How to make your own Asteroid and how to import it to SE - with Sculptris and SE Toolbox

You need:

1. Sculptris

A Freeware Sculping Software which is absolutely easy to use and really powerful. With this Tool you create your own Astroid like you want it.

2. SE Toolbox

To import the with Sculptris exported *.obj 3D Model as Asteroid.


What you need to do:

A) Make the Asteroid

1. Download Sculptris
2. Install it where you want
3. Start Sculptris
4. You now should see a Sphere, that is the Beginning Object with that you start to make your Asteroid.
5. On the Top Left you have the Tools you could use to manipulate the Sphere as you want it. How this works you could see easily on this Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMXq_aOecTc
On YouTube are many Tutorials about this Tool

The best Way, when you learned how to use Sculptris (what is really easy), to make an Asteroid is to make first the rough shape and than go from step to step into Deeper Details. But you didn't need fine Details, because this get lost when it import the Asteroid to SE, but that also depend on how big your Asteroid should be.

6. When you made your Asteroid, export it as *.obj File, SE Toolbox can directly read this Format.


B) Import your Asteroid to your SE Map

1. Download SE Toolbox (really anyone here that haven't done that already?)
2. Install or Unzip it where you want
3. Start SE Toolbox
4. Make a Backup of your SE Map where you would to import the Asteroid to. For Testing a complete empty one is good.
5. "Open" the SE Map
6. Go to "Import" > "3D Model"
7. Load here your Sculptris Asteroid, switch to Type "Asteroid" and insert the needed Data.
8. Click on "Create" and the Asteroid get imported to SE. Depending of the Size of your Asteroid it can take some Minutes and at this Time it looks like SE Toolbox didn't react anymore, but only the GUI is freezed and it work in the Background on the Importing of your Asteroid, so don't abort it.
9. Click on "Save", finished!

Now you can Load your Map in SE and have a Look on your new Asteroid.


P.S. I have already done a Asteroid with Sculptris with a bigger Hole in it and a small Entry. Because it have more Details you could use it for bigger Asteroids too, but than it could be it takes many Minutes to import it (500m Size needed ~5 Minutes on my PC). I would say min. Size for this one is 200m:

Asteroid1.zip (only obj File)


(Size: 800m)

 

Awesome! tried it out, works great.
+1 as always for wonderful work.

 

Thank you Bal! I asked for what was used to make an asteroid and now I am going to download this and get to work!

 

It's nice to see a proper step-by-step tutorial for something here. I expect to see a lot of maps on the steam workshop of custom asteroids in the near future.

 

Nice that you like it. ^^

Too bad, that SE Toolbox at the moment didn't support to export Asteroids. But I think to give the *.obj File others instead of the finished SE Asteroid is better, because you can self set the Size of the Asteroid on Import.

Oh, and it looks like SE Toolbox only support Asteroid Generation for max. 999m Size. If you select 1000m you get an Array Error what a Program internal Limit is (don't know if it is the Limit what the used Programming Language have or only a selected Limit by the Author).

 

(Size: 400m)

Asteroid2.zip (only obj File)

I made an other Asteroid, it have 5+ big Caves (not connected - some are build that the Station Block have the right orientation) with small Entries in it (not all are easy to found) and many deep Crevices on the Surface. I think it is a ideal Place for a Pirate Base or any other Station that should build more into the Asteroid.

Hint: You could connect the Caves easier when you use a Beacon on the Place where you would come out on the other Cave when you dig in that direction.

To use it import it like described in the first Post on B) - I think the ideal Size is 400m, max. 500m.

You can also play this Map here, a Survival Map with the Asteroid in it and other Asteroids with Ores:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=258063619

 

Does it create ores too, or just Rock?

 

SEToolbopx creates the ores for you when it imports the object into the game
You set what you want for ore inthe thing and it does it

 

You could select what Material in SE Toolbox, but than the complete Asteroid is out of it, so no, it didn't create Ores inside. But as far as I know it is Feature that SE Toolbox should get in the Future.

But you could use standard Asteroids in SE Toolbox that creates Ore too, but at the Moment no own one. But after all I think that is ok, for Ores are other Asteroids ok, they didn't need a special Asteroid Surface. When you want to build a Asteroid Base it is better there is no Ore inside (sure, when you want to build a Mining Asteroid Base it looks a bit different ).

 

out of curiosity do these home brew asteroids perform better fps wise then the default ones?

 

Not really, why should they perform better?

 

Well after seeing this post i decided to try it out
At first i took a crack at it with 3ds max to create atleast a basic shape of what i wanted + empty spaces to reduce mining .

Found out that Sculptris wont allow imported files with to many triangles...
So i had to resort to using Zbrush (after watching alot of tuts and some assistance)
and 2 evenings of grappling with Zbrush.
I ended up with this!



Still not to happy about it but for a Sekret Base i can live with it :cool:.
Wish we could randomize ores inside the model, just a stone texture kinda makes it flat looking.

Quick question tho.
Since it gets voxelized does the amount of polygons matter?
Took it down to 20ish k but lost alot of detail during the downscaling before i imported it with Setoolbox.

 

Nice tutorial, but its missing an important part, how to get those asteroids to show in the "Generate Asteroid Field" option of SE Toolbox , so you can set the ore you want. Its actually quite simple:

First open this folder "C:\Users\XXXX\AppData\Roaming\SpaceEngineers\Saves", then open any savegame with custom asteroids, and look for the asteroid inside, Asteroid1.vox for example ( it takes the name of the model file ), copy the file and paste it into this folder "F:\Steam\steamapps\common\SpaceEngineers\Content\VoxelMaps".

Now you will see the asteroid in the "Generate Asteroid Field" option, and set the ore amount you like.

 

Over SE Toolbox? Will look at this later and than add this Hint to the Tutorial.

@Skribble: for me it was important to use free Tools for this, ZBrush is not really free. From how much triangles did we speak?

The Voxels are not so small to give you much Detailwork, so it's no Problem to reduce the triangles.

 

hi, i'm having some trouble creating a custom asteroid, i have Maya 2014 but i'm a total noob with it.

i'm trying to make a sphere with a hollow center but when i import it the shell is super thin and i don't know how to make it thicker...driving me crazy

i need to figure out how to fill in the empty space but leave the center hollow.

if anyone could help it would be greatly appreciated

here is my obj file if anyone needs it https://shadow.myftp.org/se/Sphere-test.rar

 

@ Balmung: Gf is an artist/sculpts so she kindly lend out her pc with Zbrush etc installed and helped me out here and there.
Just looked at the prices and i fell over backwards..
Also tried loading up a finished model with Sculptris and the max connections to a vertex (splines to a point) is 24 and it only allows 2 triangles to connect to a edge.

@ kagurazaki: Setoolbox cannot calculate hollow enclosed spaces (asked midspace about that same issue 2 days ago)

To create a solid asteroid with a hollow center you need 1 part of the inner sphere to stuck out
i followed these steps in 3dsmax (similar to maya)

- Create sphere x2
- Position sphere B inside sphere A and convert to a editable poly
- select 1 polygon face of Sphere B and extrude it outwards
- Cutout Sphere A using a "boolean - difference" operation"

before and after: https://imgur.com/a/Mma6e

Maya video tutorial for cutting out stuff!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc50WFjyynQ

If its still a shell it means a polygon face is missing somewhere.

 

thx for the reply Skribble

iv been trying to do what you suggested, but as i said im a total noob when it come to this sort of stuff, but im learning slowly

I attempted to follow your instructions but i still cant seem to do it,

i finaly figured out how to use the "Difference" boolean but it just does this




This has been driving me nuts for the past few days....but im not gonna give up....

 

kagurazaki

To me it looks like the extruded face (the rectangular part) is still inside the big sphere.
Hence the difference not working like you want.
You really need to extrude it outside the bigger sphere.

When using difference/subtraction with 2 poly models. 1 model will disappear and create a new mesh linked to the leftover model and thus only leaving 1 selectable object over in the layer/objects tab.

Alternatively you can attach the 2 objects so its treated as 1 object, delete a polygon face from the outside shell and inside shell and "weld" (no idea what its called in maya) the vertex points to create a seamless transition so you wont have that shell when imported.

Rundown with pictures:
Sphere A: Green
Sphere B: Red
Here i have 2 polymodel spheres inside eachother.
See the objects tab on the left.


Here i extruded multiple poly faces from sphere B and made sure they extrude outside sphere A


Then select sphere A, shiftclick sphere B and use the boolean modifier.
Make sure your in the polygon submenu with maya.
And you should end up with 1 model with a seamless opening

 

I set the extrusion to come way out of the outer sphere, then i did the difference, and the screenshot shows the result, no matter how much i extrude, i get the same result

*edit* i just noticed your updated post, i'll give that a try now

 

I hope it works!
Wish i could have been of more help but i dont have Maya installed so i have to make do with 3ds Max instead and try to convert it.

 

Still no luck, i still get a super thin shell and lots of empty space with a hollow egg center

do i have to extrude the whole thing out?
because when i extrude a single piece it becomes what you see in the previous screenshots.

 

Hm, I have there a little Idea... could it be that you don't set a second Material in SEToolbox, when you import your Asteroid? If you set only the first Material you get exactly that what you didn't want.

Hehe, yes, that stuff is really expensive, like the most Software in that area. So it's good to know about the free Software.

Hm, can't you change that with Export Options? My second Asteroid here is also edited with Blender to make a second Entry to a Hole. Also something that is not possible with Sculptris. To bad that the Sculptris Developer switched to the ZBrush Makers and didn't work anymore on Sculptris.

 

Omg Balmung i could kiss you, Days of agony solved with a simple option
and thank you also for your help Skribble

now i just gotta make it look smooth in game, any ideas?
i have already tried increasing the sphere segments to 200 but it does not seem to do much in game.

 

I know it. :rof:

No Problem. ^^

 

Somewhat related I have gotten as far as making a 3d model of an asteroid using Autodesk Mudbox now the issue is creating tunnels inside of it that look realistic I had an Idea of making a separate model of the cave system and using a boolean operator of of subtraction IE subtract the caves from the roid. but alas Mudbox does not support that wondering if anyone has any ideas or know of a way to do it. As it is I can scult rocks all day in any shape I want but kinda pointless without actual caves. Oh also managed to get my rocks into the games normal retinue of spawned asteroids. it's actually quite simple import the rock Via SEtoolbox which saves it as a Vox in the save game directory then move that file over to the directory of premade rocks the game has. no idea if it influences ore distribution but it's their.

 

The latest release of SEToolbox addresses a memory issue which previously limited the size of asteroids generated.

Space Engineers still has it's own limits when rendering asteroids, so I really would not recommend greader than 1000m anyhow.

KeenSH uses sparse voxel octree for their asteroids.

Asteroids are stored in the .vox file format, which is inherently transportable, and doesn't require export (though I should probably add in an export to .vox.).

 

is there anyway to map the ore? what is it called? is it UV mapping they do to say where certain ore will be or something? when you generate a new asteroid on SEtoolbox with a certain percentage on it how does it know where to put the ore? i currently have a small moon that i would like to put ore in, as you can just place your asteroids .vox file into space engineers data where all the pre loaded ones are and import it with SE edit by just generating a new asteroid it will be on the list! now im trying to figure out how to map it and thats where im not getting lucky...

 

The Ore is generated randomly (on Map Generation) and I don't know if the File Format of the .vox Files are known to manipulate it and insert Ores exactly where you want it.

 

hi guys, i have a new problem now and i cant seem to fix it

i have made my hollow asteroid but i am haveing a problem with an odd grapical glitch.
if you move away from the asteroid you can see invisible holes in certain places.

the entrance is OK




but if you move far away you get holes.



If you get closer they disappear.



It only seems to happen in 4 places


does anyone have any possible solutions?

 

And now? Should we fix a Bug for the Devs?