Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Omniscaper on April 27, 2006, 11:45:45 pm
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Many of you are probably already keeping tabs on us, but for those who aren't....
Viper Mk7 v2.0 WIP Asteroid field test
(http://www.game-warden.com/bsg/staff_images/WIP Gallery/Bsg_astfield.jpg)
Musical track "Flesh and Bone" Bear Mcreary for his musical genious on the Season 1 soundtrack.
THANK U Sandwich for asteroid mesh goodness. Its retextured to fit the BSG atmosphere, but your mesh saved me hours of modelling. Kudos to you.
High Definition WM9 (1280x720 44mb)
http://www.game-warden.com/bsg/Video/BSG_AsteroidField_720p.wmv
Divx AVI (640x360 16mb)
http://www.game-warden.com/bsg/Video/BSG_AsteroidField.avi
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OMG thats a lot of asteriods! I love it.
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Nothing spectacular... Other than Freespace engine...
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Tough critic. Constructive in message and eloquent in backing the opinion.
Compare this to stock FS2 background-less asteroid fields...... Now point me to a FS2 mod that executed an asteroid field in a similiar if not better manner. I'd like to see what other tricks I can use to further the atmosphere I'm trying to create. I'd appreciate suggestions for improvement and more constructive criticism from the veterans of this forum who are well versed in the FSO engine and its latest offerings. Thats main reason why I posted this here. If I wanted "meh...." responses I would not have even bothered to post here.
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How about a "holy ****!" response??
Of course, that response was followed by: "Hmm, asteroids disappearing badly. Need to see about getting that fixed."
But then I watched it again and only got the "holy ****!" response, so maybe the mental bug note was just a fluke. :D
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Granted, you spent some effort in the backgrounds. They are nice yes.
But since I am not BSG fanboi, a Viper flying around and shooting rocks isn't going to wet my pants. I expected something more. Thought the topic kind of covers everything, so I had no reason to expect more (but I hoped).
But yes the Background is pretty and the feeling of a wast 'roid field is there.
Some more cinematic action (cool camera angels, flying in a formation) would have been better. Shooting rocks with no apparent reason is just WTF feelin' creator.
If your bacgrounds are as well done in your first "release", then I might like it, even if I am not a BSG fanboi.
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Viper looks nices. Bit too much roid pop-up for my tastes, but the background looks nice.
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The asteroid LOD levels are probably as much at fault for the popup as the asteroids themselves. They're one of those things that the LOD swap range is set way too low for best appearance.
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Note the title of the video.... "Asteroid TEST". Cinematography and gameplay exhibition was not the point of these WIP videos. This video was made for 2 purposes:
A. To excite the BSG fanboys with this recreation of a BSG episode and its atmosphere.
B. Show a solution to beefing up the boring asteroid fields in FS2 by using a moving background layers in addition to a skybox.
Perhaps I should have made that more clear so that if any other hopes and expectations get shattered, it wont produce useless responses made to vindictively convey disappointment.
Now to the the asteroid field....
I'm open to other methods and tricks of achieving a more immersive and volumetric feel.
The pop up issue is mix of both lod distance and my using widescreen resolution which tends to clip objects before it goes off screen. I'm looking for other methods. Another issue that came up was the lens flares. The rotating asteroid mapped cylinders are using alpha channels to hide the cylinder shape, revealing only asterooid shapes. Those asteroids are rendering on TOP of the lensflares. Possible cause coud be?.........
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I never actually noticed the background layer was moving.
EDIT; until I looked for it. Interesting effect.
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A. To excite the BSG fanboys with this recreation of a BSG episode and its atmosphere.
Show me Scar, then i'll get excited. :p
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The pop up issue is mix of both lod distance and my using widescreen resolution which tends to clip objects before it goes off screen. I'm looking for other methods. Another issue that came up was the lens flares. The rotating asteroid mapped cylinders are using alpha channels to hide the cylinder shape, revealing only asterooid shapes. Those asteroids are rendering on TOP of the lensflares. Possible cause coud be?.........
Render order. You've got to remember that FS was never designed to actually handle transparency properly, and only recently has it even been considered with graphics code updates. It's been supported for a while with tga/dds transparency being advertised, but it's not perfect (as I'm sure you're aware putting cockpitted models in-game). The issue here is that the background layer is rendering on the wrong end of the lenseflare effect so unless the lenseflare itself is a background component you'd have to pester the SCP coders to swap the render order if they can. It's nothing you've done if you're using the built-in lenseflare effect.
Of course, it could also be FSO trying to drop you a subtile hint not to use lenseflares ;)
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Just reiterating what I said on the BSG forums; if you look at the trails on the Vipers, you can get a rough approximation of what the physics will probably be like in the final release :)
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Awesome video by the way...but yeah, as mentioned before, i hope we can make the asteroids fade in and out better with future builds of FS_Open....great work.
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Pure awesomeness as always Omni.
hmm. Small question, but how'd you get the effects in the first place - I'm still at a loss. Having something like this would do wonders to spruce up some of the original FS2 missions. :)
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actually, lens flares currently render behind everything, ships, effects, and your snazzy alpha backgroudns
it's gotta be fixed in code
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Nothin to add that hasn't been said, but damn yes that's an awsome effect. :eek2:
Just a nitpick unrelated to the testing: either the asteroids need to be a lot tougher, or the guns a lot weaker, because the effect of those cannon bursts were making me think of Shake from Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
(When he throws things they explode for no reason)
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Great work Omni!
But something thats been bothering me since forever is that those asteroids BLOW UP. Yeah sure, the ones in that video are surely filled with tillium(trillium? Ah, can't remember), but firing your guns at giant rocks should just give you a nice spurt of dust.
This, 'annoyance', and the 'fly-by sound' bug ( I remember hearing it in exuberance in one of the BSG trailer vids) are two things I really would like to see changed/fixed.
And yeah, I know, checkout the code and do it yourself.
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actually, lens flares currently render behind everything, ships, effects, and your snazzy alpha backgroudns
it's gotta be fixed in code
I personally don't care much about lens flares.
They're all good and shiny in still photos, simulating the lens system of the "camera" that took a "picture". However, when you really are there, you wouldn't be seeing any lens flares, you'd just be blinded by the sun. So I don't care if there is no lens flares in-game. And if there's an option I can use to turn them off in any game, I do so. :p
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...you'd just be blinded by the sun...
I recently tested this. And thought I did indeed discover there is no lens flare (what a surprise), I did notice there are effects I have previously not noticed. You should try it. Try to ignore the brightness of the sun and the disconfort it causes, and examine the "effects" the sun has. Imagine you are examining a sun in a game. I had never looked at the sun like that before and it was interesting...
Why are you looking me like a weirdo? :nervous:
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****ing awesome
is that hazy effect done with a tweaked nebula or is that entirely done with a skybox?
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I think it looks really well done, I hope you have a lot of success with your BSG mod. Looks like you've put a lot of work into it and you'll be leveraging a really great game.
It's too bad it's not Freespace universe however...
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just had a look at your video and i am fascinated of what you have created here. i dont even know how you could create such great environment with fs2, and i dont know how to make it better cause i dont see anything wrong with it. i cant remember any other environment like this to be so moody and well designed like this. so i think you can call this finished except your clipping problems and create more stuff like this!
i myself would be glad to see how you exactly set up your environment to look that way, cause i never managed to get it as good as yours.
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Prophet, if you keep doing these interesting experiments ya'll have to get yourself a Braille display more sooner than later and you'll not need to worry about visual performance on any computer game you may or may not have currently or in the future.
Honestly, dude, even if the sun is sparse for half of the year here it doesn't mean you have to go and embrace it all when you first see it after winter. Use these: :cool:
:p
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Damn, BSG total conversion always manages to surprise me positively, it is holding great promise indeed. I am eagerly awaiting the first public release. :)
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First off, damn that's one cool background in that still frame! :nod: :yes:
Damn, BSG total conversion always manages to surprise me positively, it is holding great promise indeed. I am eagerly awaiting the first public release. :)
Uh, make that 'nuBSG' aka 'reimaged BSG' aka 'BGNO' (Battlestar Galatica In Name Only). My original BSG TC is ticking along slowly, in the background... [HINT] Needs texturers desperately! Some other modellers would be nice too... and a few SCP changes would not go amiss... [/HINT]
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I have not forgotten you Raptor, I'll give you a hand once RL calms down.
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That is one sexy video. This gives me even more of an incentive to try to get into the series somehow. :)
(Raptor, I've caught a few episodes of the original series on Sci-Fi, and I honestly can't tell what you see in it. I mean, it makes the original Star Trek seem less campy. The actor who plays Adama seems to be insanely over-doing it. There's an annoying little kid in every episode I've seen. Oh, and did I mention that said kid has an even more annoying pet? The episode title I saw today, "The Gun on Ice Planet Zero," kind of summed up my feelings about it. :p The only redeeming factor I saw were the special effects and space shots, which were surprisingly good-looking for the budget of a TV series. If your mod is focused on that, then you've got another fan, but if you start throwing stuffed whatevers in there, count me out. :p)
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New BSG vs old BSG. I would indulge you Mongoose but I think Omniscraper would have me hunted down and killed. Ok, ok, I'll just say one word. I should be able to sneak that past the scraping one., and the word is "fun".
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Camp?
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New BSG vs old BSG. I would indulge you Mongoose but I think Omniscraper would have me hunted down and killed. Ok, ok, I'll just say one word. I should be able to sneak that past the scraping one., and the word is "fun".
Yeah I definitely don't want to start derailing this thread; in fact, it probably wasn't the brightest idea for me to say anything at all. Suffice it to say that I really loved the moving background and asteroid reskinning in the vid, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing whatever else is revealed about this project. :)
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I agree Mongoose, they did over do the kids, and there are points that are a bit too chessy, but I prefer that to what NuBSG is about (which I won't go into, for the same reason IPA stated)
My mod/TC will focus on the flying/combat side of things. 'The Plan' is to have a Campain/set of campians that cover the entire thousand Yahern War with the Cylons (thinking play every other generation), and then a seperate one covering the rag-tag fleet.
As a teaser (though nothing like Omni's [mutter, mutter, grumble]) here's a WIP shot of the Colonial Protector heavy cruiser and Guardian Destroyer:
(http://img105.imageshack.us/img105/2964/protector048rf.th.jpg) (http://img105.imageshack.us/my.php?image=protector048rf.jpg)
There's a viper in there too ;) I'm only really showing you this since I've just sent the last few hours working on the cruiser. Designs are Todd Boyce's. Funnily, the NuBSG team used one of his designs in the season 2 finalle (watched it last night) as an 'in joke' (from what I've heard)
The Cylons already have beta Baseship, Destroyer and Raider.
Work continues...
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'The Plan' is to have a Campain
A campaign? :D haha. Oh dear. Little things please little minds. Anyway. The protector is looking... erm... wierd. To be honest I would have left ships like that until you had a textured Battlestar since you can then chop bits off the battlestar and rearrange them textures and all into these new non-canon designs. You need a magnifying glass to see that Viper. I wouldn't mind seeing some closeups of your Viper compared to the one I did. I thought mine was already pretty awesome looking and I'm surprised you replaced it :nervous:. Do you want to start a new thread Raptor and post some pics. I'll ask IE_Maverick to help you out with texturing again, once he returns. He's snowed under with RL concerns at the moment.
So omniscraper. Post some new in-game movies of some proper dogfighting action.
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So omniscraper. Post some new in-game movies of some proper dogfighting action.
Others can do that too, you know: http://www.game-warden.com/bsg/Video/BSGGameplay_test.divx :)
An old test video.
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:nod:
Oh yes. What else can I say...?
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'The Plan' is to have a Campain
A campaign? :D haha. Oh dear. Little things please little minds. Anyway. The protector is looking... erm... wierd. To be honest I would have left ships like that until you had a textured Battlestar since you can then chop bits off the battlestar and rearrange them textures and all into these new non-canon designs. You need a magnifying glass to see that Viper. I wouldn't mind seeing some closeups of your Viper compared to the one I did. I thought mine was already pretty awesome looking and I'm surprised you replaced it :nervous:. Do you want to start a new thread Raptor and post some pics. I'll ask IE_Maverick to help you out with texturing again, once he returns. He's snowed under with RL concerns at the moment.
So omniscraper. Post some new in-game movies of some proper dogfighting action.
(sigh) Damn spelling.
Yes the protector is a little weird, but you should see the Defender... now that's weird.
As for choping bits... 1) I doubt it would work properly, and 2) if I did that, this TC would never get done (I'm just not that good at texturing).
As you asked, I'll start a thread in a moment... just let me get some screenies...