Star Trek Mod

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Sat Sep 06, 2003 12:25 am

Sweet. I'll try this out after I get hom from work (this time I'm serious) and let you know!

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Sat Sep 06, 2003 11:25 pm

Crap. I honestly don't know which version to use for the Federation.

I'll probably go with your older one, since I've already got that one all set up. I'll give the new one (which works really well, I multiplied all the unit scales for it by 3 so it looked big next to the starships) to the Romulans and Klingons I suppose. Hmmmm.

There's going to be lots of torpedo types on paper... small torpedos, big torpedos, green torpedos, quantum torpedos... The same art can work for all of them, but I've just got to figure out which is best for what.

pontiac · Post by **pontiac** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 6:47 pm

I posted this link in the B5-thread as well and there are also ST models on this site:
http://www.blenderwars.com/frame.php?module=models

Though they are in blender format, dunno if you can convert them somewhere.

Pontiac

EDIT: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepage ... suites.htm
http://sourceforge.net/projects/blenderobjex/

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 7:38 pm

I posted my images in my thread before reading Pontiac's post ;
those blender meshes are nice but are all converted from 3ds, lw or max formats, just look in the credits. Their main problem is the polycount, and the way the polys are placed: you can easily find 2000 polys only for the antennas on a 4000 polys mesh: If you want a 4000 polys mesh as a result, you will waste many time while adding some details on the other parts of the ship, because textures maps are already done, and all the layers have been merged, most of time with boolean operations.

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Fri Sep 19, 2003 8:03 pm

I think I'm just about ready to turn the first version of the Trek mod loose. Just have to do a few more tweaks, and figure out where I'm going to put it!

In the meantime, I put up a Vega Trek gallery that shows off what we've been coming up with lately.

http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/gallery/vegatrek

pontiac · Post by **pontiac** » Fri Sep 19, 2003 8:50 pm

PeteyG wrote:I think I'm just about ready to turn the first version of the Trek mod loose. Just have to do a few more tweaks, and figure out where I'm going to put it!

Sourceforge?

*beingasmartass*
New SF-project (like b5-mod) or maybe parallel to the vegastrike releases -> hellctav.

In the meantime, I put up a Vega Trek gallery that shows off what we've been coming up with lately.

http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/gallery/vegatrek

That pictures TOTALLY ROCK

I think we have another basis for VS/VT-promotion

Are you still planing to release the mod in sync with VS4.0?

Are those particles the same color as in vegastrike, or did you cange them?
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/galle ... egatrek012
I had no chance lately to check this.

Pontiac

PS: i really like the 'strechy' effect

Surfdargent · Post by **Surfdargent** » Fri Sep 19, 2003 9:47 pm

Oh yes, those pictures totally rocks.
I also think that a lot of Star Trek fan will really love that mod when the first release is out... and yes I'm one of those who wait for that

Post by **hurleybird** » Fri Sep 19, 2003 11:55 pm

Man those look sweet. I cant wait to try this out!

1 little complaint though... would it be possible to make the saucer on the galaxy model more curved. Its fairly easy to see the jagedness in the saucer. You have no idea how much trekkies will judge a gmae in advance based on how good a galaxy class starship looks ini it.

FlyingAce · Post by **FlyingAce** » Sat Sep 20, 2003 2:00 am

what was the background texture u used on the akira? and how did u get those light spots? is that a glow map?

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Sat Sep 20, 2003 2:29 am

I made it by hand, dude. It took for freaking ever.

Pretty much, I took the saucer I got from you, tweaked the geometry a bit, and reUVmapped it. I found a top-down pic of the Akira of about the same quality that's on the Galaxy and Nebula models... and decided that I wanted to go crazy. I set it to 50% opacity in photoshop, and recreated every detail at higher resolution. I made big detailed windows and escape pods, then shrunk them down and rotated them to cover up where they went on the layer I was working off of. I did the detail lines or whatever too. I almost every detail I could. I didn't do the side photon launchers, and I never got around to doing the bridge and top part, it took so long.

Well, I pretty much did use a glow map. It wasn't the whole texture3=blah deal ('cause that's kinda buggy still). I duplicated all the meshes I wanted to glow, put the glow map as their main texture (with blend=one one), and added the emissive r=1 g=1 b=1 a=1 stuff to the material. Then when I loaded the meshes in the unit file, I specified the glow meshes to be polygonoffset=3, which makes them show on top of the real meshes.

It's kind of a drag on game speed, so most all my glow maps are 512x512 rather than 1024x1024.

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Sat Sep 20, 2003 2:46 am

hurleybird wrote:would it be possible to make the saucer on the galaxy model more curved.

I'll give it a try. The Galaxy was like my 3rd model ever, and the first that didn't TOTALLY suck. I'm actually thinking about redoing it from the beginning, since the texture job is really shoddy too. Plus I'd like to be able to have the more detailed window lights like the Akira does, and the only way to get that is to do each one by hand.

There's a few bad things I'm going to fix up, then hopefully I'll upload it to the WCuniverse project. The night of Saturday the 20th at the latest, I'd say. I'm not going to start spreading the word until I get a little website up and 0.4.0 is out to the general masses.

KernelBurner · Post by **KernelBurner** » Mon Sep 22, 2003 12:29 pm

PeteyG ur mod rox.... but i am very newbie to VS soo i cant understand hjow can i see when i can shoot again... dunno where the shootin energy...

FlyingAce · Post by **FlyingAce** » Mon Sep 22, 2003 11:41 pm

what happened to the nebula classes I made? was it one of theese?

1. the texture wasn't good enough
2. I never sent them to you
3. you never got around to putting it into a mission
4. you thought the whole thing 5|_|X0|23|)

if it's 1 or 2 I can fix it.

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Mon Sep 22, 2003 11:49 pm

None of the above!!

Actually, the texture could be better. But they're the same level of the Galaxy, which isn't terrible. The Intrepid and Nova class could be a bit better, more so than the Nebula.

The actual reason I didn't end up putting them in was because I got lazy about doing weapons. I totally half-assed the phasers on the Freedom and Intrepid, because the ones they came with didn't fit in with what I was hoping to do. Not that the Galaxy is much better. Actually, ALL Federation phasers are pretty much fuxx0red. I think I SERIOUSLY need to consider a different way of doing phasers and phaser arcs and stuff.

FlyingAce · Post by **FlyingAce** » Mon Sep 22, 2003 11:58 pm

I agree with u about the intrepid and nova (nova especially), but after seeing the intrepid in action with that BEAUTIFUL AI (it looks just like from the show!) I didn't even notice the crappy parts from a decent distance it's hard to tell the distance texturewise between it and the akira. it just needs the glow map thingy like with your other ships where it looks like a spotlight.

(if your too lazy to download the trek mod, just look at my avatar for a pic of my intrepid class)

FlyingAce · Post by **FlyingAce** » Tue Sep 23, 2003 12:06 am

PeteyG wrote:The actual reason I didn't end up putting them in was because I got lazy about doing weapons. I totally half-assed the phasers on the Freedom and Intrepid, because the ones they came with didn't fit in with what I was hoping to do. Not that the Galaxy is much better. Actually, ALL Federation phasers are pretty much fuxx0red. I think I SERIOUSLY need to consider a different way of doing phasers and phaser arcs and stuff.

maybe we could take a hint from a commercial trek game.

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Tue Sep 23, 2003 12:22 am

It would help if you could send me small versions of the wings3d files relating to the missing ships (even the intrepid). that way I could figure out the proper coords for adding weapons.

FlyingAce wrote:maybe we could take a hint from a commercial trek game.

Yeah... I've been thinking about stealing primarily from Starfleet Command. But that's a purely 2d game...

Here are the limitations:
-All autotracking weapons have to have the same firing radius (or am I wrong on this?)
-If a target is in the firing radius of an autotracking weapon, the weapon will fire (if only one weapon would fire at a time, I think I know how I would handle this problem)

Now what I DON'T want is to have a bunch of crazily pointed weapons, like with the Galaxy. Which leads me to believe that the Akira's forward and side pointing phasers are the best way to go.

The Akira way
The Good: easy to understand, makes skilled maneuvering good
The Bad: Phasers don't cover the top/bottom arcs (think we could do this?), phasers don't come out of the right places on the model.

Code: Select all

Akira, 90 degrees to the sides.  top/bottom is completely uncovered (though in trek reality, that is incorrect). One weapon on top of saucer, one below.  one of them ends up firing THROUGH the saucer.


  0                                                          0         
     0                                                    0            
        0        ------------------------        0                 
------------------------------------------------------        
        0        ------------------------        0                
     0                                                    0         
  0                                                          0

okay, that makes zero sense.

FlyingAce · Post by **FlyingAce** » Tue Sep 23, 2003 12:39 am

I get what u mean. if u make the arc too big u end up firing through another part of the ship. (i.e. just about every vegastrike station)

pontiac · Post by **pontiac** » Tue Sep 23, 2003 9:17 pm

@PeteyG: If you haven't seen it, somebody ist starting a ST-model (Destiny Class) in the wings3d-forum:
http://pub161.ezboard.com/fnendowingsmi ... =688.topic

Maybe he'll share it

Pontiac

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Tue Sep 23, 2003 9:47 pm

It's a start! I'll definately keep my eye on it.

I wonder if I should post some of MY Trek - wings3d stuff to the forum there. In your opinion, do you think that would help drum up a bit of interest in Vega Trek over there?

pontiac · Post by **pontiac** » Tue Sep 23, 2003 10:06 pm

PeteyG wrote:It's a start! I'll definately keep my eye on it.

I wonder if I should post some of MY Trek - wings3d stuff to the forum there. In your opinion, do you think that would help drum up a bit of interest in Vega Trek over there?

That's defiantely worth a shot, your models are really great.
But keep in mind that they want to see (grid)-meshes too

not only screenshots from within the game

I think there are a few star trek fans over there for sure.

Pontiac

KernelBurner · Post by **KernelBurner** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 12:32 am

Working on a Olimpic-class Ship. 161 poly so far.

PS: I know the ship looks a bit... how can i say this... shitty. but ill try get it better. Not sure if the ship is like this. I started makin it from a single photo.

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 12:55 am

A good way to make a model from an existing thing is to use a picture with multiplie views of the ship. Some square-on from the top/bottom, front/back, and sides... and others at an angle. You really have to 'get' the ship you're trying to model.

Here's a good side view:
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/schem ... lympic.jpg
And here are some really extensive and varied views of the Olympic:
http://www.shiporama.org/olympic.htm

Having the olympic would be great!

FlyingAce · Post by **FlyingAce** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 1:07 am

I downloaded about 30 pics of voyager to make my intrepid model. what really helped me the most though was a set of straight out top-bottom-left-back-front pics of the original model not rendered with special lighting.

http://members.fortunecity.com/wendhaus ... lympic.htm more pics

EDIT: WOW!!!!! I sure wish I had found this place earlier! too bad they're having hosting difficulties
http://devil.beyond.net.au/meshes_start ... rships.htm

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 1:45 am

http://www.lunarhorizon.com/startrekaus ... /index.htm