[Nightstorm]

The Babylon Project already includes awesome texture maps for the Aurora series starfurries.  One thing I wanted to do was give them accurate Earthforce markings and update some of the older "special" character liveries.  On the included stock textures the numbered markings 0000-0004 were located where the EA emblem would go on the upper wing.  I went through them and relocated the numbered markings on each to the other wing.  Some slight modifications took place on a couple of textures to make this work but otherwise they're pretty faithful to the originals.  I also included an unnumbered map for each variant.  I've included custom maps for the following liveries:

Alpha 2 (Wasp)
Delta 7
Garibaldi
Hyperion
Ivanova
Keffer
Mitchell
MK1 (Minbari War era)
Nightstorm (My personal version)  Feel free to rename, delete, whatever.
NS (Alternate personal version)  Feel free to rename, delete, whatever.
Panther
PSI Corps (No registry)
Sheridan
Death Skull
Sinclair
Sinclair 2 (Previous Mk1 texture)

As well as updated stock versions for Standard, EarthForce 1 and PSI Corps.


These can be used as texture replacements in missions to assign specific fighters to their characters or for the player or whatever else you want.  Because they have the same names as the stock versions on the A1-P4 you'll want to BACKUP UP THE ORIGINALS.  The advantage there though is that these will integrate into the missions that already had them.

I tested a lot of these in the mission Signs and Portents.  In that mission you can have Alpha 2, Delta 7, Garibaldi and Ivanova's fighters, plus whatever personal choice you want for the player's fighter.

I've included the layered PSD file I used.  Feel free to do whatever you want with all or some of these textures.

Enjoy.


https://www.dropbox.com/s/m4p1zq05axiwpw6/Aurora_Texture_Pack.zip?dl=0



[attachment deleted by admin]

[wesp5]

Does this update have the same issues with too many textures like your Thunderbolt update?

[Nightstorm]

These textures are for the current stock Aurora.  Yes there are some additional new ones as listed above.

Also, even with all textures currently installed for the the updated Tbolt and the cockpits my maps folder is sitting at 2,479 files.  And there old files for unused models present still.  Like the old Aurora and Tbolt textures.  I imagine those could be cleaned up if they're not in use any longer.

If the information in that 2005 post is still accurate it said:   "There is currently a limit of 4,750 bitmaps that can be loaded at one time. "

And if this is the final release for TBP that means there is room for over 2000 more texture maps beyond what are currently in use even with my additions.  Could they be more efficient?   Yep.  Do I personally know how to make them more efficient by retexturing the models?  Nope.  Do they work fine as is?  Yep. 

I can make the TBolt cockpit a little better by eliminating some mesh/textures that are not visible.  That would save five textures for the cockpit, but those textures are still in the maps folder as they're for the TBolt.  So aside from saving a few polly's I'm not sure that it would matter.  It would be a quick and easy thing to do though.

I do have more detailed models for the Aurora and the Badger.  I haven't tried to convert them yet.

[Colonol Dekker]

I rewatched sleeping in light (might have that name wrong) the other day and it still mazes me that freespace now graphically surpasses anything the show put out.

[Nightstorm]

Yea, the engine in it's current state is truly amazing.  And to think it's old enough to legally drink now

[0rph3u5]

It's nice to have some more special marking back. 

Esspecially that during the weekend I threw together the current crop of Aurora markings, I didn't have a Earthforce logo on hand. Was hard enough to come up with combinations markings at my skill level that acutally worked in-game.

On the included stock textures the numbered markings 0000-0004 were located where the EA emblem would go on the upper wing.  I went through them and relocated the numbered markings on each to the other wing and changed it slightly so that they are number by the series A-0001 through P-0004. 

I am not quite sure if that is working. You see, I made these maps the idea in mind that they can be mixed and matched in a wing when used outside of the context of the Earth-Minbari War mini-campaign.

In the EMW campaign, they serve as a visual story-telling device which is supposed to give a visiual indicator as to how bandly the EA is losing to the Minbari - you start with wings with matching markings at the start of the campaign and by the time of the Battle of Line, not a single texture is duplicated - meaning that the fighters present are hodgebodge of different squadrons reconsitituted as a new fighting unit. Here the added prefix proably changes nothing.

Outside of that, I was thinking to give a ressource to FREDers to help individualize the Starfuries of story relevant characters like in original version of Relic - although there are some technical limitations to that, on account how texture replacement works. Which would using maps for say 4 sets across one wing. In a scenario like this, the mismatching pre-fixes might become an issue.

[Nightstorm]

Hmm yea you have a point.  I saw them in use in the MW missions and thought that was really cool.  Having the differing prefixes could make it not as uniform in the later missions if indeed they were all supposed to be from the same squadron.  However, I thought of these numbers more like the tail numbers of military aircraft.  They're usually based on date of construction or lots/blocks etc.  Some other fighters in B5 had different serial numbers that followed a format like DF-0004 or AS-2162 and so forth.  I didn't think that designated the squadron, but rather that fighters particular tail number.

That said, there's no reason to not remove the prefix if desired.  It would just be a matter of resaving the DDS files from the PSD   I can knock that out in while.

And NICE job on those wing textures

[Nightstorm]

It's nice to have some more special marking back. 

Esspecially that during the weekend I threw together the current crop of Aurora markings, I didn't have a Earthforce logo on hand. Was hard enough to come up with combinations markings at my skill level that acutally worked in-game.

On the included stock textures the numbered markings 0000-0004 were located where the EA emblem would go on the upper wing.  I went through them and relocated the numbered markings on each to the other wing and changed it slightly so that they are number by the series A-0001 through P-0004. 

I am not quite sure if that is working. You see, I made these maps the idea in mind that they can be mixed and matched in a wing when used outside of the context of the Earth-Minbari War mini-campaign.

In the EMW campaign, they serve as a visual story-telling device which is supposed to give a visiual indicator as to how bandly the EA is losing to the Minbari - you start with wings with matching markings at the start of the campaign and by the time of the Battle of Line, not a single texture is duplicated - meaning that the fighters present are hodgebodge of different squadrons reconsitituted as a new fighting unit. Here the added prefix proably changes nothing.

Outside of that, I was thinking to give a ressource to FREDers to help individualize the Starfuries of story relevant characters like in original version of Relic - although there are some technical limitations to that, on account how texture replacement works. Which would using maps for say 4 sets across one wing. In a scenario like this, the mismatching pre-fixes might become an issue.

And done.  I've redone all of them to remove the prefix.  So the left wing now reads 0001-0004 for all skins A-P.  Archive and readme updated.

[emark4]

Just wondering. I cant help noticing that the aurora mk 1 models dont have the yellow and black stripes. Not sure if this was the result of installing the maps from this mod or not. Is there a way to get the mk 1 stripes back?

[Nightstorm]

Just wondering. I cant help noticing that the aurora mk 1 models dont have the yellow and black stripes. Not sure if this was the result of installing the maps from this mod or not. Is there a way to get the mk 1 stripes back?

Yes that was intentional.  In my opinion having every single Mk1 Aurora having the same customized texture didn't look right.  I denoted them from the newer models with the triangle and a I through it but the old texture was included in the list.


Sinclair 2 (Previous Mk1 texture)

If you want that back just rename or copy EAM_Aurora-Sinclair_02.dds to EAM_Aurora_MK1.dds.  It will be as before.  That texture was used on Sinclair's fighter during the battle of the line.

[emark4]

Just wondering. I cant help noticing that the aurora mk 1 models dont have the yellow and black stripes. Not sure if this was the result of installing the maps from this mod or not. Is there a way to get the mk 1 stripes back?

Yes that was intentional.  In my opinion having every single Mk1 Aurora having the same customized texture didn't look right.  I denoted them from the newer models with the triangle and a I through it but the old texture was included in the list.


Sinclair 2 (Previous Mk1 texture)

If you want that back just rename or copy EAM_Aurora-Sinclair_02.dds to EAM_Aurora_MK1.dds.  It will be as before.  That texture was used on Sinclair's fighter during the battle of the line.

Oh, okay.

I am quite new to babylon 5 in general as this mod was my intro to the franchise. Is there a cosmetic difference between the auroras in the earth vs manbari war and the auroras from the present day episodes?

[Nightstorm]

No, externally they are identical.  I  think they were slightly different models, more or less like US jet fighters.  The early models were SA-23C and the current ones are SA-23E.  For game purposes, the later models have better sensors I believe.

[0rph3u5]

The Mark I in TBP has marginally worse stats when it comes to top speeds.