[Getter Robo G]

Dragon, pardon my inquiry, but what are your skills and modding intentions for FS2?
Are you just doing a couple of minor personal things or are you exploring larger more evolved projects?

 

[Dragon]

I have my own huge TC on with i work alone and if i don't have idea what to do next i work on various ideas i have sometime. I made Ancients fleet pack ,Federation fleet pack (Steve'o's ships ,Moscow ,Hades reskin and Saturn reskin) two Terran fleet packs i don't have idea what to do with (they don't really fit FS universe and the only thing i thought of was finding a universe where I can put them) first one uses WC themed Scooby Doo's models ,though those less associated with main WC series ,fighters are in earlier version and therefore FS sized ,another one have INFA styled ships with Angel ,Valkyrie ,and Valkyrie Mk2 as fighters and Athena Mk2 as a bomber. Second one is buggy anyway ( http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,61467.0.html ) and first one is incomplete ,but Federation and Ancients are ready.
I also made FS era fleet pack for my own race ,but i don't want to release it before my main mod because it's going to spoil the surprise. I also want FoTG demo released so i posted some of my ideas on their board.

As for skills i can write tables (see what i made for FoTG x-wings), work on POFs ,and do basic work on textures and effects ( I have only paint and Infran view and no artistic skills so i use Infran view to for example recolour a glow map ) ,i don't made any good ,complete mission ,only tests for my ideas (want to see capship piloting or atmospheric flights? ).

Also atmospheric flights reminded me on another lost data.
In one of TBP tables (from Tales of EAS Janus I think) was two entries that was discripted earth atmosphere and mars atmosphere.
Was they primitive skyboxes or landscape models?
I would like to have more landscape for my atmospheric missions ,also i found out this huge landscape model from TBP final had no texture ( I changed it to earthskybox1bottom but i hope there was better one ).
I wonder what happened to them.
I also think there was landscape in 158th data.
I am considering making some atmospheric missions so any landscape model will be welcome.

[Titan]

No capital flying... it's getting old... wait for RTS to come out completed...

[Dragon]

It will be optional.
You will start in a fighter and if you want you have some time to land on a waiting capship.
I'm going to make use of "grant promotion" in campaign so you will be admiral at this time.
I think it will be a good addition and if you don't like capship piloting you don't need to.

[chief1983]

Really, there's no reason to not have better tools at your disposal than Paint.  There is Gimp and Paint.NET, both free, one is cross platform.  For modeling, there's Truespace 7.6, Blender, Wings, all free.  If you want to do more than minor editing, I would look into more serious tools such as those.

[Titan]

... Maybe sortof like the midway mission in Secret Weapons Over Normandy? If your fighter gets too damaged you land on the Yorktown and take over a gun turret? Crap, now i'm nostalgic.

[Dragon]

Now if I only have artistic skills...
My sister have Photoshop ,but with number of effects in various mods recolouring was enough for me.
As for modelling my father have GMax on somewhere hard drive (on my previous computer there was no way to install it because of Windows ME) so I think i should install it. I heard it's like famous 3DS Max without a few features.

As for:

... Maybe sortof like the midway mission in Secret Weapons Over Normandy? If your fighter gets too damaged you land on the Yorktown and take over a gun turret? Crap, now i'm nostalgic.

What kind of game it was?
I don't recall anyhing like that.
Sound intresting for me.

Anyway it may look like that ,but you will be commanding entire ship instead of turrets.
If i manage to make single turret controlling i may use this idea.
And i was thinking of docking to a capship which is standing in formation so i know what it's facing.
I need to find a way to get and set ship's rotation to do docking in any moment if i don't want to script entire movement. Also undocking is impossible because of "change ship class" operator bug (if you do it more than one time your ship keeps previous ships stats) and in player piloted ship I see no way to set fighter in the right position (inside fighterbay) without knowing rotation.

[chief1983]

You'd probably be better off with Blender than GMax.  Some of the features it's lacking include the stuff that makes it easier to convert the models into FS2 files.

[Dragon]

I can also try to use both (GMax for modelling blender for converting).
Back on topic i wonder what are TBP models i mentioned in my previous post?
And what with 158th releases?
Nobody said a word about them and wiki is still pointing to nowhere ,so i think somebody should explain.

[Dragon]

GTC Odysseus released
http://www.freespacemods.net/download.php?view.508.

I still wonder how does it looks with original textures.
Can you upload these source files ,Chief?
Or anybody else?
And nobody said a thing about 158th releases.

[Jake2447]

I don't know if whoever was looking for this found it, but i uploaded the normal mapped gtd hera to fsmods
..or at least i am attempting to
look in the destroyers/juggernaughts section...named "GTD Hera - Normal Maps"

[Dragon]

Thank you ,but can you provide a link?
It's strange ,but i don't see your maps in destroyers/juggernauts category.
Can you also upload it's missing texture?
I think i can make a shine map from diffuse map using Infran View ,but original shine will be welcome.
I hope I not want too much ,if you have only normals no problem ,maybe somebody else have them.

[Jake2447]

Maybe i didnt upload correctly...
I thought it said it was successful
Maybe it just has to be approved
and BTW I uploaded everything that i have that goes with it

[Snail]

Who was the original creator of the Odysseus?

[Dragon]

Maybe Raptor.
I don't really know.
It was him who submitted the mod.
There was no credits in this path ,maybe they are in main mod (I'm still waiting for Chief to upload it).
I think somebody should make a mod with it ,it deserve better weapons.

[chief1983]

Raptor's BSG Alpha mod files

This is everything I think I found in that original thread.  There's a post of mine that pretty much describes what to do with it all.  There's also the Cylon voice generator.

[Dragon]

Thank you Chief ,i very like those maps.
Maybe I will soon make a mission for this mod ,maybe even voice acted (myself and cylon voice generator).
I noticed models are HTL while textures have near-retail quality ,but it doesn't matter ,I made some shine maps using Infran View. It's not what I see in BTRL or Diaspora so I think somebody more will get intrested.
Anyway I will soon pack it in one folder ,make some missions and upload to FS Mods. It will not be Diaspora but I hope you will enjoy flying.

[chief1983]

Raptor was never the world's greatest mapper, I suppose.  However I'd agree that while a lot of those ships do have high polycounts, there's not always enough detail to justify them.  But, they were made some time ago, before the tools were to the point they are now.

[Dragon]

It looks fine after I have added shinemap ,now it needs only normal maps.
I don't know how to make normal maps and I don't understand those format names used to make normal maps.
Can you tell me which program I have to use and how to do it?
Please keep in mind that I'm from poland and I'm completely green when it comes to something More advanced than Paint and Infran View.
Most complicated thing with textures I ever made was cutting parts of texture and pasting them on another texture. Looks good enough for a placeholder. So if you can teach me how to make normal maps or point a tutorial which i can understand i will be very thankful.
I have attached picture of Odysseus with original textures ,main texture have my shinemap (it's a PCS2 shot).


[attachment deleted by ninja]

[chief1983]

Well you're going to want to probably get the Gimp, the free image editing program, perhaps Paint.NET, also free, and the Nvidia Texture tools.  That should get you started.  There's lots of guides on the forums about making normal maps already, I can't recall exactly where at the moment.  A good one might be Brand-X's texture tutorial, more of a general guide but still informative.  Also here (specifically this post).  Ok I guess I did find them after all.  There's probably more somewhere.  Those posts really need to be sticky'd/wiki-fied.