Hard Light Productions Forums

Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Scooby_Doo on March 10, 2006, 02:32:54 am

Title: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Scooby_Doo on March 10, 2006, 02:32:54 am
Alrighty next release:

same as with the raptor.rar
excalibur2.rar comes with two file:
          excalibur2.vp       = contains data specific to this model (model pof and main textures)
          additional.vp        = contains shared data that this model and future releases will use (common textures like cockpit, weapons, and sounds...)

Also included is a couple of missions (a modified Lion at the Door, letting you fly the Excal. and a simple viewing map)

Models specs:
32meters
LOD 0 = 2365 polys according to truespace
LOD 1 = 1443
LOD 2 = 961
LOD 3 = 135


The next release will be a built from scratch Encantona.
btw do the engine inlet glows look better now than with the raptor?

Enjoy
http://rapidshare.de/files/15135900/Excalibur2.rar.html

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/Shodan_AI/excal1.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/Shodan_AI/excal2.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/Shodan_AI/excal4.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/Shodan_AI/excal5.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/Shodan_AI/excal6.jpg)
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Flipside on March 10, 2006, 08:15:44 am
Looks very nice indeed, though be careful of falling too far into a single modelling style, whilst that's certainly more 'real' from an engineering point of view, people like variations in their game ;)

The Cockpit looks good, if a little Lo-Res, but that's always been my problem with 3D Cockpits, what size texture are you using for that?
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Scooby_Doo on March 10, 2006, 10:10:20 pm
The image was 512*512.

I did a little work there upped the res to 1024*1024, replaced the panel.  The canopy frame got a new larger texture and I like it. I do have a question though.. is it possible to have the HUD defined on a per ship basis now? I remember there was talk about implementing it last year.

Detail work can come latter, as long as the UV cords don't change all the ships use the same cockpit, so changes are easy to do.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/Shodan_AI/hud.jpg)
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Getter Robo G on March 11, 2006, 02:47:19 am
I would suggest posting a thread in the Wing Commander forum to get Starman and Lar's input. Plus you get to see what they've got planned for ships/cockpits, maybe they got some tips.

Looks good but the bottom still looks pixelated.
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Fineus on March 11, 2006, 10:43:00 am
You're definitely doing some great work there. That's exactly what I figured a cockpit should look like on a starfighter (a little more sci-fi would be nice but whatever). Nice stuff.
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Scooby_Doo on March 11, 2006, 06:01:51 pm
Opps let me restate... the entire cockpit (minus the pilot and chair) was 512*512 now at 1024*1024 (although i suppose i could drop it back down again)

Heres some more updates... took all afternoon, I seperated the hud console (what is it really called?) from the cockpit and placed a 1024*512 map just for it.  Found a really nice F-16 on google and did some "sci-fi"ing to it.

It would look a lot better if I could move the helmit hud info onto the panels, at least the your ship and targetted ship's shield info
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/Shodan_AI/hud2.jpg)
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Flipside on March 11, 2006, 07:59:14 pm
That looks very nice indeed! I agree with you, it will be great once we get a way of applying the Hub gauges to textures in the Cockpit, that way you could seperate out polies for the Radar and other displays and apply the gauges to them.
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Scooby_Doo on March 11, 2006, 09:01:39 pm
Outside the fact that space sims seem to be fast/action oriented, one could also put lighting effects on the console buttons to a variety of things... like match speed light, and  double image for switches (on/off), would work great on slow paced games like flight sims.
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Scooby_Doo on March 12, 2006, 01:31:08 am
There seems to be a problem with the ship model or the game. Freespace locks up after a few minutes into a battle. However, the latest build 20060306 seems to solve that problem.
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Cobra on March 12, 2006, 03:15:25 pm
Isn't that an F-16 cockpit? ;)

i like it, though. :yes:
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Solatar on March 12, 2006, 05:22:58 pm
Are these original models, heavily modified existing models, or hi-polied existing ones?

In any case, they are very nice. :yes:
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Scooby_Doo on March 12, 2006, 06:29:15 pm
Cobra:
Yup thats a modified F-16 display... I couldn't find any good F-22 consoles :-(

Solatar:
So far these two (Excal and Raptor) are heavily modified versions, I don't think they had any texturing or UV done, so that was hand made.  The next one I'll release will be scratch built from a couple of images.
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: taylor on March 13, 2006, 02:29:18 am
1 main textures used (1024*1048 at LOD 0) each halving for each additional lod
If you are using mipmaps then DON'T make more than one map.  UV map the same texture for LOD0, LOD1 and LOD2 so that you have only the one texture map period (except for the extras that you are using).  So basically what I'm saying is that you currently have 0-Excal0.dds, 1-Excal0.dds & 2-Excal0.dds and you should only be using the 0-Excal0.dds one for the other LODs too.  Same for the shine and glow maps for those.  The mipmaps will then automatically provide you with the smaller versions of the textures.

See: Creating efficient models, a coders point of view... (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,37158.0.html)

Also, you should avoid using PCX textures like the plague.  glass1.pcx should be a DXT3 image, with the alpha, and glass1-shine.pcx should probably be DXT1.  That will enable the use of mipmaps for those images and reduce the size of the file in memory by as much as 75%.
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Scooby_Doo on March 13, 2006, 06:43:21 pm
Sweet that'll make my life easier.  I was misreading how it handled mipmaps... I thought it was in-between lod levels (Lod 0-mip0, lod0-mip1..., lod1-mip0....)
and finally figured out how to make transparent DXT3 (the images were Indexed and not RGB)

Also found the cause of the weirdness in the shine-maps, now all I need is bumpmap support.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/Shodan_AI/raptor5.jpg)
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Scooby_Doo on March 14, 2006, 05:34:46 pm
Heres another finished model... I'm going to look for someplace better than rapidshare to store the models...

The Encantona
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/Shodan_AI/encantona1.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/Shodan_AI/encantona2.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/Shodan_AI/encantona3.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/Shodan_AI/encantona4.jpg)
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Unknown Target on March 14, 2006, 06:42:10 pm
I think I like that one the best...and I'm really fond of your cockpits. They're like the one's I've always wanted to do/done in my models;  they look very good, I'm loving them :)
Why the D-Day stripes though? :P
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Scooby_Doo on March 15, 2006, 01:05:52 am
LOL not sure about the black/white stripes myself, if you look at my first message, a lot of the fighters have that stripe.  I must have seen it somewheres and just went with it...


and for something different...
the Goran (I just need to convert it to pof again)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/Shodan_AI/goran.jpg)
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Scooby_Doo on March 15, 2006, 01:11:55 am
Btw the Ecantona (which is the correct spelling opps) was based off this image:
(http://www.wcnews.com/ships/images/p2ecantona.jpg)

and the Goran:
(http://www.wcnews.com/ships/images/armadagoran.jpg)
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Scooby_Doo on March 16, 2006, 12:51:07 am
Now introducing the Goran....
Think I'll work on the corvette... errrr cruiser next, see if I can figure out whats wrong with the turrets.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/Shodan_AI/goran1.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/Shodan_AI/goran2.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/Shodan_AI/goran3.jpg)
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Flipside on March 16, 2006, 01:41:20 pm
Great Stuff! And well done on making thenews on the front page :D

Yeah, turrets seems to be a real pain for anyone who makes them, I think that's why more people make fighters than capships to be honest, In theory, they should be easy to do, in practice, they are a pain in the bum.
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Starman01 on March 16, 2006, 02:26:26 pm
That's some really good modelling dude  :yes:  And also I see you are being inspired by a very good game universe :D

Keep up the good work.
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Flipside on March 16, 2006, 05:22:56 pm
One request on the news item, it's not showing up his work, it's showing off, showing up seems somehow...wrong ;)
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Scooby_Doo on March 16, 2006, 06:30:15 pm
OMG *blushes* I made the front page. It was a good thing I actually looked at my old models rather than nuking them. Well that my day  :) :) :) :) :)

Not only a good game universe Starman... but one with TONS of ships (just look at the CIC site)  :)
hehe I remember actually looking at WC1 when it first came out.. if I remember right my computer couldn't handle it. I miss the flight/space sims, although MS Flight Sim X looks very sweet.

Heres a work in re-progress of the corvette...  I know the turrets were working, but I'll have to redo them after I'm done reworking the model.  Wing textures are not done, they look rather icky right now.
Yes it does have a cockpit and is flyable...albiet slow and sluggish.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/Shodan_AI/vette.jpg)
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Lone Knight on March 16, 2006, 08:23:36 pm
Awesome. Keep up the good work, mate!
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Scooby_Doo on March 17, 2006, 01:42:45 am
Ok I've got a question. Having troubles with the turrets firing correctly. They seem to be rotate about 90 degress off. Their firing from the tip of the barrel correctly but the bolt goes out the side (90 degrees off).  I know the turrets used to work on the old builds. (~March 2005)

Heres the closest I can show using ascii art LOL, the turret is firing a bolt at the target.
Code: [Select]
                      Target
                        ^
                        | (bolt)
    Turret==Barrel==>   |




Everything on the turret (both meshes and both groups (the main group and the barrel group) are on the positive Y axis (i.e. positive Y gives the pointing direction)

The turret in the pof:
parent: turret1a   sub-object turret1a-arm

turret1a
$special=subsystem
$fov=180
$name=GunTurret

turret1a-arm rotate Y axis

and table includes:
$Subsystem:                     turret01a,1,8
   $Default PBanks:        ( "tachyon cannon" "tachyon cannon" )
   $animation:      triggered
   $type:         "inital"
   +relative_angle:         0,0,0

i assume relative_angle is the angle that the turret/barrel with appear when the game starts (initial location). Also, whats triggered and "inital"?
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Flipside on March 17, 2006, 01:44:53 am
Sounds like you've set the normal on the firing point to the wrong axis, not sure which axis it needs to be on from memory, but fiddle with it in Modelview ;)
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Wanderer on March 17, 2006, 01:57:58 am
Are you sure you have mounted the turrets so that top turrets face forward and bottom turrets face backwards with barrels fully elevated? Also have you set the turret base to rotate also?

In modelview I have turret base rotating around Z-axis, turret arms rotating around X-axis.
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Scooby_Doo on March 17, 2006, 03:57:47 am
Still not getting anywheres :-(  I can get it to fire backwards and sideways but can't seem to get it to fire forwards. I put the tutorial cube turret2 on the ship and it even fires off angle.
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Wanderer on March 17, 2006, 04:06:26 am
What build are you using?

EDIT: Or rather, do the other models with multipart turrets function as they should?
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Windrunner on March 17, 2006, 04:16:16 am
One request on the news item, it's not showing up his work, it's showing off, showing up seems somehow...wrong ;)

forgive my bad english :D

óh and great work Scoob. awesome models. maybe that will inspire some of the other slackers around here ;)
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Scooby_Doo on March 17, 2006, 04:37:14 am
A-Ha! I was using 3.6.8 the official (or at least i think was official) build.... The turrets appear to be working in the fs2_open_r-20060306 build.  Even my existing ones work.  

Barring anymore problems (crosses fingers) I'll have the corvette finished and pics up tomorrow.

edit: opps, I didn't check to see if other cap ship turrets work, I'll do that tomorrow to. (must remember lol)
Title: Re: Second release, Excalibur 2
Post by: Omniscaper on March 18, 2006, 12:17:14 am
Excellent work there Scoobs (lol). Nice to see that some people are baking local lights to their glowmaps. SAn those cockpit textures are detailed as hell. Look forward to playing with your meshes.