Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: aldo_14 on July 26, 2002, 05:44:08 pm
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Just thinking.... could the actual pof models be used for the ship / weapons selection anis instead of the current system, ala the ships database.
Because a good ful-motion ani takes up ~9 to 10MB in my experience, this could really help with mods/campaigns.
also, where is the size (in pixels & frames) of the loading ani defined? I want to enlarge this, so I can make sommat neat ;)
I just Borland, so hopefully I can actually compile some stuff and muck about :D
(edit)
Oh.... and I wonder if an extra hud ani can be made - effectively a fighter cockpit image (ok, crude, but may look neat), possibly with 1+ extra frames so change it when it's damaged (?)
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Just thinking.... could the actual pof models be used for the ship / weapons selection anis instead of the current system, ala the ships database.
Oh god that would be VERY HELPFUL!
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Are there models of the weapons to use?
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No, but wouldn't take much work to make them.
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That would also be useful. We could do something about the background to make it more interesting to look at as well.
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It shouldn't take much work, either. The techroom already uses the pof for displaying the ship, so not a whole lot of new code will need to be written (I suppose).
The downfall of this would be that the full sequence of drawing the ship's outline on the green grid and then having it rotate down onto and angle before spinning would be lost. (Of course, we won't be losing much, since no one ever makes full motion ANIs for this anyway.) Perhaps we could at least put a green grid background in for the pof to be rendered over top of.
It would also be nice if some lights could be added to the in-game render for this thing, so that the pof would still glow green on the bottomside when spinning on the grid.
Great idea, Aldo! :yes2::D:yes:
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"Of course, we won't be losing much, since no one ever makes full motion ANIs for this anyway."
ah... ya, you'd have to be a , uh, real idiot to waist all that, time hehe :D
honestly I'd like this myself
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The code for having a spinning ship already exits in the tech room code. should be a rather trivial mather of getting it into select ship screen. but maybe its harder than that.
maybe i will look at it.
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Originally posted by RandomTiger
Are there models of the weapons to use?
some....for the missiles methinks.
The code for the techroom is for a slightly bigger window...which may complicate stuff. But i think it's possible...kinda why i suggested it ;)
tehre's also the code for the 3d ship popups in the briefing section, as well....another thing could be adding something similar for the actual command briefings - for any cb's where a new ship is being introduced..... dunno how you'd incorporate this, though. (maybe checking filename extensions then either going into the preexisting draw ani code, or a new display pof code?)
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Originally posted by Sesquipedalian
The downfall of this would be that the full sequence of drawing the ship's outline on the green grid and then having it rotate down onto and angle before spinning would be lost. (Of course, we won't be losing much, since no one ever makes full motion ANIs for this anyway.) Perhaps we could at least put a green grid background in for the pof to be rendered over top of.
If you manage to duplicate that reported FS1 Glide rendering codde that made ships have glowing sections, you wouldn't even need to miss out on the grid: make a simple 3D grid, colored green (think jumpnode) and have it glow. :D
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Originally posted by sandwich
If you manage to duplicate that reported FS1 Glide rendering codde that made ships have glowing sections, you wouldn't even need to miss out on the grid: make a simple 3D grid, colored green (think jumpnode) and have it glow. :D
It's only a grid..... anyway, isn't the main missing bit the blue grid that gets 'filled' in at the start?
i seriously doubt anyone will really care the 2 grid effects are removed, though.
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It would be nice to have though, so that you'd just need the ship POF to be imported in the game and Freespace 2 would load it automatically.
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I don't think the grid thing would be that dificult to do, if we realy wanted to do it
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But again there has to be a choice between the two... I've already made full motion loadout anis for OtT with the grid... so, it wouldn't be nice to FORCE it to use POFs :p
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I know this would require a lot of work, but wouldn't it be possible given the people we have here to make the thing render the blue grid and filling in by using the fighter's wireframe? then do the rotate down before the spinning?
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Originally posted by RKIF-DragonClaw
But again there has to be a choice between the two... I've already made full motion loadout anis for OtT with the grid... so, it wouldn't be nice to FORCE it to use POFs :p
Simple solution: if there's no $Ship_anim (or it's empty) we draw the POF...
More complicated for weapons... We can use the missle POF if there's no $Anim in the weapons.tbl, but since primaries have no POF, we're kinda stuck...
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Originally posted by penguin
More complicated for weapons... We can use the missle POF if there's no $Anim in the weapons.tbl, but since primaries have no POF, we're kinda stuck...
Can you say: "Extremely sucky 'LOD' on those missile POFs"?? :doubt:
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Originally posted by sandwich
Can you say: "Extremely sucky 'LOD' on those missile POFs"?? :doubt:
I can, look:
"Extremely sucky 'LOD' on those missile POFs"
easy, hey? :D
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No no....for weapons we make up higher poly versions for the display.
Its just that making a model and putting a texture on it seems to be a bit easier in my book than making the model, putting texture on it, and then rendering the thing.
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Sounds like we have our first art related task.
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Originally posted by Inquisitor
Sounds like we have our first art related task.
So we're all agreed? Tech room display will, if specified, display a pre-rendered ANI of the object. If not, it will hook into the 3D engine to display the object over a green grid, with appropriate camera movements, etc. This means that someone will have to model/texture some decent versions of all the player weapons in the game.
Or..... (;7) I wonder if we could manage to convince DaveB to get his hands on the original models that :V: used render those tech ANIs... ;7 ;7 ;7
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Well, the artists in the community have been chomping at the bit to do something.
I vote we let 'em ;)
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Originally posted by sandwich
Or..... (;7) I wonder if we could manage to convince DaveB to get his hands on the original models that :V: used render those tech ANIs... ;7 ;7 ;7
that were the ingame models with reflection and self ilum maps if I'm not mistaken.
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Originally posted by venom2506
that were the ingame models with reflection and self ilum maps if I'm not mistaken.
No way - the in-game models have very low polyconuts, and those used for the ANI's were, well... production-quality! :p
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he's talking about the models used for the weapons animations venom, not the ships
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i always make a quickie model of my weapon for my renders on my "official nukemod" weapons (which can be seen if you downloaded my mod). i use flat shading mostly, some very simple textures.
since alot of people just do single frame ani files for there ships and weapons, could we also be able to use pcx files instead of anis. when freespace sees a *.pcx file attached to the animation tag, it loads it, and omits the little sound effect. or you can have a fade-in effect and keep the sound.
for the 3d effect you could overlay it over a generic moving grid aiumation (render a grid that rotates the way the normal ani does except with out the ship and scan effect). you can then sync the movment of the model with the generic animation to produce a similar effect to the one in the freespace animations. i dont know how difficult it would be to get a ship to render on top of an animation, but its worth a try.