[General Battuta]

Optimized ships, some hints regarding the missions we've finished so far and our general design scheme, and stuff you probably already know!

[Angelus]

Nice stuff there. Also, are ya going Plinkett in the intro of the Developer Commentary vid? 
Can't watch the second vid, "not available in your country, as it has content from WMG...yadda, yadda".

[General Battuta]

After I recorded the intro I was asked to hide my real voice because it caused testicular shrinkage and involuntary bowel movements in heterosexual men and spontaneous arousal in women.

[Ypoknons]

oooo love the redone Narayana, the subtle blue shade works well. Reminds me a bit of WWII warships, sort of like Dazzle camo... well, not quite hahaha. Looking forward to the blue ring part being re-worked though definitely, a bit weird right now I suppose.

But expect to find yourself wielding a lot more tactical power this time out. Instead of moving down a tight, scripted corridor, you'll be given the tools you need to tackle your mission from multiple angles, with consequences that persist later into the campaign. Custom HUD elements will help you keep track of new capabilities, networking you to artillery assets and entire air wings.

yay ambitious! Looking forward to it and best of luck, the best thing about the BP team is that it seems well-organized (to the outsider) and gets things done.

[Droid803]

I, for one, like the aesthetic of Steve-O's original textures better.
These ones look a bit too...esarai
Sure, it's pretty and shiny and all, but its too shiny. Kinda a little too "high tech-y" and lost the dirty, gritty, low-tech feel... I guess smearing scorch marks all over it could remedy that partially...

Can plz has original-style textures (as optional dl or something?)

[General Battuta]

There's so much to do that I don't think it's going to be a priority. Feel free to tackle it, though, it'd be a good public service.

[Droid803]

The one thing I don't like about UV-mapped ships is how much of a pain-in-the-ass it is to change its texture style efficiently.
Its nigh impossible without repainting the whole thing (I think), and I donno how to do that.

My texture editing skills consist of...using hue/sat on photoshop.

[Ypoknons]

I think it's a nice combo, makes it a bit more sleek whilst keeping entirely functional.

[General Battuta]

I also like the new texture a lot better, though I can see the argument for more weathering.

We've had requests to support the Tethis model as well as the Narayana offshoot, and it's just not something I think we can do while also moving forward on optimization. But I'll tell you what, we'll at least talk about the texture style as we go.

[The E]

Looking forward to it and best of luck, the best thing about the BP team is that it seems well-organized (to the outsider) and gets things done.

Ironically, we actually don't have a lot of organization. We just .... do things.

[General Battuta]

Indeed. We are like a large and unstructured blob, blobbing about and secreting things.

[bigchunk1]

Indeed. We are like a large and unstructured blob, blobbing about and secreting things.

That's how some of the best dev studios got their start.

EDIT: Oh and about the new texture: I personally am attached to the older style, but that might just be a bias because I've played R1 so much. The old texture gives that down and dirty underdog feel. The new one... so clean, so perfect. Maybe it's the color. I still haven't seen the new model in the game with the pixel shader and all, might make the difference. Nice work though. I have a high respect for all those who do modeling/texture work of this quality.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

+1 for the old texture scheme...

Also, while talking about textures - the Solaris has a mostly black shinemap, making it look like it's made of wood instead of metal. I do hope you won't continue that style in the other ships too?

[The E]

Speaking of new textures:

[Buckshee Rounds]

I like the like the small details. Nice touch with the UEF Eagle! Looks pretty.

[-Norbert-]

Isn't it possible to extract the texture from the old (i.e. current) VP files and place them in the data folder for all those who like the old texture more?
Or are the textures already part of the pof and only shine- and glowmaps in the dds files?

[The E]

The problem is that the texturing scheme is completely different. The old Narayana, for example, uses something like 20 (?) separate textures. The new one pictured here uses only 1. Someone would have to redo the texture to better fit the original paint scheme.

While you can replace textures easily (and no, no texture data is ever stored in a pof), making those textures in the first place is the hard part.

[General Battuta]

+1 for the old texture scheme...

Optimizing these ships for sane usage takes priority.

Also, while talking about textures - the Solaris has a mostly black shinemap, making it look like it's made of wood instead of metal. I do hope you won't continue that style in the other ships too?

Hrm. May be a technical oversight? You could send a fixed shinemap to Esarai and see how it works.

[Qent]

+1 for the old texture scheme...

Also, while talking about textures - the Solaris has a mostly black shinemap, making it look like it's made of wood instead of metal. I do hope you won't continue that style in the other ships too?

I like the new UEF texture scheme. I think that the GTVA ships should be the ones with a down-and-dirty feel, while the Feds' are all shiny and uber-high-tech but kinda new to this whole fighting thing.

[General Battuta]

Esarai confirms that sometime during final processing the Solaris shinemaps were borked.