Hard Light Productions Forums
Community Projects => The FreeSpace Upgrade Project => Topic started by: WMCoolmon on December 28, 2005, 04:02:23 am
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I did a run through of the high-poly ships to see which ones have working cockpits with the "show ship" flag. Here's my list:
Made it
GTF Hercules (Absolute favorite. No clipping errors, cockpit is evident without really obscuring view)
GTF Ares (Second favorite. Same as above)
GVF Serapis (Not really meant to have a cockpit. However, it works decently as long as you don't look down and see the actual cockpit. ;) )
Didn't make it
Hercules Mk. 2 (Eyepoint is too far back)
Myrmidon (No diff, unless you look to the sides, where extreme clipping is evident)
Pegasus (Cockpit obscures too much of view)
Perseus (Cockpit off-center?)
Medusa (Cockpit obscures too much of view)
Erinyes (Cockpit bar is over targetting recticule)
SF Mara (Basically does nothing :P)
I know a few of those weren't intended to ever be used with "show ship", but I think a couple on the problems list were supposed to. I can probably fix this myself with high-poly Modelview, as long as it's just moving the eyepoint around. Mostly I'm looking for comments here.
I also noticed a problem with the zbuffer where ships would seem to be rendered inside the cockpit when viewing from another ship, I'm pretty sure this is now fixed in my local codebase.
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Go for it.
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I've moved around the eyepoints and such, and it's very difficult to get some of them looking good. The Perseus, once centered and stuck near the pilot's head, is frikkin' awesome. I'm kinda working on the Medusa a bit to try and see if I can get it to a point where you can see well (tried messing with the view on the top pilot instead as well).
btw, what cockpit texture are you using? I have one I hastily invisibled the HUD with, but the normal one obscures the view in this area.
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I'm using the normal one (one that's in 3.6.8 mVPs)
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I think part of the problem is the ridiculously thick cockpit struts. Look at a modern cockpit: the cockpit struts DO obscure vision slighly, but they're not anywhere near as chunky as they are in FS. You can move eyepoints around, but I think the best fix would be changing the cockpit architecture.
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I think part of the problem is the ridiculously thick cockpit struts. Look at a modern cockpit: the cockpit struts DO obscure vision slighly, but they're not anywhere near as chunky as they are in FS. You can move eyepoints around, but I think the best fix would be changing the cockpit architecture.
....and 'modern' aircraft that operate inside an atmosphere and can't even handle shots from an AK....
....perfectly relates to spacecraft designed to withstand missile warheads in the kiloton range....
....how?
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....with better technology and alloys?
....fiction?
....;) :p
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....Shields
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The Perseus, once centered and stuck near the pilot's head, is frikkin' awesome.
Prove it! Prove it! (screeny) ;) ;7
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....and 'modern' aircraft that operate inside an atmosphere and can't even handle shots from an AK....
....perfectly relates to spacecraft designed to withstand missile warheads in the kiloton range....
....how?
I don't want to hear you complain about cockpit visibility ever again. I won't even point out the 'game mechanic' nature of FS2s hitpoint system, nor will I suggest that the cockpits in FS-verse probably CAN'T survive a multi-kiloton detonation. I'm simply going to repeat that complaining about restricted vision in ships with almost foot-thick cockpit struts is dumb.
;;WMC Edit: flames & baiting. Pnakotus, make your points in a more civil way in the future.
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Ulala, I'll try to do it when I get back from my grandparents. I hope I still have the model around, but if not, it'll be a 5 minute job to redo it.:)
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Looks similiar to this, which is the Apollo. I can't remember if I moved the eyepoint or not...
[attachment deleted by admin]
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Schweet. :)
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Not bad, but it kind of mucks with the HMD radar distplay, as there's not enough contrast between it an the cockpit.
HMD=Helmet Mounted Display, for those not familiar with the abbreviation.
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medusa - LMAO! altho, with env mapping turned on, you get quite interesting results :)
(http://img421.imageshack.us/img421/3249/medusacockpit2rs.jpg)
(http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/6079/medusacockpit20jj.jpg)
perseus - off center... :p
(http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/2537/perseuscockpit2dr.jpg)
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That HUD should really be alpha mapped. :wtf:
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Nah, some one might like the 'Luke, use the force' -style flying ;)
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That HUD should really be alpha mapped. :wtf:
Oh. Yes.
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Better yet - removed all together. Why would there be two (the standard HUD and the in-cockpit HUD) maps? It totally ruins the effect IMO.
Also, if you're going down the route of ship cockpits then the cockpit model needs to be a much much higher poly...
(http://www.firingsquad.com/games/independencewar2preview/images/04.jpg)
Like that...
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I still think IW2 had one of the best cockpits and HUDs of all the games out there.
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If the Medusa and Perseus both were not designed for the cockpit to be an external-view only implimentation, then more polys (and alpha mapping) would have gone in to the cockpits themselves. They are done like that because they aren't designed to be viewed from inside. Alpha mapping the HUD would cause some problems, but that's not the primary reason not to do it that way. Furthermore, I think the two implimentations (internal view and external view) of cockpits would be mutually exclusive for FS ships anyway.
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I do have one concern with cockpits and eyepoints, when combined with the "show ship" flag. If you place the eyepoint within the cockpit, then the ship being behind you blocks your ability to look rear-ward. Since we already have the ability to add multiple eyepoints to a model, could we not train the code to use one eyepoint for the forward position, one for the "look up", one for the "look back", and one each for either side? It would allow is to avoid instances where the model blocks any useful views.
Incidentally, it is also possible to mate eyepoints to specific submodels, which could be useful if player turret control is ever implimented.
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Hm... now that I think about it...
In-ship cockpits could be made a lot more complicated (but also better). Create separate cockpit models for each ship. Create a separate cockpit.tbl file which tells the game what ship should use what cockpit model. Create an option in the launcher to turn this on or off (if it's off - nothing gets loaded so it saves on performance - if it's on then the game loads the player ships cockpit models when it loads the mission). Also one cockpit should be specified as a "default" cockpit incase the other cockpit model is corrupt / missing.
The end result being that those who want detailed cockpits can have them. Those that don't can avoid them. It's a purely graphical feature but it's one of those things that could look really impressive if done properly.
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I've been an advocate for that one since the "show ship" flag made its first appearance. Trouble is, no one wants to make the extra cockpit.
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Why not use the Apollo cockpit as default or something? This needn't be a particularly refined feature right now... it'd just take one person time to model and properly texture a cockpit nicely and then that could be the basis from there on.
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I think it could be done with one ships.tbl field, with the cockpit model being displayed instead of the ship in first-person and first-person slewed views. I have a test cockpit from aldo, mostly it just needs to be coded in (and may have to handle rotation and diff. views and such).
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That HUD should really be alpha mapped. :wtf:
not only that, better maps with animations. :D
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Couldn't that HUD plate visible in some cockpits be textured to be {0,250,0} aka pure green? Isn't that color transparent in FS2, just like the HUD plate is supposed to be...
This would help greatly in the case of, say, the Medusa. Now it's just a black plate obscuring the view.
By the way, i don't mind if the cockpit "restricts" the view. It always does. But as long as the targeting reticle and its surroundings are not obscured, it should be all right.
I tried some ships...
Medusa would be quite good, if there wasn't that ink black hud plate there.
The Hercules was actually quite good in my opinion. I don't think the viewpoint is too far behing...
The Herc II was a bit of a dissappointment. Only things I could see were the two purple/blue lights on the sides of the nose. Wonder why it's so...?
Ares was quite good, but i actually think that too little of the cockpit was visible.
Perseus would be great with centered viewpoint...
The Erinyes has promising look in its cockpit, only thing needed would be to move the viewpoint slightly up/down so that the targeting reticle and its immediate surroundings become visible. Otherwise it looked cool...
I think the best one, however, was Serapis. Mainly because it's actually the ship itself rather than cockpit interior being visible here...
One more thing. Is a HUD an absolute necessity? It very much looks like it's more like a helmet display. Thus, a HUD would not be needed IMO. What would you show in it?
I'd rather go for just some lights and perhaps one MFD of some kind. And I don't think the cockpits would need to be über-poly monstrosities as models. More important thing would be to have (much) higher resolution maps for visible parts of the cockpit.
I mean, the cockpit really has no need to be very precisely modeled. It's all fancy and cool and stuff, but as long as you don't plan to make the viewpoint move on normal flight, you can't see any 3D in the cockpit anyway. By normal flight I mean that the view is not shaken by afterburners or shockwaves, and on those occasions the view is so blurry anyway that 3D properties of the cockpit don't really pop out very much. But, with decent textures you can create a good illusion of the cockpit being completely 3D, if it already is partially that. Only problem with this is that with env mapping and shines and stuff, sharp angles point themselves out quite clearly... but you never know what it's gonna look like before you try it.
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I think the best one, however, was Serapis. Mainly because it's actually the ship itself rather than cockpit interior being visible here...
People keep saying this... I didn't design the ship with a cocpit. O.'.o What does it look like?
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It looks cool. It doesn't restrict the view, there are no lights, gauges or a HUD visible, but you wouldn't expect to see much of them when you're looking throuh the glass in front of you, not down or sideways to control panels...
The ship is definitely there, but it doesn't take any actual attention. The viewpoint happens to be right in place, and the protruding "wings" or whatever are clearly visible, but don't obscure a thing. The textures is dark enough to have enough contrast with the helmet display's energy management, weapons and target display.
Quite a bit of luck, if it was never intended to have cockpit... :)
(http://users.tkk.fi/~lmiettun/Kuvat/serapisCockpit2.JPG)
Full reso 1280x1024 1.2 MB (http://users.tkk.fi/~lmiettun/Kuvat/serapisCockpit.PNG)
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One thing to bear in mind (whatever anyone choses to do) is that we can't really select which ships we want to have cockpits or don't... they all or they don't... whether we like the shape or not.
I'd be particularly interested to see the cockpits on the Ursa, Myrmidon and Pegasus.. the first should be very spacious indeed.. the second a stand-upright design and finally the Pegasus should be something like a submarine on silent running.. very very dark with just some ghostly lit red controls or something.
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doesnt the pegasus already have a cockpit? i think i saw it somewhere, gotta check.
[edit] umm, these are the main menu screenies, i didnt get to it yet ingame, so i cant verify how it looks ingame.(this would be at least the 20th going thru the main campaign :nervous: )
(http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/8545/screen00355bw.jpg)
(http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/199/screen00361bu.jpg)
its barely visible tho
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Again, the cockpit would have to be done seperately for transparency to work correctly on most models. In almost all cases, you'd wind up with a transparent HUD obscuring the cockpit braces instead of them showing through.
And yes, the Pegasus cockpit is very small. The pilot comes so close to not fitting that it's not even funny.
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I'd like to see some cockpits aside from Nico's standard one...I mean, that one was in the Apollo over 60 years ago, and as far as we know it was only in the Apollo. I know it would take a lot of work, but it'd still be cool.
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Chances are they're all fairly similar UT. Although I think they should be similar by era.
The Medusa and Ursa would share a vary similar cockpit design as they're both FS era bombers. The Perseus and the Herc 2 should be similar as they're both FS2 era fighters.
That said - if you really wanted to get technical - you could go into much greater detail for each cockpit and really customise things... I'll pick a few ships to help explain. The theory is based heavily on WW2 fighters:
Valkarie:
Really really stripped down cockpit. It's an interceptor and therefore (although speed theory isn't quite the same in space as it is in atmosphere) it'll carry a lot less in the cockpit. Cockpit will be thinner than an Apollos but also more form fitting to the pilot who should sit with a lot more of the forward HUD over his legs.
Perseus:
Like the Valk - totally stripped down but this time with a more obvious emphasis on comfort of pilot. Controls are far more optimised as it's a FS2 era craft so there's less need for a "dirty" layout.
Ursa:
A much much more spacious cockpit. The pilot may even have a swivel-type chair allowing him to rotate to face "sideways" out of the craft and operate further controls. This is largely due to the size of the ship.. it's a larger vessel and needs more tech to keep it going. This is of course an assumption.
Boanerges:
Once again - more spacious - but slightly less so this time. Tech has progressed from FS to FS2 and so a lot more of the controls that may have been manual before are now handled by onboard computers (despite the size of the thing).
Pegasus:
Dark, cramped and stealthy. But also with a "cutting edge" feel to it despite the cramped conditions. Very few lit controls (perhaps have a lot of the controls modelled but (assuming they're light up command consoles etc.) have them "off".. helping to convey the silent running feel the craft is all about.
Myrmidon:
Think: Starfury. Pilot is in a standing position (for the first time I believe?) and has a larger FOV as a result (as you can imagine - looking at the cockpit shape). By this stage perhaps a lot of what was previously a hard command console could be given over to holographic technology displayed infront of the pilot but not totally obstructing view?
I may do a few concept shots of this at some stage... no promises though. I hope you get what I mean :)
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I always thought the pilot in the Pegasus went prone to pilot his craft.
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Myrmidon:
Think: Starfury. Pilot is in a standing position (for the first time I believe?) and has a larger FOV as a result (as you can imagine - looking at the cockpit shape). By this stage perhaps a lot of what was previously a hard command console could be given over to holographic technology displayed infront of the pilot but not totally obstructing view?
Hmm. :drevil:
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I've been an advocate for that one since the "show ship" flag made its first appearance. Trouble is, no one wants to make the extra cockpit.
I would, but it wouldn't be based on any sort of FS canonical design........
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Does that mean you'd totally bastardise the look - or it just wouldn't be like the shot of the Apollo? :)
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Does that mean you'd totally bastardise the look - or it just wouldn't be like the shot of the Apollo? :)
I mean it'd look more like the cockpits I've already made for LS (and which I need to remake now in high res HTL glory, gah) than the ones in the cutscene.
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Mind linking to one?
I'm not about to tell you what to do. I know what I'd like them to look like - but as I'm not about to model them myself it's not my place to do anything but request. I would like to know what you had in mind though.
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Actually, aldo, I think I have one from you already, somewhere on my HD. I saw it the last time I was doing some cleaning/reorganization.
[attachment deleted by admin]
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Mind linking to one?
I'm not about to tell you what to do. I know what I'd like them to look like - but as I'm not about to model them myself it's not my place to do anything but request. I would like to know what you had in mind though.
(http://www.sectorgame.com/aldo/media/chn_cp1.jpg) (external)
(http://www.sectorgame.com/aldo/media/devss/devScreen04.jpg) (this kind of shows why it needs fixed to look better)
(http://www.sectorgame.com/aldo/media/wyv_cp.jpg) (Pilot model needs replaced with higher poly, plus the tubes would be dropped for ingame)
What I'm saying, really, is that I'd probably do it more to show the possibilities rather than stick to straight FS design. It wouldn't be massively authentic, but it'd hopefully show the way the tech can be used.
Actually, aldo, I think I have one from you already, somewhere on my HD. I saw it the last time I was doing some cleaning/reorganization.
Yeah, that's one that needs a lot of work done to be honest..... there's a problem here in terms of the look-around view; I'd like to have a full cockpit (seeing yer legs and everything), but that has issues with regards to the externals of the ship in particular.
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That looks good really. It'd be nice if you could refer a bit to the images for general design purposes (that is to say - the pilots uniform, groups of buttons and control panels) should all look fairly similar and consistent. Overall though I think the design is very flexible as there is no canon reference.
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hmm, suddenly this looks less cool >..>;;
[attachment deleted by admin]
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PLEASE, NOT THE GOLDEN WINDOWS!!!!
darken the window colour, make it a shade of blue or something, but NO MORE GOLD!!!
as if the erinyes wasnt enough...
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It can be any colour... :wtf: I just grabbed the first glass tex I had extracted on my HDD.. :wtf:
And it was the Ares and the Pegesus that had them by default...
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Erynies too though.
Basicly all the "Spec-ops" craft had golden windows.
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That looks good really. It'd be nice if you could refer a bit to the images for general design purposes (that is to say - the pilots uniform, groups of buttons and control panels) should all look fairly similar and consistent. Overall though I think the design is very flexible as there is no canon reference.
Er... that's what I mean, though. I was trying to branch as far from FS as possible; to be honest, pretty much everything I'm modelling nowadays is designed to be able to exist 'outside' being used for FS mods. But for a proper FS reference I think it does make more sense to use the FS1 renders.
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:nervous:
[attachment deleted by admin]
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NB: While we're showing off :D, this is the proper (completed) version of the earlier cockpit
http://www.sectorgame.com/aldo/media/cp_wyvern.jpg
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How can you see out that thing?
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How can you see out that thing?
Fly-by-instruments, mainly. It's not that bad, though; the eye levels tilted down to show the hud stuff here, anyways.
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much better raa :)
looks rather nice from inside too :)
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On the topic of making feasably high-poly cockpits: use detail boxes :) Just make a detail box for when you're really, really close, then detail it to hell. It'll only show up in cockpit view :)
(A good example of detail boxes was the Death Star trench run video from the Star Wars project)
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Raa:
On the myrmadon cockpit, how do you think it would look to move the pilot's head up to the upper window, put the hud and stuff on the upper crossbar, and fill the lowest window with stuff that looks like cameras and scanners? having his helmet in the upper window and farther forward would maybe give a little better visibility than the middle window? Just a thought since I can't model anything better than a box yet.
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Ehh. I'll put the scene up for download or something. The problem isn't the pilot position as much as it is that the window is really small on the Myrm.