[aldo_14]

Just thinking.... could the actual pof models be used for the ship / weapons selection anis instead of the current system, ala the ships database.

Because a good ful-motion ani takes up ~9 to 10MB in my experience, this could really help with mods/campaigns.

also, where is the size (in pixels & frames) of the loading ani defined?  I want to enlarge this, so I can make sommat neat

I just Borland, so hopefully I can actually compile some stuff and muck about

(edit)
Oh.... and I wonder if an extra hud ani can be made - effectively a fighter cockpit image (ok, crude, but may look neat), possibly with 1+ extra frames so change it when it's damaged (?)

[IceFire]

Just thinking.... could the actual pof models be used for the ship / weapons selection anis instead of the current system, ala the ships database.

Oh god that would be VERY HELPFUL!

[RandomTiger]

Are there models of the weapons to use?

[Grey Wolf]

No, but wouldn't take much work to make them.

[IceFire]

That would also be useful.  We could do something about the background to make it more interesting to look at as well.

[Sesquipedalian]

It shouldn't take much work, either.  The techroom already uses the pof for displaying the ship, so not a whole lot of new code will need to be written (I suppose).

The downfall of this would be that the full sequence of drawing the ship's outline on the green grid and then having it rotate down onto and angle before spinning would be lost.  (Of course, we won't be losing much, since no one ever makes full motion ANIs for this anyway.)  Perhaps we could at least put a green grid background in for the pof to be rendered over top of.

It would also be nice if some lights could be added to the in-game render for this thing, so that the pof would still glow green on the bottomside when spinning on the grid.

Great idea, Aldo! :yes:

[Bobboau]

"Of course, we won't be losing much, since no one ever makes full motion ANIs for this anyway."

ah... ya, you'd have to be a , uh, real idiot to waist all that, time hehe

honestly I'd like this myself

[DTP]

The code for having a spinning ship already exits in the tech room code. should be a rather trivial mather of getting it into select ship screen. but maybe its harder than that.

maybe i will look at it.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by RandomTiger
Are there models of the weapons to use?

some....for the missiles methinks.

The code for the techroom is for a slightly bigger window...which may complicate stuff.  But i think it's possible...kinda why i suggested it

tehre's also the code for the 3d ship popups in the briefing section, as well....another thing could be adding something similar for the actual command briefings - for any cb's where a new ship is being introduced..... dunno how you'd incorporate this, though. (maybe checking filename extensions then either going into the preexisting draw ani code, or a new display pof code?)

[Sandwich]

Originally posted by Sesquipedalian
The downfall of this would be that the full sequence of drawing the ship's outline on the green grid and then having it rotate down onto and angle before spinning would be lost.  (Of course, we won't be losing much, since no one ever makes full motion ANIs for this anyway.)  Perhaps we could at least put a green grid background in for the pof to be rendered over top of.

If you manage to duplicate that reported FS1 Glide rendering codde that made ships have glowing sections, you wouldn't even need to miss out on the grid: make a simple 3D grid, colored green (think jumpnode) and have it glow.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by sandwich


If you manage to duplicate that reported FS1 Glide rendering codde that made ships have glowing sections, you wouldn't even need to miss out on the grid: make a simple 3D grid, colored green (think jumpnode) and have it glow.

It's only a grid..... anyway, isn't the main missing bit the blue grid that gets 'filled' in at the start?

i seriously doubt anyone will really care the 2 grid effects are removed, though.

[WMCoolmon]

It would be nice to have though, so that you'd just need the ship POF to be imported in the game and Freespace 2 would load it automatically.

[Bobboau]

I don't think the grid thing would be that dificult to do, if we realy wanted to do it

[DragonClaw]

But again there has to be a choice between the two... I've already made full motion loadout anis for OtT with the grid... so, it wouldn't be nice to FORCE it to use POFs

[LtNarol]

I know this would require a lot of work, but wouldn't it be possible given the people we have here to make the thing render the blue grid and filling in by using the fighter's wireframe? then do the rotate down before the spinning?

[penguin]

Originally posted by RKIF-DragonClaw
But again there has to be a choice between the two... I've already made full motion loadout anis for OtT with the grid... so, it wouldn't be nice to FORCE it to use POFs

Simple solution: if there's no $Ship_anim (or it's empty) we draw the POF...

More complicated for weapons... We can use the missle POF if there's no $Anim in the weapons.tbl, but since primaries have no POF, we're kinda stuck...

[Sandwich]

Originally posted by penguin
More complicated for weapons... We can use the missle POF if there's no $Anim in the weapons.tbl, but since primaries have no POF, we're kinda stuck...

Can you say: "Extremely sucky 'LOD' on those missile POFs"??

[Nico]

Originally posted by sandwich


Can you say: "Extremely sucky 'LOD' on those missile POFs"??

I can, look:
"Extremely sucky 'LOD' on those missile POFs"
easy, hey?

[IceFire]

No no....for weapons we make up higher poly versions for the display.

Its just that making a model and putting a texture on it seems to be a bit easier in my book than making the model, putting texture on it, and then rendering the thing.

[Inquisitor]

Sounds like we have our first art related task.