Editing ship graphics

[ck07]

When I start a game existing ships have detailed top views, but newly designed ones are blank except for gun positions. When I try to edit(?) create(?) a layer, I am told I have to upload a .sdf or .tdf file, but that there are none available.

So I have 2 questions:
-Is there a library of such files somewhere?
-If not, how do I create a layer? Are there instructions for someone with zero experience at this?

Thanks.

[ulzgoroth]

I haven't played with the RTW graphics tooling, so I'm not going to try to answer the main question! But I will note there's a reason I haven't: if you start your new ships with autodesigns, they're provided with auto-generated superstructure art. You can then rework their actual configuration into the ship you want. This is much easier if your goal is just to have sprites that look passable rather than to really create your own works.

[ck07]

Ah, I see: You mean auto-design the ship, not the graphics. But that gets one only partway. The minute you change anything above water the graphic no longer matches.

Obviously, some in this community know how to do better. can anyone point me to a tutorial, or to something that will enable a person to begin?

[ck07]

I found a somewhat better partial solution to this. Open a .sdf file in the IDes directory and copy everything from turrets on down over the same part of your ship design file. Displacements and gun sizes do not have to match but # of main turrets and guns/turret do, at least sometimes. I had a ship with 4x1 AJKY but nothing in the directory matched. Sometimes guns did not populate right, Other times they did but # of tons remaining changed. Finally I found one with 10x1 and deleted the extras. (You may have to correct ROF penalties.)
You can also copy just from [hull points] down if you don't mind your main turrets always being the same and sometimes overlapping other things.
I still haven't managed to make any use of .tdf files in the ship designer. If anyone has built your own library of .ssf files and can share, that would be a great help to at least some of us.