[spy46]

its my first time here so i dont know if im in the right place or not.

Im looking for some reference pics of the ships from Tachyon the Fringe, i need not only the Galspan and Bora ships but also any pirate and other ships.

i need top  side and front views of these ships, google hasnt been much help to me at all, can any one help me?

[JGZinv]

I doubt google would be as most fan sites are dead at this point.

What's your need for the profile shots? Are you trying to remodel them?
We may be able to do one better.

[spy46]

in part yes i would like to model them, mostly just for my own kicks and practice, but also to use for my own designs that im working on for an OC universe and every thing.

i have OC human Battleship, Destroyer, Carrier, 4 fighters and a starbase/shipyard in the works

alien race 1 has a Destroyer and fighter (working on more)

still have another alien race fleet and neutral/rogue factions like pirates to work on too.

[JGZinv]

Well whether you realize it or not, collecting what you're asking for is quite a substantial amount of work. Tach doesn't have a model
viewer to take pictures with like FS2. You're pretty much stuck to the in-game camera. Being that we've been at this nearly 7 years,
I know cause we've gone that route too. With the way life is atm, I simply don't have that sort of spare time...

However...

Depending on how you want to do it, I can offer you links to videos of the fighters, which are 360 degree walk arounds in game.
From this you can rewind, ff, etc and look at the side and make your own variations. We made these instead of the traditional modeling
views, which were time consuming to get early on.

or...

I can talk to you about getting the models themselves out of the game, with textures. Depending on what engine you're using, they may
or may not be usable for that application. ie. geometry isn't always the best, it is a 1998 rushed game after all. This is something we've only
just now in the last couple months gotten working. It will not help you with bases or large objects however, due to a bug in the extractor.


The first is the quicker option to what you "want" and you can get started with your own designs.
The second will require a lot more learning, some time, and some tools, but you'll probably get to making missions faster, and is more likely what you "need."

[spy46]

well im not making a mod or any thing, its part of a different project im working on for my OC stuff, im using all kinds of reference that i can find, be it star trek, star wars, babylon 5 etc.

i just want to model the ships and stations mostly, maybe mimic a part here or there.

really any pics i can use for a rotoscope would be awsome, any screenshots or what ever would help, do you know of any in game images that i might be able to use?

i have one top view of the Orion loadout screen, when you pic and arm your ship with weapons, you wouldnt know if i could find pics of that in game files would you?

[JGZinv]

What is "in game" is - in the game files, but typically scaled up, not much in there is over 256x256 or 512. 128 is more common. This is why the game is
blurry as all can be.

Far as in game stuff goes too, while the top images from the ship select are sorta nice, you won't find that for all the fighters, only the original 10.
Most art or whatever was only done for those ten. There really isn't any "HQ" pics besides the ship guide that came in the boxed retail release.


If you want I'll send you a link to some tools so you can extract the PCX based images and see if you like what you get. Everything is small, old, and as
our mod found out, mostly inadequate for proper modeling references. That's why I made the suggestions above.

I cannot gather all the relevant images for you. It'd take no less than 7 hours to dumpster dive my archives and I still don't think you're going to get
good sources. I'm not trying to be difficult on this, I honestly don't have spare time. I'm restricted to weekends on our own project here, and that's spotty at best.

If you extract the ships then you can rotate them around and get silhouettes/views for whatever you want.

There is no such thing as "base art" or anything of the caps, because they are multipart (ie 150+ parts ea.) objects assembled in game via a text file. Only thing you can do is
take screen shots. I was in the process of this myself on a single test base recently, when we found the extractor bug with large objects, due to them being polies instead of tri's.

[spy46]

hey no problem i understand 100% i got the wife and kids while trying to work on my projects and updating my blog page
http://leer3dmodeling.blogspot.ca/

in your opinion, what would be the best, fastest way to get the best pics that i need.

[JGZinv]

Taking the ship files, extracting models as needed, and then either opening them in whatever modeling program you
already use or using a freebie like DeepView to get profile shots. Screenshots are not efficient for fighters and the in game lighting is downright nasty.

For big objects like bases or caps, there just "isn't" a solution. You can screen shot them, that's all.
If you're serious about making base parts, we may eventually be able to extract those too, once Shadow Z comes off exam/job break.

If you follow our facebook page, I tend to post more updates over there, but this is a extracted Warhammer, with original textures (new thrusters) :



Saturday I'll put together a little package of the extractors and one of my file / ship conversion lists, and PM it to you.
The latter is because the file name doesn't always match the ship.
ie Blade.pak is the Pegasus and Pegasus.pak is the Archangel. Scarab.pak is the claymore, mohawk is the Battleaxe. etc.
Models are extracted in OBJ format, it's not as hard as it might sound.

As to your blog, some nice beginning there. You might want to integrate p3d.in with your posts so the models are interactive.
One of our modelers did the same thing here on his blog:  http://www.crosshansen.com/fringespace-work/

[spy46]

that is some nice work there.

that Bora ship always confused me about its ...... umm arms? as they looked like they were supposed to move and every thing @_@

i was actually told not to do that when making a blog as mine is used for hopefully getting a job, got some promising Emails but nothing yet.

i really appreciate the help that your giving me, i know how hard it can be to do some of this, i once tried to make a mod for Command and Conquer 3, its funny how and what the devs name some of the units in the files.

[JGZinv]

It's not that I am unwilling to help or do not wish to see the results of your vision, just I have restrictions that I'm bound within for now.
Part of that too, is that I'm probably the most knowledgeable person on Tachyon, outside of someone at Novalogic that actually has access to
the dev materials. Even the devs I have had contact with, unfortunately (and understandably) have forgotten a lot from that time. But the point being is
I realize what you want to do, and what we have access to. Often those do not cross paths making things easy. While you could say little too late,
the extractor does open many doors for our own mod/plans, and for other fans such as yourself.

The warhammer's concept art (which if you want to see it there's a thread in this section dedicated to it) did have movable arms, sort of like an A-Wing,
with limited range of motion... I assume more like auto targeting or since it was originally a miner... asteroid grabbing.

In any case I'll put something together in the morning.

[spy46]

no no, i think you misunderstand me, im not saying you dont want to or any thing, trust me i understand, life is one demanding ***** and some times she gets worse.

im happy to have any help, that you provide, its just how it is thats all

[JGZinv]

*yawn* yeah, had to send off a neighbor in an ambulance this morning (no wasn't my fault lol)... and my dishwasher caught on fire.
Que sera sera...

Check your PMs, should get you started.