Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: redalbatross on June 26, 2011, 07:17:54 pm
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Attention! This post has been edited to reflect developments.
Hello HLP community! A very informal project has been started to adapt the assets of the RTS/4x game Sins of a Solar Empire to the FSO engine. So far, it's been determined that the models contained with the SoaSE assets are almost perfectly to scale and only require a little texture tweaking to be ready for inclusion into the FSO engine upon completion of tabling and debris.
If you like Sins and would like to see a SoaSE mod project come to fruition, we could use your help! The project is pretty informal at the moment, but we'll be organizing and choosing a direction to take this ambitious project on the fly! ;7
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I brought up a similar topic a while ago, and sadly am in a similar predicament to you. The first thing would be getting the models and textures out of Sins and into something more manageable. Then given subsystems to make the turrets work, then put in POF format. Then given proper table files. Then you get to make weapons for them. Then you get to FRED stuff for them. So yeah, it'd be quite a project.
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Not to mention the lack of fighter/bomber variants (2 per faction), which forces you to design more.
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Not to mention the lack of fighter/bomber variants (2 per faction), which forces you to design more.
Yeah, it would probably work better as a capship command sort of thing. I just downloaded Wings 3D and I'm going to see what I can do with the SoaSE .mesh files. Even with no prior experience, I'm bound to figure things out eventually. The prospect of having the Kol in FSO is great motivation. :D
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Heck, I don't even mind the lack of variety for the chance to see an epic Sins battle from the cockpit.
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Heck, I don't even mind the lack of variety for the chance to see an epic Sins battle from the cockpit.
Yeah, I would probably be okay with one fighter, as long as it didn't suck. Imagine assaulting a starbase. I'm going to see what I can do with this. Even just seeing a Kol or a Vengeance in the FSO engine would be epic.
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Excelent!!!!
I Love Soase!!
^^
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Even so flying as a frigate or cruiser isn't that bad of a thing. Really even capship combat would be fun itself. Also remember that through most of some campaigns in The Babylon Project the player was only in one or two fighters. Now granted I wouldn't mind (if it was my project) designing more fighters. Frankly its a good idea and will likely be fun in the end. But I don't know the beginning of Sins editing. Granted they have the DDs files practially out in the open, but I don't know about the meshes. So good luck there..
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Even so flying as a frigate or cruiser isn't that bad of a thing. Really even capship combat would be fun itself. Also remember that through most of some campaigns in The Babylon Project the player was only in one or two fighters. Now granted I wouldn't mind (if it was my project) designing more fighters. Frankly its a good idea and will likely be fun in the end. But I don't know the beginning of Sins editing. Granted they have the DDs files practially out in the open, but I don't know about the meshes. So good luck there..
The mesh files for all for all of the resources are right in the game folder, I'm trying to figure out how I can import them into Wings 3D to check out if it's feasible to use them. Since the ships are very small in SoaSE, they might be a bit low-poly for the FSO engine. Nothing some good textures and bump mapping couldn't tart up, I suppose.
I just keep thinking about how great it would be if the importing process isn't too difficult. Maybe the Vasari are actually running from the Shivans. ;7
Watching a Kol take on a Radiance would be an awesome spectacle. I love the Advent. Illuminators would be perfect for FSO. Glorious beamspam!
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What file format does Sins use, by the way?
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Something proprietary. There's a max plugin that can read it here: http://janvanderweg.com/SOASE/
Note, I do not know if this actually works, given that I do not own MAX.
But yeah, a Radiance would be a quite nice thing to have in FSO. I think that, in terms of polycount, they should be somewhere near or slightly above the higher-detail retail models.
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I do have 3DS Max on hand. Version 9 and 2010. And I have Sins installed. I'll give it a try. Mind you even if the polycount is low they can be remodeled.
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I do have 3DS Max on hand. Version 9 and 2010. And I have Sins installed. I'll give it a try. Mind you even if the polycount is low they can be remodeled.
Please Please Please, if anyone does this, make a R1 with just retail Sins ships. Faffing about remodelling them will see a half dozen awesome assets created followed by an essentially dead mod. A basic, foundational tables, effects and FRED mod using existing assets can probably be done inside of a few months, or a year of HLPtime - from there HTLing can be done ala the MVPs.
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I do have 3DS Max on hand. Version 9 and 2010. And I have Sins installed. I'll give it a try. Mind you even if the polycount is low they can be remodeled.
Please Please Please, if anyone does this, make a R1 with just retail Sins ships. Faffing about remodelling them will see a half dozen awesome assets created followed by an essentially dead mod. A basic, foundational tables, effects and FRED mod using existing assets can probably be done inside of a few months, or a year of HLPtime - from there HTLing can be done ala the MVPs.
Yeah, I'd prefer to avoid remodeling. I don't think the models are really that low-poly, not any better or worse than some of the models we still use in FSO projects. We're gonna have to retexture anyway, so might as well use bump and normal maps to make up for any deficiencies - if it turns out the models look bad. But I think we should be okay.
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I don't exactly mean remodel from scratch. I mean making adjustments to the mesh for added detail. Example, what would be say a vent or whole in the texture could be modeled in on the mesh.
Okay I imported the Kol into 3DS Max and here's the immediate result. My 3DS Max 9 cannot read DDS for some reason so I'm in the process of converting the textures to a degree. Here is what I found:
(http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/6408/kolwj.jpg)
Time for textures
http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/1799/kolspecall.jpg
This is what I'd call the specular texture but it isn't 'specifically' specular but still, it handles most of the shiny stuff. Anyhow above you see the final image of all shaders.
http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/3776/kolspecredshine.jpg
This is the 'shine' channel represented by red. It handles the highlight specs and all that. I'd convert this channel to -shine.
http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/33/kolspecgreenhouse.jpg
The green channel is what I call the Housecolor layer. This channel modifies the 'stripes' and colors of ships to represent the selected Sins's color in the faction select screen. If this mod takes off we'll have to manually apply this to the Diffuse texture as a sort of color.
http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/6672/kolspecbluereflect.jpg
The blue channel is quite intriguing, I believe it is a 'reflection' layer. For FS2 I'd merge this into -shine as the alpha channel to produce alpha environment maps.
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/3759/kolspecalphaglow.jpg
This here is the alpha channel and it is a glow layer. Obviously we'd use it as -glow.
Sins already has normal maps that can be easily converted to work with FS2.
I did some basic tinkering in photoshop to isolate each shader to be compatible with 3DS Max and combined the housecolor of my beloved color and merged it into the diffuse. Here's the end result:
(http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/6803/kolyxk.jpg)
(http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/8640/kol2c.jpg)
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Ohhh yes, that is good.
What's the polycount like?
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4021. Ironclad designed Sins to look as good as possible while having the highest possible quality. I suspect that is why they use 1024x1024 DDS textures on even minor frigates. That's from memory however.
In all honesty everything's right there. It WILL however take a ton of tweaking and editing to make this stuff FS2 playable from debris, turrets, bays, the works. But all the texture shaders, normal maps, meshes, and all that is on hand. I suspect that with a small team of 3DS equipped rebels bring Sins to FS2 quite easily. Least when it comes to assets that is.
In estimation I cannot see each capital ship taking more than 4 hours each to make them FS2 ready, from start import to final product.
Times of War are Upon Us.
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When will you be bringin' out the big guns? :D
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SoaSE mod is a go?
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Oh I found the ships on that game lovely, if only the gameplay would have been more obvious to me from the start, or if it had at least featured a history campaign I might have considered it a great game.
Impressive work Vengance, if you do get a team I'll be drooling to get my hands on the final product :yes:
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Hey hey hey I never said I'd be working on this :p! I just pointed out it is possible. Granted I could possibly do some of it for fun, but I don't think I want to be the one doing tables or FREDing. Believe me if I did tables all of ya would be groaning at my horrible balancing act ;). For all you know you might end up with Cobalts killing Kols.
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Well, having the models would be a good start, other people can do the rigging and converting.
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It'd be fun to work on this, that's for sure but it would need volunteers and a good visionary leader ;).
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How and where do you get the models from Sins(ie which folder do you get them from)? I have downloaded the Forge tools and the plugin for 3ds max, cos i am going to try it on max 2011
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Look for the .mesh files.
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The .mesh files are in your Sins' Mesh folder. Their textures are in the Textures folder. If the models were added in Entrenchment they're in Entrenchment\Mesh and Entrenchment\Textures and for Diplomacy models in Diplomacy\Mesh and Diplomacy\Textures.
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Okay, here's the deal. I have essentially zero experience in 3DS Max, and while I'm decent with Photoshop, I've never done texturing before. Since I pitched the idea, I'd obviously love to do as much as I can to help this get off the ground, but to be realistic, anything I wind up doing will be a learn-as-I-go effort. :p
Obsessive attention to detail suggests tabling and/or FREDing would be a decent occupation for me.
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I guess I might as well let myself be sucked into this. I'm a generalist, I can go from drawn concept, to modeling, to UVing, to texturing, to rigging, to tables, to final ingame product. I'm a bit lax on being creative with subsystems and stuff but I make things work. Also a wiz in 3DS Max and photoshop. Just don't expect me to FRED. I suck at level design.
EDIT:
Slight correction on the Kol shaders. I spotted on the diffuse map an alpha channel I overlooked. I'll have to play around with it as it is a much stronger texture than the housecolor I thought previously.
Yup my bad. The green channel is not house colors.
(http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/1960/kolfix.jpg)
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The only issue I see with the models directly from the game files is the turrets, since we're going to need them to move. Other than that, thankfully a lot of the weapons are forward-facing, like beams and railguns.
One thing we're going to have to decide from the very start is if players of this fledgling mod will be flying strikecraft or capital ships.
Strikecraft pros:
-greater sense of epic scale, it's always awesome to watch capital ships duke it out
-more conventional space-sim experience
Strikecraft cons:
-very limited selection of ships and weapons; technically, there's one fighter and one bomber for each of the 3 races, and they only use one weapon each...but it's pretty much a given that we're gonna have to deviate from strict canon anyway, since flying a strikecraft without secondaries would be sorta boring; so, we can add more weapons and maybe even a couple more strikecraft (add some canards or extra engines or whatever onto the models)
Capital ship pros:
-Strict interpretation of canon
-C'mon, look at that Kol up there on the first page and tell me you wouldn't want to fly that :yes:
Capital ship cons:
-General lack of speed and maneuverability, might alienate a possible audience
Capital ship special abilities are also going to be interesting as we figure out how to implement them (or not, as the case may be), but thanks to the brilliant Blue Planet folks, we at least know that it may be possible for our purposes. Actually, come to think of it, almost every ship has some kind of a special ability sets it apart - a lot of them may just have to be done via SEXPs in missions, like the mission is to cover a Hoshiko as it repairs a crippled Kol while under attack from a Vasari strikeforce or something.
One more thing - does anyone know if it's possible to make secondaries that bypass shields (I know AA beams do)? Phase missiles would be fun to play with. Actually, the Vasari would have a lot of interesting stuff to mess around with. I can just imagine the awesome particle effects for wave cannons now. Maybe we can even incorporate space mines somehow - clearing minefields could be a nail-biter if done right.
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Vengence how did you get the textures to fit? As i am using the DDS files as they seem to work in 2011. I have got the models in Max but i am struggling to get to grips with the textures. I have always struggled to do textures, esp Uvmaps on complex objects :(
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I didn't even touch the UV maps. Also remember to mirror the models along the side axis, they are flipped upon import. Seeing as you got models into 2011 then 2010 shouldn't be a problem, so I could use DDS now :).
As for turrets, you're in luck. I know how to do side turrets and get them to move. So don't worry about them.
Starbug can you elaborate a teeny bit? As I said I haven't even touched the UVs, I just applied the texture to the model.
EDIT EDIT:
I did a bit of size comparisons and I'm a tad bit sad :).
Depending on how big a pilot is to the fighter, the scale I got in Max is 'correct' as in the fighter is 10 max units long, which translates into 10 meters in FS2. If that's the case then the Kol is 800 meters long :(. I was hoping it'd hit the 1000 meter mark but oh well.
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You can always fudge that a bit. I don't think anyone will mind.
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I made a box and attempted to make it to scale to a fighter, thinking what a person's size would be. I checked measure and the size of the box was about 1.3 meters. So I figured "Wait, its already to scale?" so I set the box to 1.5 meters and checked the fighter and Kol. If this is true then models in Sins are already to FS2 proper scale. I kind of like it but I'll leave it up in the air for a universal decision later.
I was speechless for a moment imagining this ship firing its nuclear cannons onto enemy ships and not just planets.
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Well, the turrets are good news, then! Since I'm not a Max whiz I just looked and saw that the turrets are part of the model and I know for a fact that they don't move in Sins, since moving turrets and how to implement them were the talk of the Sins modding town back in the day. My only 3D modeling experience had been in Rhino, and I know that parts of a model can be separated alone a plane, so I was wondering if the same could be done in 3DSM.
I dug out my 3DS Max install from my USB hard drive and I'm going to have a go at some Advent caps, maybe the Radiance and Halcyon. Mostly because the process of testing to see how they work in the FSO engine might be more expedient - slap some retail FS2 beams on them and see what happens! I'm not experienced with this, but I think I can at least figure out how to tweak and apply the textures. If not, I might be dumber than I originally thought. :D
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Its pretty easy to take apart things in Max. Just enter element mode, click, move, detatch. Easy peasy.
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Having a sins campaign would be interesting
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This is what happens when i import the advent battleship, and i just applied the texture.
[attachment deleted by ninja]
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Did you use CapitalPsiBattleship-cl.dds ?
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How about naming this project Mea Maxima Culpa ("I have greatly sinned", see what I did thar)? You'll have to pardon my exuberance, I've always wanted to do something like this, you know, attempt to be a contributing member of a community and all that. :P
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Ok i seem to have got it sorted was using the wrong texture Doh! but where should i put the CapitalPsiBattleship-da, i know where the diffuse one and normal map goes but this one, its the multicoloured map, with all the reds, blues etc.
This is what it looks like with the normal and diffuse, something no quite right, i think its to do with that multi coloured texture.
[attachment deleted by ninja]
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The diffuse has an alpha channel in it. Be sure to disable it. The multi channel one will need to be separated into different textures. Go into channels in photoshop, delete the necessary channels and save them out to the specified needs. Red is shine, blue is reflection I think, green is probably further illumination to some things but I don't know for sure. Alpha is most definitely glow.
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Aaaaagh as i said i really struggle when it comes to texturing, so sorry if my questions may seem a bit dum.
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Ok after arguing with photoshop CS3 to get the dds files to save i think i have got it! Ps green also seems to work for self illumination as well.
[attachment deleted by ninja]
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I've got a few surprises in the works.
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Ta da...
(http://img835.imageshack.us/img835/5845/screen0091.jpg)
(http://img808.imageshack.us/img808/5532/screen0090.jpg)
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I want that...
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Wow, Vengence! That looks amazing. Beyond amazing. :eek:
How long did the process take?
I've been wondering if we can use the weapon effects in the Sins files in FSO as well, like the plasma bolts and whatnot. Actually tabling the ships and weapons will be a delicate process, but not nearly as time-consuming if we can get most of what we need from Sins assets. The Kol looks great! I didn't realize how high-poly and high-res the Sins assets were, for the fact that they're so small in the game itself. How did it look up close?
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Very bad to a slight degree. Well least in the hangar. Its like a pixel every 10 meters :p. Also the normal mapping is a bit obnoxious, it honestly looked better without. The model needs some serious TLC in the hard edges. They don't blend well so need to be chamfered. On the bright side, yes most of the game's effects can be utilized if possible.
All in all the process took... maybe 4-5 hours... I gave the model debris and that really took the most time. I really detest making debris. Also the left side turrets need tweaking as they rotate wrong. Also FS2 seems to be determined to annoy me. I set the rate of fire on the cannons to be 0.15 and they didn't exactly spew the firepower I imagined. Also the beam cannons never fired... which annoyed me greatly. Granted I skipped a lot of steps as I was on the verge of falling asleep, so I just copied paste entries from my EVE minimod. Anyhow I think most every model will need to be tweaked to make best use of FS2's closer perspective.
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I figured as much, although the smaller ships like Cobalts and Illuminators should look slightly better. I've been thinking that we really won't need to convert EVERY ship, really. Maybe the light frigates, long-range frigates, heavy cruisers, and carriers only, to save time, basically, the ones that makes stuff go boom. Ships like Cielo command cruisers would almost be a waste, as most of the abilities they use to be useful in Sins would be difficult or impossible to emulate. Although, given enough imagination, I'm sure we could think of something, like Cielos giving ships around them a higher AI class while they're alive that would make them important to protect.
At least we don't have to make all the assets from scratch. I'm absolutely blown away by how fast this went from a vague feasibility question to seeing a Kol blow up a Moloch.
Even though I don't have experience with 3ds Max, if you could detail the process, I could help out with converting the ships. I can work with Photoshop, so if I know what needs to be done with the textures to make them look better, I can assist with that as well. I'd really like to be useful - I'd feel pretty lame if I pitch the idea and then couldn't do anything to help it become reality, and I don't want to feel like I'm riding on the coat-tails of anyone else's hard work. :p
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Whew where do I begin... there are quite a few steps I go through just for a ready conversion. Even so we need a sort of set agreement on what each factions should be colored. Yes I know TEC is yellow, Vasari is Red, and Advent is blue but I really like my red Kol :(. I'll post the instructions in due time, I have some RL stuf... namely a dog to care for right now.
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Ships like Cielo command cruisers would almost be a waste, as most of the abilities they use to be useful in Sins would be difficult or impossible to emulate.
Nope. Quite doable, at least with clever FREDing.
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Try not to get too involved with high detail things please. I want to have a Sins style BOE without making my computer grow arms just to strangle me. This being said, I'm not really doing anything to help, so it is really all up to you of course.
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Whew where do I begin... there are quite a few steps I go through just for a ready conversion. Even so we need a sort of set agreement on what each factions should be colored. Yes I know TEC is yellow, Vasari is Red, and Advent is blue but I really like my red Kol :(. I'll post the instructions in due time, I have some RL stuf... namely a dog to care for right now.
Oh, absolutely no pressure, V. Rome wasn't built in a day, y'know. Heck, I'm already shocked that there's a Kol in FS2.
Personally, I think like a lime green works very well for Vasari, it evokes a reptilian feel for the ships and that works for them. TEC looks great in red or yellow, I think, they're the colors of emergency (Trader EMERGENCY Coalition, after all). I always use blue or purple for Advent, for a regal sort of look.
And Hades, I'll take your word for it - I've made some simple stuff in FRED but I'll have to take a crash course in advanced scripting. :p
Retsof - I don't think we'll be changing the polycount of the models much, so hopefully performance won't be much of an issue even if we upscale the textures. Most people don't see slowdowns except when there are unoptimized models on the field of engagement with mega-high polycounts.
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The textures are already huge for their assigned ship types. I mean... a 1024x1024 for a cobalt frigate? Also the teeeeeny ultra low poly fighters have a 512x512 tex.... which is sadly underwhelming but still... I assume they never expect people to look at them up close and personal. modifying or remaking the fighters should be a priority sometime in the future... they are just that bad. Least the Tec fighter.
As for modifying the models I don't mean anything drastic. A few chamfers here and there, extruding detailing bleh bleh. At most it will add 1000 polygons and even then that's a stretch. I'm making a tut on how to get a SOASE model being initially ready for FS2 work so some of ya can join in. Gimmie about an hour. This goes especially for you Starbug :), you did great with that battleship.
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Just a forewarning... this is gonna be extremely image heavy.
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Well, hopefully that means the medium-sized ships won't take too much tweaking on the texture front to make them look good. Most of the work on the model assets front will be making the strikecraft not look like blocky pieces of junk. It's possible that if that turns out to be too much of a pain, we can adopt some public assets, find something that fits design-wise and give it a new paintjob. Everyone's just gonna wanna watch the capital ships duke it out anyway.
I really appreciate all the work you're doing, V. Hopefully I can start getting some work done converting the models after this. By the way, if we're going to have multiple people doing this, we might want to decide who's going to do which ships so we don't get duplicates.
Let's start work on stuff we can easily equip with retail weapons early on and see how they perform without having to table weapons or script abilities for them.
TEC:
Cobalt
Javelis
Garda (on an unrelated note, this thing is going to be an absolute nightmare with 8 flak cannons - Aeolus 2.0)
Kodiak
Kol
Sova
Advent:
Disciple
Illuminator
Defense
Destra
Radiance
Halcyon
Vasari:
Ravastra
Kanrak
Junsurak
Skarovas
Kortul (is going to be a beast to watch)
Skirantra
I suppose since you're doing TEC and Starbug seems to be working on Advent, I'll see what I can do with the Vasari ships.
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Sounds good. Okay here's a tutorial:
The SOASE plugin has instructions for the initial import but here's what to do afterward to prep the mesh itself to be worked on for FS2. This includes resetting X-Form, resetting pivots, proper positioning, flipping normals, welding vertices, and restoring the smoothing.
(http://img812.imageshack.us/img812/9574/tutorial01.jpg)
This is what it looks like upon import. It is riddled with problems we shall resolve right now.
(http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/5514/tutorial02j.jpg)
Rotate the model so it FACES the +Y Axis and the sides are to the X Axis. Also mirror the model along the X-Axis!!! Some of the models are asymmetrical and the plugin imports them wrongly mirrored. Do this to fix it.
(http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/937/tutorial04l.jpg)
Next up we reset the pivots and transform. Click on Affect Pivot Only then press Reset: Transform. This will set the pivot's rotation to 0,0,0. Just where we want them and devoid of problems. Also feel free to set the transform coordinates to 0,0,0 on the coordinate boxes on the bottom of the screen. FS2 demands ships be perfectly centered on the origin. Least their pivots that is.
(http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/9986/tutorial05d.jpg)
Next up we reset the X-Form. This is pretty much standard procedure here.
(http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/3489/tutorial07l.jpg)
The model goes black, the normals have been flipped! No prob, go into the modify tab and scroll down to 'normals'. Once selected the model's normals are flipped and all fixed.
(http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/3696/tutorial09.jpg)
Next up we're gonna weld verticies. Right click anywhere in space or on the model and scroll down to Convert to: Editable Poly.
(http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/4241/tutorial10.jpg)
Go inter vertex mode by right clicking and going into the appropriate menus.
(http://img849.imageshack.us/img849/1772/tutorial11b.jpg)
Now scroll down on the right bar till you see 'weld' and press the square button next to the button. In the threshold type 0.01. This ensures that only verts on top of each other will get welded. You will notice the smoothing is screwed up. This is the last step.
(http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/9678/tutorial12x.jpg)
Scroll the modify rolldown and select smooth. Press automatically smooth and type 35 in the threshold. It will be a good starting point but you'll have to apply smoothing to certain parts of the model to make them resemble the original. This is a sad but 100% necessary step. Very important. For those unfamiliar with anything about 3DS.... this is gonna be a pretty confusing work. You need to go into either element or polygon mode and select faces that need smoothing then going into the modify rolldown and do smooth on them, there you can specify the smooth threshold only on the selected polygons. 35 is good for smooth, unextreme surfaces. 60-65-75 is good for octagons or hexagons. 45 is good for some things inbetween.
That's it for prepping a model. Serious, as it is right now the model is ready for anything we want it to. I'll post up the texture tutorial sometime later. Maybe tomorrow, I have to do something called 'eat' right now.
(http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/5264/cobaltr.jpg)
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Thanks, Vengence! I'll get to work. :D
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This looks like something I could get behind... and also finally learn how to actually do stuff for FS. :P
I have the programs needed, or at least easy access to them. I've played around with Photoshop quite a bit and I have used Max before...
But I don't have Sins. :blah:
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This is a great game. Some really nice models can come out of this; I remember the Halcyon Carrier (http://sinsofasolarempire.wikia.com/wiki/Halcyon_Carrier) being a really nice looking ship. This is an RTSish game, so Vengeance is right about the lower detail.
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This is a great game. Some really nice models can come out of this; I remember the Halcyon Carrier (http://sinsofasolarempire.wikia.com/wiki/Halcyon_Carrier) being a really nice looking ship. This is an RTSish game, so Vengeance is right about the lower detail.
The Advent faction as a whole has some great aesthetics in their ship design. I always liked the Radiance and the Rapture.
As for the textures, judging by the Cobalt that Vengence converted, it looks like the frigates and cruisers will be fine without too much tweaking. The capital ship textures might need some work, but it'll probably still be better than having to create them from scratch. Supposedly the weapon assets are salvageable too, so this is mostly a matter of conversion and appropriation.
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Its more about the model actually. There are lots of hard unchamfered edges on some ships that though workable in an RTS are not suitable for a game of our perspective. The solution however is very simple and the only thing we need to do with textures are generally mild modifications and accepting that we are taking DDS files, editing them, and saving again as DDS. Prepare for a lessening of quality due to dual compression. It won't do us any good but we have no other choice. One thing I'm considering is actually just abandoning normal maps here, or doing a huge overhaul of them. Some of them are just too obnoxious and disturbing. It made the Kol go from a sleek machine of industrial destruction to crumbled aluminum that clashes with the very well done textures.
For ya FREDers, I was just playing through my game and came upon something I nearly forgot about:
(http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/4572/chokehold.jpg)
For a time some green Advent were retreating from an attack on a fortress world I was defending, and they headed towards their entry point: A wormhole... that is till they realize that this once safe point of entry is now defended by an Argonev Starbase armed and armored to the max and fielding a maximum fighter/bomber garrison. The Advent had to run a gauntlet of missiles, lasers, and beam cannons from the station and the endless hordes of fighters and bombers. This would make for a nice eye candy mission if it were possible to somehow create a wormhole effect :).
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Well.....
It should be possible with some heavy skybox trickery.
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wow! sounds really cool!
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Well.....
It should be possible with some heavy skybox trickery.
Also some POF trickery too don't you think? Create a model of the wormhole, combine animated textures with rotating subsystems, lots and lots of alpha maps, also no collision. Granted this would be a ton easier if particle systems were a bit better supported.
Also an extremely important question before moving on... Ships in Sins have a sort of Star Wars entry and exit in that they enter ultra fast and suddenly decelerate. I -never- got this to work ever.... what must I do to achieve this effect?
FYI: Texture tutorial coming soon. Breakfast first.
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The textures in SOASE are already quite well done for our needs. All that needs to be done is to address what FSO can and cannot do and getting this to work ingame.
(http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/6121/texturetut01.jpg)
First off we need to slap on the house color. Open the DDS and go into the alpha channel. We're gonna copy and paste it into a new layer in photoshop.
(http://img848.imageshack.us/img848/9180/texturetut02.jpg)
Use the marquee tool and select the whole of the alpha map then press ctrl-c to copy it.
(http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/3918/texturetut03p.jpg)
Paste the alpha channel over the diffuse map and apply a Layer Mask as circled. I have tried various layer styles and found Overlay to be the most aesthetically pleasing over Screen or Multiply. So be sure to apply that to the layer.
(http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/8923/texturetut04.jpg)
In the Channels tab, select the channel called layer 2 mask then paste the alpha map in there again. Layer Masks work a lot like the 'screen' layer effect by making black transparent and white opaque but allowing us to apply different layer effects such as overlay. Since we're using overlay this also gets rid of the pesky black!
(http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/9600/texturetut05.jpg)
Create a new blank layer under our new masked layer then merge the layer mask layer down onto the blank layer by pressing Ctrl E. It will set the layer blending style back to normal so change it back to overlay. What we did was simplify things. Having a layer mask on tends to make things a bit cluttered. Now we've basically used it to remove all the black on the former alpha map that we copied.
(http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/8821/texturetut06.jpg)
On our now clean and fun layer, go to Image/Adjustments/Hue & Saturation then check Colorize. Adjust the sliders to your liking but be sure to set brightness down so the colors actually show. I saw that -45 seems to be minimum to remove all white color. Our house color is basically done. Feel free to merge the completed layer down into the diffuse.
(http://img600.imageshack.us/img600/3861/texturetut08.jpg)
Next up is the -Shine and -Glow stuff. This is just copy paste work so don't sweat it.
(http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/2466/texturetut09.jpg)
Go into channels and select the red channel. Use the marquee tool and select the whole texture then copy it by pressing ctrl-C.
(http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/479/texturetut10.jpg)
Make a new image by going to file new. Make sure it is the same size as the image you just copied then copy paste the shine map then merge it down into the background layer.
(http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/4545/texturetut11.jpg)
In the SOASE shine texture go to the blue channel then copy the texture.
(http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/6140/texturetut12.jpg)
In the channels tab in our new shine image, press new layer to create an alpha channel. Paste the SOASE blue channel into it. What we're doing is specifying an environment map for the model. This will specify the reflective bits. Feel free to save the texture as FrigateTechLight-Shine.DDS. Be sure to save as interpolated alpha if you use the NVidia plugin.
(http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/8043/texturetut13.jpg)
Head on into the SOASE texture's alpha channel and copy paste the texture out into a new image and save it out as FrigateTechLight-Glow.dds with no alpha map. HOWEVER... given how SOASE handles house colors and certain glow spots we MAY have to recolor some bits to match. The Green channel looks very much like this but includes the house color. Now we COULD use green for the glows and all that but that is up to you as I have NO idea what to use it for. Honestly I don't like the idea of glowy paint but that's up to you.
(http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/4672/texturetut14.jpg)
Normal Map is easy. Just black out the red and blue channels and poof, that's it. However we may need to study the maps to see if they match FS2's direction. I'm not sure as I cannot tell if some bits are in or out but for now that's it. Save it out as FrigateTechLoght-Normal.dds with Interpolated Alpha. Least that is what I do.
With some other steps with the model, DAE export, and importing with a shield into PCS2, here's the end result:
(http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/3641/cobaltu.jpg)