Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: ShadowWolf_IH on August 14, 2002, 07:56:08 pm
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this is a little far fetched, and tough to do. But here goes. A member of the Combat federation staff brought up a good idea, (albeit a tough one). A pof constructor that lets you model a ship, texture it (using only fs2 pallet colors) and then create the pof for it. I know this would be tough, but the finished product would also rock. Hell, with a descent enough tutorial even an artistic moron such as myself would learn to model and texture.
I don't know the feasibility of something like this, or if anyone would even be interested in it. Just throwing an idea out there, and it's kinda source code.......
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erg... um... i got a url for you http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=26889&release_id=102349
the idea of an integrated geometry editor is absurb - because of the format - the any BSP [Btree, QTree or OTree] is NOT given to geometry changes - thats why we have editor formats like COB, MAX, etc that are highly given to geometry changes - but are not suitable for real time.
Just leave the POF Constructor Suite to me - and stop stepping on my program names!!!!
yes i am being terrroritorial, so bite me. Find something else to code, i have this covered - or if you absolutely insist I WILL TAKE HELP, i could use someone to implement conversion plugins to support new formats
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1) An incredible amount of work, methinks. 3D modelling programs are major software, and not likely to be knocked off by a bunch of amateurs in a few minutes, or months or years.
2)Originally posted by ShadowWolf_IH
(using only fs2 pallet colors)
FS2 can use as many colours as supported by your video card. The trick is that each pcx and ani file has to have an internal pallette of 256 colours. Those 256 colours in the image can be any colours at all, just as long as there are only 256 of them. Another image might have a totally different set of colours in its internal pallette, and that is fine, just as long as there are of 256 of them as well.
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further more - why waste MILLIONS OF DOLLARS WORTH OF CODING TIME duplicating programs like TrueSpace and 3DS Max, etc when they already do that job - and with truepace you can alreaddy handle it with just a tutorial and some practice - i learned to use it before writing POF Constructor Suite and improved my skills as i wrote it
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for reference - the existing code base for POF Constructor Suite is 15 thousand lines of code - that's down from 18.5 thousand lines of code before i stripped out 4.5klines and replaced it with 1klines with a more efficient renderer [the only part that was really inefficient, i was kicking myself in the ass for that stupid renderer design i used the first time] and i have probably ripped out a total of 5 klines before that - in various phased
that means i have written a total of about 25 thousand lines of code just to compile COBs into POFs, edit the POF data, and render them unaccelerated - and i am not finished with the renderer - i have many features to add to the editor, etc
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so i gotta ask ya kazan, if i was a programmer don't you think i would know this crap? I didn't mean to piss on your wheaties with the name of the thing. I posted it here because it was coding question. Not something that i am working on, or even can work on. A little less hostility, more beer or prozac, whichever will mellow you out some.
as long as you are being territorial, what else have you left your scent on? That way i know not to go that way either.
I'll apologize now to the rest of the forum, i didn't realize that asking a feasibility question brought to me by a member of my staff would result in open displays of testerone on overdrive.
anyway, thanks ses for clearing up some of my own misconceptions about how graphics work.
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[edit]now that you icq'ed me i suppose i'll explain why i am pissed
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and now that we have both settled down, we realize that kazan is a good programmer, and that i have no clue about programming.
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excuse my outburst of annoyance and anger - this subject has been beat into the ground - but to explain to everyone ONE LAST TIME i'll quote right out of icq
21:25:57 [D---] 28119425:
this subject has been beat into the ground, and that's why it annoys me when people bring it up wihtout understanding the file formats
21:27:52 [D---] 28119425:
see 3d model formats used in games have their data in a very inflexible storage format - most commonly a BSP tree of somesort - a be it based off a binary tree, a quad tree or an octree - POFs happen to use a near-quadtree [it actually branches five times]
to move one polygon you have to completely decompile and recompile the tree
21:29:53 [D---] 28119425:
thats why there are 3d modeling environment formats like COB that keep their polys in a list - they don't have to have features like realtime acceleration and collision detection in REAL TIME so they don't have to have things like BSP trees - they have the luxery of not really caring how many processor cycles they eat up so they can store their polygons in lists making the format very flexible
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i remember a little program called polytron that was used to make descent 2 robots. i also remember that i never got a single robot to work in descent 2 with the thing. bsp errors caused all kinds of funky graphics glitched. i didnt get a bot to work in that game till i got cob->pm, which by the way worked the first time i tried it. i like modeling programs better, they are easyer to use.
now i need to pull a newer version of kazan's tool, the one i use is a little dated.
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What may be cool...and im not sure if this is possible at all or not...is supporting that free 3DS Max program...umm...the name eludes me. Designed for modeling 3D models for games. Supported by games like Renegade and Quake.
Kazan, is that possible at all? That would certainly make it easier for a larger majority to get ahold of a uptodate 3D modeling program.
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G-max
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Originally posted by ShadowWolf_IH
anyway, thanks ses for clearing up some of my own misconceptions about how graphics work.
No problem. :)
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Gmax needs a license for the game. Now if someone wrote a milkshape exporter for POF :)
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g-max works for quake?
url please!
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Originally posted by Nuke
g-max works for quake?
url please!
google is your friend...
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Originally posted by Inquisitor
Gmax needs a license for the game. Now if someone wrote a milkshape exporter for POF :)
PLEASE!!!!!
PLEASE!!
Please!:nod:
It would make it SO much less time consuming in TS!
Or more easily, a format (either a an actual file format or a way or arranging the model and PCS could read .ms3d files) that PCS understnads so every one uses the same tool (nearly) kind of thing
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Originally posted by Inquisitor
Gmax needs a license for the game....
..and license = $$$ :(
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Ahhh I see...ok...nix that idea.
Whats Milkshape like and would that be beneficial?
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ok the agreement is simple....i don't program anything and Kazan doesn't weld anything....that said i have another question.
in the pof editor, where you add the coordinates for guns, missile launchers, etc etc, and slots.......how difficult would it be to have a window open that displays a model of the ship? That way you could just click on whatever part you wanted to be a gun point, missile point, or whatever. Is this even feasible? To be honest i am just a fredder and table guy. I leave mod making and programming to people who are smarter than me.
If this is another bad idea from your local source of bad ideas, just click the crack statement in the poll.
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have you DLed PCS in the last... oh, six months...?
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Did i mention that i am just learning all this crap? so where can i get this new one? and thanks bobboau for not absolutely slaughtering the budding modder.
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i posted the url a long time ago in the thread - all the way up in my FIRST POST IN THIS THREAD :D
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oh, so you just got here, ok, sorry
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no big deal bobboau, i was being serious, not sarcastic. Anyway, thanks fore the help guys.
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Originally posted by Sesquipedalian
not likely to be knocked off by a bunch of amateurs in a few minutes, or months or years.
A bunch of what?:eek: :)
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so then according to the poll results, i will tell my staff member who's idea this was to lay off the crack.
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Originally posted by ShadowWolf_IH
in the pof editor, where you add the coordinates for guns, missile launchers, etc etc, and slots.......how difficult would it be to have a window open that displays a model of the ship? That way you could just click on whatever part you wanted to be a gun point, missile point, or whatever.
Try ModelView 32 from The Descent Network. (http://www.descent-freespace.com) That lets you see the model as you add guns and subsystems. Very useful.
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hey kazan! your renderer in your latest version of pcs crashes alot under windows xp, thought you would like to know. also i have another quesion: i really like pcs and all, but are you a phucking octopus?:D those keybord commands for the renderer are all over the place. how hard would it be to implement the mouse controll that modview has, or simply allow user binding up keys.
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oops, double post
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Do people just double post for the heck of it?
And I'M the mysterious staff member. Shadow wolf, I didn't exactly ask you to post this either, I would have done it. I was just throwing around idea's.
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Oops, double post.
Sorry, just wanted to do that. As you were.:nervous: :nervous:
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Originally posted by Hades
Oops, double post.
Sorry, just wanted to do that. As you were.:nervous: :nervous:
*ahem* :doubt:
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i think he was just being a smart (_|_)
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double posts are accidental glitches that occur when your request to post gets sent multiple times. The worse your or the server's connections, the better the chances for a double post.
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how about some middle ground? could we get some MORE support for truespace features? i've been thinking about this for a while... how about make a converter which can also convert truespace CAMERA data as well..... cameras have location AND direction... so they'd be perfect for weapon mount points... just position and glue in truespace. it'd save a crapload of time in the model editors.
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Oops, well I have a 11mbps modem, so I never get them. I used to when I had my 56k, and you are right, I was just being a smart (_|_)
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im on a t1, doubleposts have nothing to do with network connection (unless it slow and you are impatient). a double post happens when your finger bounces on the mouse button when you hit it too hard.
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Originally posted by Nuke
hey kazan! your renderer in your latest version of pcs crashes alot under windows xp, thought you would like to know. also i have another quesion: i really like pcs and all, but are you a phucking octopus?:D those keybord commands for the renderer are all over the place. how hard would it be to implement the mouse controll that modview has, or simply allow user binding up keys.
i have to and intend to switch the underlying OpenGL intialization routines from GLUT to SDL - GLUT's mouse support sucks major cockage
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I have windows xp, and the pcx crashes so much I can't decide if its funny or not.
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XP sucks... stby
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of course that statment is not from someone studying to be a network admin.
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i have half a CCNA
Linux kills all windows networking hands down - so your comment about a networking major is irrelevant and contradictory
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Originally posted by Kazan
Linux kills all windows networking hands down
If you know how to use it. Windows doesn't try to be as powerful, but instead concentrates on being easy-to-use. It all depends on your preferences and needs to figure out which one is better.
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linux is easy to use
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im probibly gonna take kazan's side on linux when i get into that part of my schooling (which unfortunately is my last class, so it will be awhile before i get into it). untill then, xp kicks ass (relative to other microfecies products).
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sure the fisher price toy wiht so much spyware embedded that it's not even funny
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well is XP better than the win9X line?
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Originally posted by Bobboau
well is XP better than the win9X line?
It is faaar more stable (which actually isn't saying much...). However, it's a humongous piece of bloatware crap that doesn't run decently on a Celeron 500MHz w/ 1228Mb and a Riva TNT2 Ultra. And by not runing decently, I mean that a completely clean, fresh install of XP ran jerkily - dragging a window would result in that window appearing to jump from one location one the screen to another with some mini-hops in between.
By contrast, 95/98 run decently on a high-end 486. Go figure.
Personally, my sweet spot with MS OSes is definitley Windows 2000. It runs smoothly on an old Pentium II 200Mhz with 96Mb - and a laptop, at that!
It's a powerful OS that came out before MS's whole activation shpiel. It's stable. The only downside is that it's not the best gaming platform, which is why I still dual-boot 98 and 2K. :D
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xp increased my quake 3 framerate by at least 10 fps. it is not indended to run on obsolete hardware by the way. are you people all still going to be using 9x when windows 2050 comes out? it makes an excellent client for networking because workstations almost set themselves up, which frees me (the future nework admin) from having to go set up all those 9x workstations. we can talk the windows bs into the grave. something we can all agree on is that WINDOWS SUCKS!!! so until microcrap dies or linux becomes more popular, we gotta live with it.
anyway kazan (the penguin lover), when are you gonna make all those chunk import buttons work. im working on a big campaign now. id like to be able to recompile big capship models without re-entering data for 20 or so turrets and 20 engine glows. can you do some kinda script that is run when a model compiles that will fill in info automaticly?
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and I'd like to get a working glow point editor, oh that reminds me, I would like to add one thng to the structure, an int to specify type, so I can have more than one type
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well.. when i get settled in and feel like writing code