[Herra Tohtori]

Renders use displacement mapping. FSO uses normal mapping which is computationally cheaper to achieve, but doesn't quite give the same quality or detail.

Of course the real-time rendering will not be quite as good as the static renders, but recent advances (shadows!) will reduce the gap quite a bit.

[Dragon]

Does displacement mapping has anything to do with parallax mapping?
There's a -height launcher flag, which enables the use of height maps. I heard that it's meant for parallax mapping.

[brandx0]

No, displacement mapping creates actual new geometry, while parallax mapping just further simulates height by sliding around bits of the maps depending on the angle, when used in conjunction with normal maps.

[Dragon]

Perhaps you could experiment with height maps a bit. My ventures into using them were unsuccessful, but you'll most likely do much better. Perhaps with parallax mapping and more pronounced normal maps, you could get more "render-like" effect.

[brandx0]

I thought height maps weren't supported anymore?

[Dragon]

They should be, I don't seen any reason for them to be removed (afterall, they work, they're just not used much). It's just an obscure feature, requires a custom flag and from what I heard, is considered barely useful by those who know about it (for terrain models and asteroids, mainly). Maybe you could prove them wrong, I believe that there's a way to exploit this feature for ships. Type -height into custom launcher flags and it should work.

[brandx0]

I tried it out, all it did was disable normal maps entirely (along with shadows) 

Disabling the height map brought back shadows and normals.

[brandx0]

Did some tweaking on the shinemap:

[Dragon]

I tried it out, all it did was disable normal maps entirely (along with shadows) 

Disabling the height map brought back shadows and normals.

That's weird, especially about normal maps (shadows are not final anyway, so this should be fixed by the time they go final). I'd have to ask on SCP if the height map implementation works correctly. Also, try a non-shadow build. There's a chance you ran into a bug caused entirely by the implementation of shadows.

[The E]

Height maps don't work, period. The necessary code isn't in the shaders anymore.

[Dragon]

Rats. Though the "shaders" part sounds like they're not hopelessly broken within the engine itself. Would that be difficult to re-add the code for them?
I recall it being mentioned that there were things (Asteroids, mostly), in which they could be quite useful. I have a feeling that they could be even used for ships, but nobody had yet fully exploited them.
Anyway, in that case, I think that this detail could be partially done with a more pronounced normal map.

[zookeeper]

I butchered the model a bit to produce a stock YT-1300 model, using only the original textures. I pretty much just put cover plating on the exposed innards, removed the bottom turret and the sensor dish, made the remaining top gun into a weaker two-barrel gun and modified the engine section slightly.

[rhettro]

Nice, very nice.

[Vector Leader]

Fantastic.

[Dain]

Looks great, but perhaps the paint and hull damage should be scrubbed off the stock model?

Although I guess if you just want to stick to the original texture that might not be an option.

[Dragon]

It doesn't need to be pristine, but it should have less damage than the Falcon. It might still look like an old beater, but not one that's been in fights.

[Colonol Dekker]

Inevitable YT-1400 spinoff comment.

[CountBuggula]

Looks great, but perhaps the paint and hull damage should be scrubbed off the stock model?

Although I guess if you just want to stick to the original texture that might not be an option.

I actually suggested this to Zookeeper when we were in the process of throwing it together, but it may be more work to modify the texture than it's worth.  If someone on the team has the time and energy and desire to do it, maybe, but I've mentioned before that the one thing we're really lacking right now is talented texture artists.

[headdie]

by the time of ANH are they still building the 1400?  even if they are most have been around since around the back end of the clone wars era so any outside of corporate fleet ownership they are probably carrying a few scrapes and marks from life on the trade lanes

[coffeesoft]

wau, really beauty ...