[DaBrain]

Originally posted by mr.WHO
I have a question: does DaBrain 3D shockwave will be included in Inferno??

I'll probably work on an exclusive effect for Inferno too, as soon as I get the time to.

[RED DIAMOND]

Originally posted by Trivial Psychic
The Build

Hmm, I thought I just posted this:confused:

Thx for the build, it has solved 100% of the barriers I was encountering. I hope that the public can get it fast as it seems to be the best build yet.

[Woomeister]

There's a lot of issues with that build, we have better builds but they are older than that one.

Things off the top of my head:
OGL shine not working
AI ignores protect flag
AI firing anti-capship plasma weapons at fighters (though I haven't confirmed that one myself)

[RED DIAMOND]

Originally posted by Woomeister
There's a lot of issues with that build, we have better builds but they are older than that one.

Things off the top of my head:
OGL shine not working
AI ignores protect flag
AI firing anti-capship plasma weapons at fighters (though I haven't confirmed that one myself)

Hmm, so the older un released inferno builds are better? Now, I am totally confused. If one would like to build a compatible campaign with additional mods, which build would you recommend then mate?  'm lost now.

[Woomeister]

Sometimes errors appear in the CVS which are usually fixed the next time we get a build.

The 0705 Build:

Older 'EXP' Build:

Both shots are the same mission, both without spec lighting.

Any INF Build is ok to build mods with, but the 0705 build causes a few problems in our missions as protected ships will be attacked by the AI which they won't be in the exp build.

[RED DIAMOND]

Does that mean that the updated build after 0705 will fix this and missions built with 0705 will still work? If so, all that worrying for naught:rolleyes:

[Woomeister]

Well hopefully these issues won't be in the next INF Build, I'll find out once I get it. Some of our missions are built using a FRED build for FS Open 3.5.5 and those still work. Unless the sexps are changed missions should remain compatable with later builds.

We just don't recommend the 0705 build for general playing camapigns with, as the AI bug might break things. But as far as I know the other INF Builds are not avaliable publically.

[RED DIAMOND]

Originally posted by Woomeister
Well hopefully these issues won't be in the next INF Build, I'll find out once I get it. Some of our missions are built using a FRED build for FS Open 3.5.5 and those still work. Unless the sexps are changed missions should remain compatable with later builds.

We just don't recommend the 0705 build for general playing camapigns with, as the AI bug might break things. But as far as I know the other INF Builds are not avaliable publically.

Not to be an arse or anything, but it sure would be nice to release the latest stuff to guys like me that want to make a mod compatible with the inferno standalone. Only because I could get into it pretty deep and have it ready soon after the main release. It could only benefit the main mod by drawing more attention to it;)

[Woomeister]

A few of the staff have considered doing this, but we can't now anyway as I'm currently reconverting all 70 capships and stations with new turrets and damaged turrets and map optimisation. I still have 33 to do.

[RED DIAMOND]

Originally posted by Woomeister
A few of the staff have considered doing this, but we can't now anyway as I'm currently reconverting all 70 capships and stations with new turrets and damaged turrets and map optimisation. I still have 33 to do.

Hmm, sounds interesting. What is the benefit of doing all that work? Are these better looking or something?

[Woomeister]

Here's an example:

This is the original version of the GVCv Imiut

as you can see its turrets use tile maps and look quite ugly


When the turret is destroyed it vanishes

Now here's the new version:

The turrets look a lot better now


Once destroyed it leaves behind a damaged version of the turret.

While I'm at that I've been doing map reduction:

The top Yama uses 12 tile maps total. 8 for the hull and 4 for turrets, the new one uses 6 maps total, 5 for the hull, 1 for turrets. Since there are fewer render passes this will give a speed increase in the HTL engine.
The optimised Raynor has been reported to give a 20 fps boost over the original for 1 staff member.

Once done you'll have better looking ships that run better than the originals.
I have 27 more to do now. The Sathanas should look better once I remove those square turrets it has...

[RED DIAMOND]

Hmm, I see now. Much worth the effort for sure. Although my Alienware system has not been taxed by anything FS has been able to throw at it;)

[Woomeister]

Well my 9200 card doesn't like some things, and HTL models with lots of maps are one of them. Inferno is not optimised for high end systems so there's few super high res maps and no tga effects or anything else designed for higher end cards. If it was you'd probably need a 9700+ to run it well.

Capship maps have been reduced from 512^2 to 256^2 to reduce memory usage (256^2 is the same size as the regular FS2 ones)
Maps are in DXT1 DDS format so they are small as possible. Glowmaps are in pcx format and there's no shinemaps included.
Effects are in pcx format unless they are part of an eff (animation) file, those are DXT5 DDS files I think...

I also give the option to swap to lower poly versions of 3 of the main capships. Only a few models are high poly only. A model backup folder is created during installation with copies of both low and high poly versions, so you don't accidently overwrite and lose a version of the ship if you need to change one. At the moment high poly is used by default.

Ships you have the option to change:
Odin
Lindos
Auriga
Perseus ADv
Mara
Planet Models

My intention is to make it as playable for everyone as possible. Things that give me <20 fps are changed/edited, as I consider that too poor for use.

There's no option for higher res stuff as it would add several hundred mb to the download, and I'm not willing to upload such a large thing.

[Woomeister]

With the Lucifer done I have the turrets to do the bulk of the remaining Shivan ships.

[RED DIAMOND]

Nice work Woo!

[DeepSpace9er]

Sorry to be asking this, but it seems to me an obvious question which i havent found answered anywhere. You are talking about "closer to release" but when exactly is that?

[Woomeister]

AMD Athlon 3000+ @2.1GHZ
1GB DDR RAM
Saphire 9200SE 256MB
Win XP Home
2x 160GB Segate HD

My system runs it, but slow at some places during heavy combat (20fps)
Usually get between 40-80fps otherwise. Check the thread were we asked for new staff for a spec range for what we consider low-med-high spec to be.

Animated glowmaps won't work with our ships (thanks to my renaming of all stock FS2 textures) and are not recommended (since we use custom maps that don't animate it would look odd to have half glowing ships)
We include a full set of regular pcx glowmaps.

We support both D3D and OGL. I think most of the staff use D3D. I use OGL here.

You'll require the following command lines:
 -glow -ship_choice_3d
You'll need those two enabled at all times.

You don't need -jgptga or any other graphic command, but of course -spec is optional if you want it.



The Tanscend blackouts probably use the fade to black sexp and so are normal

[Woomeister]

I've decided not to do the Gigas, Shiamak and Icanus, as if I did the Icanus it would have 255 sub objects, and that's just nuts.
49/66 ships completed (74.2%)

17 more to do. 1 1/2 weeks non stop so far.

Now I have the Shivan Juggernaughts and the Terran and Vasudan Supercarriers to do...

[Woomeister]

I get random reboots when running through campaigns. Seems to happen more in OGL than in D3D. I get a VPU recover message sometimes afterwards.

[Woomeister]

Once I'm through with the Warlock today I'll have done 62/66 models.

I've been doing this non stop for 3 1/2 weeks. I plan on finnishing this weekend.