[starlord]

That's great! and please, don't think that I don't recognise your work as great. i just want to know if at some point the whole babylon 5 timeline can be "converted" in the babylon project. Anyhow: great work!

It seems that the shadow death clowd is going to be the greatest challenge to put in there. However, with the success the gundam MOD demonstrated in making structure "infiltration" possible (a fighter penetrating the structure through a tunnel), I still keep my hopes up: I think that at one point it will be possible. Perhaps in that way, it will be possible to "recreate" the oh-so missed "babylon 5: into the fire" campaign. This would be great.

Anyway, thank you to all the babylon project team for preserving this universe. i simply wish the renegade legion MOD project could attract so much fans... (perhaps one day).

[IPAndrews]

Our team tried to implement that Shadow Planet Killer but it is spectacularly difficult to realise for two reasons. 1) It's absolutely enormous. 2) It's spherical with intricate detailing. The two combined results in more polygons than you can shake a surface burrowing nuclear missile at. The failiure of our team involved our best 3D modeller and myself both trying to be as creative as possile but the bottom line is the game engine just isn't up to it.

[terran_emperor]

Bright Idea - Why not make the main part of the Death cloud - the bit you are attacking - a modification of the Luna Surface Model? and make the rest a skybox background?

[IPAndrews]

Bright Idea - Why not make the main part of the Death cloud - the bit you are attacking - a modification of the Luna Surface Model? and make the rest a skybox background?

Yes obviously. There's your basic premise. Now try matching the geometry to the repeating texture of the sky sphere. What can I say? Maybe we just suck and there's someone more talented out there who can make it work.

[starlord]

Actually, I remember a test vid of the gundam MOD where that huge fortress was being penetrated by your fighter and it's core being blown. Wouldn't those persons be able to help you?

[karajorma]

Cheat. Don't model the killer itself at all. Just stick the player in a dark nebula and spawn missiles at them. Worked in Into The Fire after all.

[terran_emperor]

That works too. But i would need some structure to do the battle from Call to arms

[hip63]

Cheat. Don't model the killer itself at all. Just stick the player in a dark nebula and spawn missiles at them. Worked in Into The Fire after all.

When I first read this post, that's what I thought! 

hip63

[IPAndrews]

If you guys want to take a crack at it go ahead. Just don't look in my direction, and don't say I didn't warn you.

[terran_emperor]

Hmmm-Lots and lots of reskinned (whatever that Terran Drydock Frame from FS Port) With a Karnak Reactor at the centre and something else as the main control-node - just a basic outline....But for good scale the Model should be the size of the Moon surface model, Also when you destroy it, it triggers a Supernova

[starlord]

OH YEAH!!!!!

I didn't understand however: what seems to be the problem using a skybox?
But great ideas anyway, If the death cloud was in, it would be possible to recreate a "into the fire" campaign. Nobody would be cursing on the unreleased game any more.

[karajorma]

To make a planet killer like in Into The Fire is pretty easy. It's the A Call To Arms one that's hard.

[starlord]

Why? Wasn't it a shadow planet killer in into the fire? (perhaps vorlon then, as I heard those were smaller).

[Yathin]

Why? Wasn't it a shadow planet killer in into the fire? (perhaps vorlon then, as I heard those were smaller).

both were there I suspect 

[Flipside]

If Into the Fire is the end of the Vorlon/Shadow Wars, then they were sitting inside the Planet Killer at the high-point, what do you think was throwing all those missiles at Sheridan?

The reason it is easy to do in that particular episode is because you can't see it really, it's just a dark fog, whereas Call to Arms had very definite structural and subsystem details.

[starlord]

Yep, It might prove tricky. But it would be a great addition to the babylon project.

[terran_emperor]

Well...My idea for the Death cloud - a Back Nebula + a plate structure. This structure is in 3d, the length and width of the Moon Surface plate. It is always alligned with the Sun in the mission. When it is destroyed, it sets off  a series of explosion all around and a supernova

[Flipside]

You could probably do it with detail boxes, since you only actually interact with a tiny faction of the surface, the rest of the model could be made extremely low-detail (since it's hundreds of miles away) and only add the detail to the main part. Of course, even then, it's a really big job, and a hi-poly one too.

[IPAndrews]

Ok a lot of you are on the rights lines but let me tell you guys exactly how to do it. While I'm explaining this please bare in mind Maverick and I knew exactly how to do it and still couldn't actually do it. Due to the enormous poly counts and extreme difficulty making lots of different things hang together in a seemless way.

Your Shadow planet killer consists of three components.

1) Your dark grey stormy nebula. Which you can apply to missions flown inside the planet killer.

2) An enormous planet sized storm textured outer sphere. Which can we used to enclose the planet killer shrouding it in storm when viewed from a distance.

3) The planet killer geometry. At it's lowest detail level this is a planet sized geosphere which sits inside 2). Each face of the geosphere is textured with the same texture, which gives the regular pattern of nodes and connectors of the Planet Killer without the actual polygons. Gaps in the nodes and connectors are pure green in the texture to make it transparent.

The planet killer's geosphere is split into seperate sections. Many of them. In the lowest level of detail you get one face with a single texture as discussed. Subobject detail levels are used so that as you approach one section you get actual geometry in place of the texture representing the same pattern of nodes and connectors.

The number of polygons the SPK ends up taking up depends very much on how many faces you give your geosphere. But it is difficult to avoid the number becoming huge. Even if you choose to provide geometric versions of only certain parts of the overall sphere. You also have a 100 turret limit to contend with.

Have fun!

[starlord]

Ipandrews, please don't mind me getting a little overexcited on the shadow killer, it's just your project made me discover what babylon 5 was, and I truly think of it as fascinating. I'm not saying though that you haven't already given it your best, and if you did fail (for now, that is), it is likely I will not succeed (especially since I don't know anything about fredding, yet). But perhaps it could be done, even if it meant to segment the mission in several parts, say:

part 1: you approach the planet killer and "see" it from afar.
Part 2: You are inside the planet killer (you past the sections), there fore you are in the midst (we could eventually organise for atray shots firing from everywhere (without seein the turrets): that would make surviving a certain task.
part 3: the core (unsure how this one looks)...
part 4: you are outside dealing with the rest of the drakh fleet while the killer blows and turns "supernova".

And eventually a few sequences to bridge the gaps.

(of course that's only an idea).