I use 3ds max to convert stuff.

I have a video tutorial available on youtube but it's rather old by now and some steps have changed or are unnecessary by now, and I also did not completely cover everything. For the moment I'll just link you it and cover stuff in bullet points.

Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsWlz1Uculw

Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiNvVpjog4w

Concise bullet-point form for you,

In 3ds max -

Stuff needs to have some unique text prefixed to it. Doesn't matter what the text is, but needs to be a certain link. Recommended initially was P000-*. So, p001-Weapon-0, p002-Weapon-0, ect.

You'll need a rootpoint helpler, in which all other helpers (hardpoints) are linked to.

Weapons are labeled Weapon-0 to Weapon-2 (sins only supports 3 weapon types). Weapon numbers in relation to entities are entirely assumed. So, weapon-0 will always be assigned to the first weapon entry in the entity. Engines are called Exhaust, planet-bombing weapon source points called Bomb, so on so forth - the XSI documentation for Sins tells you the exact names for everything.

- In this video I tell you to rotate the model facing upwards due to the co-ordinates changing between conversions. At least for me currently, using XSI 2010, this is no longer necessary. The models face opposite to Y, otherwise are straight.

- In the video I state the model must be mesh. This is no longer the case, but the auto-triangulation of the XSI converter later on may introduce issues/unexpected errors, so it's best to stick with it currently. The welding is still absolutely necessary.

- All parts of your mesh should be one "piece", but you can split pieces and assign different materials to them. These materials must be standard, as stated in the video. They are then sequentially available in the .mesh file later on for you to assign the textures to.

In XSI -

I've been meaning to make an updated tutorial for my current process of converting models, but as there is zero demand for video tutorials I haven't felt the need to record any yet. In either case, many of the steps I go through in this video are, at least for me, currently unnecessary. These include everything related to tagent maps.

My current steps in a very concise fashion

- Import FBX.

- Freeze all transforms - do NOT select all and freeze transforms, this resets your hardpoints and is bad news bro, so select your ship's mesh - or multiple meshes if necessary - and only freeze those.

- Control 7 and right click -> Remove any materials without a checkmark next to them. This is usually the very first one for me.

- Remove unused clips and such as needed.

- Export to XSI.

In Notepad++

- All the steps in the video should be the same. Yes, dashes still get replaced with underscores...

If your model is all wonky and not shaded in-game, you might need to assign the tangent map to the same UV's anyways, even though it's already (supposedly) pointing at them. This is a very weird bug I occasionally encounter with the program. I personally find XSI extremely irritating to work with.

Smoothing groups do not port over from 3ds max and I have zero idea how to work with tangents still, so yeah.

Right so i've got the model into game i've worked out what to do with the dummys for the hardpoints so thats all good, the only thing im nowt a bit stumped on is the textures. I've added my model into game and ive done as suggested as have actaully got the main texture to show up in game which looks brilliant. Now it says that theres 3 textures,

so diffuse is the standard RGB texture... thats all ok i have that one working

Bump map. I've got a bump map using the photoshop plugin to make it so nice and simple, though read somewhere it needs to be gray scaled?? where as mine is more blues representing the heights of the textures. Is this ok?

Specular texture. This controls all the fancy bits like lights the glows and the metallic type look of the unit. (this is the one im having problems with) in short, how do you MAKE this texture?

Now my normal texture does look sweet in game, and it has in the original file an alpha channel that is black with just some white that higlights the lights and such for the ship. now this doesnt show up in game as the i know the alpha channel on the diffuse is used for team coolour so how do i get the "lights" to show up on the model  is this where i should be putting the alpha layer into the specular texture and if so what colours does it need to be to represent and nice brilliant white

Thanks for all the help and i apologise  if this has been answered somewhere before that i missed.

3DS max is my modeler of choice. I only use XSI to convert the mesh for sins import. You can use any modeler available to make a mesh, but you will need XSI to finish the mesh, and make it ready for import. For example adding nulls, hooking up the textures, and adding tangents can only be done in XSI. Your modeler needs the be able to export a format that XSI can import. I prefer direct x format. Encountered least amount of problems using that method.