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How to use your own logo on ships
By Nexuscrawler
In X4 Foundations you can use a custom logo that will be shown on your ships. This guide describes the process of getting your images to show up in game.
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Created by
Nexuscrawler
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Category: Gameplay Basics, Modding or Configuration, Walkthroughs
Languages: English
Posted
Updated
30 Nov, 2018 @ 1:25pm
6 Dec, 2018 @ 10:31am
9,319 Unique Visitors
166 Current Favorites
Guide Index
Overview
Logo Directory 
File formats and size 
Glow map and normal map 
Where to find the logo in game 
Youtube tutorial 
Comments
Logo Directory
There are two possibilities here. If you bought your game via Steam, your logo folder can be found at /Documents/Egosoft/X4/[Numbers]/logos/.
If you did not buy the game via Steam, the logo folder will be at /Documents/Egosoft/X4/logos/.
If you are unsure as to where to put the folder, put it in the same one with your save folder.

Example: /Documents/Egosoft/X4/[Numbers]/logos/

For the [Numbers] folder to be generated you will need at least one save-game, so the first step is to save your game at least once. After that, create the logos directory inside of the [Numbers] folder. If you did not buy the game via Steam, the [Numbers] folder might not be created. If that is the case, create the logos folder in the same directory where your save folder is.
File formats and size
Valid file formats are .BMP, .DDS, .GIF, .JPG, .PNG and .TGA.
Transparency in images should work as expected, but animations in GIFs will not play.

The images you place inside the logos folder must be square and a power of two. A valid size would be 128x128, 256x256, 512x512, ... and so on. The standard size used by the default logos is 256x256.
Glow map and normal map
This step is optional, but it will make your logo look better. If you are not interested, scroll to the next section.

Glow maps and normal maps are supported. They are placed in the logos folder alongside your logo. You need to follow a naming convention for this to work.

Logo: logoname_[number].png
Glow: logoname_[number]_glow.png
Normal: logoname_[number]_normal.png

The [number] part must be the same for all three. It's a two digit number, so make sure you write 01, 02 and 03 instead of 1, 2 and 3.

To generate a quick normal map, you can use this link: http://cpetry.github.io/NormalMap-Online/
Upload your logo by clicking on the left of the three pictures to get a preview of how it will look. Make sure you select the Plane model in the options.


Example logo without maps:
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/955223229304444022/DA13E8FD2BF40D16064BED095885AE071A6F5AEA/

Functional normal map:
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/964230781512902024/840F23EC30591F4EF0ED408654FEA9A172F083B2/
(Thank you, Jinarra)
Where to find the logo in game
After you place the logo inside the folder, you might have to restart the game. The logo will then show up for selection in the game. Press ENTER, click the tab Player Information, go to your Empire Overview and then scroll down to Custom Logos.

Hope that helped. If there are things I missed in my explanation please let me know.
Youtube tutorial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7pUGET1VbA (Thank you, Kane Hart)
33 Comments
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WES MAXIMUS 1 Jul @ 11:15pm 
Needed to add the logos folder myself. Still worked.
VOXEL! 29 Jun @ 5:42am 
a wonderful and easy to use tutorial, thanks!:steamthumbsup:
Alexis 21 Jun @ 1:42pm 
Note on Linux the Logo Directory is at
~/.config/EgoSoft/X4/[your steamID]/logos
Also known as
Home/.config/EgoSoft/X4/[your steamID]/logos
Or
Home/[your username]/.config/EgoSoft/X4/[your steamID]/logos

If you're running via a Wine shim like Proton you'll need to look under:
.../SteamLibrary/steamapps/compatdata/392160/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/My Documents/Egosoft/X4/[your steamID]/logos/
Vistha 24 Sep, 2023 @ 2:55pm 
I tried that website and, boy, it's bad.
I used a 4096x4096 image as a base and, while the idea is good, it created some noise that's so pixelated, I was able to tell the dimensions of the mask used just from looking at that noise.

For anybody somewhat versed in AI, I'd suggest a plugin for Stable Diffusion: https://github.com/graemeniedermayer/stable-diffusion-webui-normalmap-script
This outputs pretty good normal maps (miles ahead of what I was able to make in GIMP after a few hours of experimentation).

Depending on how your logo looks like, it may be good idea that cut it into pieces (for example so the head of of the character in your logo was properly pronounced, since the AI will somewhat normalize it with the rest of the body) and feed to the AI separately, then glue the outputs together for increased quality, but that's slightly more advanced.
I'd share my result, but, uh... it's not really PG.
Vistha 24 Sep, 2023 @ 6:25am 
PS. The game also does reflections, which I noticed while experimenting with my logo and seeing that at steep angle the hull of the ship would actually act as a mirror and not the pseudo-reflections most games do, but actually mirror things, including the logo itself, so they should probably work for logos too, but beats me how to name the file.

PPS. The game loads logos in random order, so if you're set on the image of the logo, but still work on normal/glow maps, I'd suggest physically putting a number on the image, so you can actually tell which one is which.
For example one of my rows is in order of 08, 01, 03, 02, 05.
I ended up making 18 versions (because you have to reboot the game to load new logos, so I just made a bunch at once, then checked them all at once in-game) while trying to figure out best method to make normal maps, so you can imagine it can get a bit problematic.
–Phase– 19 Jun, 2023 @ 1:26pm 
"The images you place inside the logos folder must be square and a power of two"

Do they though, because I added a logo that is 1875x1875 and it works just fine in-game.
Zloth 29 Apr, 2023 @ 7:53am 
Like what, bloodymonarch?
bloodymonarch 21 Apr, 2023 @ 6:21am 
You have like, half the information you need to do this. You don't explain a lot of things.
jah1985 14 Feb, 2021 @ 12:32pm 
Ah, thank you, that will help :steamthumbsup:
Nexuscrawler  [author] 14 Feb, 2021 @ 10:05am 
@jah1985 You just need to put the normal map into the same folder, correct. Regarding the white background, you'll have to make that transparent first. Bets to use a PNG for that.

There are some online tools you could use for that, for example this page: https://onlinepngtools.com/create-transparent-png