by Philla007 (10/2021)

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In this tutorial I will show how to make shadows for aircraft and land vehicles using Blender and Adobe Photoshop CS6. In this tutorial I will use F-14 Fighter/Bomber which is used on aircraft carrier in game.

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1. Open Blender.

2. Import CEM model by clicking "File / Import / Empire Earth (.cem)". Find desired aircraft or land vehicle model. Before selecting "Import CEM" button, check "clean whole scene (!)" on right side of window. After checking that option, click on "Import CEM".

   

   After that, model will appear on the center of the scene.

3. Select model (all parts).After that, click on TAB button and whole model will be selected. If it is not, then click on CTRL + A buttons. This is how it should look:

   

4. Go to UV Editing section of Blender. Click on number 7 on Numpad section of keyboard. Now the camera will switch in top position like this:

   

   Scroll down until it gets closer to model. NOTE: Be aware, mouse wheel must be used to scroll down.

5. Click on button U when distance to object is like this:Unwrap menu will now appear. Select Project from View like on picture below: After clicking on Project from View button, new UV map will appear in UV Editing section:

5. Select whole UV map and resize it boundaries with button S. After resizing it, position it on center like this:

6. Now after whole UV map is resized and positioned properly, click on UV and after that click on Export UV Layout like this:

7. New window will appear and now the new UV map needs to be saved somewhere. The most important thing here is to set resolution of UV map to 64x64 on right part of this window where options for resolution are located:

   

   After this is done, name file like you want and save it.

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1. Open Adobe Photoshop CS6 and create new file with these settings:

2. Save it as TGA file like this:After that it will ask you for resolution, select 32 bits/pixel.

3. Drag and drop shadow file over it like this:After postioning it properly, click on Enter button on keyboard. After that, select one of the layer like this:Now right click on it and select Merge Visible. Now the two layers will be joined.

4. Resize the view to atleast this position:

5. Select Magic Wand Tool (W) and click in white area. Now the area outside aircraft will be selected. When area outside is selected, right click and select Select Inverse option. Now the aircraft part is selected.

6. Now that aircraft part is selected, go to Channels section and click on this button:This will now create alpha channel, click on Alpha 1 image on channel list in order to look like this:

7. While object is still selected, click on button Delete on keyboard. Now the new window will appear and this settings need to be selected:After that is selected, click on button OK. Now the alpha channel will be gray like this:8. Now while in Channels section, select first image - RGB. Go back to Layers section and click CTRL + A buttons on keyboard in order to select everything, it should be selected like this:

   

   9. Click on Delete button on keyboard and select settings like this:

      

      Now the scene will be filled with black color.

   10. Save the file as .tga with correct name. In case of for F-14 Fighter/Bomber it uses name "sha_modernfighterT".

   11. After file is saved, use EE Studio 2 and convert it to .sst format.

   12. Place the new shadow file with .sst format into data/textures folder where game is installed.

   13. Enjoy your new shadow texture for F-14 Fighter/Bomber!