[Ace]

This has probably been mentioned before, but what about the ability to have a flag on a ship in FRED that will have the ship's name written on a section of the hull with the stop font?

This would mean that custom nameplates don't need to be created if done right.

The first two ships to do this as an experiment on I suggest are the Orion and the Deimos. (Since on the FS2 cover and the ads the Deimos had a nameplate)

[Lynx]

It shozld work as semitransparent overlay; that way it would really  look as íf it's painted on the hull. That would be kinda cool.

[LAW ENFORCER]

nah...

what would be better is if you can have a insgnia like poly group/subobject that has the name (a texture) painted on it - transparent would work with it too.... (as the hull is underneath)

[diamondgeezer]

I suggested this a while back, but the SCP guys overruled me and told me to get off my lazy arse and just make nameplates. So I did. It's easy.

[Bobboau]

this can be done currently, useing the replaceable texture code goober did, and nameplates, realy a nameplate should only take you like five minutes

[diamondgeezer]

Originally posted by Bobboau
a nameplate should only take you like five minutes

[Goober5000]

http://www.geocities.com/ipw47/nameplates.html

[Solatar]

But if somebody wanted to put a nameplate on a different ship, like a Deimos or Hecate, they'd run into a lot of problems since the textures are tiled.

[Bobboau]

you'd have to modify the POF, but you'd have to do that for the text thing anyway, so...

[Ace]

Originally posted by Bobboau
this can be done currently, useing the replaceable texture code goober did, and nameplates, realy a nameplate should only take you like five minutes

That's not the point. The point is to have in FRED the ability to add the nameplate on the ship without having to use photoshop.

[Flipside]

Hmmmmm... It's a good idea, but I would have thought it would be an absolute nightmare to code. You would have to add a part to Fred without breaking it, then you would have to add the code to the program. Even if you did get it to work, it would only work on ships designed to do it anyway, because you would still need a polygon 'Mask' to place the text on. It would actually be quicker to put the polygon there anyway, create the name surrounded by pure green and use the swaptexture Sexp. If you place the polygon close enough to the hull, it will look like part of it.

Flipside

[Goober5000]

Flipside is right - it was a ton of work even coding the texture replacement mod.  If you want to have written text on ships, freaking learn to code and do it yourself.  Honestly - the texture replacement is quick and easy to use, you can put nameplates on any ship with an appropriately situated texture (like the Orion), and with my tutorial you can create a new nameplate in literally under a minute*.

*I timed it once at 47 seconds.

[Bobboau]

is the code to swich the insig stuff still in there?
if so I might work on getting it lit again.

[Ace]

Originally posted by Goober5000
Flipside is right - it was a ton of work even coding the texture replacement mod.  If you want to have written text on ships, freaking learn to code and do it yourself.  Honestly - the texture replacement is quick and easy to use, you can put nameplates on any ship with an appropriately situated texture (like the Orion), and with my tutorial you can create a new nameplate in literally under a minute*.

*I timed it once at 47 seconds.

The point of this suggestion is to render the need to create custom nameplate textures and table entries obsolete.

As for the 'code it yourself' comment, this was a suggestion, please don't go on the warpath like it's some demand.

[TrashMan]

Couldn't it be done like the squad insignias on fighters?
They don't need new tbl stuff to work and can be put on every fighter without problem...

[diamondgeezer]

Ace, the reason people are getting a bit annoyed is that you've been told three times it'd be difficult to code and that a solution already exists and yet you won't drop. You're basically asking for a big complicated load of code work to get around your own laziness. Making nameplates with Photoshop is dead easy. All it takes is a minutes work on the part of the modder. Ships like the Deimos would need modifying using either method, so there is absolutely nothing to be gained by trying to implement your suggestion.

Trashman, fighters have an area designated for insignias. The Deimos has no suitable place to put something like a nameplate since its textures are tiled, but if you wanted to you could edit its mesh to create a big flat area that could be used to put a single texture on. Then you simply create a nameplate texture, which will literally ltake a few minutes.

[Goober5000]

Thanks, DG.  I'm more than happy to code an interesting feature, but when people (not only you, Ace, but many others as well) start asking for the stars when they already have the moon, it feels like we're being taken for granted and it's extremely frustrating.  Especially considering this...

Originally posted by Ace
The point of this suggestion is to render the need to create custom nameplate textures and table entries obsolete.

Ace, this tells me you haven't even looked at the feature.  The FRED dialog is plain and simple - you specify a nameplate, and it shows up in the mission.  No need for fooling around with extra table entries.  Read the readme and do a search before you ask for anything that may be staring you in the face.

[diamondgeezer]

Well you know you could always have just gotten Ice to lock the thread since the discussion was pointless. To be honest it'd be nice to see the SCP moderators try to cut down on some of the spam in here.