Gripes, hopes, and questions for base backgrounds:
1. Will planetary bases become 3d walkabouts soon?
2. Can base backgrounds be coded to be specific for a paryicular location/type of location? e.g. I planned these backgrounds to be for Forsaken/League of Independent Human Worlds (LIHW) desert installations.
Implementing this would make aeran planets look aeran and etc. It would also make adding mission locations easier (ex. A certain planet, though containing the same base bg as others of its type, would have a special room with a special fixer... you get the drift)
3. Can there be way to make intoduce ambient lighting in bases, in such a way that they will affect the fixer sprites though not the backgrounds themselves? In this way fixers will not have to be specifically lighted each base. Example: the bar for this base will have a yellowish ambient light at render-time, obviously a fixer that has a bluish ambient light will look out of place - like a cut and paste picture collage.
4. Limiting size of ships that dock at stations/palnets. e.g a small base like this would not support a clydesdale and other capships.I'm not saying that capships will not be able to land, the ships will still be able to land on the larger facilities. It will be more realistic (by realistic, I mean believable to the players
), as large ships cannot always land anywhere they please.
5. Not related to above, but I wish to bring this up. I know ships and stations have yet to be properly standardized, and there is still not enough artstyle guides, but I can't help but dislike the appearance of the Aeran and Rlaan space stations (I mean the models, the base backgorunds is a different problem.
). The Rlaan station models (the pyramids
) do not look Rlaan. You've all seen the Rlaan ships - Personally, I like the Rlaan shipstyles, like spacegoing chinese junks. (Hope Rlaan capships are as stately) - and the stations do not look a bit like them. Rlaan stations should be spheroid (or a cluster of spheroids) instead of the harsh angular pyramid and others. it should also have the characterisitic finlike sails (solar panels) of their ships, though larger probably.
6. Adding fixers with capabilities. i.e. no need for pure BBS. Talking to a special merchant fixer will get you to a trade screen; Talking to mechanic fixers, will get you to an upgrade/repair dialogue; etc. I'm planning a permanent fixer (I'll have to create him/her separately, however) for these bases that will offer basic repairs and some other upgrade options. If anyone knows how to do that...
The aeran bases are a bit better as they reflect the love of the aerans for clean angles (as seen in their ships), technology, and aversion to organic forms - but still the models look like giant floating knick-knacks. Without the beautiful detail of human stations - and somehow lacking the sense of being an inhabited space station (probably aggravated by the fact that they are shiny as mirrors).
So at the risk of angering the modellers (I know it's hard to model ingame objects - because I don't know how. lol
), can someone try to change them (also as someone suggested once, probably increase the size - as they have to support capships).
And a Plea for HELP:
Does anyone know how to include the images ingame? I really have no idea how except that the images have to be squished to a square. And I still haven't begun to learn python.
Does anyone know how to..
.
a. Music. I have soundforge but I don't know how to use it. hehe. I'm thinking that these forsaken/LIHW desert bases should have middle eastern music. So if anyone has a nice loopable middle eastern music out there...
b. Coding to make these images show up everytime you dock to an arid planet controlled by the forsaken or the LIHW. The previous artist's beautiful satellite and oil(??) fields desert backgrounds are for the rest of the arid planets (Though they should be for Andolian/Confed desert planets only... methinks
).
c. Adding the links (Don't know the term.
) to the images. It is not yet complete as the bar background for this base would take longer to make.
If anyone is interested... I'll supply mine art if thou supply thy coding expertise.
Next, I'll try to render a Shmrn base, probably.
contact me
astepintooblivion@yahoo.com and I'll send you the rarred final copies of these images.
Does anyone know how of export vs-compatible models from 3dsmax 5?
MAAAASSSIVE
) of being on a planet's surface? Or would planets still have explorable bases anyhow.
Didn't notice that.
Overlooked that one too. The 2731x2048 versions of these images are really clear. So clear you could read the writings on those screens. 
where is my slipper?
