[Kolgena]

lol, I was directing that shine-map comment to darklord, since he was complaining that the shine maps are too subtle right now.

4th ed. Artemis looks pretty good. It's losing its eggshell/laminated plaster look.

[Sab0o]

While the adjustments you've made do look pretty good in some cases, it doesn't seem like you've done much that can't be done by changing your lighting/bloom settings.

From your PM it sounded like you wanted to make a new texture for the Artemis' 

[Yuzuki5749]

While the adjustments you've made do look pretty good in some cases, it doesn't seem like you've done much that can't be done by changing your lighting/bloom settings.

From your PM it sounded like you wanted to make a new texture for the Artemis' 

I haven't said that I'll create completely new maps...
I only said that I will edit them...

[Flaser]

/lurk

Your 2nd attempt at the Artemis is excellent with the differentiation in shine between the paint and non-paint portions. I, too, think it could stand to be a little less shiny still, but you're doing some fantastic work here. Please keep it up!

Is one of them better?

I think the 4th iteration looks better, however with the shine this "soft", we're back to plasticine territory. The intensity it right, but it needs a bit more variation to make it "metallic" ...maybe some noise? ...how about some thin lines, like the kind you get when you extrude metal?

Note: I'm only talking about the shine-map. The whole idea should be about the byplay between the "smooth" diffuse map and the shinemap that has some "tricks" to it.

Maybe I'm on the wrong track here, and such "surface" qualities are better created by adding noise to the normal map?

[Yuzuki5749]

I think the 4th iteration looks better, however with the shine this "soft", we're back to plasticine territory. The intensity it right, but it needs a bit more variation to make it "metallic" ...maybe some noise? ...how about some thin lines, like the kind you get when you extrude metal?

Note: I'm only talking about the shine-map. The whole idea should be about the byplay between the "smooth" diffuse map and the shinemap that has some "tricks" to it.

Maybe I'm on the wrong track here, and such "surface" qualities are better created by adding noise to the normal map?

It's better to add noise to the normal- or diffuse-map, because the noise wouldn't be visible when you add it to the shinemap

[Zacam]

Most "imperfections" in a metallic surface would actually be rendered non-visible by high-intensity reflection of lighting. So adding them anywhere would not make any sense.

Any highly obvious panel bevels for example, would be made harder to see by the reflection of the surrounding material, and at the right angle, the bevel itself would be "filled" with light as well.
(A good example of this would be the Space Shuttle bay doors. The seams for each segment are almost impossible to see when it's sun-ward facing unless you are up close, but are highly visible on the moderately shaded side)

Dirt and grunge would still be visible, but might became muted. Not because of the underlying material, but again because of the surrounding material saturating the area. This is especially true for any super-reflective material (non-painted or coated metal (especially if it's polished), any polished painted or coated surface (most notably any non-absorbing color) or glass (especially mirrored))

[Yuzuki5749]

The Faustus:

[AndrewofDoom]

* AndrewofDoom likes his saturation and shiny in ships. Grimdark be damned.

[Dragon]

I like it.

[Yuzuki5749]

F***, I have to do most of this work from the beginning except of the Medusa and the Artemis D.H., because my Windows crashed on Sunday...

[Tomo]

my Windows crashed on Sunday...

Try Knoppix. I always have a Knoppix bootable CD knocking around, as if Windows won't boot, Knoppix will and I've usually been able to recover most of the stuff that wasn't backed up.

[Parias]

my Windows crashed on Sunday...

Try Knoppix. I always have a Knoppix bootable CD knocking around, as if Windows won't boot, Knoppix will and I've usually been able to recover most of the stuff that wasn't backed up.

Heh, exactly. It all really depends what you mean by "Windows crashed" - if it's not a case of a hard drive problem (i.e. data loss), then you have many options for grabbing the old data and storing it somewhere else, if a reinstall of Windows happens to be needed. Subsequently, you then wouldn't need to start over.

[Kaboodles]

I don't know if I like shiny.  What possible purpose would there be in making your ships easier to see?  It would be that much harder to conceal your ship or secret supply depot in that dense asteroid field or what have you.  Plus, wouldn't the thousands of micro-meteoroid impacts naturally rough up the surface too?

[Woolie Wool]

By that logic, why aren't all the ships spherical black warcows to economize on space and eliminate blind spots? The reason is that that would be boring.

Also there is no stealth in space, a spaceship is going to be really, really obvious to hard-SF sensors against a backdrop of extremely cold space rocks.

[Bobboau]

if you are toying with the lighting settings, IIRC there should be a spec_power or something to that effect, assuming the shaders honor it, making it a low number will make everything look more metallic.

[Kolgena]

I don't know if I like shiny.  What possible purpose would there be in making your ships easier to see?  It would be that much harder to conceal your ship or secret supply depot in that dense asteroid field or what have you.  Plus, wouldn't the thousands of micro-meteoroid impacts naturally rough up the surface too?

If you want an in-universe justification: Most weaponry is laser/light based, or at least looks that way. Reflective armor is highly effective against these sorts of attacks.

[Yuzuki5749]

Isn't the current Colossus a bit TOO shiny, like the Hatshepsut?

[Commander Zane]

I'd probably wait until the HTL Colossus is released, if it comes in the next MVPs.

[Kolgena]

Yeah. Current colossus isn't HTL, so don't bother mucking with its maps since they'll become useless rather soon.

[Woolie Wool]

I really don't like the way tilemaps that aren't being used by canon models anymore are deprecated from new mediavp versions. Those tilemaps are often used by many, many custom models.