Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Vengence on September 11, 2007, 03:49:04 pm
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I am currently working on a new ship for my own mod and it has a big fighterbay. This is a big bay from which not only will fighters will come out of but I plan on it also being a player starting position if I were to make any SP style maps. I would like to ask how much detail would you like inside of the ship?
Here are some screens:
(http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/9076/typh01ab7.jpg)
(http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/9625/typh03yi2.jpg)
(http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/6268/typh02vp0.jpg)
My new ship, the Typhoon (NOT TYPHON) is a 3km long cruiser class for my mod. For those of you into FS2 scaling, my mod goes differently. It goes from Frigate-Corvette-Destroyer-Cruiser-Heavy Cruiser-Battleship. The destroyer I have only has a basic fighter bay with no interior. The Typhoon cruiser has a large internal bay those entrance is modeled out. Because of mesh intersections I cannot go any deeper than this so a large bay door was made. Any suggestions for this?
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:jaw:
Beautiful.
So, 3km long cruiser? Is this going to be based on some alternative universe or just normal FS? If it's the former, very interesting. FS ships are rinky-dinky compared with most SciFi universes and it would be interesting to see ships that large. Just don't know how you'll keep the poly count reasonable while having a fleet of ships that size.
Even high-poly models usually have very simple hangar bays. You don't even get to see the inside of the ship; just the hangar doors and, at most, a few windows or props. Have you played Wing Commander Saga? Their Wellington hanger is just a tunnel with a mule (those car-looking vehicles you see on aircraft carrier decks) thrown in for scenery, plus a ladder and probably a few other frills. Noone is expecting anything fancy. However, if you're willing to, it would be cool to have a good, detailed hanger for a ship of that size. For example, some carrier models have fighter racks and weapons piles. Again, noone is expecting anything super-complicated.
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Well yeah but I never made something like this and I heard someone once complaining that FS2 hangars are all drab and boring ;).
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True. WC1 has more detailed hangars. The idea is that you're never shown entering/leaving the mission through a hangar, it's all through subspace jumps. This didn't change until SCP came around, and even still noone pays much attention to hangar detail.
If you don't want to waste too much time and polies on the hangar bay, take some cues off of Tachyon. Very blocky, angular space stations that still look good because of nice texturing.
If you ever need FREDing help with your campaign, let me know. It'd be nice to play around with those beautiful models. ;)
*/me kicks himself*
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If I ever finish it :sigh:. It may just get a boost but I am unsure to post this new request.
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Well most of the time you're going to be looking at that door so it needs some more detail. Dry some magnetic clamps holding it together, a motivator unit on each site to move them, airlock cycles even. Any of those would be good. For purely aesthetic appeal maybe some indented sections so it looks like the door has a frame and plates. The rest of the hangar is still viewable through side, top, and rear views however and shouldn't be neglected. A catwalk and some airlock alarms for the top maybe, perhaps a winch. For the floor level you could have some re-fueling/re-charging tanks/batteries and some ammo stockpiles [all held in place]. Some signs of the crew that maintains the fighters could be a homey touch too like a station with a space suit or oxygen tanks, a tool thing [for torches and generic wrenches], a towing vehicle or some platforms/doors. Also don't forget the architecture. I doubt the hangar was built as a solid metal box. It had to be assembled. Supports in the walls, framework, seams in the plates, multiple levels, reinforcing anything really. Of course, don't actually add ALL of those things or else the game will suffer a painful death from overgreebling. Just some ideas to get your imagination started! ;)
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I wouldn't want anything to prevent the ship from leaving :lol:. Some greebling on the door and alarm looking things. I can't remember if FS2 supports alpha transparency for the scaffolding inside though.
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Is this going with the same mod as the Titan?
To answer you question, maybe the inside should look like the bays in WC2, kind of like a stable for ships. It doesn't have to be super-detailed, but having a basing hanger-like interior would be nice. Like mustang said, take a look at WCSaga, as I thought the Wellington hanger was simple, but well done.
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this hangar isn't long enough. Although you can fit many of my fighters in that exit space and have them leave at the same time there isn't much there for a stable. Mostly a launching platform or an exit. And no it is not with the Titan. The Titan was made for FS2 storylines, this model is meant for my own original story.
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most firghter bays tend to be rather small and undetailed. but id like to se sorta what you have in the infinity combat prototype. a big honkin bay that you can fly around in and maybe even a repair bay you could dock with to repair and rearm. and perhaps a wet bar too :D
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Its not that big. You won't crash around like crazy in it but dogfighting in there is out of the question. The bay ends at that door. If possible I might be able to extend the bay farther so that you can actually dogfight inside maybe but that will kill the polygons. Mission specific models?
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Those fins really do add a sense of style to that ship. Have you seen the anime Sekai no Senki? I've been dying to play around with some Abh-styled ships, but haven't really seen anything close to it till now.
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No I haven't seen it. I don't know if these fins should qualify as a powerful sensor array or power collectors. Either way it was inspired from a ship from Tachyon: The Fringe
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very cool ship , the bay looks fine for me .. can't wait to see it textured! :yes:
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you could probibly get away with detailboxing it. then you can add as many polies as you want tithought fear of slowing down the game when your not in the bay.
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I don't know how to make detail boxes :(. And the bay is rapidly rising in polygons as well as the ship.
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(http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/6268/typh02vp0.jpg)
That's really all you need. Remember that you can make something look a lot more detailed with a good texturing job. I'd recommend checking out the Hecate's fighterbay- about 8 polies. :p You're already very much "ahead of the game" with the level of detail in the pic above; not a whole not more is neccessary.
Perhaps have two releases, a LOD version and a "full" version, for people with faster computers. As it is, most people run MediaVPs with 70FPS anyway, so processor loads come second to eye candy.
Tachyon ship? Let me guess... Persephone?
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I think, I remembered that Galspan ship and imagined what my ship would look like with those fins and I liked the idea.
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(http://fringespace.org/images/gal_cruiser.jpg)
This one? I think the Persephone is a cruiser, so yeah, you're right Mustang :D
Hey, that's my cup o' tea :D Looks nice, btw. Perhaps the fighterbay could be detail boxed? How does detail boxing work with LODs?
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I don't know how to make detail boxes :(. And the bay is rapidly rising in polygons as well as the ship.
i beleive the process is simple. put in a typical 8 poly fighterbay :D
then model all the detail interior parts, like the fins and any beams and stick em all in one subobject.
i think pcs2 makes it easy and lets you just select detail box in the subobject editor, you then just enter 2 vectors for the 2 opposing corners of a cube. from this the game can determine a box. and you will see the detailed fighterbay when you are in said box.
you might want to also consider animating those doors.
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uh no, those doors are as far as you can go. There is nothing behind them. In my ship the lower hull is sort of divided and build from individual objects so this is as far as I can go without meshing several polygons together. I could do more booleans but we'll see if I can add more.
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Oh, we thought the door was the way out, not the way in :P!
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detail boxes were literally developed for this EXACT situation. in fact the first name I used for them was hangar boxes, or something like that.
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Ah, well then I can detail away then.
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I have expanded the fighter bay to over 300 meters. Thats around the size of a modern aircraft carrier. With this much extra space I can add more props.
(http://img79.imageshack.us/img79/322/bayyc2.jpg)
(http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/6066/baycv9.jpg)
(http://img264.imageshack.us/img264/1654/newbayex0.jpg)
In case you haven't figured it out, I plan on lightmapping the bay to create a realistic lighting condition inside. This will look very cool, you'll see.
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this looks like one incredibly detailed model, will it affect the performance of my comp in a mission.
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only when you gt ready to land, by then the action is done.
rather impressive :D
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:eek: :jaw:
Nice!
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*Drewls all over the keyboard * Ah crap, ive done it again :nervous:
That model, its...... Awesome :eek2:
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It might affect performance. If I understand how detail boxes work it will only affect performance when you are physically inside the bay. Given the style it is made in you won't even notice the geometry change until you round the entrance into the bay.
More pics of the ship:
A size comparison between a 20 meter long Blizzard Fighter and the secondary armament of the Typhoon. The twin linear plasma cannons are nothing to laugh at, and those are only secondary weapon arrays.
(http://img159.imageshack.us/img159/949/ouchpg9.jpg)
Another size comparison, this time the primary weapon, the Beam Cannon. If I remember the measures, this cannon is 600 meters long D:
(http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/7683/noespr0.jpg)
I said before that the bay opening is BIG. ANd this is the truth:
(http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/5456/flyqf9.jpg)
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nice turrets
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The model looks very impressive. I like the fighterbay a lot.
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Ok, I read about the detail boxes thing in the wiki. IF the 3ds exporter will actually get this feature to work, basically all I have to do i make all the objects to be detail boxed one object and give them a user defined value. Say that all of the things in the fighter bay is one object and given a specific sized detail box of value 1 the details will only show if you enter the box right?
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Me likes those nice big guns :)
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yea just set it all up in max like a physical subsystem. once you have a pof tweak the subobject props for the bay and there should be an option to insert the proper props for a detail box/sphere. other than that i think you need to treat it as a fighterbay subsystem in the table but im not sure.
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Lightmaps done. This is what a light map does:
(http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/9260/coollh6.jpg)
There are NO lights in the scene anymore. Lightmaps give a realistic lighting appearance by baking the lighting directly to the texture. This way no external lights are needed ingame at all and significantly improves the overall appearance. Now it will be impossible to resist going inside this mighty ship :D
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Yup baking lights is very useful, not just with windows and bays. :)
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Thanks, and I recognize your sig from somewhere.....
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Dr. Who.
Very nice, Vengence.
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I thought so :D! And thanks.
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Veeery nice fighter bay bay, the lighting is very good..
I can't wait to see some nice textureing on it. ;)
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We'll see, this model has numerous textures on it already. The main hull likely has 2 large textures, then there are 2 for the fighter bay and I haven't even done the turrets yet. This ship might use up alot of resources ingame. I mean, a ship this big needs 1024x1024 maps for the hull alone and the hangar, well they might be 512x512 but still that is big. The turrets I have no idea. Because of this I may have to use DDS and they can be quite screwy on my computer sometimes.
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Whats the polycount on that bay? Right now my tiger carrier bay is sitting at nearly 10,000 and am I bit worried....
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:wtf: Mine doesn't have nearly that.
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sometime after we have normal mapping, were gonna need tha ability to have more hardware light sources. then theese super high detailed bays will really look awesome. baking in lights is good, but it seems like an old skool way of doing things.
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even so they are still used today. I read that Resistance: Fall of Man uses light baking to an extreme extent. The scene unlit looks terribly bland but when lit up with lightmaps it looks so amazing. I am basically following that routine.
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dont get me wrong it looks totally awesome. im just looking forward to such features in game. :D
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Me too ;)
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I've hit a tiny snag. There is too much detail on the model for efficient texture maps. I will have to reduce polygons to make unwrapping easier. Or at least use repeating tile maps on pieces too detailed for efficient skinning or highly repetitive places.
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Have the same sections reuse the same texture, i.e. the overhead beams can all use the same texture, the rectangle boxes on the floor (with the lights and the bumpouts) can share textures. Hopefully you use instances/references which would cut the work down significantly. Also symetry could save you some space too.
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Symmetry is already there but th' size o' th' model makes it hard t' unwrap. I'll have t' get rid o' some polygons.
Btw: Crap, pirate day!
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just uv half of it and apply symmetry
or use smooth groups to store contiguous face selections and map one at a time. you can always use more than one texture worth of space and condense later. you can also use really high res texturtes. most video cards theese days have no problem running textures up to 2048^2, and ive used bigger before.
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I already use symmetry. The ship is just so darned long that I have to split it in half for the UVs to work. Basically there is a symmetry seam down the middle and another seam that splits the ship in half in front of the tower. There are just so many polygons in some places that it is eating up the space on the UV map.
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i figure this ship is about the same size as my ragnarok class, which uses a single uv map for everything. it was probibly one of my more difficult uv projects, as alot of the uv map was layered over several times. like the inside of all the truss structures is mapped only to about 3 different rectangles on the map. all the multipart turrets shared the same base model and uv map, only the gun parts had aboout 3 different styles of uv models and uv mappings. i also did something insane by using a 16.7 megapixel map (4096^2 ftw!). the ships still are technically not done as i need to add in damage models for the missile pods and maybe some lods. and i also still have a half-finished carrier varient. just when doing one map capitol ships, you really got to scrounge for every last pixel of mapping effietiency.
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Cheat then, cut corners, do whatever you need to reduce polycount while keeping up appearances..... :)
You don't need to boolean and connect everything together. Overlapping is ok as long as yourr not trying to make decals (Z-buffer still fights with those)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/Shodan_AI/Extras/cheat.jpg)
Those red walls... you've got at least 9. so thats about 9*2*2= 36 polygons there... you can do with with just 2.
The blue floor... 2 there too. (maybe 4 if using symertry)
the light blue cylindar on the bumpout on the wall? Stretch the entire cylinder all the way from one end to the other.
the blue, green and yellow bumpout on the wall.. it can be done with 6 polygons.
same with the yellow on the floor area... 2 polygons
the green dividers... 6 polygons will do.... assumin' it's flat on all sides.
Edit: Did this 'ere pirate talk mess up IMGs?
Double Edit: Wait? your having problems lack of UVmap space or too many polygons?
Triple edit... hahah pirate talk change cheat.jpg to swindle.jpg :lol:
Plus if you editted your message, pirate talk won't disappear.
Also you can get rid of any polygons that the player will never see.
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Both sort of
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This is turning out great, keep up the good work :drevil: :yes:
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Cheat then, cut corners, do whatever you need to reduce polycount while keeping up appearances..... :)
You don't need to boolean and connect everything together. Overlapping is ok as long as yourr not trying to make decals (Z-buffer still fights with those)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/Shodan_AI/Extras/cheat.jpg)
Those red walls... you've got at least 9. so thats about 9*2*2= 36 polygons there... you can do with with just 2.
The blue floor... 2 there too. (maybe 4 if using symertry)
the light blue cylindar on the bumpout on the wall? Stretch the entire cylinder all the way from one end to the other.
the blue, green and yellow bumpout on the wall.. it can be done with 6 polygons.
same with the yellow on the floor area... 2 polygons
the green dividers... 6 polygons will do.... assumin' it's flat on all sides.
Edit: Did this 'ere pirate talk mess up IMGs?
Double Edit: Wait? your having problems lack of UVmap space or too many polygons?
Triple edit... hahah pirate talk change cheat.jpg to swindle.jpg :lol:
Plus if you editted your message, pirate talk won't disappear.
Also you can get rid of any polygons that the player will never see.
The red is one polygon, so is the blue, so is the light blue. Everything inside is optimized. Heck the whole fighterbay is its own texture. I am light baking the whole thing so basically everything you see there has to be mapped basically as a separate object to achieve the best result.
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lLight mapping will make it more difficult, but if you can get a repeating cycle of lighting, then you'll only need one cycle. Dunno if that made any sense.