[Akalabeth Angel]

    Has anyone been able to recreate the original style FS2 fighter select things? Where the fighter starts like top down, and then moves to a 3/4 rotation? I'm checking out Sesq's fighter interface tutorial right now but it just recommends the 1frame ani (ie still image). I noticed some others like TVWP had a rotational ship without the grid.

    The still image would be fine, I'm just seeing if anyone's been able to recreate it as originally presented.

[Retsof]

Yeah that would be really hard and time consuming.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Yeah that would be really hard and time consuming.

       Well if someone's got like a template or set-up they've made and a person could just throw their fighter in, it wouldn't be that big a deal. I haven't looked at the ani code yet. But heck if it's just 3d animation it should be comparatively simple. I do, do that for a living oddly enough.

[Droid803]

ship choice 3d usually looks better...

[Akalabeth Angel]

    I'm trying to create some anis and I'm getting this error:

"ERROR: First frame has an incompatible PCX header (should be version 5, 8 bits per pixel)"

My PCX in photoshop is saved as RGB/8bit. Dunno what the problem is.

[Water]

    I'm trying to create some anis and I'm getting this error:

"ERROR: First frame has an incompatible PCX header (should be version 5, 8 bits per pixel)"

My PCX in photoshop is saved as RGB/8bit. Dunno what the problem is.

ZSoft PCX File Format Technical Reference Manual
24 bit images are stored as version 5 or above as 8 bit, 3 plane images.

24 bit images do not contain a palette.

Did you convert it to indexed colour before saving?

[Akalabeth Angel]

    I'm trying to create some anis and I'm getting this error:

"ERROR: First frame has an incompatible PCX header (should be version 5, 8 bits per pixel)"

My PCX in photoshop is saved as RGB/8bit. Dunno what the problem is.

ZSoft PCX File Format Technical Reference Manual
24 bit images are stored as version 5 or above as 8 bit, 3 plane images.

24 bit images do not contain a palette.

Did you convert it to indexed colour before saving?

      Er, nope. But I did now. Thanks! Wasn't mentioned in the tutorial, but since it's both old and a different software package it's not surprising.
      Though I have one problem still, for the iconfighter ani Seq's tutorial has a batch save thing because all the .pcx files in that sequence need the same colour pallette. But I'm not sure how to do that with photoshop. I'm checking out the helpfiles, and found an "automate->batch" window but not sure if it can do what I need it to do.

[Water]

There is probably an easy way in Photoshop.

The other way is to load all the images as layers, and then convert to indexed. Save the palette and convert the other frames or save each frame out one by one.

If there are too many colours used in all the frames (and it looks horrible) then you might need to reduce some colours before re-converting the originals to indexed.

[Akalabeth Angel]

There is probably an easy way in Photoshop.

The other way is to load all the images as layers, and then convert to indexed. Save the palette and convert the other frames or save each frame out one by one.

If there are too many colours used in all the frames (and it looks horrible) then you might need to reduce some colours before re-converting the originals to indexed.

       I took option#1, a little tedious but it works.
       One thing I've noticed however is that my Fighter selection Ani is smaller than the base one in the game. It's also not centred. Maybe system specs have gone up since sesq's tutorial since 560x380 does not seem to cut it. Hmmn.

[Water]

       One thing I've noticed however is that my Fighter selection Ani is smaller than the base one in the game. It's also not centred. Maybe system specs have gone up since sesq's tutorial since 560x380 does not seem to cut it. Hmmn.

The sparky_hi ones are 560x368 @108 frames as are the ones supplied by Sesquipedalian.

560x380 was a typo right? 

[Akalabeth Angel]

       One thing I've noticed however is that my Fighter selection Ani is smaller than the base one in the game. It's also not centred. Maybe system specs have gone up since sesq's tutorial since 560x380 does not seem to cut it. Hmmn.

The sparky_hi ones are 560x368 @108 frames as are the ones supplied by Sesquipedalian.

560x380 was a typo right?

        Yeah x368 I mean.
        I dunno what's going on, I made the 2_ss one the 560x380 but it doesn't fill the viewport in the game. It should of course look like this: http://knossos.firenebula.com/temporary/vasfighter/screen1.jpg but instead it looks like this: http://knossos.firenebula.com/temporary/vasfighter/screen2.jpg. Not really sure what I'm doing wrong. Unless that's just how the still frame ones look? Can't recall at the moment when I last saw a custom fighter in the selection screen.

[Water]

For the table you should have ssfighter rather than 2_ssfighter

Other than that don't know.

[Akalabeth Angel]

For the table you should have ssfighter rather than 2_ssfighter

Other than that don't know.

         Yeah, got that. I don't know either, thanks for the help though.

[Mad Bomber]

*necro*

What sort of fighter is that, and can we have it?

[Galemp]

How'd I miss this?

I have a rig to animate exactly this, complete with grid, wireframe transition, lighting--I used it for the Freespace Port ship and weapon select animations. Just swap out the model and the textures and you're all set.

It's in 3D Studio Max 6 format, so if anyone wants it I can share.

[Akalabeth Angel]

*necro*

What sort of fighter is that, and can we have it?

      The fighter's name is on the left side (GVF Anouke). I dunno if that's the best name, but we're running out of Egyptian gods. But it's some godess of warfare so that's cool. And you can have it when I'm finished it. I still have to get the dock point working and finish the LODs. The LOD is a pain in the butt since I have to do it by hand because the Mesh Reducer doesn't work very well on Maya. But once I have it finished and it looks okay then I'll release it.  Here's the WIP thread for the model: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,52461.0.html

How'd I miss this?

I have a rig to animate exactly this, complete with grid, wireframe transition, lighting--I used it for the Freespace Port ship and weapon select animations. Just swap out the model and the textures and you're all set.

It's in 3D Studio Max 6 format, so if anyone wants it I can share.

       Hmmn, I can grab it maybe. Dunno if I can get it into Maya, what's the extension? OBJ? If not maybe I can use 3dexplorer to get it into the format I need. Hopefully when I do that it'll be the proper size because as I said my above still frame one doesn't seem to be the right size.

[Titan]

heh, it looks like a heavy-fighter variant of the Heset

[Col. Fishguts]

It's in 3D Studio Max 6 format, so if anyone wants it I can share.

Please do. I briefly considered to do this for the GTB Rhea, but thought it to be too much of a hassle. If you have one ready that would be awesome. 3DS max 6 version is fine.

[Akalabeth Angel]

heh, it looks like a heavy-fighter variant of the Heset

     Hmmn, they have some similarities. Though honestly never noticed the Heset before. Which is a pity because as I discovered that's a pretty cool looking bird. I downloaded it a while ago but guess I didn't look to close. If I ever get around to doing another chapter in my campaign that Heset might get the vote to be included.

[Galemp]

OK, here you have it! These directions are also in a text file in the zip.

Instructions on generating FS2 ship/weapon loadout animations:

• Open the Max scene. Import your model, resize and reorient it and center it on the grid (it helps if you go to frame 60 or so.) Clone it in place.
• Select the solid Harbinger, go to the Edit Mesh base modifier, click Attach and click ONCE on your new model. Select the Harbinger mesh and delete it.
• Do the same with the wireframe Harbinger and the (not yet attached) model clone. Slide the animation bar back to help you hide the first model, after you've attached it.
• Find the appropriate material and replace the diffuse, glow, bump, and shine maps with your model's.
• Make sure the specular map is reflecting the Nebula texture and the background is the ssani background (both included.)
• Render at 202 x 185 for low-res, 332 x 304 for hi-res. Use the Video Post system to apply the glow effects, and output to 24-bit bitmaps.
• Use Bright (included), Irfanview, and the included command utility to remap all bitmaps to a common palette and convert them to PCXs. Use AniBuilder to create the ANI looping at frame 59.

And that's it!