Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

--- en:games:star_trek_armada_1:modding:sod_files [2025-03-23-15-21] – 7saturn
+++ en:games:star_trek_armada_1:modding:sod_files [2025-04-23-20-19] (current) – [File Header] 7saturn
@@ Line 37: / Line 37: @@
 Every SOD starts with the ASCII string ''Storm3D_SW'', followed by the version of the used format in form of one FLOAT value. So the header always has the length of 14 bytes. For //Star Trek: Armada// the version is 1.8, making the 4 version bytes always be 0x66 0x66 0xE6 0x3D.
+**Note**: There are two stock game files, //Favenger.SOD// and //Ksensor.SOD//, that have a different header. They start out with ''StarTrekDB''. It is likely that those two files are from an earlier stage of the Armada project, where the format was still different.
 ==== Lighting Materials ====
 The second section of an SOD contains the characteristics of the vertex lighting materials. To understand this, we need some more definitions.
@@ Line 64: / Line 65: @@
   - LIGHTING_MATERIAL ARRAY(//<number of materials>//).
+Note: Lighting materials are usually not unique to a specific SOD but used by multiple SODs. As this is the case, loading can be expedited considerably by not loading lighting materials anew for each SOD, but looking for already loaded materials from previously loaded SODs. One implication of that is, that the materials are consistent across SODs. One special aspect about this is the file //Material.SOD//, which contains a number of materials being loaded prior to most SODs, defining the most common materials.
+**Note**: While the above definitions work just fine with colors, one thing that is not immediately obvious is how team colors are created. Any material whose name starts with //team_// will be colored with the team color. This means, there can be multiple, different materials, that will exhibit the team color. Applying such a material to a mesh will make it glow in the color of the team.
 ==== Nodes ====
 The third section in an SOD are the nodes, which have various implications on the behavior of a unit or station, including things like firing direction, damage indicators, mesh referencing or LODs used. They come in five different types.
@@ Line 192: / Line 196: @@
   * [[https://en.ds-servers.com/gf/armada-2/official-releases/other/storm3d-object-definition-sod-file-format.html|Storm3D Object Definition (SOD) File Format on DS-Servers]]
   * [[https://www.gamefront.com/games/armada-2/file/storm3d-object-definition-sod-file-format|Storm3D Object Definition (SOD) File Format on GameFront]]
+===== See Also =====
+  * [[en:games:star_trek_armada_1:modding:Model Hierarchy]]
 {{page>footer&nofooter}}