Author Topic: EVE Online mod  (Read 35523 times)

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Update:

I've recieved an answer from CCP, authorizing me to use their models for nonprofit purposes.

«So long as the models are being used for nonprofit purposes, and so long as you are not using this mod, or the EVE Online IP to generate revenue in any way shape for form, then you are quite free to use the EVE Online models as a hobby project, under the express understanding that you’re not looking to make money from their use.»

This means that I'll eventually work on this mod again and that I will share it.

 

Offline headdie

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Offline TwentyPercentCooler

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Update:

I've recieved an answer from CCP, authorizing me to use their models for nonprofit purposes.

«So long as the models are being used for nonprofit purposes, and so long as you are not using this mod, or the EVE Online IP to generate revenue in any way shape for form, then you are quite free to use the EVE Online models as a hobby project, under the express understanding that you’re not looking to make money from their use.»

This means that I'll eventually work on this mod again and that I will share it.

I thought that first "nay" answer sounded a bit weird. They have generally not given a damn as long as it's non-profit.

Glad to see the official greenlight, at any rate.

 

Offline Mongoose

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Nice to see a developer be so fan-project friendly in this day and age.

 
It's not like this project is competing with them, but I imagine it helps to be a small independent company over a massive monolithic MMO organization such as Blizzard. I imagine they'd not be too fond if you say make a mod for Mount & Blade that sets it in Azeroth even though they have no real game it competes with.

Honestly buds, good luck in reverse engineering their new materials system, I had spent ages for each ship converting the textures to look good in FSO.
I have created a masterpiece.

 

Offline Nu11u5

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Good to hear that you are making some progress with this!

This was actually the video that got me thinking about an Eve TC way back then.  Watching it now is making me a little itchy.


Honestly buds, good luck in reverse engineering their new materials system, I had spent ages for each ship converting the textures to look good in FSO.

In December CCP is updating the material system to use Physical Based Rendering, so it will have to be learned all over again.

« Last Edit: November 20, 2014, 05:09:53 pm by Nu11u5 »

 
Quote
In December CCP is updating the material system to use Physical Based Rendering, so it will have to be learned all over again.

I'm not planning on making the mod as beautiful as EVE. ;)

A little update! I got a few caldari ships in there. I started with caldari, since I think I will let their textures untouched, at least for a first release, as they ar all gray anyway.

Here is the full imgur album: http://imgur.com/a/DmXNx

Here are the good ones. Enjoy!

Condor class frigate


Corax class destroyer


Drake class battlecruiser


Drake and Naga battlecruisers VS Deimos


Chimera class carrier VS Orion


I hope you like it!

 

Offline Shivan Hunter

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C'mon man, there are already goons crawling around HLP, do you want to bring in more of them?!

Anyway, good work! I notice the models have no normal maps - are you planning on importing those? It would make a huge difference in quality. Normal maps in FS are different than the usual blue maps though - to import them, the red channel has to go in alpha, and then the red and blue channels should be zeroed out (or copied from the green channel, but it doesn't matter as only the green is used and it's fine as long as it doesn't interfere with DDS compression).

 

Offline BritishShivans

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Agreed with ShivanHunter's post. Also, I noted your scales for the ships are a little off - the Deimos is 717m long, and the Drake is 514m, so you might wanna mess around with the sizes again.

 
@Shivan Hunter, yeah if I can easily modify EVE's normal maps I'll do it. Right now my goal is to get the models in PCS2 and get the thrusters right with minimal diffuse textures. Then I'll probably mess with all the numbers (right now all my ship scripts are copy/ pasted from the Orion code). Once the mod already has a good playable base, I'll look into adding better textures (and maybe levels of detail).

Really textures aren't my priority, since CCP use lots of in-house coding and I'm not an artist and I know nothing about the programs used for this. But Yeah normal maps are really a thing I wish to add.


@BritishShivan, that might be a perspective thing. Here they are in FRED2, better represented:


 

Offline TwentyPercentCooler

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Ah, the Drake, a ship I'd prefer never to see the inside of again.

Looks great, though! Glad to see the Caldari MASTER RACE being represented!  ;7

 

Offline BritishShivans

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Ah, I see now. I just noticed the Drake is actually closer to the camera, but it looks a bit funny. And yeah, EVE Online's map files are... somewhere. I don't know personally.

 

Offline Nu11u5

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Quote
In December CCP is updating the material system to use Physical Based Rendering, so it will have to be learned all over again.

I'm not planning on making the mod as beautiful as EVE. ;)

It won't be that simple, unfortunately.

In a few hours Eve's model files will no longer have diffuse maps.  Colors will be defined by the materials system and instead all that the texture maps will have are a greyscale albedo channel.  (I've only just started dissecting the new system :S )

I'll extract all of the model files in the old and new texture system.  Toss me a message if you end up needing them.

 

Offline Nu11u5

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@Shivan Hunter, yeah if I can easily modify EVE's normal maps I'll do it.

[...]

Really textures aren't my priority, since CCP use lots of in-house coding and I'm not an artist and I know nothing about the programs used for this. But Yeah normal maps are really a thing I wish to add.

As for normal maps, I use GIMP + DDS plugin.  Import the normal map file, Colors > Components > Decompose (RGBA), then Compose again (not Recompose) and reassign the channels.  Eve uses the Green and Alpha channels for normal map vector components.


BTW, I'm not much of a modder, modeler, or graphic artist.  I just like to poke at the game's resource files and see how they work.


Mmmm, Naga.  Looks good!
« Last Edit: December 09, 2014, 12:46:49 am by Nu11u5 »

 

Offline Nu11u5

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For your reference, here is a visual guide to the texture system used in Eve before tomorrow's Rhea release (the "current" texture system is on the right, the left one is very old):



Source: http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/art-blog-improvement-of-textures-and-a-new-scorpion-model/

 

In a few hours Eve's model files will no longer have diffuse maps.

[...]

I'll extract all of the model files in the old and new texture system.  Toss me a message if you end up needing them.

[...]

As for normal maps, I use GIMP + DDS plugin.

[...]

 here is a visual guide to the texture system used in Eve



Noooooo what am I conna do without diffuse maps? Those were the only things that worked lol.

Thanks for downlaoding them, but I hope I can manage to extract the new materials and get them in FSO.

I use Gimp too! But it still makes me confused a lot, since not either EVE or FS2 seem to be using standard patterns. Hopefully I can try the green and alpha from EVE and get them into FSO, as Shivan Hunter said that those were the ones for FSO too.

Yeah I know that image. The tutorials I am using showed this picture but were based on the NGS system. I've been trying to adapt to the PTS without huge sucess. When my exams are over I'll dive into understanding PBR.

 

Offline chief1983

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The Gimp DDS tool is convenient, but you might find more control when working with DDS file using the nvidia command line tools.  I think that's the one used by some of the modders around here.
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Offline Nu11u5

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Noooooo what am I conna do without diffuse maps? Those were the only things that worked lol.

Thanks for downlaoding them, but I hope I can manage to extract the new materials and get them in FSO.

I use Gimp too! But it still makes me confused a lot, since not either EVE or FS2 seem to be using standard patterns. Hopefully I can try the green and alpha from EVE and get them into FSO, as Shivan Hunter said that those were the ones for FSO too.

Yeah I know that image. The tutorials I am using showed this picture but were based on the NGS system. I've been trying to adapt to the PTS without huge sucess. When my exams are over I'll dive into understanding PBR.

I've chatted with some of the devs and I'm starting to get a grasp on how CCP's implementation of PBR works.  If you end up using the new assets, it's going to be a bit more involved since you will have to bake your own diffuse and specular maps in 3D software (since in PBR these visuals are calculated in realtime).

I've found the material definitions, but they are all stored in one big binary file now and the existing tool to make it readable chokes on it.  Time too play with the source code I guess.

Also, I was told that they are investigating new texture packing systems that will change the assets all over again :S

I would learn what you can using the pre-Rhea assets and get some missions built and gameplay set up.  Then when the time comes, convert the latest assets from Eve into the mod if desired.


Go ahead and let me know if you want help with anything specific.  I've got some free time at the moment, and I can spend a little of it to assist if you want.

 
Yeah problem is I don't have free time right now. ^^'

I've had a look in Triexporter and they replaced ''d'' maps by ''ap'' maps. For example, for the Augoror, ac3_t1_d.dds was replaced by ac3_t1_ap.dds. And those look pretty similar to the diffuse mad we had. They only problem now is that they are all beige instead of grey.


 

Offline Nu11u5

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Yep.

Those *_ap.dds files contain the albedo maps (RGB channels) and paint mask (alpha channel).

The albedo map contains only the relative brightness data of the surface (no baked in shading) and gets tinted to a color by the material parameters (and then shaded in real-time by the render pipeline).  The paint mask is so any finely painted details don't get tinted as well.  Take a look at the new Incursus textures to see what is going on better.

Also what is changed is the *_pgs.dds files are now *_pgr.dds files.  Those contain the factional paint masks, glow map, and the new "roughness map" (instead of the old specular map).  The roughness map describes the microtexture of the surface to the PBR render pipeline so it can calculate real-time specular highlights and additional shading.

This guide helped me get my bearings on PBR - http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-practice
Be aware that Physically Based Rendering is more of a concept than any kind of specification.  CCP's implementation in Eve is a bit simpler than what that guide describes, but the core concepts are there.

In general, PBR is about defining how a surface behaves with light, rather than describing what it looks like - you let the render figure that out based on the environment.
« Last Edit: December 10, 2014, 03:15:39 pm by Nu11u5 »