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Thinking about improving the Artwork in Vega Strike, or making your own Mod? Submit your question and ideas in this forum.

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Oblivion
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Post by Oblivion »

@Dan: Wokey.

:) Will do. And yes Kangaroo22, the junk got superimposed with a wiremesh of another junk. :) I've fixed that with the model at home.
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Post by Oblivion »

:?: And a question that has been bugging me. Why does my PC hang up when I click on a .spr file in the VS sprites folder? My PC has 256mb, 1.8GH(not sure), GEForce2MX400, 1Gig Swapfile.
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Post by dandandaman »

The sprite files are just have text in them, so no idea there. You want to open the .png images anyway, that's where the prettiness lies :-)

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Post by Oblivion »

:roll: It doesn't show up as text, and the PC sometimes crashes if I select a lot of them with a message "Insufficient Memory". But details show them as taking up only 1kb. Strange.. Yeah I've seen the sprites already. tnx.
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Post by klauss »

Oblivion wrote:But if you pm me I'll send you the password to the ftp and the user.:)
No, man, I don't want to know that.
Golden rule of information security: passwords are private. I have my own (chuck-provided) account, if I need to upload something.

Suggestion: zip big files - especially max files - you'll love the upload speedup (and I the download speedup ;) )
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Post by Halleck »

Oblivion: To answer your original question, most of the bases in VS were modelled and rendered by Strangelet. He's not that active around here anymore but I'm sure you could contact him easily enough.

Also, I like these new renders, but as mentioned before the sand looks unrealistic. Try adding some sand dunes and using a more granular, wavy texture.

Here are some good reference pics of sand dunes:
http://www.coolbubble.com/features/hidd ... /dunes.jpg
http://www.ryanphotographic.com/images/ ... %20bay.jpg
http://dommy.com/alan/pix/dv-dunes.jpg
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/images/Dunes.JPG

You may also want to consider adding mountains in the distance... this seems to be a common feature of earth sand deserts.
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Post by Zeog »

Halleck wrote:... rendered by Strangelet.
Ahhh, what happened? :shock: These models are the finished versions of the WIP versions that are currently in VS!
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Post by Halleck »

Which models are you referring to?

I can think of only two reasons why newer versions of models aren't in the SVN already.
  1. Strangelet does not consider them finished, so he has not yet sent them to be added into the game.
  2. Strangelet has finished the models, and they are awaiting addition to the game but have not been commited yet because whatever developer has them simply hasn't had time, or has forgotten about them. Alternatively, Strangelet may not have had time to optimize, LOD, and export the models for conversion.
I'd be happy to get them into the game myself if #2 is the case, but something tells me #1 is more likely, especially if they have titles like "diplomaticcenterWIP".
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Post by Oblivion »

@Zeog: Your slipper is missing too? :lol:

@Halleck: Thanks, they woulde be useful for backgrounds, I think. ;) Too bad about Strangelet. :wink: Can those images be used for the current VS base backgrounds? They look loads better than the one's he rendered for the game. Why is that? And thanks for the link. The artstyles would help a lot!

@Klauss: Sorry. ;) And Sorry Chuck. :) Anyway, I've got the .3ds files here, the final .max as well, and the custom bitmaps as well. And I've RARed them. So they're pretty small (4 files, 13.7 mb in all). I still don't know how to offer them for download, but I can send them to you in email attachments if you still want to tinker with them :)

And:

I got the FINAL renders! Just a minute while I upload them... :D
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Post by Halleck »

Oblivion wrote:@Halleck: Thanks, they woulde be useful for backgrounds, I think. ;) Too bad about Strangelet. :wink: Can those images be used for the current VS base backgrounds? They look loads better than the one's he rendered for the game. Why is that? And thanks for the link. The artstyles would help a lot!
Yeah no prob... also, Strangelet is not "officially retired" like Howard Day and CoJL, but on more of a... hiatus or something, I think.

And no, I don't think we can use those images unless we can find public domain/GPL equivalents- Category:Desert on Wikimedia Commons is a good place to start hunting (The Dune section also looks promising). Still, I like the current desert planet rendering, but I think it's supposed to be a soil desert instead of a sand desert.
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Post by Oblivion »

:D It would be soil with the horrible texture I'm putting to it. Yellow gravel, probably. hehe And just browsed through Strangelet's images. Man!!! :shock: That man can RENDER! Beaoootiful! Hope he gets the urge to model again for VS. ;)

And... Ta-Da!

The final images. :)
These are rendered in 640x480 so pardon the blurriness. Be assured though that the 2731x2048 images are crisp and clear. :)

The base..
Image

Concourse leading inside
Image

Concourse with view of landing pad
Image

Closeups of the Landing Pad
Image

Image

Capship Landing Pad
Image

Trashed the bar and made it a balcony. Could be useful with standing fixers ;)
Image

And the fuel bay
Image

:D
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Post by Oblivion »

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Post by Zeog »

Halleck wrote:Which models are you referring to?
The commercial center for example. They look beautiful and I've never seen them in game. Further I've never seen the textured star fortress and I only know the WIP shots from the gallery of the Cherryh Station. :cry:
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Post by Oblivion »

Yep. They looked finished to me. Why can't he at least send those over? :D Anyone up tp trying to contact him for those AWESOME :shock: renders? :D
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Post by klauss »

Just a last detail, if you think it's worth it - some sand on the pads? (Just sprinkle the texture with yellowish stuff).

BTW: I don't mind the bigness of files, it was just a suggestion for further uploads.
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Post by Halleck »

Zeog wrote:
Halleck wrote:Which models are you referring to?
The commercial center for example. They look beautiful and I've never seen them in game. Further I've never seen the textured star fortress and I only know the WIP shots from the gallery of the Cherryh Station. :cry:
Nah, commerce center's been in the game a while. I'm not sure about some of those other stations though... refinery=yes, miningbase=very yes, relay=I think so, starfortress=?, research=?, factory=?

As to further refinements of the base renders... they could still use some texture work. The new sand is better but still doesn't look all that great.
Also... a lot of the more prominent textures look great, but the "concrete" base texture doesn't hold up at close or even mid range... you can totally tell it's a texture. I don't have any suggestions other than trying to find something that looks more realistic. Along with the sand, it kind of spoils what would otherwise be a very nice render.

Sorry if I'm being too critical but these will be under extreme scrutiny in-game. Just trying to help out. :wink:

EDIT: Dandandaman just told me that the reason strangelet's models are not in is more because of #2 on the developer's side. :?
I'll pick up the slack on this one... but in the future there ought to be some way for folks like us to know this sort of thing. A more complete and up-to-date Development:3D Models would be a start.
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Post by Oblivion »

extreme scrutiny in-game
They would be squashed and would not be really that up close. :) I think. The renders were 2731x2048 so did you probably see them because they are that large (?) :) Anyway, It gets really tiring to wait 15 minutes to render one. And it's for a generic base anyway. So I'll probably just leave it at this state. hehe. The sand could be enhanced by 2d image manip programs. :( I really can't get the hang of texturing. And I just move the objects around until they feel right. hehe. I'm not the engineer type.
Just a last detail, if you think it's worth it - some sand on the pads? (Just sprinkle the texture with yellowish stuff).
I don't know how to model particles. :wink: And I kinda like the smooth look. Maybe it's a new material! :) Buckminsterfullerine? hehe. It's not a windy day so... And someone just cleaned them... And The sand is kinda grainy so it doesn't blow. haha. Excuses. Really, I just don't know how. :wink:
BTW: I don't mind the bigness of files, it was just a suggestion for further uploads.
Unfortunately it's the smallest file size. Previously the 2731x2048 PNGs took 16mb per image which is way more than the current approx 3mb JPEG files per image. ;) It would be good for the game, as higher res means clearer images even when squashed to fit smaller screens.

And I finished the BAR. :) As well as rendered everything in full 2731x2048.

Does anyone know how to add these ingame? I mean what do I need to have ship images on the pad. And "buttons" to click on where to go?

Here are the bar previews. WIll post the links to the larger images that are for inclusion as soon as I finish uploading them. They are still averaging at 3mb, sorry klauss. But I didn't like the previous images that were rendered at 1024x768, they were blurry ingame. At least these'll be crystal clear. :)

Image

Image

will fixers be able to sit here? :?:
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Post by Oblivion »

:roll: What no comments? Like... "It looks dull..." hehe. Sorry for its ugliness guys. :wink:

Here's a preview of the Shmrn Base Landing pad I'm working on. And this time, I'm ensuring that it's large enough for starships. ;)

Don't worry, I'll take special care to map the textures correctly, now. Though they are still tiled haphazardly as of right now. :wink:

Image

Image
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Post by Halleck »

Sorry, my new posts got reset and I didn't see you had updated this thread.

But yes, they actually look pretty good. For a generic base as you said. :)

Waaay better than the current generic arid I remember seeing, at any rate- and that's what counts. 8)

Also, the new base looks cool so far. Nice texture.
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Post by Oblivion »

:wink: Wouldn't be too sure on "the way better part". But it would add variation, at least. So how do I code the buttons? etc?
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Post by Halleck »

Sorry, no clue. I think it has something to do with those sprite files... check the wiki.

As to the way better... I thought our current generic arid base was a crappy one-screen photograph of some mountain, with your ship parked in the middle of nowhere and a base computer floating in midair...
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Post by Oblivion »

Yeah, I'm aiming to replace those with temporary bases that match the faction owning them. :wink: Then at least replace each one with better art as soon as I can learn how to render 3d better or as soon as someone else can redo them . :wink:

okay, I'l try to research how to code this. :wink:

I'll be logging off soon. :D
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Post by klauss »

Do some research, but I may be able to finish a new and alternative way of doing it this weekend, which would make your life much easier (that's why there was no reply - I'm waiting to see where that leads first).

In the meanwhile, you look inside bases/... all those .py are used to create the bases.
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Post by Sunfire »

Oblivion wrote:Yeah, I'm aiming to replace those with temporary bases that match the faction owning them.....
YAY!! :D :!:


i think the bar is pretty new looking for a desert... but IIRC you wanted the bar to be rockin.... :wink: not sure if i like the 'wallpaper' behind the bar, but thats probably just a personal preference...

keep it up! :D
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