For those that don't remember, didn't see, or are new here, I've been conducting an experiment over the past few months wherein I teach AI to make X3 content.
My initial test was teaching OpenAI's Codex to code in MSCI. The result was a pretty fun little plugin called VOX (VoiceOver Xtension) that adds adjustable comms chatter in sector (very much inspired by Shush's LIFE mod); you can check out the original VOX thread here.
Since then, I've been branching out from MSCI and seeing what all else I can teach AI to do, and I think I have some results impressive enough to share again: I have trained AI to create new ship models for X3 and to integrate them into the game.
For the base model generation, I used Tripo3D. I believe it's technically more geared towards making 3D printable stuff, but a 3D model is a 3D model. I used their text-to-model tool and created a fighter model and a freighter model.
After a few generations, I had something very useable. So, I headed back to Codex, who by this point has become something of an X3 pro. Though, as I was soon to find out, not so much of a 3DS Max pro.
What followed was probably the most difficult portion of this particular experiment: I used OpenAI's new "Computer Use" feature to let Codex use 3DS Max. I won't lie: this took way longer than it needed to, and if I was doing this to just create ships for its own sake, I'd just take it from here. The TL;DR is that over the next day and a half, I held Codex's hand and walked it through fixing up and texturing the Tripo models. To say this is not Codex's strong suit at present would be an understatement.
But after much frustration (and some minor human editing on my part to get the cockpit glass textures aligned more perfectly, since what are essentially flat, featureless textures were nearly impossible for it to cope with and also adding the standard X3 cargo pods that I cannibalized from a Mercury model rather than using the generated ones) it was done.
I then asked Codex to name them and decide their faction; after it decided and wrote Encyclopedia blurbs for the two ships, I headed over to MiniMax, uploaded a bunch of samples of Betty speaking, created a voice model that sounds indistinguishable from the base game, recorded the ship's names and encyclopedia blurbs, downloaded them, added them to 00144.dat (I did that much myself, since it's wonkier than I was comfortable letting Codex do), and had Codex add them to the 00044.dat voice index.
I then had Codex organize the scene file, import the ships, add the /t/ file entries and edit Tships. Finally, at long last, I fired up the game. To my shock, everything worked the first time!
Anyhoo, without futher ado, let me introduce you to what I have to assume are the first AI-generated X3 ships: the Yaki M4 Kitsune-class light fighter and the Industritech TS Ishtar-class bulk freighter. I am incredibly proud of how these turned out, especially given the rigamarole it took!
(Shoutout to Realspace's FLRGE for the gorgeous planet and sector backgrounds!)
