Propose replacement for RLAAN' INSTALLATIONS

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Fendorin
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Post by Fendorin »

One more thing I noticed in looking over the images again today - if you can find some places suitable for adding some radiator fins to these models, that'd be great
i will try my best

maybe the pike have a same utillity than a radiator fine (like human ideed our hair is use for cooler and for good looking too (if you go to the hair cut frequently))

the problem is the number of vertice is already quite high on the base
for the two pike's base is around 11000
i will put the purple flap on the roses, and on the asteroid.

Another question : is it possible for Rlaan to forget a "meshing turret":
no mesh for Rlaan turret if it's organic(or maybe just on triangle like crystal for could be destroy but realy realy tiny) i thought just some point on the surface can be a micro-hole

quality for this idea: -we don't need turret fixing/according with each colour
- another very different point for Rlaan than other species
-is more Cryptic according
-is a real surprise wen the base hit you, and is good for gameplay too

thank
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Post by Fendorin »

no answer for my last post?

anyway i need your critics about the rlaan starfortress colour pattern i did that but i m not sure if it's according to the Rlaan style (a red pattern blue light not greebble but like chiken skin surface!)?

if anyone read eglish better than i can and find a little information for that could he help me for advise and advance too please

Image
Image
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Post by charlieg »

:shock: awesome :shock:

I wish VS supported combining meshes to make super massive ships with higher resolution textures (i.e. you can texture each component individually).
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Post by jackS »

charlieg wrote::shock: awesome :shock:

I wish VS supported combining meshes to make super massive ships with higher resolution textures (i.e. you can texture each component individually).
We have support for this. (actually, we've had support for this for years)

for an example, the front, middle, and back of the Clydesdale are 3 separate meshes, each with their own texture.
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Post by jackS »

Re: Rlaan station models

In a perfect world, there would be a nice big hole through the vertical axis of each of those radially symmetric stations, but in the imperfect world we live in, wherein all of our current Rlaan stations are geometric placeholders -- what you have is close enough, and we'd be much obliged if you'd send us copies as-is. With the appropriate masters files, we can work on fine-tuning for canon and secondary aesthetics in another iteration.
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Post by Fendorin »

it's ok

first maybe a contributor ( i think about u pyramid) should replace the model by the unifinshed but better than the current in game.

just one thing i begin to work over the industrial station ( shipyard,factory,refinery...)

but one of the below file was called FACTORY beware is preferable to use this file/model for Fighter barack (fighter barack and Starfortress both have close same looking)

and i will propose new diffuse texture when i will have time for working on and the right colour too ( the mining base are so clear color for exemple)

it is possible when the model throught the unit converter too see some deck bay screenshot it will be helpfull for the last texturing step

thank and enjoy:

DivShare File - MEDICAL.zip : bad color need more dark
DivShare File - FACTORY.zip : call it fighter barack please
DivShare File - MINNINGBASE.zip : so light coloured texture
DivShare File - OUTPOST.zip : so low lOD
DivShare File - STARFORTRESS.zip : not too bad but a central donut hole is missing lol...
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Post by pyramid »

Excellent. The models are on my side and Iwill integrate the installations when wiki is up again.
I didn't open them though. Do the blender files have the docking helpers, too?
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Post by Fendorin »

hi

no is a rough model i don't know if we can put the green-docking-square (GDS) inside the bay or need to be outside

when i will rework the texture i will provide all (subunit and docking point and maybe additional mesh+2D landing pictures)

I m sorry for missing the helper

but without that is it possible to see some ingame screenshot before? it will be helpfull for me ( texturation and glow map)
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Post by pyramid »

Sure you get some shots (when the gallery is working, since it's not, too).
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Post by Fendorin »

hello

i finaly finish the "pattern" texturing on the Mining base

It's 6 hours made a round.. and linked together very very boring job....
and tred to do something original each time

but the render is nice:

Image

i will post the Parcell after put the marker and bake AO (first time ouhouh so exciting..... lol and lol...)
Last edited by Fendorin on Sat Oct 04, 2008 10:20 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by pyramid »

This base looks very very nice. :D Congrats for the excellent job!

You might want to limit the width of the images in forums to max 800 px horizontal. Not all people have hi-res monitors ;-). In addition, hires pics make it difficult to read following posts as you have to constantly left/right scroll.
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Post by Fendorin »

Image

another view
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Post by Fendorin »

hey

i finish the model:
DivShare File - RAANMININGBASEv2.zip

You will find all marker, just say me if i placed well or if it's a bad placement.

-for AO baking i try it, but i thought i was wrong then i didn't put in the parcell
-explain: when i baked i have all in black and a very few part in dark grey?
then i thought is the negative picture i put in PS for invert the negative but it doesn't work well after the first rendering the shadow part appeared in light and invert......i need more knowledge ( is like that the first times....lol)

-same for the normal map (i did some effect on the bump map, i didn't(couldn't) put in normal) i don't know why but i dislike the normal map, so pinky for me maybe... and don't work well in renderer...
Fyi : i use the nvidia plugin for PS
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Fendorin wrote:-for AO baking i try it, but i thought i was wrong then i didn't put in the parcell
-explain: when i baked i have all in black and a very few part in dark grey?
To do an AO bake, first go through your materials and adjust their Ambient slider to 1.0.
Then press F5 to get to the AO panel, and put the strengtht at 1.0.
-same for the normal map (i did some effect on the bump map, i didn't(couldn't) put in normal) i don't know why but i dislike the normal map, so pinky for me maybe... and don't work well in renderer...
Fyi : i use the nvidia plugin for PS
I never figured out Blender's normalmap baking. I use xNormal.
Thing is, xNormal expects two meshes: low detail and high detail.
When I'm working on a ship, I always put the sub-surf modifier on, and add creases as necessary to make it look good.
Once I'm done, I copy the mesh to another layer, and I Apply the sub-surf. Then I export .obj from both meshes and use xNormal to make a corrective normalmap.
xNormal accepts a bumpmap on the side, which it adds to the corrections; but it needs two meshes to begin with.
But that's the better way.

But if you don't want to do all that, then make a normalmap with Gimp, with the Normalmap plug-in.
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Post by Deus Siddis »

Fendorin wrote:-for AO baking i try it, but i thought i was wrong then i didn't put in the parcell
-explain: when i baked i have all in black and a very few part in dark grey?
Some AO maps can look like that when baked with the default settings. The question for either Klauss or Chuck is what should an AO map look like for use in the current / near future VS engine- should the unoccluded parts of it be medium gray or full white?

Either way you can adjust the darkness/brightness of an AO bake on the AO panel using the "Energy" value and slider at the bottom. Just make sure to look for it on the Ambient Occlusion panel, not the 'Bake' panel. Turn "Energy" up to 2.0 and your AO map should be much brighter.
-same for the normal map (i did some effect on the bump map, i didn't(couldn't) put in normal)
i don't know why but i dislike the normal map, so pinky for me maybe... and don't work well in renderer...
Fyi : i use the nvidia plugin for PS
Well you won't see the pink when it renders, unless you use the normal map for the diffuse or specular, in which case you will have a good look for an unadorned warcraft maybe. :D

I can't help you with photoshop though, I don't own it and adobe doesn't exactly like for people to download it for free (which I can do with gimp or krita).

But you can bake a bump map into a normal map in blender, and I do know how to do that. Basically all that you have to do is apply a material with the bump map texture set as "Nor" to your model and then bake the normal map.

It is best though if you bake a high res normal map between a high poly (probably just a subsurfed version of the low poly mesh) and the low poly mesh first, like I think you did with your Raven model if memory serves me. Then apply this normal map and your hand drawn bump map to the material, set both to "Nor" and have the Nor slider at 1.0 and bake a new and final normal map to be used in game.

This method works really well in my experience.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Deus Siddis wrote:The question for either Klauss or Chuck is what should an AO map look like for use in the current / near future VS engine- should the unoccluded parts of it be medium gray or full white?
Fully unoccluded should be fully white.
Either way you can adjust the darkness/brightness of an AO bake on the AO panel using the "Energy" value and slider at the bottom. Just make sure to look for it on the Ambient Occlusion panel, not the 'Bake' panel. Turn "Energy" up to 2.0 and your AO map should be much brighter.
I used to put energy at 2.0 and leave materials at the default 0.5; but someone told me it gives better results making all materials' ambient = 1.0 then Energy = 1.0. I don't know. Either way you'll have full white at full exposure, exactly.

Thanks for the normalmap explanation.
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Post by Deus Siddis »

chuck_starchaser wrote:Fully unoccluded should be fully white.
Ah, that explains my odd results in the past. The derivative's ao will be crap too then.
I used to put energy at 2.0 and leave materials at the default 0.5; but someone told me it gives better results making all materials' ambient = 1.0 then Energy = 1.0. I don't know. Either way you'll have full white at full exposure, exactly.
Hmm, interesting. I might have to make a couple bakes both ways and see if there are any minor differences in gimp.
Thanks for the normalmap explanation.
:shock: I never imagined I might discover a technique in blender or cg in general that you didn't already know about, let alone have mastered and put into a noodle. Am I dead, in the twilight zone or can this all just be attributed to an effect of dark energy on our universe? :?
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Hahaha, there's a lot I don't know about Blender. I'm useless when it comes to reading manuals, for starters. :oops:
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Post by Deus Siddis »

I don't think you can find this information in blender manuals anyway. Only now with apricot is the blender project looking seriously at current generation game content creation. On that note, it seems the shader code work you and Klauss are doing for VS is well timed.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Apricot; I was trying to remember that name. I once posted a bunch of ideas to their forum but I didn't follow up.
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Post by pyramid »

@Fendorin,

There are some things about this model that could be fine tuned to make integration easier (also later models):
* Correct scale already in blender file: what is the actual size of this station?
* You might want to make a habit to use relative paths for all textures.
* Helper objects for (docking ports) must follow the convention, e.g. "dock_Large" instead of "LargeDocking"
* You may provide a shield mesh (layer 11) by default.

For now, the size of the station would be enough. It's currently roughly 13 m in diameter, which is obviously too small.

*EDIT*
It would be also helpful if you could come up with the sizes of the other stations.
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Post by Fendorin »

i will try to give you the size but i don't know realy the size ( @jackS?) of a Rlaan:

@jackS could you give a "approximate"maybe the Radus of the sphere size for:

-Refinery:
-Shipyard_tiny:
-Shipyard_medium:
-Shipyard heavy/bigger:
-Fighter barack:
-Relay "the aphid roses":
-Medical:
-Factory:
-Starfortress:
-Civilian redoubt:
-Defense station (and what is the difference with starfortress, maybe is a multiplied orbital tiny/simply station?):
-Outpost
-Asteroid fighter barack:
-Mining bases:
-Docking orbital bases:
-"Agricultural's Rlaan station:
-Stockyard:
-Diplomatic/contact/exchange/commerces/living bases:
-Research:
-Biomod:
-Salvage & refuse:
-Gaz station:
What else???
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Post by pyramid »

Meanwhile I have integrated the Mining Base and the Fighter Barracks. The scale was set to around 2km for both and can be still tuned at a later point in time.

With the outpost I had a strange problem where parts of the hull were simply not displayed. It looked as if some of the faces had inverted normals, though I have verified in Wings that it is not the case. Any idea of what might be wrong here and suggestions to proceed is welcome.
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Post by Fendorin »

i will provide yoy a new outpost mesh and details this model was made earlier and it be a little bit low mesh

i work over the starfortress (texture+mountpoint)

you should work over the Shaper station....because i wont loosing your time for 2 week waiting

just one thing i use the svn version and some ship appear in white( means not good linked white the right texture) maybe it was just a name problem

clydesdale,sartre,vigilance,shuanzong,admonisher,watson,confed fighter barack.... and maybe other but i haven't meet all ship(not good linked white the right texture name)

the view mission ship is no working...

i will provide you the new H496 but this time i want now how to for editing the cvs files (velocity,cargo volume, buying price...( i download UC but i m still a dummy...) is not possible to have a option in UC with this kind of information : price, velocity, maximum speed,.....etc

where i can find Nvcompress i didn't found on Nvidia website?

thank
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Post by pyramid »

Fendorin wrote:i will provide you a new outpost mesh and details this model was made earlier and it be a little bit low mesh
i work over the starfortress (texture+mountpoint)
you should work over the Shaper station....because i wont loosing your time for 2 week waiting
Actually I already had the starfortress almost ready. Just the normal and specular maps are missing and I didn't do all the docking points. This is then appreciated and I get my hands on the shaper station.
just one thing i use the svn version and some ship appear in white( means not good linked white the right texture) maybe it was just a name problem.
clydesdale,sartre,vigilance,shuanzong,admonisher,watson,confed fighter barack.... and maybe other but i haven't meet all ship(not good linked white the right texture name).
You need to make sure that ALL your units directory is synchronized with the latest svn. I have tested all the models and they just work fine here. All the ships you mention above have been renamed to the title case naming scheme, so it is now "Clydesdale" not "clydesdale". That's what you need to type into the unit name before testing a ship with UC.
the view mission ship is not working...
You mean to say when viewing from UC or when launching vegastrike modelview.mission? Did you set the data dir correctly in UC config section? what is the command window output that is generated?
i will provide you the new H496 but this time i want now how to for editing the cvs files (velocity,cargo volume, buying price...( i download UC but i m still a dummy...) is not possible to have a option in UC with this kind of information : price, velocity, maximum speed,.....etc
This is not yet available in UC.
where i can find Nvcompress i didn't found on Nvidia website?
There is a link to the nvidia web page and direct download on the wiki graphics applications list.

hope that helps.
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