[ZylonBane]

As a few of you may know, I'm involved in a texture upgrade project for System Shock 2. Pretty simple stuff for the most part, but I've hit a texture that absolutely demands some 3D mojo... which I, sadly, suck at. This is the texture:



256x256 pixels. Upgraded image should be 512x512. Yah I know, insultingly simple compared to most stuff posted around here. So, any kind soul interested in doing the 3D grid lines and nebula part? The 2D overlays I can take care of.

Project site here: http://shtup.home.att.net/. Yes, the site sucks.

[Thorn]

I think I might be able to find the time for this somethime this weekend.
Email me a reminder on Friday. [email protected]

[Thorn]

I was just digging through my files and I found a nebula pattern I made that is very similar to that one.
The grid should be fairly easy to do as well. It just looks like several grid objects rotated on the Z axis. I may actually have time to do this tomorrow night, depending on how much homework I have.

[ZylonBane]

Cool, thanks!

I think it's just two long grids-- one going to the top-left, and another going to the top-right. The gridding is the really important part. The stars and nebula I could probably do myself with Glitterato.

Also, when I said the new image should be 512x512, that's actually the final, in-game resolution. For editing I'd need at least a 1024x1024 image. System Shock 2 only allows 256 colors per texture, so sometimes you really have to play around with things to get a good final image.

[Thorn]

Alright, I'm working on it now. What I'll do is render it as two images. The wireframe on a black background as one and the stars/nebula as another. Got the grid colour/size down, just trying to figure out how the hell it's laid out. A bit difficult to tell from that image.


And in the time it took to write that I figured it out. I just replaced the grid colour with white. Made it stand out clearly.

[Thorn]

From what I can tell, the grid coming from the top right corner only appears within the circle, so I'll do it as three files. Make it a lot easier for you I would assume.

[Thorn]

Grids:
http://www.3dactionplanet.com/hlp/hosted/tap/Thorn/ZB%20SS2%20Grid%201.tga
http://www.3dactionplanet.com/hlp/hosted/tap/Thorn/ZB%20SS2%20Grid%202.tga
~350k each.

Still a bit iffy on the angles. If they're not to your liking, I'll do it again. Takes all of 30 seconds to rotate/change colour/render.
As for the nebula, I just got home and didn't eat yet. I'll try doing that sometime tonight.

[ZylonBane]

Groovy.

The angle on 201 is almost perfect, but 202 is way off. It IS tough to tell what the heck is going on in that source image. After months of this sort of thing I've developed a pretty good eye for guessing what an image was supposed to look like before getting all crushed down. Here's a rough tracing I made. Probably should have made this before even asking anyone for help. Sorry!



Just the overall borders and the larger grid cells -- not enough resolution in the original to accurately reproduce the whole thing by tracing alone. As you can see, the two grids are almost (but not quite!) mirror images of each other. Also, they use rectangular cells instead square. You can split-channel this image out to RGB to isolate each grid.

So, have you played SS2?

[Thorn]

Alright, I think I can fix that. I'll take another crack at it tonight.
Yeah, I've played SS2. I keep trying to play it, but something keeps coming up and I lose my save game. Last time I uninstalled those goddamn Sierra Utilites and it wiped out my whole games folder.

[Beowulf]

You know, I'm pretty sure that can all be done in Photoshop.

[Thorn]

Yes, but its easier with a 3D app.

[Roanoke]

I always thought Ion Storm might oick up the SS IP. But their recent efforts haven't been too hot so it's p[robably just aswell they didn't.

[pyro-manic]

SS2 is one of my all-time top games. This looks good - I'll have to keep checking the site now!

[Grug]

Originally posted by Beowulf
You know, I'm pretty sure that can all be done in Photoshop.

Photoshop is kind of lacking in the Vector tools department...