Llama

[chuck_starchaser]

New llama taking shape.





Nate, you want to take over? Do the engines?
Never mind; you're going to work now... I'll try and get them started.

[nphillips]

Awesome as always, chuck.

You take this one -- I've got the Merchants' ships to tackle.

[chuck_starchaser]

@Nate: Thanks; and okeydoc.
Don't forget the retro and maneuvering thrusters.
**Trying to figure out where to put them on this guy...**

@All:
Do we have to put weapons on ships?, or are they installed as sub-units when
you buy them, like in PU? And where do they go?
Also, what's the official length of a llama? I want to scale the mesh so that it's
one grid unit per meter, as I always do.

[Fendorin]

@All:
Do we have to put weapons on ships?, or are they installed as sub-units when
you buy them, like in PU? And where do they go?
Also, what's the official length of a llama? I want to scale the mesh so that it's
one grid unit per meter, as I always do.

Personnaly i would like to see no weapon on starship (difinitly not on civilian) as weapon can be throw by some kind on hatch which you can modelize on ship as landing gears all all kind of details

I have no idea of what is the Official lenght for lama
But i would like to propose a new draw (coming soon) more actual and look less as a toy as the current Lama shape ( cockpit to big comparse to the role of Cargo, look as nintendo style starship)
And honestly a modeller as you can do a very good model as the current fit let you do.

[chuck_starchaser]

Personnaly i would like to see no weapon on starship (difinitly not on civilian) as weapon can be throw by some kind on hatch which you can modelize on ship as landing gears all all kind of details

You mean like the weapons coming out of a hatch?
I'm not too sure at all about that. Once we had a long discussion in physics and whether particle
and plasma weapons would have recoil (push-back when it fires), and the consensus was that
they would. So you probably wouldn't want to mount weapons on flimsy mechanisms; you'd rather
anchor it solidly to a solid mount. Furthermore, when you have mechanical parts sliding and rotating
you have wear, and you have play and tolerances; and the firing accuracy is important
Thirdly, other than the engines, I tend to run out of ideas quickly for greebling; and adding weapons
is an opportunity to splurge on detail.

I have no idea of what is the Official lenght for lama

I guess I'll have to deduce it from
the the xmesh and the scaling factors in xmesh and units.csv, then...

But i would like to propose a new draw (coming soon) more actual and look less as a toy as the current Lama shape ( cockpit to big comparse to the role of Cargo, look as nintendo style starship)

I never liked the llama, myself; but I'm not good at
coming up with new concepts; I just want to fix it up quickly.

And honestly a modeller as you can do a very good model as the current fit let you do.

Thanks. I'm not trying to change VS, though. If I was, my first step would be to get rid of all the
kilometer sized ships, like 1 km maximum; and I'd put 1 meter windows on them all, so that one can tell
the sizes; and I'd limit accelerations to 2 G's for fighters, down to 0.05 G's for the larger ships. And I'd
make the engines of ships to make up at least 50% of the ship's size; and I'd have space elevator
stations in almost every planet.

What do people think about maneuvering jets in this style?:







The idea is, they could be thought of vectored thrusters that rotate; --though in-game they won't--, or they
could be thought of as fixed thrusters that thrust at fixed angles; good enough to maneuver with.
Haven't put retro thrusters, yet.

[nphillips]

Looking good, chuck. I like those vectored thrusters. Good stuff

Re: weapon mounts -- I thought VS did the same thing as PU, where the weapons mounted were subunits. Not sure, though....hop in game and buy a gun

[chuck_starchaser]

I did. I launched in the llama, which had guns already, and fired them several times, and I saw
the laser shots going forward; but I didn't see any weapons. That's why I asked.

I made a better render here; closer and with ambient occlusion:

[chuck_starchaser]

Retro thrusters added.

[chuck_starchaser]

Weapons added.



The box under the cockpit is supposed to be a rocket launcher; but it doesn't even
look like a launch box. I'll figure it out; don't worry.

[Fendorin]

I would like to see no weapon or gun outside the hull (look ...strange and fragil)
i like your Thruster details
in my remenbering Lama is a Cargo ship able to fight a bit? not a fighter able to transport a bit (i guess)
250M3 Cargo if i m not wrong somebody can confirm?

[charlieg]

Reminds me a lot of the Demon from PU.

[Deus Siddis]

Looks great, especially the thrusters. The only thing I would change so far is add more polys to the noses of those double hulls, so they don't look too faceted on the highest LoD.

Don't forget the retro and maneuvering thrusters.
**Trying to figure out where to put them on this guy...**

One thing I like to do when considering all the thrusters that will be built into the ship is to look at the thruster stats relative to each other for that ship in units.csv. For instance the Llama has 17000 forward acceleration, 15000 retro acceleration and 4000 lateral acceleration. So I would say all you need are some small up, down, right and left facing thrusters for lateral movement.

BTW, what units.csv calls "acceleration" is actually force it looks like, since the equation it gives for its metric looks like kilo-newtons.

Do we have to put weapons on ships?, or are they installed as sub-units when
you buy them, like in PU? And where do they go?

It doesn't work that way currently, but that might have been a planned feature. This might be a good thing to discuss in a larger thread about when and how to use sub-units in the future.

Also, what's the official length of a llama? I want to scale the mesh so that it's
one grid unit per meter, as I always do.

Going by an old scale chart for VS, it is about 40 meters long.

I'm not trying to change VS, though. If I was, my first step would be to get rid of all the
kilometer sized ships, like 1 km maximum; and I'd put 1 meter windows on them all, so that one can tell
the sizes; and I'd limit accelerations to 2 G's for fighters, down to 0.05 G's for the larger ships. And I'd
make the engines of ships to make up at least 50% of the ship's size; and I'd have space elevator
stations in almost every planet.

IMO, these things would still be worth discussing in a larger thread about Realism/Believability in VS. This project seem to have been trending in that direction over the years, so maybe its time to really look into it.

[nphillips]

Do we have to put weapons on ships?, or are they installed as sub-units when
you buy them, like in PU? And where do they go?

It doesn't work that way currently, but that might have been a planned feature. This might be a good thing to discuss in a larger thread about when and how to use sub-units in the future.

It's implemented in PU, so I can't imagine it would be tough to backport to VS. I'm all for it, but it would mean a great deal of reworking on just about everything.

Also, what's the official length of a llama? I want to scale the mesh so that it's
one grid unit per meter, as I always do.

Going by an old scale chart for VS, it is about 40 meters long.

When I imported the Mule last night, it was scaled to .01 -- increasing the scale to 1.0 left it at about 160-170m long (assuming 1m per blender unit). That seems logical to me. Was the llama scaled similarly? (what's on the chart for the Mule, Deus?)

IMO, these things would still be worth discussing in a larger thread about Realism/Believability in VS. This project seem to have been trending in that direction over the years, so maybe its time to really look into it.

That's a slippery slope, for sure. It's also a great way to draw all of the trolls out from under their bridges, too. Part of me thinks it's better to make it a "closed door" meeting, and only invite people who will bring something useful to the table.

[Fendorin]

Llama Llama and Llama
Here as below would you find a concept sketches at i thought can be a 40 meters Llama light armed Cargo
For your remenbering 40 meter is little bit less under this Airplane :
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Guppy
Then is not tiny



Please accept all my apologies for the low quality of the 3/4 view as i was short in time
i put all kind of greeble fin as radiator/cooler and a deck as cockpit + in guest a lot of thruster
i would like begion to do a Llama as i think Lihw must look like


in HD resolution:

[Deus Siddis]

When I imported the Mule last night, it was scaled to .01 -- increasing the scale to 1.0 left it at about 160-170m long (assuming 1m per blender unit). That seems logical to me. Was the llama scaled similarly? (what's on the chart for the Mule, Deus?)

It says its about 190 meters long. I uploaded the chart in if you or anyone else wants to refer to it-

VesselSC.svg

Its in SVG format and for good reason as you'll see, so will need something that can handle vector graphics to open it, like Inkscape, GIMP, etc.

IMO, these things would still be worth discussing in a larger thread about Realism/Believability in VS. This project seem to have been trending in that direction over the years, so maybe its time to really look into it.

That's a slippery slope, for sure. It's also a great way to draw all of the trolls out from under their bridges, too. Part of me thinks it's better to make it a "closed door" meeting, and only invite people who will bring something useful to the table.

That is possible but unlikely I think, since similar topics in recent history have drawn only a small and reasonable/civil crowd. Probably because VS is a recent game and universe still under heavy development, as opposed to a nostalgic thing that many people grew up with and have very specific opinions about.

[chuck_starchaser]

I would like to see no weapon or gun outside the hull (look ...strange and fragil)
i like your Thruster details
in my remenbering Lama is a Cargo ship able to fight a bit? not a fighter able to transport a bit (i guess)

Point well taken.
Still, where there's weapon fire, there must be a weapon.
But since the ship is so much bigger than I thought, what I did was reduce the size of the guns.

Here as below would you find a concept sketches at i thought can be a 40 meters Llama light armed Cargo

Myself, I don't want to model new ships; I want to just fix existing ones, without changing them too much; but this is me.
In any case, I saved your sketch; thanks.



Closer look at the pilot:



I still have to fix the missile launcher box, and then I unwrap.

Reminds me a lot of the Demon from PU.

Indeed. Well, it always looked like a Demon a bit; but more so now with vectored thrusters, for sure.

The only thing I would change so far is add more polys to the noses of those double hulls, so they don't look too faceted on the highest LoD.

Done.
That was a feature, not a bug, but I agree it could be perceived as unintended.

One thing I like to do when considering all the thrusters that will be built into the ship is to look at the thruster stats relative to each other for that ship in units.csv. For instance the Llama has 17000 forward acceleration, 15000 retro acceleration and 4000 lateral acceleration. So I would say all you need are some small up, down, right and left facing thrusters for lateral movement.

If we're going to brainstorm possible future changes, perhaps one
subject to address would be maneuvering thrusts and accelerations. I always thought they are
absurdly high. Particularly the llama I always thought it was like 15 meters in size, and the
reason was how quickly you can turn it... --move the mouse quickly and it turns as fast as a toy.
If this thing is a 40 meters long monster, it should take at least 5 seconds to turn 90 degrees;
otherwise it would destroy itself.
I understand the optimist futurists argument about advanced materials and whatnot; but a 40-meter
ship turning instantly is not something we, as players, can even imagine; and therefore it becomes
yet another burden on the believability of the whole thing; and we have to accept the sizes of
ships intellectually, with one side of the brain; but use a more realistic model (toy size) with
the other half of the brain.
By the way, I made it 30 meters, instead; otherwise the pilot looked too small in the cockpit.
So, maybe what we can do is, in some cases, add sizable maneuvering thrusters; and in other
cases we can look at the sizes of thrusters we got and change the stats in units.csv, instead.

It doesn't work that way currently, but that might have been a planned feature. This might be a good thing to discuss in a larger thread about when and how to use sub-units in the future.

So, for now I throw them in. Once the feature is implemented, they can be taken out.

Part of me thinks it's better to make it a "closed door" meeting, and only invite people who will bring something useful to the table.

Well, here we're not admins; so, to have hidden forums we'd have to bother www2. But I don't think it's
necessary; I think this can be discussed in the open. If trolls show up, I'll deal with them

I think there needs to be a balance of several things: Scientific realism, believability, playability, canon and aesthetics;
as well as political considerations....

(This should be in the proposed thread.)

Politics: This project is NOT abandoned; and we know its project leads are not too keen on realism.
Take the case of shields, for example: According to JackS they work by deforming space. To me, that's THE most
absurd account of shields in any universe (and I never liked any account much, for starters); but it's something
we have to live with.

Aesthetics: Unless we completely re-concept and redo most ships, a lot of ships look "aerodynamic", and
adding lateral and maneuvering thrusters of any reasonable size will conflict with the aerodynamic looks of the
hulls.

Believability: My eternal position about changing accelerations (as well as turning speeds and maneuvering
accelerations) has more to do with belivability than with scientific realism: I cannot accept that the llama is as big
as 40 meters long if I can't "feel" it; --if I can turn it around in half a second--, for instance.

[chuck_starchaser]

Klauss changed my mind and I scaled the ship up to the 40 meters it's supposed to be.
Consequently, the pilot looks a bit smaller than before.



But we definitely need to fix the units.csv stats to make it slower at turning.
Originally I was going to go with a 512 texture; but given its size, I'll go to 512x1024.
What I'll do is unwrap the hull to a 512x512, then unwrap greebles, cockpit interior,
pilot and engines to another 512x512, and finally I'll stack the two unwraps onto a
512x1024 texture. The normalmap will be 1024x2048, of course. Always double.
Remodeled the missile launch box from scratch:



Almost ready to unwrap. I think I'll work on assigning materials first, so that during
unwrap I can group similar materials together; and then I'll make sure that as many
edge loops as possible are straight and coplanar... It's very difficult to match
textures features across islands unless the unwrap is well matched; but it's hard
to match islands on the unwrap unless the lines in the mesh are straight and grid-
-like.

[Fendorin]

2 things i want wrote
-Your work is really great you handle blender3D perfectlly.

-Myself, I don't want to model new ships; I want to just fix existing ones

WHY?

[chuck_starchaser]

Hehehe; because I'm in a hurry to get back to work on CineMut.
That work is still going...
http://wcjunction.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1353
What I'm planning to do, though; --and you'll be very happy--; is I'm going to improve the
the current Vegastrike shader, and by A LOT; and it won't require a new texture system;
same textures as currently. It will only need shininess in the alpha channel of the specular
texture, and ambient occlusion in the alpha channel of the glow map. That's all. And it
will be able to tell between paints and metals. If you use color in diffuse, but gray in spec,
it will know you're trying to represent paint, and apply fresnel. If your diffuse and spec are
the same color (different only in brightness), it will know you want a metal.
And I will also implement detail textures in it, so that you can use them for tilings
I might be able to hack some hint of shadows in it too... We'll see.

Finished placing seams, and then did an automatic unwrap, and ambient occlusion, just
to see if the seams are okay; and they seem to be okay.





Now I'm going to do the real UV unwrap.

[Fendorin]

Great !!
i can help to make a diffuse map for your detailled old Llama if needed

The point i would like you explain and Share is :
How you integrate the ship into VS
Step by step if possible without Unti converter as is seems doesn't work easily
by transform the mesh into BFXM editing and put into game
Thanks a lot

[chuck_starchaser]

Oh!...
I didn't know Unit Converter doesn't work; I thought it did...
My plan was to learn the process while integrating the llama (with Unit Converter) and then
write a tutorial; but if UC doesn't work, we have a problem...
I've never been able to use the newer mesher versions; always used a very old one.
What's the problem with UC?

Thanks for offering. I'll do the bump-map first, decide on materials, and all the painted
areas I'll delegate to you. Haven't decided a general texturing approach for it, yet. The old
texturing was kind of nice but nothing looked like it had any 'purpose'. Want to handle it
with a little bit more seriousness; but I have no clear idea yet what I want to do.

[Deus Siddis]

I wouldn't blame Unit Converter for a problem right off the bat because it is just a front-end for mesher and units.csv and one or two other things.

So the problem could in fact be on mesher's end for example, and the only way to find out for sure is to run mesher on its own and see if the same problem happens.

[chuck_starchaser]

And what exactly IS this problem I should expect? What does it do?, or fail to do?

[Deus Siddis]

And what exactly IS this problem I should expect? What does it do?, or fail to do?

Well for me I was never able to get any of the textures to appear in-game, as described in the Asteroids thread. That might be a problem with mesher or VS or myself or something else, but everything that I tried to do up to that point I was able to get to work, after enough practice at least.

[chuck_starchaser]

Okay, it should still be as trivial as it always was to use mesher manually to convert from bfxm to xmesh and see if the textures are listed correctly.
Namely,

Code: Select all

> mesher foo.bfxm foo.xmesh bxc