Hard Light Productions Forums
Community Projects => The FreeSpace Upgrade Project => The FreeSpace Port Upgrade => Topic started by: Corto on July 18, 2011, 02:52:34 pm
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Is this model being remade? Because I searched for something that says if this is being worked on, and I haven't found anything. I have a friend who thinks this is a good candidate for a remake, since you get to see it through most of the missions on the FS port campaigns, and I could give it a shot. I don't want to race against someone who has already started working on this one though. Let me read your opinions.
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There are two distinct completed remakes: the one in the MediaVPs and Trashman's (which has several versions). The reason they're not seen in the port has something to do with Retail compatibility.
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We're certainly under no objections to anybody deciding to undertake redoing a model as they see fit...t'is a community project after all. XD
The one think to keep in mind about any redone Orion is the nameplate. Typically, most ships will have a texture slot called "nameplate" that is used for swapping things around. The Orion, because of it's use and history, uses a specific texture name for it's nameplates that should be preserved, but that can be handled during the final game conversion process.
We've seen a few come and go in terms of modifying the Orion. It is quite possibly -the- most difficult ship to update however. Not in terms of complexity or the like (it's not vast on the scale of the Hades or Colossus, for example) but because everybody has their own perception of just what an Orion is, so it will receive the most critical scrutiny of possibly any model in existence. (In fact, we did have one person make some fairly significant progress, but then just pretty much walked away with it because of this).
So far as I know, we don't have anybody else claiming this model as being "in the works", but even so, the more the merrier, and it can always be a usefully model in or out of the MediaVPs.
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Someone named SPECTRE87 was making one, but eventually left. The model was left untouched and vanished.
Other than that, there's no plans for it being remade, and yes it's desparately in need of a new model.
So it's likely free game if you want to try it out.
If you do, I certainly look forward to seeing what you fire up.
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There are two distinct completed remakes: the one in the MediaVPs and Trashman's (which has several versions). The reason they're not seen in the port has something to do with Retail compatibility.
Wrong. The reason the Port MediaVPs do not have the updated Orion in place is because Table based Texture replacement doesn't work yet for being able to use the newer model and swapping the nameplate for each one.
Which isn't to say that one couldn't use the mission side Texture Replace to achieve the same effect, but that is seriously a PITA to manage.
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Provided I start working on this ship, I work with Softimage XSI and so far there's no support to import geometry exported with that program. Is there people specializing on the porting process alone?
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Well.....
If that program can export to something like .3ds or Lightwave, someone else will be able to convert it for ingame use.
If it can export models to Collada 1.4 (.dae extension), no intermediate conversion is necessary, as PCS2 (the program used to convert models to FSO's model format) can read that format just fine on its own.
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There are two distinct completed remakes: the one in the MediaVPs and Trashman's (which has several versions). The reason they're not seen in the port has something to do with Retail compatibility.
Wrong. The reason the Port MediaVPs do not have the updated Orion in place is because Table based Texture replacement doesn't work yet for being able to use the newer model and swapping the nameplate for each one.
Which isn't to say that one couldn't use the mission side Texture Replace to achieve the same effect, but that is seriously a PITA to manage.
This has been fixed in the latest FSPort media VPs by having separate models for each of the named Orion class destroyers
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I cannot think of anybody that uses SoftImage. That being said, it should be able to have either plugins or a method of converting from .xsi to another format (such as .3ds at the least).
I also don't know what formats Softimage will import to know what you would need it in to start with. Most modeling these parts is done with Max, Wings or Blender with the occasional old school truespace fan.
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It exports collada, so I should be fine. Thanks everybody.