Progress Update: A search for existing models

Discuss the Star Trek mod(s) for the Vega Strike Engine

Moderators: tillias, Jennos, peteyg

peteyg
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Progress Update: A search for existing models

Post by peteyg »

The biggest time sink in terms of the development of Vega Trek is the creation of models. I would like to fix that and speed up the next release by tracking down some Star Trek models made for other mods/games, and getting them into the Vega Strike engine.

I've made some initial investigations into Bridge Commander ships. There are a LOT of them, and they are easy to find (http://www.bcfiles.com), but they are in an obscure format called NIF, which requires Milkshape 3d (a NON free program, windows only, 31 day trial), as well as a custom plugin. I successfully exported a shuttlecraft model into OBJ and loaded it into Wings3d, but there was no obvious texture in either the model when loaded in Milkshape OR Wings (even though there were texture files in the unit's directory). I had similar results for several other Bridge Commander NIF files I tried.

Anyways, if anyone has any silver bullets in their pocket to turn Vega Trek's ship drought into a hearty draught (hahahaha, that wasn't even funny), or even wants to help me figure out the intricacies of getting strange formats into Vega Strike, PM or email me.

Once we get a more fair sized number of models, we can start implementing a dynamic universe, which is what will make Vega Trek so darn cool.
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Re: Star Trek models

Post by Nevita »

Are the Bridge Commander models freely available (i.e. is it okay to redistribute them)?

I was playing with Starfleet Commander 3 on the weekend and noticed that they have quite a few good models, but in DirectX format (.x). It is relatively simple to convert them into a more useful format such as 3DS, but I doubt they're available for redistribution.

I guess my point is that while there are models available, one must be careful about whether or not they can actually be used in Vega Strike for legal reasons.
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Post by peteyg »

Absolutely! I am very concious of this issue. I would obtain permission from the artist of whatever models we used (with the promise of fame and glory). This would certainly preclude us from using any models from a commercial Star Trek game.

Did some more sleuthing around, and couldn't find any of the Star Trek homeworld mod pages that were around a year or two ago!!! Arg.
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Post by mkruer »

Enough with the puns already.... :twisted:
I know you believe you understand what you think I said.
But I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.

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Post by charlieg »

peteyg wrote:Absolutely! I am very concious of this issue. I would obtain permission from the artist of whatever models we used (with the promise of fame and glory).
With that in mind, perhaps it would be worth directly contacting the model authors who might have a better idea of how to get their models out of Milkshape?
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Sfc3 ships

Post by Nevita »

A quick search (which I would have done yesterday had I been thinking) found http://www.sfc3files.com, which seems to be a repository of files. There appears to be quite a few ships there, and I imagine that if we contacted the owners, they would be willing to give permission for those ships to be used in VS.

I found a really nice NX-01 there. Wouldn't that be a nice addition :)
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Post by peteyg »

I just got permission from Rick Knox aka P81, who has done quite a few awesome ships for Bridge Commander and the Starfleet Command series. This is a very positive step.

Check out some of his stuff:
Image
http://bcfiles.com/screenshots/8/files2/4104_3.jpg

Image
http://bcfiles.com/screenshots/8/files2/4115_3.jpg

Image
http://bcfiles.com/screenshots/8/files2/4116_1.jpg

I have also learned from the Bridge Commander forums that Milkshape does not always display texture info... and that the UV coordinates are usually still associated with the model. I tried this with one of the shuttle models I have downloaded, and it was true! The only problem is that the original textures are stored in a very bizarre format in some cases. There is also another obstacle, in that it seems many ships are distributed in some kind of obscure archive meant to work with the Bridge Commander mod loader. Arg.
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Post by Nevita »

:shock: :shock: :shock:

Holy starship, Batman!
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Post by hurleybird »

Those are really, really high poly. If you use them, defininantly make quite a few LOD's for them :wink:
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Post by peteyg »

I believe that there are LODs for many ship models... but I'm still trying to figure out how to convert Bridge Commander ships in the 'Mod installer' package to the uncompressed folders with the NIF model files. And then sometimes the textures are embedded into the NIFs, so I'll have to figure that part out too.
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Post by RFBurns »

Want some ST models? Here is one place where your going to find tons of extremely detailed 3ds and max format files, and trust me...these babies are top of the line.

http://www.startrekaustralia.com/
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Post by peteyg »

A lot of those are top of the line, but a tad bit TOO top of the line for the likes of us I am afraid. These mostly are models intended for prerendered scenes / movies, and not games, which require low polygon models with actual textures.
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Post by RFBurns »

Thats true. I did manage to convert the Galaxy future refit and Galaxy 2 ships into working models for VS, but those things take forever and a century to load up! :D

Maybe some of the smaller, less poly ships might augment the collection for the mod? Just trying to help. :)
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Post by jackS »

RFBurns wrote:Thats true. I did manage to convert the Galaxy future refit and Galaxy 2 ships into working models for VS, but those things take forever and a century to load up! :D

Maybe some of the smaller, less poly ships might augment the collection for the mod? Just trying to help. :)
Have you tried converting them from xmesh into BFXM? load times should notably improve if you have not yet done this.
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Post by etheral walker »

some are not really high poly, this one is good: http://www.lunarhorizon.com/startrekaus ... /index.htm

Otherwise you can convert high poly meshes to low poly ones. You use the big one to generate all needed texture layers and bake it on the low poly one
I see dead polygons....
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Post by peteyg »

Hey, good catch Eth! I have been looking for a good Sabre class (they're one of my personal favorite ships)
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Post by jackS »

etheral walker wrote: Otherwise you can convert high poly meshes to low poly ones. You use the big one to generate all needed texture layers and bake it on the low poly one
which just brings to mind the notion that, for the future oriented, one wants as detailed a model as possible - if it's too many polygons for your hardware to handle today, convert it down to a series of LODs. Then, you can adapt up as hardware catches up to the quality of the models.
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Post by RFBurns »

jackS wrote:
RFBurns wrote:Thats true. I did manage to convert the Galaxy future refit and Galaxy 2 ships into working models for VS, but those things take forever and a century to load up! :D

Maybe some of the smaller, less poly ships might augment the collection for the mod? Just trying to help. :)
Have you tried converting them from xmesh into BFXM? load times should notably improve if you have not yet done this.
Well I did manage to convert one over to the BFXM format...cept for one thing...

....my sim doesnt have the latest dataset or is it cvs? Im waiting on the new release that includes the BFXM support, then I will try the Galaxy2 in it. :)
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Post by etheral walker »

jackS wrote:
etheral walker wrote: Otherwise you can convert high poly meshes to low poly ones. You use the big one to generate all needed texture layers and bake it on the low poly one
which just brings to mind the notion that, for the future oriented, one wants as detailed a model as possible - if it's too many polygons for your hardware to handle today, convert it down to a series of LODs. Then, you can adapt up as hardware catches up to the quality of the models.
I don't think we will have to wait so far to use the high polys ones, when CG support will be ready we will be able to generate normal maps
just a quick link about this feature,
http://www.soclab.bth.se/practices/orb.html
I see dead polygons....
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Post by Guest »

hey guys, if u wanted pre made ships why dont u ask the folks at trekmods.com to use there homeworld models or obtain permission from the folks at sfc3files.com and get some of theres - they are low polygon count!
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Post by peteyg »

Thanks, but that's exactly what we're doing!
JmasterJ

hey

Post by JmasterJ »

petey I think i posted about models in another thread, but in general since this thread is all about models... the best high quality models that can be used in a game are in starfleet command 3. secondly pneumonic 81 who is a friend of mine, has done most of the remake of models for starfleet command 3 mods, such as generations at war, which adds many ships to the game and replaces all the existing ones with better looking models. all his models are the best.

i dont know how converting them would go since sfc3 is a directx game.

am i have all the models and textures for these models on my computer, at a word i can have pneumonics permission to use them for your mod and send them to you or let you download them yourself.

what progress is made on playing the game like vega strike, dynamically. with the star trek theme replacing the strike theme.
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Post by peteyg »

We've only been picking over some of Pneumatic's Bridge Commander models... haven't even LOOKED at his SFC3 stuff (well, a little).

So if you've got the models all sorted out and stuff... that would save us a LOT of extra work!! Could you post some details on what you've got? (ship names, model format, etc). I'm sure we could find a good way for you to make this stuff available.

I've already gotten Pnuematic's permission to use his SFC3/BC stuff, but please feel free to discuss it with him! I should really send him an update telling him how much people like his stuff here!
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Some good model resources for you...

Post by atheorhaven »

peteyg wrote:We've only been picking over some of Pneumatic's Bridge Commander models... haven't even LOOKED at his SFC3 stuff (well, a little).

So if you've got the models all sorted out and stuff... that would save us a LOT of extra work!! Could you post some details on what you've got? (ship names, model format, etc). I'm sure we could find a good way for you to make this stuff available.

I've already gotten Pnuematic's permission to use his SFC3/BC stuff, but please feel free to discuss it with him! I should really send him an update telling him how much people like his stuff here!
Guys, a good resource for you to look at is Dynaverse. It's where a lot of the Taldren (Starfleet Command) crowd went to after the Taldren forums went with Taldren, and we still have an active community.

www.dynaverse.net

Also, you'll find that converting stuff from the .MOD format would be easier than converting from.X, all the SFC 3 utilities do is recompile the .MOD into a .X anyways, but Milkshape and 3dsMax can both import and export .MOD a lot easier than .X

Also, over at Dynaverse we're still actively producing models on a regular basis (which is where a lot of the Bridge Commander ports come from anyways).

And a good source of ships for the VegaStrike mod would also have to be the Generations At War mod that I helped with... 35 Federation ships that I worked on are in there, and they're covering most series (TOS, TMP, TNG) eras in it.

I'm sure that Nannerslug would love to get some of that work into Vega Strike, it'd also be a good promotion for his mod..

(located at www.starfleetcommand3.net)

Personally, all I ever ask for for conversions of my stuff is simply just a screenie of the ship in the new game so I can see what it can do... I just love the eyecandy. ;) And a "Thanks" is always nice.. :D

And posting over here is self-motivated.. I also have an interest in learning how to mod Vega Strike. ;)
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Post by Adonis »

peteyg wrote:I just got permission from Rick Knox aka P81, who has done quite a few awesome ships for Bridge Commander and the Starfleet Command series. This is a very positive step.
The Pneumonic81 models are old and outdated, and IMHO, the textures are just awful.

I'm a member of a SFC/BC mod team called Outalance Shipyards, one of the biggest model resources.

So, check these few out:

Image

Image

Mind you, most of these models are 10k poly and higher!

Also, a few of my own:
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Last edited by Adonis on Sun Jun 11, 2006 5:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
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