Author Topic: FreeSpace Evolutions mod for Nexus  (Read 44258 times)

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Offline Mongoose

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Re: Policy on model usage in other games' mods?
The Aeolus in particular looks really nice with that lighting. :)

 

Offline Colonol Dekker

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Re: Policy on model usage in other games' mods?
Hmmm.
 
Nice bloomy stuff, no light/glowmaps yet?
 
Are you going to add custom debris as well? I had a look in my nexus mod folder and attempted to view the .lwo in another prog and the debris is a solid hulk as opposed to our chunks. . . Does nexus support multi part debris?
 
 
Can't wait to see an orion fire up a fort shield.
(Blatant fanboi request) ;)
Campaigns I've added my distinctiveness to-
- Blue Planet: Battle Captains
-Battle of Neptune
-Between the Ashes 2
-Blue planet: Age of Aquarius
-FOTG?
-Inferno R1
-Ribos: The aftermath / -Retreat from Deneb
-Sol: A History
-TBP EACW teaser
-Earth Brakiri war
-TBP Fortune Hunters (I think?)
-TBP Relic
-Trancsend (Possibly?)
-Uncharted Territory
-Vassagos Dirge
-War Machine
(Others lost to the mists of time and no discernible audit trail)

Your friendly Orestes tactical controller.

Secret bomb God.
That one time I got permabanned and got to read who was being bitxhy about me :p....
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Offline Fury

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Re: Policy on model usage in other games' mods?
Can't wait to see an orion fire up a fort shield.
(Blatant fanboi request) ;)
That would be so damn awesome feature in fs2_open.

 
Re: Policy on model usage in other games' mods?
Heh, I loved Nexus. I love Freespace. This will be a mod to enjoy
Also, if you want a tiny little list of FreeSpace ships try here:
http://starships.wikia.com/wiki/Starships_Wiki

 

Offline Arparso

  • 25
Re: Policy on model usage in other games' mods?
Nice bloomy stuff, no light/glowmaps yet?
 
Are you going to add custom debris as well? I had a look in my nexus mod folder and attempted to view the .lwo in another prog and the debris is a solid hulk as opposed to our chunks. . . Does nexus support multi part debris?
Glowmaps are there already - you just don't see them well enough with that bright lighting. If you'd turn the camera to look at the part not lit by the sun you'd clearly see the lights. If you look closely you'll see small lights at the front of the Aeolus or the lighted portion above the Orion's hangar.

Nexus doesn't support colored glowmaps, though, so I had to bake the glowmaps onto the color map to preserve the lights' colors while also converting the glowmap to grayscale. Works quite well this way and unless you'll turn the lights off entirely, you can't really see a difference to colored glowmaps.

Custom debris in Nexus - I'm not too sure about that. I believe there's at least a script command to break a ship apart into smaller chunks, so it should be possible, but for now I'm just converting the base model and ignore the debris. Nexus' huge explosions already feature some generic debris effects and mask the usual "huge ship suddenly disappears when killed"-problem well enough, I think. At least at the moment ;)


 

Offline -Norbert-

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Re: Policy on model usage in other games' mods?
If I remember correctly there isn't anything like the FS debris in Nexus. The big, one piece wrecks are ships that float dead in space, because the crew evacuated due to massive hull damage.
Once you blow a ship up completely, you get a massive explosion and then the ship is gone for good, apart from those small, generic pieces that Arparso already mentioned, that are part of the explosion effect rather than the ship as far as I'm aware.

 

Offline Colonol Dekker

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Re: Policy on model usage in other games' mods?
That's why I asked :p
 
 
We need to decide where the evac shuttles (hermes ;)) are gonna appear from on the cruisers and corvettes etc :D
Campaigns I've added my distinctiveness to-
- Blue Planet: Battle Captains
-Battle of Neptune
-Between the Ashes 2
-Blue planet: Age of Aquarius
-FOTG?
-Inferno R1
-Ribos: The aftermath / -Retreat from Deneb
-Sol: A History
-TBP EACW teaser
-Earth Brakiri war
-TBP Fortune Hunters (I think?)
-TBP Relic
-Trancsend (Possibly?)
-Uncharted Territory
-Vassagos Dirge
-War Machine
(Others lost to the mists of time and no discernible audit trail)

Your friendly Orestes tactical controller.

Secret bomb God.
That one time I got permabanned and got to read who was being bitxhy about me :p....
GO GO DEKKER RANGERSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
President of the Scooby Doo Model Appreciation Society
The only good Zod is a dead Zod
NEWGROUNDS COMEDY GOLD, UPDATED DAILY
http://badges.steamprofile.com/profile/default/steam/76561198011784807.png

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: Policy on model usage in other games' mods?
aaaaaaaaaaaa this is going to be so cool.

I love Nexus explosions.

 

Offline Ziame

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Re: Policy on model usage in other games' mods?
 :wtf:
Didn't know these models were so awesome.
Rabbinic Judaism had a good start with the Old Testament but kinda missed the point about 2000 years ago

ALL HAIL HERRA
/fan of BlackHole

 

Offline Nighteyes

  • 211
Re: Policy on model usage in other games' mods?
aaaaaaaaaaaa this is going to be so cool.

I love Nexus explosions.

 I also lovveee them!! :) hopefully sometime we can have similar explosions in FS...(burning peices with some trails...)

 

Offline Arparso

  • 25
Re: Policy on model usage in other games' mods?
Not a screenshot this time, but a short video showing the current beam cannon weapon effect:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTPzDNSmPB8&fmt=22

... and yeah, it's still firing from the wrong turret :P

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: Policy on model usage in other games' mods?
Beautiful, and very true to FS.

  

Offline Colonol Dekker

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Re: Policy on model usage in other games' mods?
I'll have to get 'eyes on' that at home, my phones a bit laggy and can't stream properly right now. . . Damnit.
Campaigns I've added my distinctiveness to-
- Blue Planet: Battle Captains
-Battle of Neptune
-Between the Ashes 2
-Blue planet: Age of Aquarius
-FOTG?
-Inferno R1
-Ribos: The aftermath / -Retreat from Deneb
-Sol: A History
-TBP EACW teaser
-Earth Brakiri war
-TBP Fortune Hunters (I think?)
-TBP Relic
-Trancsend (Possibly?)
-Uncharted Territory
-Vassagos Dirge
-War Machine
(Others lost to the mists of time and no discernible audit trail)

Your friendly Orestes tactical controller.

Secret bomb God.
That one time I got permabanned and got to read who was being bitxhy about me :p....
GO GO DEKKER RANGERSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
President of the Scooby Doo Model Appreciation Society
The only good Zod is a dead Zod
NEWGROUNDS COMEDY GOLD, UPDATED DAILY
http://badges.steamprofile.com/profile/default/steam/76561198011784807.png

 

Offline MatthTheGeek

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Re: Policy on model usage in other games' mods?
Definitely the wrong sounds, and the radar dish still doesn't rotate, but aside from that it's really looking good, great job :)
People are stupid, therefore anything popular is at best suspicious.

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Axem: jabba does the coup de gras
MatthTheGeek: XD
Axem: bring me solo and a cookie

 

Offline Arparso

  • 25
Re: Policy on model usage in other games' mods?
Wrong sounds? How about wrong weapon or wrong turret or wrong ship? ;)

That was just an effects test. The Fenris still needs some work... like... a working radar animation :P

I did some work on the Aeolus, though, which now has 5 working turret pairs and 2 single beam cannons. The turret pairs are needed as a compromise for Nexus' aiming system - it expects at least two turrets per weapon slot facing in opposite directions each covering their own hemisphere, so every weapon slot can fire at every direction. I'm still unsure about the actual weapons in these 5 slots, though. If I stick to the Freespace 2 loadout, 4 of these slots would be used by flak or the anti-fighter beam... which would leave only the two beams and the regular turret (pair) as anti-capital weaponry. Anti-fighter weapons sadly can't shoot at capitals in Nexus, so the Aeolus wouldn't be very useful in most battles (Nexus tends to focus heavily on capital ship combat).

Guess I'll need to see how good Nexus handles large amounts of fighters/bombers and if I can make them dangerous enough to warrant such an anti-fighter loadout for the Aeolus.


 

Offline Colonol Dekker

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  • Aken Tigh Dekker- you've probably heard me
    • My old squad sub-domain
Re: Policy on model usage in other games' mods?
We've got all the info you could possibly need for stats. The scales may need adjustment but you seem to have a very good handle on freerspace modding too :D
Campaigns I've added my distinctiveness to-
- Blue Planet: Battle Captains
-Battle of Neptune
-Between the Ashes 2
-Blue planet: Age of Aquarius
-FOTG?
-Inferno R1
-Ribos: The aftermath / -Retreat from Deneb
-Sol: A History
-TBP EACW teaser
-Earth Brakiri war
-TBP Fortune Hunters (I think?)
-TBP Relic
-Trancsend (Possibly?)
-Uncharted Territory
-Vassagos Dirge
-War Machine
(Others lost to the mists of time and no discernible audit trail)

Your friendly Orestes tactical controller.

Secret bomb God.
That one time I got permabanned and got to read who was being bitxhy about me :p....
GO GO DEKKER RANGERSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
President of the Scooby Doo Model Appreciation Society
The only good Zod is a dead Zod
NEWGROUNDS COMEDY GOLD, UPDATED DAILY
http://badges.steamprofile.com/profile/default/steam/76561198011784807.png

 

Offline asyikarea51

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Re: Policy on model usage in other games' mods?
Hi there Arparso!

I stumbled upon at the Fenris on your website and went all "wait, that's the MediaVPs one..." :lol:

And thanks for the Skirmisher tool. Really. The mission/campaign scripting in Nexus is just "WTF" to me... I don't understand a lot of it but at least I got around to adding a new ship or two in the campaign (I'm stuck with a ship not appearing/available for loadout when I want to at the start of chapter 2... it's supposed to replace a ship that goes into the depot at the end of the wormhole thing... and then there's fort shields but I'm going off-topic)

Now if Nexus 2 been made, an FS mod would be cool with all the proper beam weapons and fighter dogfights that don't use boring-looking beam lasers...... that's a dream to have. :sigh: :lol:
Inferno plz
The Power of Nightmares
TheHound: "Nice idea, but I have a thing against announcing campaigns before having them already finished."
G5K: "The flipside of that is that if you don't announce your campaign, yet take too long to finish it, other people may independently come up with some of the same ideas."

 

Offline Arparso

  • 25
Re: Policy on model usage in other games' mods?
Another short video, this time the Aeolus with beam cannons, turrets and flak guns and a glorious Nexus-style explosion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66wdFAUQTgM&fmt=22

 

Offline -Norbert-

  • 211
Re: Policy on model usage in other games' mods?
Quote
If I stick to the Freespace 2 loadout, 4 of these slots would be used by flak or the anti-fighter beam... which would leave only the two beams and the regular turret (pair) as anti-capital weaponry. Anti-fighter weapons sadly can't shoot at capitals in Nexus, so the Aeolus wouldn't be very useful in most battles (Nexus tends to focus heavily on capital ship combat).
Considering how devastating fighters (especially gunboats) are for Nexus ships once they lost their shields I guess fighters might be a lot stronger and more important in a FreeSpace mod than in plain Nexus, considering that FreeSpace capships don't have shields.
Besides according to the techroom describtion the Aeolus is supposed to be an anti-fighter based ship for escorting other fleet assets in the first place.

The shooting of the beam and accompanying sound are a bit off. The beam shoots out a bit before the firing sound is played (less than a second but still noticeable). But considering that the Fenris video has a bigger delay than the Aeolus one I guess it happened during the screencapture (or was tweaked in the meantime).

I am a bit surprised though that you made the AAA beams able to fire at capships rather than use them as anti-fighter defense. I can understand why you would make the flak into "big" weapons since they do considerable damage to big ships in FS2, but the AAA beams don't seem to do any damage whatsoever to capships. I can't speak in term of table entries here, but from ingame observations they look absolutely useless against anything bigger than a bomber.

And now for something else: How do you plan to handle subsystem targeting? In Nexus the beams (or laser) are for destroying subsystems. Are you going to switch blob turrets and beams out so that beams deal damage and blobs target subsystems (probably doing both hull and system damage)?

 

Offline Arparso

  • 25
Re: Policy on model usage in other games' mods?
The shooting of the beam and accompanying sound are a bit off. The beam shoots out a bit before the firing sound is played (less than a second but still noticeable). But considering that the Fenris video has a bigger delay than the Aeolus one I guess it happened during the screencapture (or was tweaked in the meantime).
It wasn't actually tweaked since the Fenris video. The sound isn't exactly final - I hacked it together quite quickly to have something to use with the beam effect I was writing. I ran into a few problems showing the charging of the beam cannon, because Nexus' weapons usually don't allow for that and always fire immediately. I had to code around that and needed a proper sound effect to go along with it. So it's not final, it will be tweaked before an eventual alpha/beta release.

I am a bit surprised though that you made the AAA beams able to fire at capships rather than use them as anti-fighter defense.
Just for testing purposes. I don't have any fighters in the game yet and setting up an enemy AI launching fighters just so I can test the visual effects would have meant more work anyway. Both flaks and anti-fighter beams will be classified as anti-fighter weapons (since weapons in Nexus can't fight both fighters AND capitals, unlike Freespace). I may switch out a flak turret for some anti-capital weaponry later on, depending on how balancing goes... but I will preserve it's anti-fighter role, of course.

]And now for something else: How do you plan to handle subsystem targeting? In Nexus the beams (or laser) are for destroying subsystems. Are you going to switch blob turrets and beams out so that beams deal damage and blobs target subsystems (probably doing both hull and system damage)?
I always had the impression, those beams were the actual heavy-hitters, but considering my last playthrough was a few years ago I may be off there. Will have to check the tables to be sure, of course.

For now I don't have a definitive balancing plan. First I want some actual ships and weapons in the game before really caring about damage types and balancing. Right now I'm just sticking to the FS2 damage values and will be seeing how that works out at the end. I most definitely have to increase firing ranges, though, or else those ships may have trouble properly steering in close proximity to each other... especially big ones such as the Orion or Colossus.

/edit:
Doh! Seems I misread that last bit of yours. Yeah, beams in Nexus are usually meant for surgical destruction of devices. Not in Freespace, however, and I'm trying to follow Freespace's rules. I still have to playtest, if weapons can damage both the hull and devices as they do in Freespace - if that's possible in Nexus, then I'll go that route, probably creating a few weapons which excel at device destruction along the way to keep things interesting.
« Last Edit: January 21, 2010, 06:59:56 am by Arparso »