Yes, although no program is really used for modeling, it's all done in your own. As long as it ends up in .x or .3ds it's fine.Also, JHB, I don't think that the ShipSim engine supports bump maps, and I'm questioning the specular maps.
Holly...
Do I really need to elaborate a technical explanation on this? You are probably right about this, but It might be useful to have a software that supports these maps BECAUSE it might happen one day that the SS-engine support such maps as well. And who knows what the Extremes-engine will support huh?
And it's not all about maps, it's mostly about unwrap UVW or texture baking. So if the editor you are using isn't supporting that, oh ...well, then you have a problem. Because, according to the guideline (which I have translated even into Norwegian) you need to make texture maps in the power of two (so what does that mean huh?). And not all editors supports uwrap UVW and texture backing so...
But people model in Blender, Google Sketchup, (not £££££, free!) any program really...
False! The editor need to support those things I have in short elaboration explained above.
As for Ship Simulator 2008 itself, It uses Questviewer.
...where Quest3D is a game engine or an editing software visualizing 3D or 2D graphics (which is a product made by Act-3D (http://quest3d.com/). And it doesn't mean that you need to buy that product for several euros (a pretty high price) to make a boat for this game.
All you need is an editor that supports unwrap UVW and texture baking. Without them you are not able at all to produce texture maps.
And jupp.. you will likely need to spend money until the day someone here proves that you can make a ship for Ship Simulator with 100% free software. Until then...cya
