Author Topic: Screenshot comments thread...  (Read 31384 times)

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Offline Hippo

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ISD is 5098, I don't know the SSD yet... GE just went and added more detail to it...
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Offline Starman01

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Those are some pretty good looking models guys, keep it up :yes:

One minor thing though, IMO the three main engines on the ISD shouldn' stand out so much from the mainhull, but that's just my opinion of course.
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Offline Alan Bolte

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Um, who's doing the SSD again? I'm not catching who this GE guy is. You seemed to indicate that he was still working on the model, so no reason not to critique this time, I think. Still feel a little guilty about that bit about the TIEs.

About that, a few things.

1. There's some sort of differently textured block structure lodged in the trench between the prongs made by the dorsal/ventral hull plates, at the tip of the 'dagger'. What's that doing there? Get it out.

2. Why are you putting greeblies on the 'city'? Why waste time and polys with the little boxes and trenches when you could be making a better approximation of the overall geometry? I mean, first of all, the drop from the hull isn't deep or steep enough in places, and at points it should actually be perpendicular to its present slope. Then there's the aft, which should blend almost smoothly into the city. The fore part of the city should actually  connect downwards into the hull. It's only the sides that are unconnected. The buildings in general are interconnected so fluidly that there are only a few points where separate buildings are justified, as opposed to a sort of mangled step-pyramid appearance. This step appearance is particularly noticible near the command tower.

3. Same as 2, but for the drive section. Too many polys wasted on random little blocks, not enough good geometry. The biggest thing is that the engines on this model are hull-centered. This is only really true for the aftmost central engine. The aftmost lateral engines are supposed to sort of stick out to the sides of the main hull, and the other ten engines protrude downward, in some cases with a long visible cylinder appearance instead of just having the nozzle apparent. Also, this section overall seems to lack, i don't know, bulk. It should be kind of puffy looking.
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Offline Hippo

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GE'll be here immenently... He's the former GalacticEmporer actually, now known as Galemp, but we like GE better :p
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Offline Galemp

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I got it. Re: your comments:

Meh. I'll probably retool the cortex sometime in the future, since it does need help. The blocks there are derived straight from the XWA version, and I'm pretty sure with the polycount we're shooting for I can do a much better job. For now I'm going to get what I have POFed so the FREDders can get to work; then I can edit the top and keep all the POF data for the new model.

The engine blocks, however, have already been overhauled, as have the textures. Take a look at the screenshot thread.
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Offline Admiral Nelson

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Hopefully, you will be shooting for, say 25,000 polys? :)

After all, there won't be more than one in a mission, anyway.... :)
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Offline Alan Bolte

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Yeah, I thought that was a modification of the XWA version. What a piece of ****. I remember first encountering it in XvT and thinking, "Damn, am I playing TIE Fighter again? 'Cause that looks about as much like an Executor-class as those 'MC-80a's looked like Mon Cal ships from the films. Too short, wrong number of engines, cortex geometry just slapped together - it wasn't like they were just cutting corners for polys or easy texturing, more like their product was rushed so much that visual quality ment nothing.

Anyhow, I absolutely love the new engine glow texture, but that's about all I could honestly give you much praise for in this change. It's marginally more accurate now, but it still doesn't look all that great. You still need to drop down the 6 lateralmost engines, and the engine shapes look like you put too much effort into getting them wierdly curvy for no reason. You can get a more accurate and better-looking shape with two cylinders and a cone.
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Offline Galemp

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Probably. :blah: I've got other priorities at the moment, though. Look in every once in a while and see what's new.
"Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he's supposed to be doing at that moment." -- Robert Benchley

Members I've personally met: RedStreblo, Goober5000, Sandwich, Splinter, Su-tehp, Hippo, CP5670, Terran Emperor, Karajorma, Dekker, McCall, Admiral Wolf, mxlm, RedSniper, Stealth, Black Wolf...

 

Offline TopAce

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Just tranquilizzing the fans that none of the staff members but GE is in the possession of that SSD.
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I already announced my retirement twice, yet here I am. If I bring up that topic again, don't believe a word.

 

Offline Admiral Nelson

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I recall seeing screenies ages ago of an XWA Upgrade SSD. Have you guys made any attempt to get that (incomplete) model, if only for reference?
If a man consults whether he is to fight, when he has the power in his own hands, it is certain that his opinion is against fighting.

 

Offline Hippo

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Quote
Originally posted by TopAce
Just tranquilizzing the fans that none of the staff members but GE is in the possession of that SSD.



:nervous: er... :nervous:



*raises hand*





*runs*
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Offline TopAce

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Do you have the POF file?
My community contributions - Get my campaigns from here.

I already announced my retirement twice, yet here I am. If I bring up that topic again, don't believe a word.

 

Offline Hippo

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:nervous: er... :nervous:



No, i have the scene, but i can make the pof in a matter of clicks...
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Offline Slasher

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That SSD texturing rules!  Can't wait to see the whole thing.

And on a side note, against the forces of nature and Microsoft, I was able to get the old DOS version of TIE Fighter (CD Collector's Edition) running on my Windows XP machine.  Complete with sound and music.  :D

 

Offline AqueousShadow

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Quote
Originally posted by Slasher
That SSD texturing rules!  Can't wait to see the whole thing.

And on a side note, against the forces of nature and Microsoft, I was able to get the old DOS version of TIE Fighter (CD Collector's Edition) running on my Windows XP machine.  Complete with sound and music.  :D


HOW?!!?!?!?!?! *screams* HOW?!?!?!?!!??!

 
I got it to run using a dos emulator. The 2 main problems running old games is trying to cap CPU speed and getting legacy sound blaster drivers to work. You can use either :

VDM Sound
http://www.ece.mcgill.ca/~vromas/vdmsound/

Dosbox
http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/news.php?show_news=1

A patch was recently released for the "Xwing Trilogy" version of the old games. They were Win95 versions of the game with updated graphics (nasty lowres textures) and high resolution (and ugly) cutscenes and menus.

I prefer to play the original under those dos emulators.

BACK TO TOPIC.....

I like the textures for the SSD. Whats the polygon count so far? Anyway to beef it further to add more detail to the building structures? To bad theres no way to add LOD's to subobjects. If that could be implemented, those structures could be lowpoly from a distance, and get more detailed as you get closer. Perhaps you can get away with normal LODS by concentrating detail only around the bridge tower.

You can have its current state as the LOWEST lod at a distance from its nose. As you get to the first quarter of its length, you kick in the next lod which you increase detail for that next segment only, disreguarding detail efforts on the first quarter. Do I make sense?

That would make an SSD flyby more interesting.
« Last Edit: September 28, 2004, 02:39:56 am by 1582 »

 

Offline KARMA

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ehm, you CAN have subobjects lods:)

 
!!!!!!

whoa..... I missed that part in Bob's PCS tutorial....
 can you point me to a tutorial......

I'd like to experiement on my Homeone project..... I'll have pics up in a couple of days (gotta do my studio time and homework first)

Edit:

Ok found it in Bob's tutorial..... I am blind ya see. The question is, do those lod's activate based on subobject center distance or the overall object center distance.  With an ship as large as the SSD, I would think lod distance will increase performace as well as detail potential for the subobjects that are close.
« Last Edit: September 28, 2004, 03:21:26 pm by 1582 »

 

Offline KARMA

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all the objects inside a  lod are at the same level, i.e when you talk about lod1 you mean the lod1 of the main geo AND the lod1 of the various subobjects.
When the game switch from lod0 to lod1 it changes the lods of the main geo and the subobjects together
The distances are setted in ships.tbl and they are referred to the distances between the point of view and the neares point of the pof (I think that it uses bounding boxes but not sure)

 

Offline Slasher

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Quote
Originally posted by Omniscaper
I got it to run using a dos emulator. The 2 main problems running old games is trying to cap CPU speed and getting legacy sound blaster drivers to work. You can use either :

VDM Sound
http://www.ece.mcgill.ca/~vromas/vdmsound/

Dosbox
http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/news.php?show_news=1


I prefer to play the original under those dos emulators.



I just used VDMSound.  It plays just like it did seven years ago when I first tried it. :)

I like the originals too, mainly because the dynamic music score is so much cool.