lets get the vegawars project kicked into high gear

[MC707]

As I said previously, you need time to lead the project, too. Leads usually have to be a little dedicated to bring the project together as people add their support (3D models, textures, etc.) Haven't had time lately, so...

[Tranberry]

Yeah, time is a big factor I missed in my rant.

So putting the lead work aside, what can be done in the meanwhile? I'm not so well veresed in the VS-universe to know up from down, what would be needed to bring the spirit of SW into the engine? Is it just simple replacement of models, or do the whole physicist side need to be altered?

In my view a content-pack could/should be startede, are there any ones sitting on such stuff here?

Music, Models, Concepts, Ideas, anything?

[MC707]

Yeah, time is a big factor I missed in my rant.

So putting the lead work aside, what can be done in the meanwhile? I'm not so well veresed in the VS-universe to know up from down, what would be needed to bring the spirit of SW into the engine? Is it just simple replacement of models, or do the whole physicist side need to be altered?

In my view a content-pack could/should be startede, are there any ones sitting on such stuff here?

Music, Models, Concepts, Ideas, anything?

Now that you mention music, I was wondering if we could use actual SW music, somehow asking for copyright reservation to Lucasarts or to whom it may concern. Making music sounds a little more complicated, since I don't think we could get musicians to help and actual SW music fits perfectly . As I said, I did some 3D modeling some time ago (star wars), so I could find those files in one of my stuffed up HDs. If my memory is right, I did Kyle Katarn's ship, some imperial ships models, an ATST (which we obviously won't use here ) and other stuff as well.

[Tranberry]

Great, maybe we could start making a list of the ships already available (license?). That way we can easily asses what is needed and how to move on. (A wiki would be good I think)

As for music I know of two people who might be able to do SW inspired music under a CC-BY-SA license, but before inquiring about that I think we need to get something off the ground first. I know there must be loads of others people sitting on stuff that would fit this project, I just wonder how to poke them into action..

Any ideas for that?

[loki1950]

There is a list of ships buried in the threads here but the main problem you may encounter with the ones you find on the web is that the meshes are not really designed for real time rendering so a lot of the work would be optimizing those meshes eliminating overdraw,welding seams and such so that you don't get a major performance hit in game chuck_starchaser may be able to provide some guidelines on this but that would be very much dependent on each individual mesh as the original purpose may vary.

ps like the avatar Tranberry
Edit: I have e-mailed both Hurleybird and Beowulf.
Enjoy the Choice

[Tranberry]

Ok, I'll re-read the thread then, I'm a bit dizzy due to the flu I fetched.

My main concern with models anyway is that when someone is ace and starts doing 'perfect' models it will raise the bar sky high for new entries nd that will make the project dependent on that ace 3D modeller, so yeah, finding game appropriate models might be harder then I first thought.

ps. Thanks for the comment on the avatar, I just had to make a version of yours:


I boorked the windoze logo a bit more..

[loki1950]

Sweet rework of my avatar Just had a reply from Beowulf tied up in the usually university grind with no time ATM but i did urge him to visit so there may be some idea of where he left off in his attempts.
re: that flu just getting over a GI variant myself finally stopped running from both ends

Enjoy the Choice

[Tranberry]

Ok, I have read the forum a bit more, and found the link to download beuwolfs files. Which was useful indeed.

Now I just have to sort it into a wiki page, to get a simple overview.

Found 'units' in alliance faction so far is :

• K-Wing
  R41
  X-Wing
  Z-Wing

Found 'units' in imperial faction so far is :

• Corellian Gunship
  CR90
  Assult Gunboat
  Missile Boat
  Skypray Blastboat
  TIE-Avenger
  TIE-Bomber
  TIE-Fighter
  TIE-Interceptor
  Nebulon B2
  XQ-2
  Assult Transport
  Lambda Shuttle
  'Frighter'
  'Nav buoy'

So that mean we need alliance vessels foremost, in the models area. Beside extracting that info, I could only see that the factions as of now is empire and alliance (we already here got a problem, should we name the 'evil' forces empire or imperial?) beside that all default VS factions is in there.

My _humble_ proposal for us who do not manage to draw a box in blender, is to come up with some factions. Someone somewhere already listed the Hutts as one, but I know you can give me some more. When we got that, we will need to think of the faction relations.

If we can do that, we have a start on collect essential stuff to get this project somewhere, so a lead could do something with this. Of course a python man (or woman) is needed too. But I think we can do a lot of stuff in the meanwhile.

[MC707]

So that mean we need alliance vessels foremost, in the models area. Beside extracting that info, I could only see that the factions as of now is empire and alliance (we already here got a problem, should we name the 'evil' forces empire or imperial?) beside that all default VS factions is in there.

Galactic Empire. caput

My _humble_ proposal for us who do not manage to draw a box in blender, is to come up with some factions. Someone somewhere already listed the Hutts as one, but I know you can give me some more. When we got that, we will need to think of the faction relations.

If we can do that, we have a start on collect essential stuff to get this project somewhere, so a lead could do something with this. Of course a python man (or woman) is needed too. But I think we can do a lot of stuff in the meanwhile.

Hmm Hutts don't seem like a space faction though I guess they can have other faction's ships like slaver ships or transport ships. I can think of Trandoshans, too. hmm the InterGalactic Banking Clan, the Confederacy of Independent Systems, Trade Federation, Galactic Republic, Royal Naboo, Gungans, Wookies.

[charlieg]

The Imperial Winter guys might be worth contacting for Star Wars models:
http://www.imperialwinter.com/

[loki1950]

Thanks charlieg

Enjoy the Choice

[MC707]

The Imperial Winter guys might be worth contacting for Star Wars models:
http://www.imperialwinter.com/

hmm that looks nice! How did they manage to get copyright permission to use the starwars name and logo? Doing so for this project would further make this project attractive for people...

[Tranberry]

Hmm Hutts don't seem like a space faction though I guess they can have other faction's ships like slaver ships or transport ships. I can think of Trandoshans, too. hmm the InterGalactic Banking Clan, the Confederacy of Independent Systems, Trade Federation, Galactic Republic, Royal Naboo, Gungans, Wookies.

I'm all for faction sharing some ships, so yeah well the hutts could still be in I guess. Are the Gungans more space traveling? I mean they are supposed to be not that bright? I'm not that keen on the faction by race system, but I won't cast my veto on it yet

Anyway the list I got now are:

• Galactic Empire
  Alliance
  The Hutts
  Trandorians
  Inter Galacic Banking Clan
  Confederacy of Independent Systems
  Trade Federation
  Galactic Republic
  Royal Naboo
  Gungans
  Wookies

The list is broken in the way of some being part of the good (alliance) and the non good faction (galactic empire) (time-frame?). So how do the factions work, sub-factions and such?

[MC707]

Are the Gungans more space traveling? I mean they are supposed to be not that bright? I'm not that keen on the faction by race system, but I won't cast my veto on it yet

Hahaha I took the idea from one of my favorite games. Their ships would be similar to that of the Rlaan here at VS.

Oh, and they ARE bright. The problem is, Jar Jar (unlike Chewbacca to the wookies) simply blew Gungan's reputation. A quote from a gamespot review on gungans:

The Gungans have gotten a bad rap ever since Episode I hit movie theaters last year. Jar Jar Binks has forever tarnished the reputation of this honorable race. Gungans in fact do have an advanced government, with refined laws and respected codes. Remember that Jar Jar is an outcast; he is not representative of the Gungan people. The Gungans in Battlegrounds have many unique elements to their gameplay style, perhaps in an attempt by the designers to compensate for the well-known loathing that people have for Gungans. If the designers are worried that people might not play Gungans because of the stigma attached to them, then they have gone all-out to give them many interesting advantages that no other civilization gets. As far as LucasArts' is concerned, you will play the Gungans and be pleasantly surprised by their capabilities. They are the only civilization that has portable shield generators, that can build underwater, and that ride massive dinosaurlike mounts.

The list is broken in the way of some being part of the good (alliance) and the non good faction (galactic empire) (time-frame?). So how do the factions work, sub-factions and such?

Well the ones I gave you are mostly a brief brainstorm, so I will research a little bit later. For instance, I think the Galactic Banking Clan is rather a sub faction, as it is a Clan. Also, it will be a little bit complicated to define the timeline, since there are factions (like Trade Federation) that die at some point.

[Tranberry]

Point taken MC707, I admit to not be a scholar on SW So how is that research going, got anything?

But this thread needs more people talking. Where are the horde?

[MC707]

on a funny note "The ability to speak does not make you intelligent." ―Qui-Gon Jinn to Jar Jar Binks

Now I find it difficult to categorize because of time scale (ie. the Rakata empire [Infinite Empire] was effaced long before the old republic), to categorize them by species (like VS more or less does) since "There were over 20 million sentient species known to the galaxy." One idea I have is to categorize by Empires, and to have different universes for the different time scales. For instance, a button in the menu that generates a universe (galaxy) in the old republic, other that spawns you 25500BBY at the height of the Rakata empire, other that spawns you 0BBY, and other that spawns you say 14ABY, etc. These would 'spawn' you during significant times for the galaxy. Of course, thats just an idea which is (hopefully) feasible.

[Spyre9]

Heylo just thought id say hello and offer any skills i can to this mod. Been waiting for LucasArts to make a sandbox xwing/tiefighter style game... well if you want something done... Use to use 3dsm, done some coding for an online game... granted im not a 3d dude or am i a true coder but as someone said futher in the thread, all you need is comprehension.

Anyway's if you still lookin for help id be more then happy to offer what i can.

[Spyre9]

Thought i might add a lil bit to the whole factions in terms of who and what ships and the like, mind you running from memory so i could be typing pure bs.

Some indiginous races may not be spacefarring but most are, the Hutts are more like a Crime family and given that Nar Shaddar is a moon orbiting Nal Hutta the home of the Hutts its a safe assumption that they got space craft; anyone who has the credits can I think Jabba's ship was along the same design features that the skiffs and pleasure barge he had on tatooine.

Some Factions have specific craft created for them, RA/NR has B-Wing and A-Wing as Incom X-Wings are just an aging snubfighter. The Galactic Empire had SFS (Seinar Fleet Systems) making most of their small ships TIE TIE-B, TIE-I etc, Gunboats, Missile Boats think the Imperial Shuttle too, and Kuat Space Drives something or other building the Cap ships VSD, ISD, ISDII, SSD.

Food for thought.

Another thought, in terms of timeline you may wish to do just after the fall of the emperor (4-6 ABY), there are more resources out there for this time period then any other, and not just fighters and cap ships, but merchant vessals, plus the Empire is not dead the Rebel alliance is becoming the New Republic, more legit. plus it means you get to have Iconic ships; Star Destroyers, X-Wings and YT-1300's.

Anyway think im done.

[Tranberry]

I think Spyre9 got some interesting point there with the time-line and iconic ships, but on the other hand I'm not a zealot so I could as well see this mod starting before the fall of the emperor without following any set pieces in history (destruction of the death star etc).

[Creamuur]

We need to go to deviantArt and other creative sites and get those guys involved. Don't be afraid to go to your local tech and art schools either. fresh out of college is what we need, people with jobs who can support themselves but don't mind coding a few days of the week as well.

Content is the first goal as once we have ships and shops and characters and all that done up, coders will see the dedication, and it'll make putting this together a lot easier. To start, we need to go over all the star wars movies, old and new. We need to get timelines, read books and get additional info. Do we want this to parallel Anikin's training? Is this pre- or post-sith wars. Does the empire control everything or is it still a unified republican? There have been countless games about SW put out, we should go over some of them and find key features that we want to incorporate. We are also going to need sounds, music, fx, the whole shebang. Why not rip the audio right off the movie? If we do a good enough mock-up job, we can go to Lucas Films, Disney now I suppose, and ask for rights to use the sounds and tracks.

It's not hard, and we don't need one person telling everyone what to do. You wanna help? Put the movie on your comp, and start taking screen shots of the interior and exteriors of ships, building and environments. As for the graphic artists, even if we got some high-schoolers to draw up some sketches of what things will look like, when we find a mesher or learn it, we'll have templates, designs and a floor plan. We need someone to start collecting pictures and picture info, another to start databanking and organizing the sounds and tracks, and we need a few out-going, or at least confident, individuals to go and talk to some college/uni kids about doing some fun project work on the weekend for a few hours. This has been free so far, and we'll see to ti that it remains free.

The biggest thing we will need tho, is a dedicated team of devs to help maintain the game over time, and being open-source, new mods and mod advancements can be easily added. Wouldn't you want to have your name on this game? Maybe learning some coding on your break at work wouldn't be so bad. Dedication and determination, and so long as 4 others want this the way I do, there's no reason we can't make this project happen.

[maze]

If you get something going, how are you going to prevent Disney from eating you alive?

[omegakent]

To expand coding involvement, source code documentation is urgently required.

[FattyPants]

I suppose I could offer some help. I don't know how much, though! I'll leave that up to you guys.

I've been spending the last week downloading files from various mods from other games (the Homeworlds 2 Warlords Mod being the biggest), and started converting the models. They're actually pretty low poly, but I've gotten the textures out and am in the process of converting them to .dds format now. They're all correctly to scale as far as I know. The problem: I don't have permission to use those files for anything but this personal Star Wars mod I've been working on (and FAILING ON!). If someone else has permission to use the Warlords Mod for modding VS, though, I guess I could help? I'm not entirely sure. I'd like to play a Star Wars mod for VS. It sounds quite fun! But my modding expererience with VS is literally just adding ships. I've never actually completely stripped Vega Strike before of all factions and systems and made a mod completely from scratch. I've been trying, and running into all sorts of issues that I don't have the coding expertise to fix on my own.

I'm a professional 3D artist, so converting the files and importing them into VS isn't a big issue, just tedious. And I also understand units.csv, weapon_list.xml, and can edit these, complete with hardpoints, and can create turrets and guns as well. I also have experience in working with faction_ships.py, Milky_Way.xml, and hand-creating .system files.

The list of models I've got so far (most need to be converted into .bfxm, but almost all of these are in .blend format, now):

• VESSELS
• A9-Interceptor (converted and in game, but there are texture issues so far...)
• Acclamator I
• Acclamator II
• Action IV
• Actis
• Aether Sprite
• Agrave Picket
• ARC Fighter
• Assault Cruiser
• Assault Frigate
• Assault Gunboat
• Assault Shuttle
• Assault Transport
• A Wing
• Balrus
• Battledragon
• Bayonet
• Boarding Craft
• Bulk Cruiser
• Bulwark
• B Wing
• Carrack Cruiser
• CC7700
• CC9600
• Clawcraft
• Corellian Frigate
• Corellian Gunship
• Corellian Heavy Corvette
• Corellian Light Frigate
• Corellian Light Gunship
• Corellian Patrol Ship
• Corellian YT-2000
• Corona
• CR20
• Defender
• Diamond
• Dominator
• Dreadnaught
• Ebon Hawk (imported from KoTOR...possible copyright issue here?)
• Eidolon
• Enforcer
• Escort Carrier
• Escort Shuttle
• Escort Transport
• E Wing
• Ferret Tug
• Fleet Tender
• Freighter
• Galofree Transport
• Ginivex
• Guardian
• Gun Frigate
• Harrow Destroyer
• Home One (New Republic Era)
• Howlrunner
• Imperator I
• Imperator II
• Imperator III
• Interdictor
• Katana Dreadnaught
• K Wing
• Lambda Shuttle
• Lancer Frigate
• Liberator
• Loronar
• Trade Federation Control Ship
• Trade Federation Battleship
• Mandator
• Marauder
• MC40
• MC60
• MC80
• MC80a
• MC80b
• MC80b2
• MC80c
• MC90
• Mediator
• Mining Ship
• Missile Gunboat
• Modular Cruiser
• Modular Taskforce
• Mole Miner
• Munificent Class Cruiser
• Nantex
• Nebula
• Nebulon B
• Nebulon B2
• Omicron Transport
• Pinnance
• Preybird Fighter
• Probe
• Procurator
• Providence
• Quasar Fire
• R41
• Ranger Gunship
• Recusant
• Repair Droid
• Republic Destroyer
• Republic Lander (KoTOR import...copyright issue?)
• Sacheen
• Skipray Blastboat
• Executor SSD
• Sovereign SSD
• Vengeance SSD
• Strident
• System Patrol Craft
• Techno-Union Fighter
• TIE Avenger
• TIE Bomber
• TIE Defender
• TIE Droid
• TIE Fighter
• TIE Interceptor
• TIE Phantom
• TIE Raptor
• TIE Scimitar
• TIE Sentinel
• TIE Vanguard
• Titan
• Trade Federation Cruiser
• Tri-droid
• T Wing
• Tyrant
• V19
• Venator Cruiser
• Victory Star Destroyer I
• Victory Star Destroyer II
• Victory Star Destroyer III
• Vulture Droid
• XJ Wing
• X Wing
• Y Wing
• Z95 Headhunter
  
  INSTALLATIONS:
• Golan I
• Golan II
• Golan III
• Research Platform
• XQ1-Platform

Also, I ripped some music from the Forces of Corruption game, as well as a nice selection of weapons sounds, too. These are under copyright, however, and I'm uncertain as to whether they can be used legally in a mod on VS, though.

So I guess what I'm saying is: I've got the models and textures from a mod, and some sound data from a game, and some experience modding VS in my free time. I don't know if I can share these models with anyone until we get permission to use them from the Warlords Mod guy, though. Has anyone had any success in getting in contact with him? I'm pretty busy with my work and other real life stuff, but I'm willing to help out converting these models at least, and tinkering with units.csv to get them into the game.

I'd like to see a very realistic Star Wars mod, if possible. This universe is huge, and plenty of documentation is available on the ships' abilities (Wookieepedia, anyone? ), as well as planet names and types. We could theoretically re-create the entire Star Wars universe. It's actually not that much work. Just take one .system file at a time and a nice map such as: http://starwarsatlas.uw.hu/thelist.htm. =)

I actually was able to create a number of systems already. It's just that I can't seem to get past editing the factions and getting stuff working through the scripting. =\

My PC:

i7 860
16 gb RAM
nVidia GTX 560Ti 2gb DDR5

So, I'd like to help if I can!

Hope you're all flying safe!

Dan

[klauss]

I guess music tracks from another game is a no-no, but if you can contact the mod's author and can get permission, we might get a mod going

[pheonixstorm]

Best way to go about music or models/textures is to find material on the net that already has a license attached to it such as CC0, CC-BY-SA, CC-BY. It is best to avoid restrictions such as non commercial or ND (forget what it stands for...)