[Admiral Nelson]

Hi folks,

I have created nameplates for every ship in the main FS2 campaign which belongs to a class which supports nameplates -- Fenris/Leviathan, Aeolus, Deimos, Orion and Faustus.  The link includes all the required nameplates in addtion to edited main campaign missions with the nameplate replacement included.  The missions include the nameplates Galemp created for the two Hecate class destroyers in the campaign.  You will need the latest media VP and patches, specifically Stratcomm's nameplate fixed models and the new Hecate model.

http://www.fileh.com/NelsonAndBronte/FS2Nameplates.zip







This wasn't supposed to happen!







Of course, let me know of any feedback.

[WMCoolmon]

Erg, only one problem with sticking it in the mediaVPs...it doesn't look like you used the mission files from mv_effects to start from, so these missions don't have the skybox.

I don't know how to fix that, it probably only requires filling in a field in FRED for each mission.

[Black Wolf]

Woot. This is the kind of stuff that I like - the little details which make the campaign that much more real.

[karajorma]

Excellent work. No doubt boring and time consuming but this is the sort of thing I like to see too. 

[Vasudan Admiral]

Awesome work mate. Exactly what I'd hoped they'd be used for.

[CaptJosh]

Would the NTF really have had the time or resources to repaint their nameplates? In "The Mystery of the Trinity," The NTC Trinity had only been AWOL from the GTVN for three weeks, for example.

[Galemp]

With the standards and technology that far ahead, it probably would have been simple to do while it was under repairs. No more difficult than hoisting a new flag while in port; it's only one letter, not a full repainting.

If you wanted to be picky you could just call it "%TC Trinity" where the first letter has been partially stripped away and is unrecogniseable.

[Admiral Nelson]

Erg, only one problem with sticking it in the mediaVPs...it doesn't look like you used the mission files from mv_effects to start from, so these missions don't have the skybox.

I don't know how to fix that, it probably only requires filling in a field in FRED for each mission.

D'oh -- my bad. I did use the standard missions.  It's just copy and paste work to put them in the mv_effects missions, though.  Shouldn't take me too long.

I did wonder about the Trinity in particular, whether to put G, N or a painted out G under the N, and finally just said the heck with it.  The rebellion was in progress for a year and a half so many if not most NTF ships would have had plenty of time to repaint.

[CaptJosh]

Good point on the length of the rebellion. I forgot about that. The NTC Trinity is about the only ship in game that might not have had the time.

[Cobra]

Erg, only one problem with sticking it in the mediaVPs...it doesn't look like you used the mission files from mv_effects to start from, so these missions don't have the skybox.

what skybox?

anyway, i like this (re)release. but i'll wait until whatever the problem is is remedied.

[Admiral Nelson]

OKay, I have updated the file in the first post with the mv_effects missions for media vp compatability.

I see that Taylor does not recommend the use of TGA nameplates.  What would be the best thing for me to do with the TGA nameplates included here?  To what format should they be converted?

[Black Wolf]

Pcx or dds

[taylor]

I see that Taylor does not recommend the use of TGA nameplates.  What would be the best thing for me to do with the TGA nameplates included here?  To what format should they be converted?

Install NVIDIA's DDS utilities and use the nvdxt command line program (or whatever other program you have that supports DDS) to convert the images to DXT5.  Then just make sure that the compression didn't mess them up (I doubt it would for those things).

Actually I'll convert them if you want and post a link to the DDS versions.  Most of them aren't power-of-2 anyway and that's a no-no given how much extra memory they would use.

The good thing about DXT5 versions of the nameplates is that they will render faster, use a 4th of the memory of TGA (and one-half the memory of PCX) and work without the -jpgtga option.

[Admiral Nelson]

If you don't mind converting them, that would be great!

That would ensure I don't screw up anything...

Edit: I made a typo in the Monitor's nameplate.  Fixed and re uploaded.

[taylor]

Had these done yesterday but wanted to test them first (some of the models I have don't use "nameplate" as the nameplate texture name so replacement didn't work at first).  These are resized to be power-of-2, converted to DXT5 with 4 mipmap levels.  The rest of the mipmap levels didn't really show anything since they were so small so I just skipped them.  I didn't test every ship but I tested most, especially then ones that were resized or that originally had PCX nameplates.

http://icculus.org/~taylor/fso/misc/dds_nameplates.zip  (just the maps, no missions)

[Admiral Nelson]

Thanks, Taylor.  A few questions for you: Would you mind posting the command line used to create the final files?  I can then write a little blurb on the wiki explaining the current workflow for creating nameplates.  I presume you just expanded the canvas to resize the non power of two nameplates?  There is no issue in the model expecting a 420 x 61  pixel nameplate and then getting a 512 x 64 one?

I have again updated the ZIP in the first post with the new dds textures.  Again,  Stratcomm's fixed models in the mediavp thread are required for use.  The missions are based on those in the effects vp so that one sees the skybox.

[taylor]

Thanks, Taylor.  A few questions for you: Would you mind posting the command line used to create the final files?  I can then write a little blurb on the wiki explaining the current workflow for creating nameplates.  I presume you just expanded the canvas to resize the non power of two nameplates?  There is no issue in the model expecting a 420 x 61  pixel nameplate and then getting a 512 x 64 one?

That's why I wanted to test before sending you the changes.  It looked ok, but I originally couldn't decide if the map was to be centered in the proper place or aligned at 0,0.  I enlarged the canvas size and centered the old layer before saving it back out.  That appeared to work perfectly but someone else may say that was the wrong thing to do.  I tested the resized images on several ships and it was lined up properly every time.  Give it a test yourself just to make sure though.

For nvdxt I just used "nvdxt -nmips 4 -dxt5 -file *.tga".  The "-nmips" option tells it how many mipmap levels to create.  4 would give levels down to 128x16 and 128x32 which is small enough.  I didn't use the GIMP plugin for this since it makes all mipmap levels and you can't restrict it.

I'll be sure and grab the new models, I've been using original hi-poly releases for quite a few of them a bit too long.

[starfox]

I played mission"dunkerque" and went to look GTD mesana, only to notice it has some invisible textures around the nameplate.
I also noticed following wierdness...

Ertanax, Loyola and Malta both have GTC "Advocate" nameplate
Oberon, Rampart, Majestic, Refute, Alba, Cato, Conquest, Glorious, Impervious, Fortune, Maelstrom and Trinity are named "GTC Orff"
GTD Carthage also has missing textures around its nameplate
NTD Vindicator also has little piece of texture missing

[Admiral Nelson]

Yeah I see that now.  It seems that the nameplate didn't like being resized.

I have the non-dds files here:

http://www.fileh.com/NelsonAndBronte/FS2Nameplates_bak.zip

I am unfortunately about to leave for the airport so I can't do more testing.

[taylor]

I played mission"dunkerque" and went to look GTD mesana, only to notice it has some invisible textures around the nameplate.

Woops!    That was the PCX file that had to be resized.  I'll have another go at it and update the previous dds files with the changes.  Will update here when that happens.