Ops in order to be able to import it with Wing Blender.

You can use HCl's treman tool to extract the models from Wing Commander: Prophecy/Secret Ops or your favourite WCP/SO mod. If treman does not run on your system, download CWSDPMI, put it in the same folder as treman, and run treman in DOSBox.

Simply go to File -> Import -> WCP/SO IFF Mesh File (.iff), and choose the model you want to import.

Obtaining the textures for the models

After you extract the models from the game, you can optionally extract its textures. In order for Wing Blender to read textures, these textures must be in the same folder as the model.

The textures can be in their original MAT format, in which case it will be converted to a Blender image, or any other format that Blender can use.

In order for Wing Blender to find the textures, the textures must have filenames that are the same as the model's texture numbers. For example, if your model uses textures 22000, 22001, 424242, etc., The textures must be named 00022000.mat, 00022001.mat, and 00424242.mat.

The imported materials will be named after their material numbers. For example, the material for texture 22000 will be named 00022000.

Importing child object models

Wing Blender can import child object models, such as the Seahawk AWACS' Radome, or the Panther's yaw pod. However, Since Wing Blender cannot load ship files (info files, not models), it cannot automatically determine which hardpoint each child object should be attached (parented) to.

When you import a child object, you should parent it to the appropriate hardpoint.