Vega Strike Forums

What is the policy using free 3D models in the VS Game?

Define Free because there's freeware (which costs nothing, so many people think is free) and Free software free. The models have to be Free software free; CC licensed or something similar.

Check you license agreement too. I like doing 3d animation and stills so have downloaded a fair number of models. Some are free for non-commercial, some are free for commercial, some stipulate that the mesh not be redistributed (in VS it would be), still others are released to public domain by express statement of the creator. If in doubt contact the author and ask if such use would be acceptable.

your best bet is blender or truespace. Blender is the modeler of choice around here though.

fhalo wrote:What is the policy using free 3D models in the VS Game?

Please correct me if I'm wrong, fhalo, But I think the question is about pre existing models, and not programs with which to make models. A perfictly reasonable question as there are lots of cool free spaceships out there in 3ds and obj.

bah, never read a post half asleep... hmm free models? Anything that can be used royalty free for commercial and non commercial projects and fits the VS cannon.

And above all else must be in a format that can be converted to obj/mtl by you or by us, that means blender for us and any program for you. You will also need to check poly counts and if the model comes with materials/textures (these will probably have to be redone anyway). Once you find a model you will probably have to do the uv unwrap, normal map etc.

Hi

Thanks for your input
Yes, I was talking about pre-existing free spaceship models. I've came across alot free models on the Internet. I was thinking of using a free spaceship model (after checking the license status) tweaked it for VS.

Has long as VS is happy about using pre-existing free 3D models.


But, does this comes across as cheating? Rather that design a spaceship. Just use a free spaceship from the Internet.

What is VS cannon?

I could use Blender to reduce poly counts.

So, I have two options.

Download & tweaked free 3D spaceship

or 2)

Try and design a 3D spaceship.

Just want to ask a quick question regarding poly counts for ships, can we look at increasing the amounts for ship? i know this game has been in development, and i think that the models and textures are falling a bit behind. I know that for most models there are reduced poly ones for when the ships are at a distance, so can we look at putting a setting in for model detail, so that those with decent systems can enjoy detailed ship, and those with less then average computers can still play the game. I think that by starting to increase the level of detail in the models and graphics we can hopefully draw some more people (and contributors) to the game. (I can start a thread for this dicussion if it would be prefered, sorry for the hijacking)

Hicks wrote:Just want to ask a quick question regarding poly counts for ships, can we look at increasing the amounts for ship? i know this game has been in development, and i think that the models and textures are falling a bit behind. I know that for most models there are reduced poly ones for when the ships are at a distance, so can we look at putting a setting in for model detail, so that those with decent systems can enjoy detailed ship, and those with less then average computers can still play the game. I think that by starting to increase the level of detail in the models and graphics we can hopefully draw some more people (and contributors) to the game. (I can start a thread for this dicussion if it would be prefered, sorry for the hijacking)

If you read the wiki, the current limit for the various categories is high enough. There just are lots of old models following older specs.

And VS already has LODding capabilities and mesh detail settings, perhaps they're not perfect, but that's largely because artists almost never provide LODs with their high-poly models. Let alone textured ones.

There is a list somewhere on poly counts for ship.. something like 15k for small craft like fighters then goes up from there for each larger type of craft. I know there is a thread in the forum with some suggestions and possibly a wiki link as well though I dont have a link for either.

On a side note, I just found a "bug" (quoted since it's not a bug per se, but it's such a performance hog that might as well be considered one) on the rendering engine that can probably explain VS's abysmal performance on low-end GPUs.

The mesh optimizer fails to recognize the overhead of batch boundaries when the GL implementation lacks a particular extension to draw many primitives at once very fast. So, while the optimized meshes work flawless under good drivers like nVidia's, lesser ones (like intel's) bog down on the high number of batches a single mesh can require.

The best example is in the Ox. Lots of polies, but it shouldn't be a problem, other meshes have just as many polies (planets for instance) and render faster. The Ox does have lots of very small triangle strips, though, and there lies the problem: without that extension I mentioned, drawing so many triangle strips is a lot slower than, say, drawing all the triangles in one batch (as triangles, rather than strips).

I would like to fix this for the beta2. With this fixed, we can bump mesh quality all over the place, because right now the 90% folks with onboard GPUs can't appreciate any added detail.