Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: TrashMan on December 13, 2004, 04:31:53 am
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It just struck me that there could be a easy way to make nameplates for each warship without making new models..
Fighters/bombers have a space reserved on their hull for a squad logo (I still don't know how to actualyl add that space to a model..geez..really gotta look into it).
Well the same can be done for capships, but on a bigger scale, and insted of a logo, you put in the ships name!
*Feel free to hit me if this was talked about before but I somehow missed it*
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What would be even better would be a text to graphic generation system - the ships name is extracted straight from FRED and plastered onto the side of the ship in the appropriate place. This would admittedly limit text to a certain length - but it'd be cool anyhow ;)
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*cough* texture replacement (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,12764.0.html) *cough*
Thunder, you should really stop by the SCP forum more often. That feature has been out for nearly two years now. :p
There was an associated discussion about graphics-from-text generation on-the-fly, but we concluded it was more trouble than it's worth.
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I knew about texture replacement, but I still think that using squadron logos (ship names) is a better idea.
First, such nameplates would be smaller and simpler than new textures with names.
Secondly, it's easy to to add more such name places on existing ships...
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IIRC squad logos don't have proper shading in the code (i.e. for spec maps, etc - any confirmation?). I think that texture replacement is visually better and allows a lot more variation in terms of placement (depending on your texture setup, of course)
EDIT; i.e. IIRC the ships on Babylon 5 - and hence tBP - have floodlighting around their nameplates; that'd be a pain in the arse to duplicate properly without effectively.
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Originally posted by Goober5000
*cough* texture replacement (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,12764.0.html) *cough*
Thunder, you should really stop by the SCP forum more often. That feature has been out for nearly two years now. :p
There was an associated discussion about graphics-from-text generation on-the-fly, but we concluded it was more trouble than it's worth.
may be more trouble than its worth, but all it takes is one bored coder with too much time on their hands :p
still a rather natty idea, anyways.
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See? See? He likes my idea :p
(And yeah, I am massively behind the times).
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Originally posted by Kalfireth
See? See? He likes my idea :p
(And yeah, I am massively behind the times).
well, it would save time with making campaigns with ships that have custom nameplates, heck, you could have the GTCv bunghole if you wanted to, it's all about choice, isn't it?;)
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Doesn't take any longer than typing the name in in Photoshop, though.
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*shrugs* aldo is right. most decent paint programs have a 'text' option. just type it in, and make sure the sizing is right. 5 minutes work... and thats with applying ,aligning, etc.
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You're missing the fact that most current FS2 ships don't have an easily replaceable texture that can be given the nameplate cause they are tiled.
Adding an insignia can be done using only PCS whereas adding a suitable nameplate texture requires exporting the pof into Truespace. Adding the texture and then converting it back. So I can kind of see why Trashman would want this.
That said with HTL models coming out of all the major capships (at least the terran ones) this is much less of a problem than it would have been a year or so ago. By the time this was implemented we'd probably have replacement ships for most of what we want anyway.
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Originally posted by Kalfireth
See? See? He likes my idea :p
I've been mentioning text to nameplate for years, and these folks think that the texture replace is good enough :p
Also, it's easy for graphics people to say how easy it is to do a nameplate in photoshop. But doing a good nameplate takes time.
With a customized version of the stop font (with some paint scratches) on the hulls of ships, a consistant and good looking nameplate setup can be done. Personally I think having a point coordinate on the .pof where the text is drawn would work. Then the text is drawn on a plane over that point. (point includes X, Y, Z and rotation data for the plane)
Font size would be able to be controlled in FRED2, so if a name is too long and runs off of the hull you can make the text smaller.
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Or, modelers could just create a single plane on a ship, for logos and such... I've done it myself, and i can hardly model...
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i think that tex replacement is good enough for now.
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I was actualy thinking I might be able to use the decal code to have dynamic/on the fly nameplates
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Texture replacement is not good enough. Not all of us have access to a graphics program worthy of the name. Further, it requires you to go crawling around in the maps folder, go through several options in FRED that are not immeditately obvious, and has been known to give people trouble.
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"...and has been known to give people trouble"
not to us....
gotam people, tell us when you have a problem (this was Goobers baby btw)
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Originally posted by ngtm1r
Further, it requires you to go crawling around in the maps folder, go through several options in FRED that are not immeditately obvious
So do a lot of texturing and FREDding features. :rolleyes:Originally posted by ngtm1r
and has been known to give people trouble.
There's a crash with the regular texture replace but not with the duplicate model texture replace. I have yet to try to debug it.Originally posted by Ace
Also, it's easy for graphics people to say how easy it is to do a nameplate in photoshop. But doing a good nameplate takes time.
Not since I released my Orion nameplate tutorial and template (http://www.geocities.com/ipw47/nameplates.html). New nameplates can be made in fewer than 60 seconds. I timed it.Originally posted by Bobboau
I was actualy thinking I might be able to use the decal code to have dynamic/on the fly nameplates
But remember that the original nameplate code you implemented was a decal system, and it was buggy up the wazoo. I know; I had to go through and clean it out. :p
Speaking from experience doing both programming and graphics, I can say that just adding another texture requires much less effort than coding another nameplate system.
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Originally posted by Bobboau
I was actualy thinking I might be able to use the decal code to have dynamic/on the fly nameplates
Hail Bobboau!!!!!:D
And I say no - texture replacement isn't good. Why? HT&L!
The less textures you are using, the better.
And, the ship files themselves would be smaller since no additional namplate texture would be required.
And, it's easier to add nampleates to ships that don't currently have them. Orion has a nameplate.. others don't...
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Ok I think I know why it didn't work for me (as I only used the FRED button option thinking that's all it took for FS2 3.6 now)
I wanted to cut down on the number of ships needed as both pof's and ship entries if they are basicly the exact same ship differentiated only by textures (like blue, red, and green Alpha fighters or their Guardian and Battloid modes, also blue , red and green!)
So I opened up Fred and made a standard wing of 4 ships (all Alpha fighters (blue is default). I edited each ship in FRED using the texture replace button and typed in the red or green textures as desired (each is just ONE map. ie: alphab, alphar and alphag respectively.
I saved and ran the mission and guess what. They all were blue :confused:
So what went wrong? Do I ahve to do as vaguely stated in that year old post and edit the ship table for each entry?? Or is this automaticcaly done or circumvented in FS open 3.6?
How does Texture replacement work as of today? Or rather for 3.6...
thanks!
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Originally posted by Goober5000
But remember that the original nameplate code you implemented was a decal system, and it was buggy up the wazoo. I know; I had to go through and clean it out. :p
no, the origonal nameplate thing I did was to use the insg chunck as a nameplate on capships (like the origonal idea of this thread) I have never tried useing decals for anything other than impact decals despite the fact that I could.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
And I say no - texture replacement isn't good. Why? HT&L!
The less textures you are using, the better.
um that's on a per subobject basis, replaceing a texture doesn't change anything, and haveing an additional texture for the nameplate actualy makes this worse.
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I tought more textures = worse..
anyway..plan on finishing that little project of yours?
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Well more textures are bad, but in comparison to a dynamic generation system and decals, the performance hit is negligable. Don't go overboard, but one extra texture for a nameplate - if done correctly in the first place - is certainly not a problem.
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more textures is bad, replaceing a texture with another one leaves the same number of textures.
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Yes, but oin order to loook good on a ship, it has to be a somewhat bigget texture (and has to have a background).
Like the Orion nameplate - white letters on the bluish tiles background. It has to be a standard 256x256 texture.
A "logo" on the other hand is just small white letters that can be stretched. The logo resolution and filesize would be far smaller then the texture itself... Just my two cents...
EDIT: What if you have 3 Orions in a mission? A different nameplate texture for each ship? Not to mention smalelr vessels (cruisers, corvettes)
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as I said the texture thing is on a per subobject basis, there is the same number of textures on each ship even though they are diferent textures. the penalty for useing a diferent texture on a diferent submodel (while present) is very small. it has nothing to do with the actual texture it has to do with the fact that all the polys with a certan texture get rendered at the same time and it's just about as slow to render one triangle as it is to render one thousand. further diferent submodels cannot be rendered at the same time so there is already the (main) penalty that is assosiated with multable textures. if you replace a texture with another one this changes nothing in terms of render times.
trust me, I made the renderer, I know.
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I suppose you do..
But let's look at it from another angle - implementation.
1. Texture replacement - you have to mak the nameplate texture. Let's look at the Orion one - it has the bluish terran pannels as a background. Anyone can make a nameplate, but in order to look good, it has to fit in perfectly with the other blue panels around (lines must come together or else it's gonna look like crap) - and to alignthem is hard and takes time.
You can allway circumvent by making the namepalte with a completely differnt background, but that will prolly turn out looking bad.
And for the matter of adding nameplates to older ships? Long process - one has to convert them to truespace, make and apply a new texture and save the model again. Tedious...
2. Logo's - you have to makea blank texture with nothing but the shipname. Since background is irreleveant, you don't have to worry about aligning it.
Old ships are simple edited in PCS.
2. Dyinamic names (with decals or whatever). For the shipname in FRED to be automaticly desplyed on the hull? Brilliant! Minimum fuss, no time lost on textures.
Of course, the place for the name would still have to be defined someway..prolly similar to the logo...
Of course
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It's not nearly that simple. You don't want logos because lighting doesn't effect them correctly. You don't want decals because they are slow as dirt. So all you can have is texture replacement of some form. Period. There are a lot of implimentation-specific issues as well that is important to remember (how does a name scale? How does it follow geometry? I could go on) but that's not the point of this argument.
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Let's look at the work involved...
1) Texture replacement - something that's already there, already works, and works well. And something that someone spent a good deal of time and effort working on to ensure that it would be used.
2) Anything else - more time, more effort, and more frustration to something that's only going to add 5% functionality, overall, to a 95% effective feature. There's a concept called "good enough". It lets people prioritize their time so they are able to add more of what the community wants without wasting time on what isn't good enough for one or two people.
EDIT: Thanks, StratComm...
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There's no need to convert to PCS to change textures, just use the POF-Editor in modelview
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More time, more effort, more frustration? For a better solution it's well worth it.
Besides, I never said decals specificly - there are surely better ways to do it..
And just becouse something allready there that doens't mean one should stop trying to make things better.
Anything that adds to the feel of the game and the ease of mdding in my eyes is incredibly important.
sure, someone made a effort, and I am thankfull, but that doesn't mean one has to stop.
"The propeller engine is good enugh for planes - someone mae an effort to do it. Making a jet engine is too much fuss.." :D
One has to conver to cob in order to add and align a new texture. A simple change won't do for a Deimos or Fenris...
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I really wish people would realise that the programmers involved with the SCP have a finite amount of time and can't immediately fulfill every request. I'm currently waiting on Goober to make the team loadout changes I requested. These changes will add a huge amount of depth to missions in ways that you can't do now. He's also involved in adding newly requested SEXPs to the game that also allow you to do things you couldn't previously do.
Bob is working on the new model format that allows translations and object animation. You can't do either now. He's also working the vertex shaders that will give us wonderful new features like bump mapping etc which are also lacking from the current game.
And you want them to stop this wonderful work to give us a new method of adding nameplates to ships (Something you can already do) because you can't be bothered to convert a ship back to a cob, change the texture on a couple of faces and reconvert?
Consider yourself lucky I'm not the programmer who would have to add this feature. I'd have told you to go f**k yourself long ago.
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I like the idea of dynamic name generation because it would make it much much easier to add nameplates - you only need one program - and reduce the amount of extra graphics required.
Ship names are one of those nice touches that aren't vital to the game, but help make the experience that much fuller. Texture replacement sounds all fine and good, but making a name tag for all the ships in a mission is probably not going to get done.
Not to mention the routines for writing text to a texture could be used for other things, e.g. a sign that provides game data. (Like, say, a scoreboard...) or used to prerender HUD text (If I understand correctly how the idea that was floating around to render parts of the hud to a texture would work.)
Finally, if a standardized name was used for the ship name plane, you could drop in any modern ship and immediately have a customized look. (When people talk about name plates for ships, they're usually thinking capital ships - how cool would it be to be able to have an individual nametag for fighters as well? Not likely at all with texture replacement.)
I think bumpmapping would be more useful than text-to-texture routines, but I think that levelmaking has been sorely disregarded, and it's coming around to stab the FS community in the back. The easier levels that look and play good are to make, the more there will be, and the more reason there'll be for people to get into Freespace.
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Don't get me wrong WMCoolmon. Its a feature that would make things easier. And like you say it has lots of nice applications but speaking as a FREDder and modeller who is using the current system I'd far rather see you guys working on something more useful than this.
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Originally posted by karajorma
I really wish people would realise that the programmers involved with the SCP have a finite amount of time and can't immediately fulfill every request. I'm currently waiting on Goober to make the team loadout changes I requested. These changes will add a huge amount of depth to missions in ways that you can't do now. He's also involved in adding newly requested SEXPs to the game that also allow you to do things you couldn't previously do.
Bob is working on the new model format that allows translations and object animation. You can't do either now. He's also working the vertex shaders that will give us wonderful new features like bump mapping etc which are also lacking from the current game.
And you want them to stop this wonderful work to give us a new method of adding nameplates to ships (Something you can already do) because you can't be bothered to convert a ship back to a cob, change the texture on a couple of faces and reconvert?
Consider yourself lucky I'm not the programmer who would have to add this feature. I'd have told you to go f**k yourself long ago.
What's your problem?
I never told them DO IT NOW! DROP YOUR WORK!
If they can do it - excellent, if not - fine, another day...
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Originally posted by TrashMan
What's your problem?
I might ask you the same thing.Originally posted by karajorma
And you want them to stop this wonderful work to give us a new method of adding nameplates to ships (Something you can already do) because you can't be bothered to convert a ship back to a cob, change the texture on a couple of faces and reconvert?
Consider yourself lucky I'm not the programmer who would have to add this feature. I'd have told you to go f**k yourself long ago.
What karajorma said.
I prefer to spend my finite reserve of patience actually solving code problems rather than putting up with these kinds of threads.
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I've got to agree. Only the fact that Goober himself hadn't closed it himself stopped me from closing it earlier.
Trashman : my problem has been your attitude on this thread. Maybe it wasn't deliberate but you've come over as pretty arrogant in the last few posts. For instance saying that its well worth doing even though many programmers have said that they don't consider it so. etc.
Remember that the SCP programmers don't work for you. Attempts like yours to change their minds don't tend to go down well.