[karajorma]

Originally posted by Kalfireth
GE = Galactic Emporer

Except that a search for that name would be a waste of time as he changed his name to Galemp shortly before he vanished.

Where did he wonder off to anyway? I'm still waiting for a release of the node map he did.

[DaBrain]

Originally posted by WMCoolmon

MHO is that the new hercules shinemaps could be a bit brighter on the hull, and much brighter in the cockpit, but not as bright as the old one.

The shine in the top-middle herc looks about right for the hull, but it doesn't look like that at all in the rest of the pictures.

Not as bright as the old one. That's I think too.
But not to have the whole fighter shine, but only parts.

Some plates are more refective than the other plates... (I don't know why... but this will look very cool)

[diamondgeezer]

Originally posted by karajorma
Where did he wonder off to anyway? I'm still waiting for a release of the node map he did.

Probly looking for Alikchi

[Lightspeed]

The Herc shinemaps are toned down for two reasons - though it looks more shiny in-game than it seems from the screenies:

a) the shape doesn't allow any err... 'drastic lighting effects'

b) it's a very old fighter - not some polished new precious.

I agree the cockpits need to shine, but the way they would normally do it is wrong.  If you just white out the window shinemap you'll have something that will look white when directly lit (which then REALLY looks like paper) and will look grey(!) when moving out of the light. I'm trying to find something that will make it appear shiny without said problems, but so far I haven't been all that successful. As you can see i've tried something with the Seth



Seth Maps

[Turambar]

wow, in all my life since FS1, I never thought I'd see a pretty Seth

Edit: wow, thats great how only the cockpit reflects.  That's the way it should be.

Edit2: the cockpit and a bit on the metal bits on the bottom..

[DaBrain]

The shinemap is ok, but the texture is nearly invisible.

The lines are too super-soft.

Looks somehow like a pice of soap. (especially the pic in the middle)

Edit: The glow map is perfect.

[Lightspeed]

Which texture?

Go and take a look at the retail seth texture - theres really barely anything to call texture about it.

The Seth would need a completely new texture (especially for it's back), but all I'm doing with the textures is to align them to 2^n and removing colour compression artifacts (8bit = deh ugh). So detail-wise they're just as good/bad as the retail ones.

[Deepblue]

Any possible way of increasing spec glossiness on window stuff? I think thats what LS wants.

[Lightspeed]

Yeah, currently the shine is 'fake' in that last image, i.e. doesnt behave as it technically should in-game. What you'd really need would be the ability to set the specular parameters (the ones you can also set from the command lines) for individual parts of the model.

A window should have a small, yet very bright shine 'spot'.

[JarC]

You guys are approaching this very 'single minded', I must say. Let's consider the environment these ships operate in...now without atmosphere to slow'm down, any little particle or enemy fire that impacts with a ship (whenever it may happen, it will happen) will have the effect of sandpaper on paint. Accepting that this 'spacedust' will be far between and small, this will not cause visible surface wear and tear, but it will take away that high-polished look real quick...it will still reflect, but not as if it's a smooth polished surface, but much more like a highly satin-gloss surface...

You can even see this effect on cars...the front window of a showroom new car reflects much more 'polished' than from a car that's over 5yrs old.

Now, in your last pics, the sun hilite on the cockpit looks soft blurred, exactly the effect you would expect from a space exposed surface, yet the nebulae reflects off of it like from a mirror...In all honesty...I'd sooner accept it 'as real' if both the reflection and the sun highlite where a bit 'out of focus'.

edit: you beat me to it, no wonder it looked different...

[DaBrain]

The reflection should be in the center of the highlight, right ?

[Lightspeed]

@jarc: That, and there's no ability to set the blurryness of the env map.

However, I think it could be fixed/improved with two easy changes to the env map:

a) make the reflection image bigger (it looks really small right now, sometimes you can see cubic 'edges' of the background

b) scale down the resolution a bit (of the reflected image), which will make it look blurry and reflected - plus it would speed things up

@dab: no, actually not. But the highlight should be a bright spot moving around on the cockpit surface (towards the light).

[JarC]

@dabrain; to a point, the center of highlite is the part where the light concentration and reflectance in your direction is the highest, so whatever it reflects would only be indicated by the 'dis'-coloration, and yet at the same time, because of the light intensity, whatever it reflects should be unrecognizeable

#lightspeed: no way to influence the blurriness eh?...ok...bobboau's very last env_map build, he said he changed it so you could fiddle with the alpha channel, right? sooooo...what if you introduce a very fine raster on the part that needs reflecting? would that not have the same effect as surface damage changing the reflectivity?

[DaBrain]

Perhaps we need an extra map for env...

There is no way to affect the blurryness of the reflection. (only the intensity)

And I can't imagine any way to allow the mapper to adjust it...

[ShadowDrakken]

JarC: if that were true, the hubble's lens would suffer greatly from the micro abbrassions and the hubble would be all but useless.  I don't think it has as harsh an effect as you say.

On the other hand, I still agree that, except for the cockpit's canopy, it should be a satin gloss because military vehicles are painted with matte paint, not with gloss paint

[JarC]

Originally posted by ShadowDrakken
JarC: if that were true, the hubble's lens would suffer greatly from the micro abbrassions and the hubble would be all but useless.  I don't think it has as harsh an effect as you say.

Good point, although that could be explained to be differences of materials used...?

[Solatar]

Don't forget that areas around space battles probably have more dust and debris than the area around the hubble.

Well, maybe not considering all the stuff floating in orbit around Earth now.

[Turambar]

doy Myrmidon next! do Myrmidon next!  You Too Dabrain!

[WMCoolmon]

What about the Earth's gravity? I think there'd be more particles around the earth, since its gravity would be constantly pulling them in. In empty space, the stuff would be drifting towards all the gravitational sources in the area...so less dust.

Though with the Hubble, it's only a matter of time before some astronaut's glove gets stuck on the lens.

[jdjtcagle]

Originally posted by Turambar
doy Myrmidon next! do Myrmidon next!  You Too Dabrain!

Whats your deal with that fighter

They all look good but try to start on some Capships, make it to wear they look like cities in the sky